Monthly Archives: February 2013

Armenia

Sargsyan wins widely anticipated reelection in Armenia

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sargsyan

Just as Rafael Correa won his widely expected reelection as president of Ecuador, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) has won reelection for another five-year term.armenia flag

Exit polls showed Sargsyan with around 58% of the vote to just 32% of the vote for his nearest challenger, Raffi Hovannisian (Րաֆֆի Հովհաննիսյան), an opposition leader and Armenia’s foreign minister from 1991 to 1992 under former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան).

The race’s most prominent news was the attempted assassination of longshot candidate Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան), a former Soviet dissident, though polls showed that he won no more than 3% in Monday’s vote.

Sargsyan’s reelection was never really in doubt as the campaign closed.

Sargsyan’s party, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK, Հայաստանի Հանրապետական Կուսակցություն), controls the Armenian National Assembly, and has ruled Armenia since 1998.

Both Ter-Petrosyan and wealthy oligarch Gagik Tsarukian (Գագիկ Ծառուկյան), the leader of the largest Armenian opposition party, Prosperous Armenia (BHK, Բարգավաճ Հայաստան Կուսակցություն) chose not to run in the election, thereby depriving Sargsyan of two potentially dangerous challengers.

Sargsyan has a full plate ahead of him — the Armenian economy is still shaky following a global crisis that sent nearly a million Armenians out of the country, he’ll need to balance Armenia’s good relations with both Europe, the United States and Russia, and he faces two regional challenges over frayed relations with Turkey (and the 100th anniversary of the Armenia genocide in 2015, with emotions running high, won’t likely help matters), and with Azerbaijan, where the breakaway region of disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh continues to rankle relations following a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended in 1994.

Barbados, Grenada

Election week in the Caribbean

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bajan parliament

Two of the Caribbean’s more colorful island nations go to the polls this week in parliamentary elections — Grenada on Tuesday and Barbados on Thursday.grenada flagbarbados flag

In Grenada, prime minister Tillman Thomas is seeking reelection for his government, led by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which holds 11 out of the 15 seats in the Grenadian House of Representatives, the lower house of Grenada’s bicameral parliament (the Senate, its upper house, is comprised of 13 members, 10 appointed by the government and three appointed by the opposition).

Meanwhile in Barbados, prime minister Freundel Stuart is seeking election in his own right after succeeding David Thompson as prime minister in October 2010 after Thompson died from pancreatic cancer.  Voters will choose 30 members of the House of Assembly, the lower house of Barbados’s parliament (pictured above).

There are some similarities between the two Caribbean countries beyond the timing of this week’s elections:

  • Both incumbent governments face uphill battles for reelection amid tough economic conditions throughout the Caribbean region — just last week, Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller announced the country’s second debt swap plan in three years, designed to alleviate Jamaica’s debt crisis, where public debt stands at 140% of GDP.  Both Barbados and Grenada have been identified by the Caribbean Development Bank as having unsustainable debt levels.
  • In both countries, more right-wing opposition parties are led by former longtime, three-term prime ministers (Keith Mitchell in Grenada and Owen Arthur in Barbados).
  • Both feature stable political systems with a relatively entrenched two-party system, in each case with parties that are essentially moderate that lean only slightly left or right.
  • Both economies remain heavily dependent on tourism, and have absorbed the secondary shock of global economic downturn over the past five years, with each country having its own niche agricultural markets — Grenada is a leading exporter of nutmeg, mace and cocoa, while Barbados exports sugar and rum.
  • Both are former British colonies — Barbados, with nearly 275,000 residents, became independent in 1966, Grenada, with just around 110,000 residents, won independence in 1974 — that were both part of the short-lived West Indies Federation that existed from 1958 to 1962 that also included Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, among other islands.
  • Queen Elizabeth II still serves as head of state for both countries — in Barbados, the Queen’s appointed representative, the governor-general, is responsible for appointing all 21 members of the Senate, the upper house of the Barbadian parliament.
  • Both will be electing members of the lower house of parliament only, and in each case, election is determined on a first-past-the-post basis in single-member constituencies.

Continue reading Election week in the Caribbean →

Kenya

Kenyatta, Ruto cleared to run in Kenyan election despite ICC woes

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Friday’s ruling from the Kenyan High Court has — for now, at least, and through the duration of the presidential campaign, barring any last-minute intervention from Kenya’s supreme court — cleared the legal obstacles for Uhuru Kenyatta to run for president in the March 4 election.kenya

Kenyatta’s legal issues stem from Kenyatta’s indictment for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, on the basis of orchestrating ethnic violence following the previous presidential election in 2007 when over 1,000 Kenyans were killed during tumult that upturned hundreds of thousands more from their homes, pummeled the reputation Kenya’s political system and damaged its economy.

Kenyatta’s running mate, William Ruto (pictured above right, with Kenyatta at left), is one of five other Kenyan officials also charged for crimes against humanity, and the High Court’s ruling also clears him.  Kenyatta and Ruto were actually on opposite political sides in 2007, though they’ve now found common cause through, among other things, the pariah status that’s come from ICC indictment.

It’s more accurate, however, to say that the court refused to intervene — the basis of the case was whether Kenyatta and Ruto had demonstrated sufficient ‘personal integrity, competence and suitability’ for the presidency, as stated under Kenya’s constitution.  The court claimed it lacked the jurisdiction to disqualify the candidates, though it noted that the Supreme Court holds jurisdiction to make such a determination.

Kenyatta and Ruto head the Jubilee alliance, a merger of various parties, but really an alliance that binds together members from Kenyatta’s Kikuyu ethnic group (Kenya’s largest, comprising around 22% of the population) and Ruto’s Kalenjin ethnic group.

Kenyatta’s main opponent, Raila Odinga, heads the CORD (Coalition for Reforms and Democracy) alliance, which binds together Odinga’s Luo ethnic group and the Kamba ethnic group of Odinga’s running mate, Kalonzo Musyoka.

Kenyatta, currently a deputy prime minister since 2008 and minister of finance from 2008 to 2012 under Kenya’s outgoing, term-limited president Mwai Kibaki, is the son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta.

Odinga, currently Kenya’s prime minister following the power-sharing agreement that resulted in the wake of the 2007 presidential election, is the son of Kenya’s first vice president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, whose falling out with Jomo Kenyatta in the 1960s serves as prologue to much of this year’s presidential election.  In 2007, Odinga only narrowly lost the presidency to Kibaki, and he’s held a narrow lead throughout much of the 2013 campaign, though Kenyatta has waged a spirited campaign and was generally seen as the winner of Kenya’s first presidential debate on February 11.

Within Kenya, the ICC charges themselves matter little to voters — though Odinga is more to the left and Kenyatta is more to the right, Kenya’s election has been polarized into tribal ethnic lines, not on standard ideological lines.  So Kenyatta’s supporters could care less about international charges they believe are unfair, though Odinga has used the ICC charges to taunt Kenyatta, most recently during their presidential debate when Odinga scoffed that it would be impractical to run a government from the Hague using Skype.

Even Odinga, nonetheless, has called for the Kenyan courts to validate Kenyatta’s presidential candidacy, and he’s even called for any trials over the 2007-08 violence to be settled in Nairobi, not through the ICC.

In a sense, while the ICC charges themselves are a fringe issue, they are also at the heart of the campaign, given the ethnic tensions involved in the current campaign and the desire among all of Kenya’s leaders to avoid a devastating replay of the 2007 and 2008 political violence that followed the last election.

Continue reading Kenyatta, Ruto cleared to run in Kenyan election despite ICC woes →

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: February 18

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shahbagh

East and South Asia

The Shahbagh protests in Bangladesh (pictured above) have effected legal reform — the state will now be able to appeal a life sentence into a death sentence.

Will Mehmood Khan Achakzai be the caretaker prime minister in Pakistan?

Narendra Modi seems likelier than ever to lead the BJP’s 2014 campaign in India’s general elections.

North America

Time‘s penance in looking back on the anti-war Iraqi protests exactly one decade later.

Latin America / Caribbean

Newly reelected Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa has revolutionary plans.  [Spanish]

Marina Silva is starting a new Brazilian political party.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Mali will hold (much delayed) presidential elections on July 7.

Which African leaders are savviest on Twitter?

Are Swaziland’s elections meaningless?

Europe

Reexamining the iron closet.

Continuing conflict in Kosovo.

The 2014 Paris mayoral race is in full swing.

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi pays homage to bribery.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Polls in Armenia are now open.

Middle East and North Africa

Former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s trial is underway.

Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett are both less than enthusiastic about the haredim parties.

Equal rights for Saudi women?

Ecuador

Correa wins expected reelection in Ecuador

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It’s probably one of the least unexpected victories of world politics this year, but Rafael Correa has won reelection as Ecuador’s president, extending Correa’s term in office through 2017.ecuador flag icon new

According to exit polls, Correa ultimately won 61.5% of the vote, thereby avoiding an April 7 runoff, just as he did in his quest to win a second term — Correa was the first Ecuadorian presidential candidate to avoid a runoff in 2009 in the 30 years of modern Ecuadorian elections since the end of military rule in 1979.

Correa has already declared victory.

In fact, it’s the highest first-round total of any election since 1979 in Ecuador, and Correa’s reelection means he will have served a longer consecutive term than any Ecuadorian leader since Ignacio de Veintemilla, president from 1876 to 1883 and, in five months, Correa will become Ecuador’s longest-serving consecutive leader since independence from Spain.  José María Velasco Ibarra ultimately served over 11 years as Ecuador’s president in four stints between 1934 and 1972.

For more thoughts on what this means for Latin America, the future of the Latin American populist left and Ecuador’s politics and economy, read my piece from last week outlining five key take-aways from today’s election.

The runner-up, Guillermo Lasso, a banker and former president of the Banco de Guayaquil, finished a distant second with just 20.9% of the vote.

Lucio Gutiérrez, a former president from 2003 until massive protests forced his ouster in 2005, won just 6.0, and Álvaro Noboa, one of Ecuador’s wealthiest businessmen and who finished first place in the first round of the 2006 election that Correa ultimately won, won just 3.5%. Alberto Acosta, Correa’s former oil and mining minister and co-founder of the Alianza PAIS, won 2.9%.

In separate parliamentary elections held today, it is expected that Correa’s ruling Movimiento Patria Altiva i Soberana or Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland, or ‘PAIS’) will win a majority in the 137-seat, unicameral Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly).

Cyprus

Anastasiades, Malas head to Cypriot presidential runoff next Sunday

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nikos

Center-right presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades (pictured above) overwhelmingly triumphed in Sunday’s presidential election in Cyprus, outpacing his nearest rivals by nearly 20%.  Nonetheless, he fell about 4.5% short of the 50% absolutely majority he would have needed to win the election outright and avoiding a runoff that will now take place next Sunday on February 24, despite early exit polls that showed he might win up to 52% of the first-round vote. cyprus_world_flag

Anastasiades, the candidate of the center-right Democratic Rally (DISY, Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός or Dimokratikós Sinayermós), will face health minister Stavros Malas, the candidate of the governing, leftist Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL, Aνορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού or Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú), who edged out alternative leftist candidate Giorgos Lillikas:

cyrpus 1st roundSo the question now is whether Lillikas’s voters will move en masse to Malas in the runoff or, alternatively, they will split between Anastasiades and Malas, thereby giving the center-right candidate sufficient support to win the presidency next week.

Anastasiades has pledged to move forward as quickly as possible to secure a €17 billion bailout that Cyprus needs to avoid sovereign default in a country that’s seen its public debt rise to 140% of GDP.  Although talks have been ongoing for over a year with the far leftist administration of outgoing president Demetris Christofias, the current administration has not been willing to implement the privatization of state industries that European leaders would require, though it has implemented tax increases and budget cuts over the past year.  Those austerity measures have worn down the popularity of Christofias and of his party’s presidential candidate, Malas.

At first glance, an alliance between Lillikas and Malas makes sense — both are generally to the left of Anastasiades, and Lillikas has campaigned on a platform of refusing to lead Cyprus into a bailout with tough conditions, arguing instead that Cyprus should rely on recently discovered offshore natural gas deposits to boost its public finances.  Lillikas, a businessman and an independent candidate, was supported by several small centrist and leftist parties, including the center-left Movement for Social Democracy (EDEK, Κινήμα Σοσιαλδημοκρατών or Kinima Sosialdimokraton).

Taken together, Lillikas and Malas polled nearly 6% more than Anastasiades in the first round, meaning that a majority of Cypriots appear to oppose the more austerity-focused bailout approach Anastasiades is very likely to pursue if elected.  But in order to upset Anastasiades in the runoff, Malas would have to sweep up over 93% of Lillikas’s first-round voters.  That seems unlikely, especially given that supporters of many of Cyprus’s political parties were split in the first round between Lillikas and Anastasiades, including the smaller Evroko (European Party) and Cyprus’s Ecological and Environmental Movement, both of which ultimately deadlocked over the issue of endorsing either Lillikas or Anastasiades.

But that’s especially true of Cyprus’s Democratic Party (DIKO, Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα or Dimokratikó Kómma), a centrist party that most recently held the presidency under Tassos Papadopoulos from 2003 to 2008, under whom Lillikas served as foreign minister from 2006 to 2007.

Although DIKO ultimately endorsed Anastasiades in the first round, many rank-and-file DIKO voters supported Lillikas, and that means it’s likely those voters will turn to Anastasiades in the runoff or, at least, abstain entirely from voting or protest-vote for neither Anastasiades nor Malas.

Once derided as ‘Nasty Nic’ for his reputation as a mean-streaked and hot-tempered politician, Anastasiades’s victory today marks a remarkable comeback since he fell from favor nearly a decade ago after supporting the ‘Annan Plan’ that would have reunited the Greek and Turkish sides of the divided island of Cyprus — over 76% of Greek Cypriot voters opposed the plan in a 2004 referendum, despite Turkish Cypriot backing for the plan.  The island remains split between the (largely Greek Cypriot) Republic of Cyprus and the (largely Turkish Cypriot) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, following a 1974 Cypriot coup that led to an attempt by Greece to annex the entire island and a subsequent Turkish invasion of the north.

Although the Turkish/Greek issue has not been a significant issue during the campaign, if he’s elected as president next Sunday, Anastasiades may well find himself on the wrong end of Cypriot public opinion once again, given that he’s indicated he’s willing to make tough sacrifices in order to secure a bailout for Cyprus.  European leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, have expressed support for Anastasiades, and it seems much likelier that Anastasiades could achieve a bailout deal for Cyprus.

Merkel and other European leaders would be likely to demand extremely onerous concessions though, certainly no less than the concessions imposed on Greece.  In light of the Cypriot banking sector’s less-than-pristine reputation on money laundering, it’s expected that a bailout would benefit dodgy Russian financiers and oligarchs whose money is currently deposited in Cyprus’s banks — a proposition that Merkel will likely find politically difficult with seven months to go until her own reelection campaign in Germany.

Armenia, Cyprus, Ecuador

Two days, three presidential elections: Cyprus, Ecuador and Armenia

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Sunday kicks off the first of two days of presidential elections in three very different regions of the world.

Unlike throughout, say, much of parliamentary-based Europe, each of the presidents elected in the next 48 hours will wield significant power, as each functions both as a head of state and as a head of government.cyprus_world_flagecuador flag icon newarmenia flag

Cyprus

The most contested of the three elections is in Cyprus, where Demetris Christofias is leaving office after a four-year term and where the European Union is set to push hard for bailout (or default) terms shortly following election season after previous talks have failed, due to Christofias’s refusal to privatize much of Cyprus’s public economy.  The frontrunner to win Sunday’s vote is Nicos Anastasiades, candidate of the center-right Democratic Rally (DISY, Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός or Dimokratikós Sinayermós), and many European leaders seem keen on his election, which would certainly accelerate reform and austerity in Cyprus.

But his lead comes in large part from a split among leftist voters, who are supporting both Stavros Malas, minister of health, the candidate of the governing Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL, Aνορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού or Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú) and Giorgos Lillikas, another center-left candidate and former foreign minister.

Although Anastasiades will likely win the first round, he’s not likely to win the 50% support necessary to avoid a runoff, which will be held, if necessary, a week later on February 24 when either Malas or Lillikas would have a clear-cut shot at defeating Anastasiades.

A failure to contain the Cypriot financial contagion, which brings with it the politically unpopular move of bailing out Russian oligarchs who have funded and deposited money into Cyprus’s banks, could exacerbate the still-tenuous Greek bailout or even jumpstart anew the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, so the outcome is more important to Europe than you might expect for an island nation of 1.2 million.

Ecuador

Less suspenseful is the presidential election in South America, where incumbent Rafael Correa is a prohibitive favorite to a third term by one of the largest margins in recent Ecuadorian political history — and certainly since the end of military rule in 1979.

Correa, whose governing Movimiento Patria Altiva i Soberana or Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland, or ‘PAIS’) is also looking to retain control of the 137-seat, unicameral Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly), has benefitted from an oil-backed economic boom, the proceeds of which he’s spent on massive infrastructural improvements, especially roads, as well as for direct cash grants that have helped cut Ecuador’s poverty rate from around 67% to between 25% and 30%.  In the tradition of the populist Latin American left, Correa defaulted on the country’s government bonds in 2008 and picked diplomatic fights with the United States.  Critics charge that his administration has become increasingly authoritarian, and his government has made the climate for Ecuador’s media somewhat less free.

His opposition includes Álvaro Noboa, banana magnate and one of Ecuador’s wealthiest businessmen; Guillermo Lasso, a former head of the Banco de Guayaquil; Lucio Gutiérrez, a former president who left office in 2005 after massive protests; and Alberto Acosta, Correa’s former oil and mining minister and co-founder of the Alianza PAIS.

None of those opponents has broken through, however, and Correa holds a lead well above 50% in most polls, meaning that he’s likely to win reelection without resorting to an April 7 runoff.

Armenia

Finally, in the South Caucasus, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) is seeking reelection after taking office in 2008.

Despite a high-profile assassination attempt against opponent Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան) two weeks ago, Sargsyan is almost certain to win reelection — he faces only minor opposition, given that former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Լևոն Տեր-Պետրոսյան) ruled out a presidential bid, as did wealthy oligarch Gagik Tsarukian (Գագիկ Ծառուկյան), the leader of the largest Armenian opposition party, Prosperous Armenia (BHK, Բարգավաճ Հայաստան Կուսակցություն).

Sargsyan’s party, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK, Հայաստանի Հանրապետական Կուսակցություն), currently holds control of the Armenian National Assembly after last year’s May parliamentary elections, and has held power since the election of Sargsyan’s predecessor and benefactor, Robert Kocharyan (Ռոբերտ Քոչարյան) in 1998.

After the election, Armenia’s president will face an economy that’s still recovering from recession and slow growth, balancing good relations with both Europe and the United States, on one hand, and Russia, on the other hand, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide and dicey diplomatic relations with Turkey, and three decades of ongoing hostility with neighboring Azerbaijan, largely due to the unsettled status of the breakaway region of disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Azerbaijan and Armenia went to war from 1988 to 1994.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenian, Azerbaijani elections unlikely to bring bilateral peace

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Karabakh

Despite presidential elections in all three South Caucasian nations this year, including Monday’s election in Armenia, campaign season is not likely to bring any change to the ongoing tension between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, nor bring a permanent solution to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

azerbaijankarabakh flagarmenia flag

Monday’s election is expected to result in reelection for Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) and, likewise, the upcoming Azerbaijani election is expected to result in reelection for its own president Ilham Aliyev, in each case without much in the way of robust opposition.

That means that not only are Azeri-Armenian relations unlikely to change anytime soon, it also means that the soured relationship between the two former Soviet republics is unlikely to feature prominently as a campaign issue, even though Karabakh Armenians gathered last week in the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its independence movement.

As the region pushes for closer ties to Europe — Georgia is ardently pursuing not only European Union membership, but membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, even under newly elected prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili (ბიძინა ივანიშვილი), and Baku hosted one of the more exotic Eurovision contests in 2012 after the Azerbaijani Ell and Nikki won the previous year’s contest — the tensions threaten to bring a long-simmering conflict to Europe’s backdoor.

armenia map

Although the two countries, together with Georgia, once formed the Transcaucasian Republic for three short-lived months in 1918, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds for the past 25 years following the emergence of the independence movement of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, located, since a 1936 demarcation of the three Soviet republics, in the South Caucasus in the western part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.  The initial Soviet decision to merge Karabakh into the Azerbaijan SSR goes back to the earliest days of Josef Stalin’s Soviet regime and resulted from Stalin’s strategic considerations designed to bring Bolshevism to Turkey. Continue reading Armenian, Azerbaijani elections unlikely to bring bilateral peace →

Ecuador

Five things that Correa’s likely reelection tells us about Ecuador (and South America)

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correawaves

On Sunday, Ecuadorian voters will go to the polls to elect a new president and, like in the Armenian presidential election that will be held one day later, there’s very little suspense about who will win.ecuador flag icon new

Incumbent president Rafael Correa (pictured above) seems set to win his third consecutive term outright on the February 17 vote, avoiding the need for a runoff, which would occur nearly two months later on April 7, and thereby extending his rule through 2017.

One recent poll from Opinión Pública Ecuador shows that Correa leads his nearest opponent with 56% to 13%, and other polls have shown Correa with over 60% support.

Furthermore, in the simultaneous elections for 137 members of Ecuador’s unicameral parliament, the Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly), Correa’s party, the democratic socialist Movimiento Patria Altiva i Soberana or Alianza PAIS (Proud and Sovereign Fatherland, with ‘PAIS’ an acronym that’s also Spanish for ‘nation’) formed in 2006 to boost Correa’s initial presidential run, is set to extend its legislative lead.  It currently holds 59 of the 124 seats in the current Asamblea Nacional, with the less-dominant populist Partido Sociedad Patriótica 21 de Enero (PSP, January 21 Patriotic Society Party), headed by former president Lucio Gutiérrez as its nearest competition, holding just 19 seats.

So what does that say about the current moment in Ecuador and, more generally, Correa’s contribution to Latin American politics?

Here are five takeaways from Sunday’s likely result. Continue reading Five things that Correa’s likely reelection tells us about Ecuador (and South America) →

Italy, Vatican City

What the papal abdication means for Italy’s upcoming general election

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benedettomonti

The shock news earlier this week that Pope Benedict XVI (pictured above, right, with Italian prime minister Mario Monti) would step aside as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church on February 28 has overshadowed the campaign currently taking place in advance of Italy’s general election — an election that will take place on February 24 and 25, just hours before the first papal abdication in six centuries.Italy Flag Iconvatican flag

So what does that mean for Italy’s election?

First and foremost, it means that much of the week’s media coverage has been focused on Benedict XVI (above all on Ash Wednesday, of all days) in Italy, not the election campaign.  It’s hard to know exactly what the result of that has been; perhaps it may freeze in place the state of the campaign from the end of last week, and perhaps it might even staunch the incremental momentum of Silvio Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Freedom), and Beppe Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S, the Five Star Movement), both of which were seen inching up in support in polls at the end of last week.

Substantively, the Vatican has long been one of the most powerful forces in Italian politics, and its long-standing support for Italy’s former Democrazia Cristiana (DC, Christian Democracy) allowed it to govern Italy uninterrupted from the postwar era until the ‘Tangentopoli’ (‘Bribesville’) scandal in 1993 that scrambled Italian politics and begat a new ‘second republic’ in Italy.

In many ways, the Catholic Church and the former Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI, Italian Communist Party) were the two major, and counterbalancing, ideological and social bulwarks of postwar Italy — given that the Christian Democrats always found ways to foreclose the avenues of power to the Communists, the Communist Party became as much a cultural and social force as a traditional political party.

Many organizations associated with the Catholic Church became booster organizations for the Christian Democrats as well — the Christian Democrats shared much in common with the previously Catholicist party, the Partito Popolare (Popular Party), which was disbanded in 1926 shortly upon the rise of Benito Mussolini to power.  The social organization Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action), which was associated with the Church and not actively engaged in politics (and therefore not disbanded during the fascist era), quickly swung behind the Christian Democrats in advance of the 1946 general election that swept Alcide De Gasperi to power. 

That support held firm for 30 years, and in the 1976 and 1979 elections, the closest that the Communists ever came to winning an election in Italy under longtime leader Enrico Berlinguer, Catholic groups also played a key role.  Comunione e Liberazione (Communion and Liberation), a traditionalist and political Catholic movement (very closely associated, by the way, with longtime and now outgoing Lombardy regional president Roberto Formigoni) were crucial in holding back the Communist gains in the late 1970s, despite having mobilized an unsuccessful effort in the 1974 referendum to roll back Italy’s 1970 law allowing divorce. 

The Catholic-DC alliance was cemented anew in 1979 with the elevation of the Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyła (pictured below with former prime minister Giulio Andreotti) to the papacy in 1979 as John Paul II. In a world where U.S. foreign policy interests were keen on keeping Italy’s Communist Party out of office during the Cold War, and where John Paul II would become in many ways a vital spiritual warrior against the Soviet Union’s officially atheist and communist domination of Eastern Europe, it was clear that the Vatican’s full political power (and the United States’s considerable influence) would remain behind the Christian Democrats until the Iron Curtain fell.

jpiiandreotti

For what it’s worth, the Vatican has all but endorsed prime minister Mario Monti and his centrist coalition — the Vatican’s chief newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano and a semi-official mouthpiece for the Holy See, announced its support for Monti in late December 2012:

È in sintesi l’espressione di un appello a recuperare il senso più alto e più nobile della politica che è pur sempre, anche etimologicamente, cura del bene comune. [Monti’s campaign is in synthesis the expression of a call to return to the highest and most noble sense of politics which exists, as always, even at a etymological level, for the common good.]

The support came days after Benedict himself seemed to indicate a veiled preference for Monti in his Christmas message to Italians:

The pope, in his Christmas greetings in 65 languages, said in his special message to Italians that he hoped the spirit of the day would “make people reflect, favour the spirit of cooperation for the common good and lead to a reflection on the hierarchy of values when making the most important of choices.”

In the past, the Vatican has generally supported Silvio Berlusconi and his centrodestra (center-right) coalition in government to the detriment of Italy’s center-left.  In 2008, former prime minister and senator for life Giulio Andreotti, a longtime fixture in Italian politics (he even has his own biopic!), is said to have sunk prime minister Romano Prodi’s government — on the Vatican’s orders — by opposing Prodi’s attempt to pass a law in the Italian state to give unmarried couples (including same-sex couples) special health, welfare and inheritance rights.

But this time around, in light of Berlusconi’s various bunga bunga scandals — including the solicitation of sex for money from  allegedly underage, North African girls — it would hardly seem befitting the family values of the Catholic Church to endorse such a tawdry candidate.

All the same, the Vatican’s power, in Italy as elsewhere in an increasingly secular Europe, isn’t what it once was, and its stances on contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage stand at odds with the majority of Italian and European voters.

So even if Benedict XVI had a vital grip on the papacy and were willing to engage in a sustained, long-term effort, it’s not clear that the Vatican could necessarily swing the vote significantly towards Monti, and even in an alternative universe with a more engaged pope or in the event that a successor to Benedict XVI had been chosen prior to the election, it’s doubtful that the Vatican could have — or would have — swung more actively into political action.

Given that Benedict XVI is meeting with Monti today, there may well be a benefit to Monti through his association with a pope that’s now certain to dominate headlines through the rest of the election, but it certainly won’t be enough to pull Monti’s coalition, currently polling in fourth place, to victory.  Continue reading What the papal abdication means for Italy’s upcoming general election →

China

Xi’s just not that into you

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Add The People’s Daily to the cadres of those who hate Valentine’s Day, according to the South China Morning Post.

China Flag Icon

But don’t blame it on curmudgeonry, blame it on corruption — apparently, Cupid and cupidity go hand in hand:

A four-paragraph story in People’s Daily said Valentine’s Day had become a hatchery of decadent ideology, indulgent lifestyle, fraud and corruption for some party members who squandered money indulging their lovers.

It went on to say that such a trend had been seen among some senior party members, including disgraced former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, former railways minister Liu Zhijun and former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu, who all kept mistresses or had illicit affairs with many women.

The writer then asked why such a romantic holiday in the West, where lovers presented flowers, offered chocolates and sent greeting cards, had transformed into a breeding ground for corruption when it reached the mainland. The problem was cadres who had abandoned communist beliefs, the article said, breaking their party oath and betraying the cause.

Ahem, paging James Fallows.

I cannot find the story on the People’s Daily English website, only a piece that seemed to welcome the fact that the Spring Festival surrounding Lunar New Year coincides with Valentine’s Day, giving business a boost:

Any concerns that Valentine’s Day clashing with the Spring Festival 
holiday might hurt business have been allayed as both retailers and 
restaurateurs report good turnover. It could even be said 
that the two dates are perfect partners and suit 
each other down to the ground.

It’s quite true that Xi Jinping (习近平), the secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party  (中国共产党) and the incoming president of the People’s Republic of China, has made waves recently in a speech stating that opposing corruption will be a top priority of his incoming administration — he pledged to pursue both ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’ (in other worlds, both top Party officials and rank-and-file bureaucrats) guilty of corruption.

But perhaps this is taking things a little too far?

Meanwhile, with the United States pursuing a free trade agreement both with the European Union and, through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with South American and East Asian nations, maybe it’s time for China to send a valentine to the European Union to discuss its own bilateral trade agreement.

Assorted Links

First Past the Post: February 13-14

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East and South Asia

Japan may lift its ban on Internet electioneering in time for this summer’s elections.

Another quarter, another Japanese contraction.

Valentine’s Day in Shahbagh.

South Korean president-elect Park Guen-hye has announced six new ministers, including former chief presidential secretary Yun Byung-se as foreign minister.

The Diplomat speculates at five ways China could become a democracy.

North America

The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein gives us his scorecard for U.S. president Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Perhaps the biggest news out of the State of the Union address was the ‘water’ gaffe made by U.S. senator Marco Rubio (shown above) in giving the Republican Party’s response.

Perhaps the most important news out of the State of the Union address is the launch of U.S.-E.U. free trade agreement talks.  Tyler Cowen shares his thoughts here.  (But what does Joseph Weiler think?) The view from Europe.

Liberal Party leadership frontrunner Justin Trudeau starts to take some hits.

Latin America / Caribbean

Jamaica attempts a debt swap plan.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is apparently undergoing additional arduous treatment procedures.

Grenada’s opposition party launches its manifesto.

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto wants to boost tourism.  [Spanish]

The Guatemalan Rios Montt genocide trial is set for August 14.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Zimbabwe will hold its constitutional referendum, as a tentative matter, on March 16.

Forget Mali. Is Niger next?

Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama pledges to respect the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on the December 2012 presidential election.

In the first Kenyan presidential debate, voters narrowly ranked Uhuru Kenyatta ahead of Raila Odinga.

The ICC cases against Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, take center stage today.

Europe

Foreign Policy throws cold water on Scottish independence.

Another guide to the papal conclave.

France’s Assemblée nationale passed a gay marriage law on Tuesday.

Are we headed to early elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

An intriguing official portrait is unveiled for Czech president-elect Miloš Zeman.

Poland’s opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński is calling a vote of no-confidence in prime minister Donald Tusk.

Russia and Former Soviet Union

Even Russians need a visa for Sochi’s 2014 Winter Olympics.

Global Financial Integrity targets Cyprus as the largest destination for Russian money laundering.

Middle East and North Africa

Amnesty International calls for Bahrain to release political prisoners two years after the 2011 protests surrounding the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout (pictured above).

Naftali Bennett, today, is the unhappy party in the ongoing coalition talks in Israel.

Egypt’s new protests law may be too restrictive.

Jordan’s King Hussein II will look for a ‘consensus’ candidate for Jordanian prime minister following elections late last month.

Australia

Kevin Rudd for pope.

♥, Etc.

Happy Valentine’s Day to Aaron Benson.

Italy

How the Italian election, Bersani’s to lose, became a Berlusconi-Monti dogfight

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There are now less than two weeks to go before Italians select a new prime minister, and if you watched the dueling soundbites, you would be forgiven if you thought the two main contenders were current prime minister Mario Monti and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.Italy Flag Icon

But while Berlusconi and Monti have taken up much of the headlines, the centrosinistra (center-left) coalition headed by Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of Italy’s center-left Partito Democratico (PD, Democratic Party), still seems more likely than not to win the Feb. 24 and 25 parliamentary elections, guaranteeing a majority in the 630-member Camera dei Deputati (House of Deputies), the lower house of the  Parlamento Italiano (Italian Parliament) and a plurality of the seats among the 315 elected members of its upper house, the Senato (Senate).

As of last Friday — the last day under Italian law that new polls can be published in advance of the election — the broad centrosinistra coalition still held a single-digit, but steady, lead over the centrodestra coalition dominated by Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà (PdL, People of Freedom).  After consolidating the center-right, especially by gaining the support of the autonomist Lega Nord (Northern League), Berlusconi’s coalition has pulled to within a modest deficit with the centrosinistra, despite the fact that polls show his PdL with less than 20% support and the PD with consistently over 30%.

Meanwhile, the centrosinistra coalition has lost some support to both the centrist coalition headed by Monti, the outgoing technocratic prime minister, and the anti-austerity protest Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S, the Five Star Movement) of comedian Beppe Grillo was also gaining steam going into the final two weeks of the campaign.

So if the centrosinistra lead has been whittled down a bit, the race to govern Italy still seems like Bersani’s fight to lose.  It’s a much more fragile lead than it was when the campaign started, but in Italy, you’d expect the race to tighten, especially with Berlusconi’s full-court press — even in his weakened political state, Berlusconi remains one of Italy’s richest men, and he commands a significant amount of media control.

Since the start of the campaign, even with Bersani and his center-left allies campaigning hard, sparks have flown strongest not between Bersani and Berlusconi, but between Berlusconi and Monti.

Monti, in shifting from an above-the-fray technocrat to an off-with-the-gloves politician, has attacked Berlusconi as the ‘pied piper’ of Italian politics, mocked his ‘family values’ by referencing Berlusconi’s tawdry sex scandal-ridden past, and said that a victory for Berlusconi would be a ‘disaster’ for Italy.  Earlier this week, he attacked Berlusconi’s promise to abolish — and refund to taxpayers — an unpopular housing tax as a ruse to buy votes with money the Italian government doesn’t have.

Berlusconi, for his part, launched his campaign in December 2012 by accusing Monti of dragging Italy back into recession with ‘German-centric’ policies and, despite an odd offer before Christmas to step down in favor of a united Monti-led coalition, has hammered away at Monti’s efforts to appease European interests from Brussels to Berlin, efforts that Berlusconi claims have come at the cost of improving everyday life in Italy.

In the midst of the back-and-forth between il cavaliere and il professore, where exactly does that leave the centrosinistra? And how did Berlusconi and Monti, whose parties have arguably less support than either of Bersani’s PD or Grillo’s Five Star Movement, come to dominate the campaign?

Continue reading How the Italian election, Bersani’s to lose, became a Berlusconi-Monti dogfight →

Armenia

Despite Hayrikyan shooting, Sargsyan remains lock for Armenian election

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serzhdmitri

Armenia’s looming February 18 presidential election made headlines a weekend ago when one of its candidate, Paruyr Hayrikyan (Պարոյր Հայրիկեան), was shot.armenia flag

Despite the assassination attempt, however, the election will go on as scheduled, and Hayrikyan has withdrawn a court application to delay the election by two weeks, despite an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the united backing of all opposition candidates behind his campaign.

With or without the delay, however, the election’s result was never incredibly in doubt — Serzh Sargsyan (Սերժ Սարգսյան) is the overwhelming favorite to be reelected as Armenia’s president, in a country with uncertain democratic norms and with several economic and geopolitical problems facing it in the years ahead, including complex relations with the United States, Europe, Russia, Turkey and its neighbors in the South Caucasus.

Despite the fact that Armenian media has focused intensely on the Hayrikyan assassination attempt in the past two weeks, the latest polls shows that Sargsyan (pictured above with Russian prime minister and former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev) will easily win the contest with nearly 68% of Armenians supporting his candidacy, with just 24% supporting Raffi Hovannisian (Րաֆֆի Հովհաննիսյան), with only 5% supporting Hayrikyan and none of the other five candidates winning more than 2% of the vote.

Though elections in Armenia have the trappings of democracy, and they are, in fact, freer and fairer than the show elections of, say, Belarus, they are often rigged in favor of the governing party — and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that’s meant first the administration of president Levon Ter-Petrosyan from 1991 to 1998, his successor Robert Kocharyan from 1998 to 2008 and now, Kocharyan’s protége, Sargsyan since 2008. Continue reading Despite Hayrikyan shooting, Sargsyan remains lock for Armenian election →

Assorted Links, Vatican City

First Past the Post: Feb. 12 (papal abdication edition)

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East and South Asia

North Korea has confirmed a nuclear test.

Japan wants to goose its stock market by 17% in the next seven weeks.  Felix Salmon has some thoughts.

The view on papal succession from India: ‘Wanted, a new pope: White, European and old.’

A closer look at the 2nd prime minister appointee for South Korea, former prosecutor Chung Hong-won.

North America

Pope Benedict XVI’s influence on American politics.

U.S. president Barack Obama is expected to take a particularly aggressive tone with Congress in tonight’s annual state of the union address.

Kathleen Wynne has become Ontario’s premier and chosen Ontario’s new cabinet.

U.K.-born, U.S.-resident, gay Catholic blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan’s take on the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is as solid as anyone’s.  What I wouldn’t give to read an original Christopher Hitchens column today.

Cardinal Mark Ouellet gets rave reviews from The Montreal Gazette and from The Globe and Mail.

Latin America / Caribbean

Francisco Toro on the Venezuelan bolivar’s devaluation.

The #YoSoy132 movement in México launches a magazine.  [Spanish]

Austin “SuperBlue” Lyons and Machel Montano will share the ‘soca monarch’ title in 2013 after Trinidad’s carnival.

The view of papal succession from Latin America.

A profile of Rafael Correa in advance of his likely reelection on February 17.

Epsy Campbell will run for president in Costa Rica in 2014.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Kenya held its first-ever presidential debate Tuesday.

Frontrunner Raila Odinga taunted his opponent Uhuru Kenyatta over his war crimes trial at the ICC.

Europe

The political rift deepens in Georgia. (Latest on the talks here).

BBC’s primer on electing a new pope.

A little late, but The Economist‘s thoughtful piece on the Nordic economic model.

Labour leads the Conservatives in the United Kingdom by 12 points, according to a new poll.

Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta gets saddled into the horsemeat scandal.

Is fascism making a comeback in Italy?

Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić is still taking heat from alleged ties to a drug lord.

You should be prepared to check early and often at Rocco Palmo’s Vatican blog over the next six weeks.

The take on Benedict from Poland (where, predictably, he remains most fully in the shadow of his Polish predecessor, John Paul II).

The Czech left doesn’t seem set to merge anytime soon.

Russian opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov is placed under house arrest.

A political science approach to the upcoming papal enclave.

Speigel previews the upcoming Austrian election year.

The Cyprus bailout will likely come in March after the presidential election.

Middle East and North Africa

Violence hits Yemen on the two-year anniversary of the 2011 protests.

The latest over a potential new unity government in Tunisia.

Racing against time in Lebanon to craft a new elections law.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition possibilities tighten.

Turkey reaches out to Europe to help it stop the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Oceania

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd wants you (or Julia Gillard, perhaps) to call him, maybe.

A New Zealand MP wants to ban Muslims from flights.