Bachelet’s ambitious agenda to be determined by result of Chile’s parliamentary elections

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No matter who wins tomorrow’s presidential election in Chile — and by what margin — we will know much more about the nature of the Chilean government over the next four years from the result of the other elections that will be held.chile

Those are the parliamentary elections, in which Chileans will elect all 120 members of the Cámara de Diputados (Chamber of Deputies), the lower house of Chile’s parliament, and half of the 38-member Senado (Senate), the upper house.

The inability of current president Sebastián Piñera to win absolute majorities in the Chilean parliament in the previous December 2009 elections constrained his legislative ability over the past four years to enact the kind of market liberalization or other reforms that Piñera might otherwise have pursued.

Likewise, though former president Michelle Bachelet is the overwhelming favorite to return to La Moneda, the Chilean presidential palace, the extent to which her administration will be able to enact campaign promises depends in large part on her ability to win a parliamentary majority for the broad left coalition that she leads, Nueva Mayoria (New Majority), which is essentially a rebranding of the broad center-left coalition of Chilean parties, the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Concert of Parties for Democracy) — with the recent addition of the Partido Comunista (Community Party) and a couple of other minor parties.

Though it seems likely that Bachelet’s coalition will win a majority in both houses, no one knows how large their margin will be — and, of course, with the widening of the previous Concertación to include the Communists and other far-left groups, maintaining unity within Bachelet’s coalition will be even harder in the years ahead.  That’s especially true in light of the lofty platform that Bachelet has outlined during her campaign —  Bachelet hopes to achieve major tax reform (an increase in the corporate tax rate from 20% to 25% and a cut in the maximum income tax rate from 40% to 35%), education reform (free access to university within the next six years) and, most ambitiously, a new Chilean constitution.  Constitutional changes require a two-thirds majority in both houses, an outcome that’s extremely unlikely, and even large-scale reforms, such as the kind Bachelet hopes to enact for Chilean education, require a four-sevenths majority.

That, in turn, is due to Chile’s electoral system, which is designed to avoid large majorities in either direction.  In respect of the Chamber of Deputies, Chileans vote in 60 constituencies that elect two members each — Chile’s unique binomial system that Pinochet’s advisers stitched into Chile’s current constitution before ceding power to civilian leadership in 1989.  While each coalition can run two candidate in each district, the typical result is that each major coalition each wins one seat in each constituency — one coalition will only be awarded both seats if it defeats the second coalition by a two-to-one margin.  A similar system exists for the Senate — Chileans elect two senators in each of 19 senatorial districts.

Moreover, Bachelet faces a new challenge from the Partido Progresista (Progressive Party of Chile), the party created two years ago by Marco  Enríquez-Ominami, who won about 20% as an independent candidate in the previous 2009 presidential election and who is running again in this weekend’s presidential election.  Although no one predicts that the Progressive Party is likely to steal many seats in the parliamentary vote, even one or two seats in each chamber could significantly alter Bachelet’s ability to govern.  Continue reading Bachelet’s ambitious agenda to be determined by result of Chile’s parliamentary elections

Meet Kathleen Wynne — Ontario’s premier and the 180-degree opposite of Rob Ford

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Though it’s been five months since the first reports emerged that Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoked crack cocaine, it’s only been within the last week that the controversy surrounding Ford has reached truly staggering attention.toronto ontarioCanada Flag Icon

When the embattled mayor earlier this month admitted that he used crack cocaine in a drunken stupor, he only opened the floodgates to more questions — and more allegations, which have certainly followed in short order.  It’s been a truly catastrophic week for Ford, who made his problems even worse with some misogynist comments about a former female aide, his refusal to step down as mayor, further admissions that he’d purchased illegal drugs in the last two years, and that he’s operated a vehicle while drunk.

But this week also marks the first time that anyone’s suggested that the province of Ontario should step in — and that’s putting Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne in the spotlight, who is the absolute opposite of everything Ford represents.  Wynne is not only the first female premier of Ontario and the highest-ranking openly gay official in Canadian politics, Wynne exemplifies the polite, dignified consensus-driven leadership for which Canada has become so well-known.

Wynne gently waded into Toronto’s growing crisis earlier this week, urging Ford to take heed of the Toronto city council’s call to step down:

“The concern for me is that city council can function and it seems today that that’s exactly what’s happening,” she said, referring to two overwhelming council votes to politically emasculate the mayor by stripping him of some powers.  “I see that city council is making decisions and they are determined . . . to find a way to make that work,” the premier said at a Council of the Federation meeting in Toronto.

There’s not much that the Ontario premier can actually do to remove Ford, though Wynne opened the door to legislative action earlier this week — but only at the request of the Toronto city council and only with the support of the leaders of both the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Tim Hudak, and the Ontario New Democratic Party, Andrea Horwath.

Ironically, it’s the ‘amalgamation’ plan that former Progressive Conservative prime minister Mike Harris pushed through the Ontario legislative assembly in 1998, over the protest of many Toronto residents, that made Rob Ford’s 2010 election possible.  Under amalgamation, the city of Toronto merged with the surrounding communities of East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, and York — Ford himself comes from Etobicoke, a suburb to the west of Toronto’s urban core.

Meanwhile, the Toronto city council is likewise limited in its ability to remove Ford from office, though it voted to strip Ford of many of his powers on Friday — on a vote of 39-3, councillors removed Ford’s ability to hire or to fire the city’s standing committee chairs and the deputy mayor, and on a vote of 41-2, councillors voted that Ford’s powers should be delegated to the deputy mayor in the event of an emergency situation.  Despite the council’s limitations, it’s important to keep in mind that the office of mayor in Toronto is relatively circumscribed — in many ways, Ford is more like the council chief than a true chief executive with the broad executive powers of, say, the New York City mayor.

Ford has become an international punchline, to the horror of many Toronto residents, who are proud of a city long known as Canada’s financial capital, a magnet for immigration, and a quiet showcase of North American prosperity and safety.

Far less well-known is Wynne, who is the anti-Ford of Ontario politics.  In her remarks on the Toronto mayoral situation earlier this week, she stressed that Ford’s antics do not characterize Ontario and do not characterize Toronto — Wynne herself represents Toronto in Ontario’s legislative assembly:

“I believe Toronto is not defined by one person, by one politician. We have to be very careful that we not allow ourselves to be defined by this,” she said.

Still, the premier expressed sympathy for Ford and his family, given the mayor’s drinking and admitted illegal drug use.  “I’m very concerned about the human element of this. A person who is struggling in his life, as far as I can tell, and so I hope that he will look after himself.”

Wynne became the province’s first female premier in February.  But that’s not exactly a surprising feat in Canada, where Kim Campbell served as the first female prime minister (however briefly) for just over four months in 1993, and where the premiers of Québec, Alberta and British Columbia are all women.  What makes Wynne more remarkable is that she’s the first openly gay premier of any Canadian province. Continue reading Meet Kathleen Wynne — Ontario’s premier and the 180-degree opposite of Rob Ford

Half-brother of longtime authoritarian leader Gayoom wins Maldivian presidential runoff

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Though the long-delayed presidential election process in the Maldives often seemed in danger of never coming to a completion, today’s Maldivian runoff has apparently selected a new president — five days after the Maldivian constitution required an inauguration and a week after the first round of the rescheduled vote.maldives

Former president Mohammed Nasheed won nearly 47% of the vote in the first round  — and around 45.5% in the previous first round held in September (which was subsequently annulled by the Maldivian supreme court).

But last week’s runner-up Abdulla Yameen (pictured above) emerged victorious today in the runoff, boosting his support from around 30% in the first round to 51.39% today.  Nasheed won just 48.61%.

Nasheed became the first democratically elected president in Maldivian history when he won the previous 2008 presidential election, though he was pushed out of office in February 2012 following protests over rising prices and a poor economy.  Nasheed achieved international fame for the cause of climate change — at an average of around four feet above sea level, the Maldives face destruction from global warming and rising sea levels.

But those concerns were distant from the 2013 election and political crisis.  Yameen’s electoral win is a victory for Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives from 1978 to 2008 (Nasheed defeated Gayoom in the 2008 election).  Gayoom, however, never fully left the stage of Maldivian politics — Yameen is his half-brother, and many of the Maldivian state institutions, especially its judiciary, are believed to remain more loyal to Gayoom than to the rule of law.

Though the Indian and global media are reporting that Yameen’s victory is somewhat of a surprise, it shouldn’t be.  Nasheed failed, however narrowly, to surpass the critical 50% mark in both the annulled September 7 round and in the November 9 round.  Moreover, the third-place candidate, Qasim Ibrahim, a former Gayoom-era finance minister, won 23% in the previous vote, and he subsequently endorsed Yameen.  It was Ibrahim’s complaint about potential ballot fraud following the first round that led the Maldivian supreme court to annul the September vote, a move that was widely seen as an opportunity for Nasheed’s opponents to unite around Yameen.

It’s clear that after three votes, Nasheed marshals something just short of an absolute majority (45.45%, 46.93%, 48.61%) of the Maldivian electorate.  While the process may not have been comically flawed, the votes demonstrate that Nasheed simply failed to build a fully majoritarian coalition for his relatively secular, technocratic, pro-democracy, pro-development vision.  It’s important to remember that five years ago, when Nasheed capitalized on three decades of pent-up resentments over the Gayoom regime, he defeated the old authoritarian with just 53.65% of the vote.  While Nasheed has conceded defeat in today’s vote, in a move to reinforce respect for the country’s nascent democratic institutions, Gayoom’s resurgence leaves those fragile institutions somewhat in doubt.

Yameen, the candidate of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), a party that Gayoom founded in 2011, campaigned on harsh criminal penalties — including the death penalty.  Nasheed had campaigned on a more broadly economic platform of boosting tourism revenues and business development.

Perhaps more fundamentally, Yameen and Ibrahim accused Nasheed and the Maldivian Democratic Party of being too close to the West and too secular in the Muslim country of just 328,000 residents.  Nasheed, in turn, argued that Yameen was using religion as a wedge issue to stir resentment and allow for Islamism to take root.