Daily Archives: August 13, 2012

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First Past the Post: August 13

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Newly-minted Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has voted in the past to lift the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

Speaking of Cuba, Fidel Castro turns 86 today. Granma’s coverage here.

An interview with Chinese artist-dissident Ai Weiwei.

Anders Åslund at the Peterson Institute for International Economics looks to the breakups of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for lessons to the current eurozone crisis.

Australian prime minister Julie Gillard backs down over boat refugees, will support processing centers in Nauru and Papau New Guinea.

 

Egypt

Morsi, in firing defense minister, asserts presidential control over Egypt

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Of course, the significance of the decision by Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi on Sunday to announce the resignation of not just Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defense minister, but his deputy, General Sami Anan, cannot be understated.

It is easily the most significant moment in Egyptian governance since Morsi’s election — and it, surprisingly, comes just over a week after Morsi’s first cabinet was sworn in — a cabinet that seemed destined to feature Egypt’s military, with little civilian participation from beyond the Muslim Brotherhood and its sphere of allies.

But it also comes very soon after Morsi fired his intelligence chief in the wake of increased attacks and a growing Islamic fundamentalist threat on the Egypt-Israel border in Sinai.

Tantawi, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that led Egypt’s transitional government between the fall of Hosni Mubarak and Morsi’s election, has essentially been the head of Egypt’s military since his appointment as secretary of defense in 1991.  His reappointment as defense secretary in the cabinet of Morsi’s prime minister, Hisham Qandil, was seen as a sign that the Egyptian military had reached somewhat of an uneasy truce with Morsi — Morsi may be the elected president, but the military would have enough residual power to veto Morsi on key issues, especially where national security is involved.

That changed Sunday — and the Tantawi and Anan retirements are not all that Morsi (pictured above, right)accomplished.

Morsi amended the last-minute June 17 declaration by SCAF that has attempted to limit presidential powers; instead, Morsi issued a new Constitutional Declaration that gives the president full executive and legislative authority, as well as power to set Egyptian public policy and sign international treaties.  He also appointed Mahmoud Mekki, a respected deputy head of the Cassation Court, as his vice president (although in doing so, Morsi seemed to break a promise to appoint a woman and a Coptic Christian as his vice presidents).

Morsi appointed as the new defense minister a little-known general, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi (pictured above, far left).  In a profile today, Al Ahram noted that the 57-year-old El-Sisi, who previously served as Egypt’s military attaché to Saudi Arabia, will be the first Egyptian defense minister who also doesn’t hold the title of field marshal.  El-Sisi is best known internationally as the general who announced that the military had conducted virginity tests on female protestors at Tahrir Square in order to prove soldiers had not raped them.  SCAF subsequently backtracked on El-Sisi’s somewhat embarrassing statement.

Much of Egypt’s independent media and figures such as Mohamed ElBaradei have welcomed Morsi’s move.  A wide spectrum, from youth protest leaders to Salafists are applauding what seems to be a bona-fide transfer of power from the military to the civilian president.

Mark Lynch at Foreign Policy dubbed Egypt’s president “Lamborhini Morsi” and offers three alternative (not incompatible) takes: Continue reading Morsi, in firing defense minister, asserts presidential control over Egypt →

Canada, Quebec

Newly-formed third party CAQ rises in Québec

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A new poll out in Québec Friday from Leger Marketing shows an increasingly three-way race in advance of the snap September 4 election.

The two longstanding parties in Québec are essentially tied.  The sovereigntist (and more leftist) Parti québécois (PQ) wins 32% of Québécois voters, while the federalist (and more centrist) Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) of premier Jean Charest wins 31%.  Charest, who has led Québec since 2003, is seeking his fourth consecutive mandate.

But the real surprise is the newly-formed Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), which got 27% — although the CAQ led polls briefly when it was formed in January 2012, it had steadily lost support.

And, perhaps, for good reason — it’s a relatively aimless group that has been vague about its position on key issues, such as a proposed hike in student tuition fees.  It’s been just as cagey on more fundamental stands: whether its economic program is right or left, or whether it is more sovereigntist or federalist.

Founded by François Legault (pictured above, left), a longtime minister in the PQ governments of the 1990s and a leader of the pro-independence movement in the 1995 sovereignty referendum, the CAQ incorporates some other PQ stragglers and much of the old Action démocratique du Québec, the party led by Mario Dumont that made significant gains in the 2007 Québec election (only to watch those gains evaporate in the subsequent 2008 election).

Yet there’s precedent from recent Québécois elections to indicate that voters are weary of both the Liberals and the PQ:

  • As noted, in 2007, Mario Dumont’s ADQ won 41 seats to Québec’s 125-seat Assemblée nationale, leaving Charest’s Liberals with a 48-seat minority government and pushing the PQ (with just 36 seats) out as the official opposition.
  • In the 2011 general election, the progressive New Democratic Party won 59 of Québec’s 75 ridings for seats in the House of Commons.  The NDP, led by the late Jack Layton, had previously not been a factor in Québec’s federal elections; in 2011, it reduced the PQ’s federal counterpart, the Bloc québécois to just four seats, despite its domination of Québec’s federal delegation since 1993.

Like the ADQ in 2007, the CAQ is leading polls in and around Québec City.  But also like in 2007, anglophone Quebeckers are still overwhelmingly in favor of the Liberals, the PQ has a steady lead among francophone voters, and the CAQ lags behind both parties in and around Montréal.  That result would lead to three-way deadlock that favors a minority Liberal government — unless the CAQ can somehow break through to the core supporters of either the PQ or the Liberals.

Two recent developments indicate that the CAQ could pull off that kind of upset.

Legault has emphasized the recruitment of high-profile candidates, which paid off last week when popular anti-corruption figure and former Montréal police chief Jacques Duchesneau (pictured above, right) announced last week that he would stand as a candidate for the CAQ.  That put Charest on the defensive — his government is under investigation for corruption charges related to tying government construction contracts to political cash.  Meanwhile, prominent anglophone Quebecker Robert Libman gave his support to the CAQ and trashed Charest for using scare tactics against the CAQ.

But the election remains three weeks away and it’s unclear if the CAQ may be surging too soon — to say nothing of whether voters trust Legault and his slippery platform enough to make him premier.

Continue reading Newly-formed third party CAQ rises in Québec →