Daily Archives: May 12, 2014

Indonesia

Veepstakes, Indonesia-style: Will Kalla return as vice president?

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More than a month after Indonesia’s parliamentary elections, and with just less than two months until its presidential election, all eyes are on Jakarta governor Joko Widodo (most Indonesians refer to him simply as ‘Jokowi’), the frontrunner to become Indonesia’s next president. In particular, many Indonesians are watching to see who  he will choose as his running mate in the July 9 vote. Indonesia Flag

Under Indonesia’s somewhat arcane system, a party (or a coalition of parties) must win either 25% of the national vote in the April parliamentary elections or hold 20% of the seats in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR, People’s Representative Council) in order to nominate a presidential candidate.

No single party — not even Jokowi’s — managed to surpass that hurdle. That’s led to a series of behind-the-scenes negotiations among Indonesia’s major parties to sort alliances for the July election. It makes for a uniquely Indonesian version of ‘veepstakes,’ a term normally applied to the drawn-out process whereby US presidential nominees painstakingly select a running mate. Just as in the United States, the Indonesian media is watching Jokowi’s every move this week to divine clues as to his choice.

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RELATED: ‘Jokowi effect’ falls flat for PDI-P in Indonesia
RELATED: Who is Joko Widodo?

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Among the more tantalizing names being floated is Jusuf Kalla (pictured above), who served as vice president in the first term of the outgoing incumbent, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and who currently serves as president of the Indonesian Red Cross Society.

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Final results from the election were announced late last week, and the presidential candidates have until May 18 to name their running mates, a decision that usually bridges two or more parties in alliance for the presidential elections. Jokowi is set to announce his own running mate on Friday. Continue reading Veepstakes, Indonesia-style: Will Kalla return as vice president? →

Lithuania

Grybauskaitė headed for easy reelection as Lithuania’s president

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Though the disputed independence referenda in Ukraine’s troubled eastern oblasts attracted considerably more international attention, Lithuania also went to the polls on May 11 to elect a president.Lithuania Flag Icon

Dalia Grybauskaitė, the incumbent since 2009, easily led the first round with 46.61% of the vote, just shy of an outright victory, and she is almost certain to win reelection in the May 25 runoff against Zigmantas Balčytis, a member of the European Parliament, a former finance minister and, briefly for a month in 2006, acting prime minster. Balčytis is the candidate of the governing center-left Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija (LSDP, Social Democratic Party of Lithuania).

The runoff will coincide with elections for the European Parliament, where Lithuania holds 11 of its 751 seats.

Balčytis, a relatively uncharismatic candidate, won just 13.84% of the vote, however, only narrowly edging out Artūras Paulauskas, the candidate of the Darbo Partija (DP, Labour Party), who 12.20%.

Grybauskaitė, who lists the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher among her political heroes, has been dubbed, somewhat unimaginatively, as Lithuania’s ‘Iron Lady,’ after amassing one of the most prolific political careers of any figure in post-Soviet Lithuania. A former finance official, Grybauskaitė served as Lithuania’s representative to the European Commission between 2004 and 2009, for much of that time as the commissioner for financial planning and the budget. As commissioner, Grybauskaitė worked to reduce agricultural subsidies from the European budget and she was responsible for passing the first such budget that held funding for the Common Agricultural Policy to below 50% of European funds for the first time in European Union history.

Upon returning to Lithuania, she easily won a first-round election running as a conservative independent against token opposition. Though Lithuania’s parliamentary government means that the prime minister is responsible for most of Lithuanian domestic policy,  Grybauskaitė holds a key role in setting foreign policy. She has championed Lithuania’s place in the heart of the European Union, the eurozone and in NATO, and she has fiercely resisted Russian designs on influencing its ‘near-abroad,’ especially during the most recent security crisis over the Russian annexation of Crimea and possible designs to influence eastern Ukraine.   Continue reading Grybauskaitė headed for easy reelection as Lithuania’s president →

Ukraine

How the eastern Ukraine referenda relate to the May 25 election

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It’s hard to know, especially from afar, how to interpret the weekend’s referenda in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in eastern Ukraine.Ukraine Flag Icon

According to the pro-Russian organizers, 89.07% of voters in Donetsk voted for ‘self-rule,’ on the basis of 74.87% turnout. In Luhansk, fully 96% of the electorate voted for ‘the declaration of state independence’ on the basis of a reorted 75% turnout. Those numbers are all disputed by Ukraine’s central government. 

Adding to the lack of clarity, the referendum questions themselves are vaguely worded, so no one knows exactly what the region’s voters elected to do.

In Donetsk, voters were asked, “Do you support the declaration of state independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic?” In Luhansk, voters were asked, “Do you support the declaration of state independence of the Luhansk People’s Republic?” The Russian word used for ‘state independence,’ samostoyatel’nost‘, means ‘standing by oneself,’ so no one really knows what the voters were actually asked to choose — it could mean anything from greater autonomy to full independence to, possibly, Russian annexation.

Interim Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov declared the votes a ‘farce,’ and Western observers, including European leaders, have dismissed the referendum as illegitimate in its conception and fraudulent in its execution. Continue reading How the eastern Ukraine referenda relate to the May 25 election →

India, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal

India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 9

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Today marks the final phase of India’s election marathon.India Flag Icon

Voters in 41 constituencies will elect their members of the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the 545-seat lower house of the Indian parliament. After today’s voting, exit polls should give Indians (and the rest of us) the first indications of what the results might be, though they have been vastly wrong in the past. The official final results will be announced on Friday, May 16.

In particular, it’s the biggest day of voting in two of India’s most populous states. Uttar Pradesh will elect 18 of its 80 seats today, and West Bengal will elect 17 of its 42 seats. In addition, Bihar will elect its final six legislators.

In West Bengal, a state of 91 million Indians, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s local All India Trinamool Congess (TMC, সর্বভারতীয় তৃণমূল কংগ্রেস) is set to win the biggest share of the vote after sweeping to power in the state’s 2011 elections and, in so doing, sweeping a 34-year communist government out of office in West Bengal.

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RELATED: Mamata-Modi spat takes center stage in West Bengal

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Nonetheless, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CP-I(M)) and the Left Front (বাম ফ্রন্ট) are expected to win a large share of the vote as well.

That leaves India’s two national parties, the governing, secular Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) of Rahul Gandhi and outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh, and the conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी)  of chief minister Narendra Modi, both unlikely to make many gains in West Bengal.

Both Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will provide more fertile territory, especially for the BJP, which needs to win most of the 122 seats in those two states to have a chance at winning a majority government in the Lok Sabha.

In what might be the most watched constituency in India, Modi is battling Arvind Kejriwal, the former chief minister of Delhi, in the city of Varanasi (formerly Benares). Lying on the shores of the Ganges River, the city is known as India’s holiest, and it’s in the heart of Uttar Pradesh.

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RELATED: Did Kejriwal err in resigning position as Delhi’s chief minister?

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Kejriwal emerged as one of the most popular politicians in the country after his showing in the December 2013 elections in the National Capital territory. His newly formed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, आम आदमी की पार्टी, Common Man Party) took power for 49 days, instituting popular policies from water and power subsidies to hotlines for reporting bribery. Kejriwal resigned, however, in February, when the territorial legislature refused to enact his jan lokpal bill that would have instituted mechanisms for reducing corruption.

Since leaving office, Kejriwal has led a national campaign for the AAP, hoping that he can recreate the same electoral magic nationally that he did six months ago. But there’s a general sense that Kejriwal made a mistake by resigning, and that his national campaign attempts to do too much in too little time. There’s a chance that it will backfire so much that the AAP might not even win a majority of Delhi’s seats to the Lok Sabha.

But in Varanasi, Kejriwal has waged an electrifying fight against Modi, who chose to contest  both the Varanasi constituency and in the Vadodara constituency in his home state of Gujarat. Continue reading India Lok Sabha elections: Phase 9 →

India, West Bengal

Mamata-Modi spat takes center stage in West Bengal

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In today’s final phase of India’s six-week national elections, attention has increasingly shifted to West Bengal, which will elect the final 17 of its 42 seats in the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha (लोक सभा).India Flag Icon

But even as he tries to sweep the rest of the country, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, the leader of the conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) will find precious few votes in West Bengal.

As far as that goes, neither will his national rival, the secular Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस), which has governed India for the past decade under the leadership of party president Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh.

That’s because, like so many of India’s states these days, West Bengalese politics is dominated by entirely regional forces.

Between 1977 and 2011, West Bengal featured the longest consecutive communist government in elective history — under the long-serving chief minister Joyti Basu, from 1977 to 2000, and his successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, from 2000 to 2011. For 34 years, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) ruled West Bengal as the largest party of the Left Front (বাম ফ্রন্ট) coalition.

That all changed with the 2011 state assembly elections, when Mamata Banerjee (pictured above), known simply as ‘didi‘ (‘sister’ in Bengali), swept to power in a lopsided victory. She and her allies now control 227 of the 294 sets in the legislative assembly. Banerjee, who began her career in the Congress Party, formed the All India Trinamool Congess (TMC, সর্বভারতীয় তৃণমূল কংগ্রেস) in 1997.

Banerjee quickly joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and became railways minister in the BJP-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She re-aligned herself with the Congress Party in   2009 as part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), and once again served as railways minister, this time under Singh.

She returned to West Bengal for the 2011 state campaign, leading the TMC to its overwhelming victory. As chief minister, Banerjee has emerged as one of the most powerful players in Indian politics, and while she may not have lived up to high expectations that followed her victory three years ago, she’s generally seen as a relatively honest public servant and she’s worked to improve health and education programs throughout West Bengal, traditionally one of India’s poorer states on a per-capita basis.

It’s difficult to place Banerjee politically. At the state political level, she and the TMC are ideologically to the right of the Left Front, naturally, and at the national level, Banerjee has allied with both the major parties. It’s perhaps most correct to say that Banerjee is a populist, veering left or right as convenient for her political future or for West Bengal’s relationship vis-à-vis the central government.

But an alliance with the BJP seems unlikely as Modi and Banerjee has increasingly traded harsh barbs on the campaign trail.

Much of the explanation lies at the intersection of religion and politics. Modi is trying to maximize Hindu support in West Bengal, but also in the voter-rich states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and elsewhere in the ‘Hindi belt.’ Banerjee, for her part, is increasingly trying to unite Muslim voters in West Bengal, which comprise over one-quarter of West Bengal’s 91 million residents.

Modi has attacked the West Bengal state government for its handling of the Saradha Group financial scam that defrauded 1.7 million Indians, mostly in West Bengal, of up to $6 billion. Earlier this month, India’s supreme court referred the current investigations to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation amid signs of political interference. Modi has also taken a hard stand against Bangladeshi illegal immigrants. Last week, Banerjee pushed back, calling Modi a ‘donkey,’ and chastising him as the ‘butcher of Gujarat’ for his alleged role in deadly riots there in 2002.

Why is this all so important?  Continue reading Mamata-Modi spat takes center stage in West Bengal →