Yearly Archives: 2014

Indonesia

‘Jokowi’ effect falls flat for PDI-P in Indonesia election results

2 Comments

megawati

Despite polls that showed Indonesia’s opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan) would win what amounts to a landslide victory in Indonesia’s parliamentary elections today on the strength of its president candidate Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’), it won something more like a conventional victory, disappointing fans — and demonstrating that Jokowi’s win in the July 9 presidential election, though likely, isn’t certain.Indonesia Flag

Final election results and allocations of seats in the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR, People’s Representative Council) won’t be available until May. But quick counts conducted by several media and other groups show that, despite predictions, the PDI-P may not have even reached the 20% hurdle in the national vote that would allow it to nominate Jokowi for president without another party as its ally.

Here’s the count from Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies:

indonesia2014 copy

In brief, here’s a look at the winners and losers: Continue reading ‘Jokowi’ effect falls flat for PDI-P in Indonesia election results →

India

Could LK Advani become India’s next prime minister?

1 Comment

PTI10_16_2013_000204B

With India’s massive nine-phase election now underway, what happens if Narendra Modi doesn’t quite win a majority in India’s parliament?India Flag Icon

Everyone believes that Modi, the longtime chief minister of Gujarat, and his conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी) are headed for a historic victory. But that might not be enough — and if history is any guide, it won’t be enough, even taking into account the seats of the BJP’s coalition partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

That could mean that India’s ‘Third Front,’ a motley group of regional and Marxist/socialist parties, could team up with the remnants of the center-left Indian National Congress (Congress, भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस) and the few parties that remain in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). India has had Third Front governments  in the past, but it’s a path that traditionally leads to acrimony, dysfunction and, sooner rather than later, new elections.

But if the BJP performs as well as polls widely suggest it might, there could be no doubt that the BJP (and Modi) have a stronger mandate to govern India and a stronger claim on forming the government than a rag-tag coalition of a dozen or more parties.

In that scenario, the BJP may be forced to turn to additional parties — and their price for support might require that the BJP jettisons Modi as its prime minister. That’s when things get really interesting, and it’s why the internal rifts inside the BJP over the past two years will become so important if and when the BJP/NDA wins the election with less than an absolute majority. In particular, it means that the rift between Modi and the elder statesman of the BJP, Lal Krishna Advani (pictured above, left, with Modi) could determine the identity of India’s next prime minister. Continue reading Could LK Advani become India’s next prime minister? →

Canada, Quebec

Mulcair loses chance to solidify NDP gains in Québec

Leave a comment

mulcair

What were Québec’s voters looking for in its provincial election?Quebec Flag IconpngCanada Flag Icon

Obviously not the hard-core separatist agenda that premier Pauline Marois did such a poor job of concealing from voters. As soon as a potential referendum on independence became the central issue of the election, Marois’s Parti québécois (PQ) immediately lost its polling lead.

Obviously not the market-friendly approach to government that François Legault champions. He’s now failed twice to convince Québec’s voters to elect the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) into government.

Despite its massive win in today’s election, it’s not obvious that the Québec electorate was so incredibly excited about returning the Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) to power just 18 months in opposition. The Charbonneau Commission, appointed during the previous Liberal government of premier Jean Charest, hasn’t even finished its inquiry into allegations of corruption related to the awarding of (mostly Liberal) government contracts.

Imagine, instead, if Québec voters had a fourth option — a party with the social democratic credibility that the CAQ lacks but without the PQ’s separatist agenda and without the baggage of last decade’s Liberal governments?

That’s right — a province-level  party of the New Democratic Party, or the Nouveau Parti démocratique du Québec (NPDQ).

Québec’s 2014 provincial elections would have been the perfect platform for NDP leader Thomas Mulcair to build a truly competitive provincial vehicle within Québec, and it’s a goal that Mulcair outlined after he won the NDP leadership in 2012 and again late last year: Continue reading Mulcair loses chance to solidify NDP gains in Québec →

Canada, Quebec

Québec election results: Four reasons why the PQ blew it

Leave a comment

maroisloses

The sovereigntist Parti québécois (PQ) has lost power after just 18 months leading a minority government. Quebec Flag IconpngCanada Flag Icon

Instead, former health minister Philippe Couillard, barely a year after winning the leadership of the federalist Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ), will lead a majority government as Québec’s new premier.

Incredibly, in the riding of Charlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré, premier Pauline Marois has lost her race against Liberal Caroline Simard, and in an address to supporters, announced she would step down as PQ leader as well.

Here’s the breakdown of the 125 ridings in Québec:

QC14 v4

When she called a snap election in March, Marois had every reason to believe that she would sail through the election and win a majority government for the PQ.

Conservative Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper was so worried about the prospect of a separatist majority in Québec that he reached out to the leaders of the other major parties, including Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau and New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair for advice. Though Trudeau and the federal Liberals endorsed Couillard and the PLQ, the Tories and the NDP have remained neutral.

With nearly 97% of the vote reporting, here are the vote totals:

qc14totalsThe last time the PQ won such a small share of the vote in a provincial election was in 1970, when it won just 23.06%, when it was running in its first election after its foundation in 1968.

The PQ has suffered what might be an even more humiliating defeat than its 2007 showing, when the PQ placed third, behind both the Liberals and the predecessor to the CAQ, the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ) — it won just 36 seats and 28.5% of the vote.

Among the key individual races:

  • In L’Assomption, François Legault, the leader of the center-right Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) won his race against the PQ’s Pierre Paquette, a former federal MP from the sovereigntist Bloc québécois.
  • Couillard easily won a race in his riding of Roberval, which was supposed to be a difficult race against the PQ’s Denis Trottier, an incumbent since 2007.
  • In Saint-Jérome, former Quebecor CEO, Pierre Karl Péladeau defeated Liberal candidate Armand Dubois — though Péladeau played a controversial role in the election campaign, he could well become the PQ’s next leader.
  • In Laval-des-Rapides, the 22-year-old former student leader Léo Bureau-Blouin lost his bid for reelection to Liberal businessman Saul Polo.
  • In Crémazie, PQ language minister Diance De Courcy and in Saint-François, PQ health minister Réjean Hébert lost.

The CAQ had a much better night than it could have expected. It will improve on its current 19-seat caucus by a handful of seats.

There’s no doubt that the PQ campaign now seems like an incredible miscalculation, and Marois will almost certainly step down as the PQ’s leader. But how did Marois and the PQ fall so far? Here are four reasons that show how tonight’s result came about.

Continue reading Québec election results: Four reasons why the PQ blew it →

Scotland, United Kingdom

Momentum shifts in favor of Scottish independence

Leave a comment

Gordon-Brown-3228133-1You know the unionist campaign against Scottish independence may be flagging when its strategists believe that its secret weapon is…  former British prime minister Gordon Brown:scotlandUnited Kingdom Flag Icon

Tavish Scott, the Lib Dem member of the Scottish parliament (MSP) for Shetland, says Mr Darling and Better Together have done well at providing an intellectual case for remaining in the UK, but have failed to connect with crucial sections of the electorate such as traditional Labour voters. Mr Scott wants major Labour figures in Scotland such as former prime minister Gordon Brown and former UK minister John Reid to take a greater role in shoring up “soft Labour” support for the union.

What’s clear is that the ‘Yes, Scotland’ campaign in favor of independence is gaining momentum, while the ‘Better Together’ campaign is losing steam.

A Panelbase poll conducted between April 27 and May 4 shows that the ‘No’ side would win 46% of the vote and the ‘Yes’ side would win 41% of the vote, with 14% undecided. Though Panelbase has typically shown a stronger ‘Yes’ vote than other polls, its findings are consistent with other surveys over the past month. While ‘No’ continues to lead ‘Yes,’ sometimes by double-digit margins, there’s no escaping that the polls are tightening.

That’s causing some alarm within both government and opposition circles. Though British prime minister David Cameron almost certainly believed that most Scottish voters wouldn’t support independence when he agreed to the terms of the referendum with Scottish first minister Alex Salmond last May, his governing Conservative Party must now face the prospect of a too-close-to-call referendum in Scotland just eight months before the wider UK general election in May 2015.

If Scotland votes ‘yes,’ or even comes close to endorsing independence, some senior Tories are already wondering if Cameron will have to resign — after 307 years of union with  England, he’ll be the prime minister who ‘lost’ Scotland.

With the Scottish Labour Party largely leading the charge against independence, what will it say about the generation of national Labour leadership, including includes Scottish-born prime minister Tony Blair, that delivered devolution  Scotland in 1997?

More fundamentally, however, why, so suddenly, does the ‘Yes’ campaign — once deemed hopeless — now seem like it has a chance? Continue reading Momentum shifts in favor of Scottish independence →

Costa Rica

What will Solís do as Costa Rica’s new president?

4 Comments

LGS

He won the Costa Rican presidency yesterday with 78% of the vote. His opponent considered the runoff so hopeless that he conceded defeat and suspended his campaign a month ago. With nearly 1.3 million votes, he won more votes than any other Costa Rican presidential candidate in the country’s modern history.costa_rica_flag

But now that he’s been officially elected Costa Rica’s new president, what will Luis Guillermo Solís (pictured above) do in office?

The first thing he’ll have to do is temper high expectations that Costa Rica’s first third-party president in modern history will suddenly transform the country into a wealthier, corruption-free, social democratic paradise.

The son of a cobbler and the grandson of a laborer on a banana plantation, Solís vowed to reverse the income and social inequality that’s become a growing concern in what is arguably Central America’s most politically and economically successful country.

Solís, a historian who has never held elective office, won a surprise victory won the first round of the presidential election on February 2, edging out one-time frontrunner Johnny Araya, the candidate of the ruling Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN, National Liberation Party) and the longtime mayor of San José. Solís’s strong showing against Araya in the final presidential debate bolstered his candidacy, which had languished in fourth or fifth place in polls, even a week before the February vote. 

It was a magnificent turnaround for a candidate who barely figured in the polls at the end of 2013. 

tico2014

Solís won 77.85% in Sunday’s runoff, while 22.15% voted for Araya, despite the suspension of Araya’s campaign on March 6. He said that he’ll start announcing key members of his cabinet next Monday, April 14.

Araya was attempting to win a third consecutive presidential term for the PLN. In the 2010 vote, Costa Ricans elected Laura Chinchilla as the country’s first female president. Despite initially high expectations, Chinchilla’s administration has been a disaster, marred by embarrassing corruption scandals within the PLN and charges of lackluster economic policy.

Costa Rican voters also had doubts about Araya’s leading challenger, the far more leftist José María Villalta, the candidate of the socialist Frente Amplio (Broad Front), who had been expected to advance to a runoff against Araya.

So it’s not a surprise that voters would turn to Solís, who offered a slightly more leftist vision for Costa Rica than Araya and the PLN, but not so socialist as Villalta and the Broad Front.

He’ll take office with an incredibly fragmented Asamblea Legislativa (Legislative Assembly) — his own party, the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC, Citizen’s Action Party), holds just 13 seats in the 57-member chamber. That means he’ll have to form an alliance with the PLN, which holds 18 seats, or form ad-hoc coalitions with other lawmakers who range in ideology from Christian democratic to radical libertarian to chavista-style socialist.

It helps that Solís — and the PAC’s unofficial leader Ottón Solís (no relation to the president-elect) both started their political careers with the PLN. Ottón Solís, elected in February to the National Assembly as a deputy, will play an important role in forming and achieving the new administration’s agenda. For the past decade, opposition to the ruling PLN and to corruption has united the PAC, and it’s ideological diversity has been helpful in the 2014 campaign. Once in government, however, Luis Guillermo Solís may find it difficult to unite a party that contains both socialists and liberals — and to maintain a constructive role for Ottón Solís.   Continue reading What will Solís do as Costa Rica’s new president? →

Hungary

Hungarian election results: historic win for Orbán

5 Comments

fidesz

With almost all ballots counted, Viktor Orbán has not only won reelection as Hungary’s prime minister, he will also command the same two-thirds supermajority as his party, Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség (Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance), has held for the past four years.  Hungary Flag Icon

But the other winner in Sunday’s election is the nationalist, far-right Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (Jobbik), which improved on its 2010 performance to win nearly 21% of the vote.

* * * * *

RELATED: How Hungary’s Viktor Orbán got his groove back

* * * * *

With just over two-fifths of the vote, Fidesz will win over two-thirds of the seats in Hungary’s Országgyűlés (National Assembly), which Orbán reduced in number from 386 to 199 for this year’s election. That will continue its power to determine Hungarian policy, virtually without opposition — in the past four years, Orbán has used a similar supermajority to rewrite the Hungarian constitution, diminish the power of the constitutional court, and revise an election law that maximized his party’s gains in Sunday’s election.

hungary14

hungaryparliament

Though Lehet Más a Politika (LMP, Politics Can Be Different), a liberal green/left party, seems likely to to make it into the National Assembly (just barely!), the election results leave Orbán with almost nearly the same supermajority that he had in 2010 and, in fact, Orbán is the first prime minister to win reelection in Hungary since 1990.

The center-left opposition, Osszefogas (‘Unity’), hardly won a quarter of the vote, and it barely overtook the surging, xenophobic, euroskeptic Jobbik. That’s despite a late-January attempt of the center-left and centrist opposition  to unite behind Attila Mesterházy, the leader of the Magyar Szocialista Párt (MSzP, Hungarian Socialist Party).

It’s the worst of both worlds for European policymakers who hoped that the 2014 Hungarian elections might curb Orbán’s power — not only has Jobbik made real gains (thereby making itself almost as strong as the center-left opposition just two months before European parliamentary elections), but Orbán and Fidesz will hold an impregnable supermajority for the next four years to continue consolidating power, eliminating checks and balances and, potentially, reducing faith in the rule of law and Hungary’s democratic institutions.

Afghanistan, Canada, Costa Rica, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Quebec

Spring 2014 voting blitz: five days, six elections

Leave a comment

karzaivotes

We’re beginning to hit the peak of what’s perhaps the busiest world election season of the past few years.

What began as a slow year with boycotted votes in Bangladesh and Thailand in the first two months of 2014 snowballed into a busier March, with important parliamentary elections in Colombia, the final presidential vote in El Salvador, parliamentary elections in Serbia, a key presidential election in Slovakia, and municipal elections that upended national politics in France, The Netherlands and Turkey.

But the pace only gets more frenetic from here.

Between today and Wednesday, five countries (and one very important province) on three continents will go to to the polls: Continue reading Spring 2014 voting blitz: five days, six elections →

Indonesia

Four key points to watch as Indonesia elects a new parliament

Leave a comment

Indonesia Election

When Indonesians vote on April 9, it will be the last time that Indonesians elect a parliament prior to electing a president. In  2019, Indonesians will vote on a parliament and a president simultaneously.Indonesia Flag

That gap, for the past decade, has made the parliamentary election the first stage in the process of electing a president. Under Indonesia election law, a party must win 20% of the seats in Indonesia’s Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR, People’s Representative Council) or 25% of the national vote to nominate a presidential candidate — otherwise, it must ally with another party (or parties) until their cumulative support reaches the 20/25% hurdle.

That means that the parliamentary election has traditionally prompted the horse-trading necessary to build alliances that precede the presidential race. Even in 2009, when Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won an easy reelection, his party, the Partai Demokrat (Democratic Party), won just 20.85% of the national vote and 148 seats in the 560-member DPR, barely squeaking past the hurdle with just over 26% of the chamber’s seats.

Indonesians will also elect the Dewan Perwakilan Daerah (DPD, the Regional Representative Council), a second legislative body formed in 2004 with relatively more limited powers than the DPR. Both bodies have fixed five-year terms.

Members of the DPR are elected by proportional representation from multi-member districts that have between 3 and 10 representatives. Nationally, a party must win at least 3.5% of the vote to enter the DPR.

Though Jakarta governor Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’) is the wide frontrunner to become Indonesia’s next president in the July 9 election, however, the elections are still an important step in determining the nature of Indonesia’s next government.

* * * * *

RELATED: Who is Joko Widodo?

* * * * *

Generally speaking, though the lines blur somewhat, you can separate Indonesia’s major parties into three categories — Islamist parties (most of which are relatively mild by the standards of Islamists in the Middle East and North Africa), nationalist parties and moderate, secular parties guided by the somewhat vague principles of pancasila (five principles set forth by Sukarno, Indonesia’s first post-independence leader: Indonesian nationalism, humanism, democracy, social justice, and monotheism). Continue reading Four key points to watch as Indonesia elects a new parliament →

Hungary

How Hungary’s Viktor Orbán got his groove back

Leave a comment

orbanreelect

Despite a united opposition front, prime minister Viktor Orbán is headed to a crushing victory in Hungary’s April 6 parliamentary elections this weekend, consolidating his hold on power in the emerging central European country of 10 million.Hungary Flag Icon

Orbán’s victory looks so assured that it’s hard to believe anyone ever thought that his chances for 2014 reelection would be much tougher.

Only a year ago, Orbán appeared to have a much more troubled path to victory.

For example, an Ipsos poll from January 2013 shows that the three largest of the five parties that comprise the opposition, Osszefogas (‘Unity’), would win a combined 43% of the vote, compared to just 41% for Fidesz – Magyar Polgári Szövetség (Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance). The largest opposition party, the Magyar Szocialista Párt (MSzP, Hungarian Socialist Party) won 32% of the vote.

* * * * *

RELATED: Hungarian left unites, but will it be enough to stop Orbán?

* * * * *

But the most recent March 31 Századvég poll gives Fidesz 51% of the vote, with just 25% for Unity. The far-right, anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalist Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (Jobbik), which has surged over the past six months, would win 18%, and there’s a chance that it could actually win more seats on Sunday than the center-left Unity.

In early 2013, despite an uphill challenge under new election rules, designed to benefit Fidesz, the opposition had a strong case against Orbán, who has isolated Hungary from the rest of the European Union, increasingly chipped away at democratic checks and balances and the rule of law, and nearly torpedoed an already struggling economy with tax increases, further budget cuts, and a haphazard nationalization of Hungry’s private pension system.

What happened? Continue reading How Hungary’s Viktor Orbán got his groove back →

Canada, Quebec

In Québec, health care is the sleeper issue

Leave a comment

hopitalgeneral

Headlines throughout Québec’s raucous election campaign have highlighted emotionally charged issues, such as a new charter on secularism, a potential referendum on independence and new regulations promoting the use of French. Nonetheless, surveys show that voters routinely list health care as the top issue facing the province’s next government.Quebec Flag IconpngCanada Flag Icon

With three former health ministers leading the three top parties in the province, including Liberal leader Philippe Couillard, a former neurosurgeon, there’s no election better placed for examining how to improve Québec’s health care options.

The provincial government’s role in the health care system began in 1961, when it signed up to the federal Canadian single-payer health care system and began reimbursing hospitals for medical services. A decade later, in 1971, Québec first agreed to reimburse services for non-hospital costs, and the provincial government began opening its own health clinics. Today, health care costs consume 51.8% of the province’s budget, excluding debt service. Governments of the past decade from both major parties have routinely increased health spending, even while attempting to rein in spending for other areas.

* * * * *

RELATED: Peladeau candidacy transforms Québec provincial elections
RELATED: Will bilingualism doom the Liberals in Québec?

* * * * *

Even before the Parti québécois (PQ) started slipping in the polls, Québec voters already disapproved of Pauline Marois’s performance as premier by a margin of nearly 2-to-1. It’s hard to believe that perceptions about her government’s performance on health care didn’t play a huge role in that. Though the PQ’s support started crumbling with a series of mishaps that brought a new independence referendum into direct focus, voters were already pre-disposed to flee Marois, who hasn’t kept her 2012 campaign promise to roll back an unpopular health tax introduced, ironically, by the Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) that now is now projected to win a majority government after Monday’s vote. Continue reading In Québec, health care is the sleeper issue →

Indonesia

Who is Joko Widodo?

Leave a comment

jokowi

Given that Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most populous country, the 15th largest world economy (and likely to grow), the second-most populous democracy and the most populous Muslim democracy, its elections this spring and summer are nearly as important as those in the European Union and in India.Indonesia Flag

Democracy came to Indonesia only gradually. After the fall of Indonesia’s president Suharto in 1998, the country held its first democratic parliamentary elections in 1999 and its first direct presidential election in 2004.

In 2004, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia’s first directly elected president. When he steps down later this year, he’ll leave behind a country firmly on a democratic track and with one of the world’s strongest emerging economies. Indonesia’s GDP skyrocketed during his administration from $256.8 billion in 2004 to $878 billion in 2012 — and growing. Between 2004 and 2012, Indonesia had an average GDP growth rate of 5.78%.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement on any mix of economic, social or political measures. Indonesia’s next president will face several challenges. Its infrastructure — roads, train networks and ports — falls far behind that of China or even India. It has a growing urban population that suffers from flooding, pollution, clogged traffic, poor housing conditions and inferior health care and education services. Indonesia’s next president must also design an  economic policy that will bring productive growth to Indonesia without chasing away foreign investment. With the East Timor and Aceh questions settled, Indonesia’s next president won’t face any pressing existential issues of national identity, notwithstanding ongoing pressure from Islamists.

But after a decade of ‘normal’ politics, July’s election will be more conventional than historical.

For over a year, the frontrunner in the presidential race has been the governor of Jakarta state, Joko Widodo (known simply as ‘Jokowi’ to most Indonesians). The new star of Indonesian politics, Jokowi (pictured above) has been compared to US president Barack Obama for his meteoric rise, though he only entered the presidential race last week. He rose to national prominence only after winning the September 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election, ousting the one-term incumbent, Fauzi Bowo, of Yudhoyono’s governing Partai Demokrat (Democratic Party).

In the past two elections, his party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan) nominated Megawati Sukarnoputri as its presidential candidate. The daughter of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first post-independence leader who governed Indonesia between 1947 and 1964, Megawati served as president between 2001 and 2004. Megawati’s apparent decision to pass the leadership baton to Jokowi is a sign that, at age 67, Megawati has begrudgingly determined that a presidential comeback isn’t likely.

Jokowi comes from a younger generation that came of age not under Sukarno, but under Suharto, a more authoritarian figure who pulled the country away from socialism and towards economic liberalism, as well as away from the Soviet Union and China and toward the United States.

Jokowi made the leap from business — he once sold furniture — to politics only within the past decade. As mayor of Surakarta (Solo) between 2005 and 2012, and as governor of Jakarta today, Jokowi has become known for a hands-on political style, which involves the tradition of blusukan — impromptu visits throughout his city to check in with everyday Indonesians, a touch that allows Jokowi to connect with Indonesian voters better than other members of the political elite, including Yudhoyono. That approach has made Jokowi incredibly popular, and it has given him the kind of profile that Cory Booker recently enjoyed as mayor of Newark, New Jersey — a responsive super-official ready to deal with emergencies from flooding to traffic at a moment’s notice, though those problems remain endemic to Indonesia’s chaotic capital. As Jakarta’s governor, he’s increased spending on education programs, and he’s raised the minimum wage twice (first by 44% and by 9% in 2013).

Perhaps the most comprehensive policy that Jokowi has implemented in Jakarta is a universal heath care program quickly introduced upon taking office in 2012. Like the health care reforms introduced by Obama, Jokowi was criticized for the program’s rollout and implementation, which included a surge in demand for medical services.

But that doesn’t necessarily explain what he would do as Indonesia’s next president. Continue reading Who is Joko Widodo? →

Belarus

With Ukraine crisis, Lukashenko between a rock and a hard place

1 Comment

Лукашэ́нка

An aggressive, autocratic Russia to your east, and a democratic, liberal Europe to your west. What’s your poor everyday post-Soviet European Stalinist dictatorship to do?belarus flag

As Russian forces took control of Crimea from Ukraine last month, and as Russian troops menacingly massed along the eastern Ukrainian border, no country has a greater interest than Belarus, which lies immediately to the north of Ukraine and immediately west of Russia.

ukraine_big_map

And no world leader has a greater worry than Belarus’s president since 1994, Aleksandr Lukashenko (pictured above). It’s hard to know just which must be more harrowing for Lukashenko — watching pro-European protestors depose Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in February, or watching Russia blithely annex Crimea in March.

At first glance, Belarus appears like the strongest of Russian allies. It’s already long been a member of the customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan that Putin hopes to expand into the Eurasian Union. The country sends 35% of its exports and receives 59% of its imports from Russia (oddly, perhaps, the second-most important market for Belarusian exports is The Netherlands, which receives 16.5% of all exports).

Growing divisions between Moscow and Minsk

But as Andrew Wilson wrote last month for Foreign Affairs, Lukashenko may be edging away from the Kremlin:

It should not be surprising that Lukashenko has been demonstrably edging away from Putin in recent weeks. Belarus has started hinting that it wants better relations with the EU, agreeing in February to participate in visa negotiations with Brussels. But any shifts toward the EU are going to be a gradual process; Lukashenko is still a dictator, after all, who has little interest in meeting Europe’s democratic standards. For now, Lukashenko is inside the Russian tent looking out. And he is not about to head for the door just yet. But ever since Putin’s aggressive takeover of Crimea, Lukashenko has been more anxiously looking toward the exits.

That’s one reason, perhaps, why Lukashenko didn’t send observers to Crimea for the March 16 referendum on annexation, and why Belarus hasn’t formally acknowledged Russia’s annexation.

It’s also why, despite hosting Russian air force and other military assets, Lukashenko has gone out of his way to rule out sending any Belarusian military forces into Ukraine. Lukashenko met with Ukraine’s interim president Alexander Turchninov over the weekend for talks, and he went out of his way to emphasize strong relations:

“You shouldn’t view us not only as foes or competitors, you shouldn’t even think in those categories,” Lukashenko went on. “You should be sure to know that we’ve been treating you as our closest relatives even in the years when there existed misunderstandings.” He hailed the fact that “we are not looking at each other askance”. “We really spent a lot of years building up a belt of good-neighborliness and we’re not ready to destroy it today and there’s no need in eliminating it.”

Lukashenko stressed the importance for each Ukrainian to know in this connection that “our border is a border of friendship and not a border of division.”

“You shouldn’t apprehend any unfriendly cravings on the part of Belarusians here because neither we nor you need it,” he said.

Though we shouldn’t rule out the notion that Lukashenko represents a quiet, back-door channel for negotiations between Kiev and Moscow, there’s also no reason to doubt that Lukashenko’s remarks are legitimate.

If Russian president Vladimir Putin really thinks that Ukraine isn’t truly a sovereign country,** he almost certainly holds the same view of Belarus. Just as Ukraine is called ‘little Russia,’ Belarus literally means ‘White Russia.’ Long before it became an independent country in 1991 (and before the Soviet Union, briefly, as the Belarusian People’s Republic), the area that comprises what is today Belarus have been known for centuries as ‘White Russia.’ Continue reading With Ukraine crisis, Lukashenko between a rock and a hard place →

India, Uttar Pradesh

The path to India’s next government runs through Uttar Pradesh

Leave a comment

India, Uttar Pradesh, Agra Man on bike with girl on trailer and man pushing from behind in front of Taj Mahal at sunset

It’s the most populous state in the world’s largest democracy.India Flag Icon

It’s the great heartland of Hindustan along India’s north-central border, home to the Taj Mahal, home to seven of India’s 13 prime ministers, and the traditional base of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has given India three prime ministers, and hopes to give India its next prime minister in Rahul Gandhi.

It’s Uttar Pradesh (which translates to ‘northern province’), and Narendra Modi’s path to becoming India’s next prime minister runs right through it.

A sketch of India’s most populous state

With 199.6 million residents, it’s nearly as populous as Brazil — and with 80 seats up for grabs in the 545-member Lok Sabha (लोक सभा), the state is by far the largest prize in India’s parliamentary elections, which kick off April 7 and will be conducted in nine phases that conclude on May 12. Given the sheer size of the state, voters in Uttar Pradesh will go to the polls in six of the nine phases,** spanning virtually the entire voting season.

That means that Uttar Pradesh holds about one-third of the seats any party would need to win a majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower (and more consequential) house of the Indian parliament.

_50335989_india_varanasi_1210_304

Though it lies in the heart of the ‘Hindi belt,’ which might otherwise make it fertile territory for Modi’s conservative, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (the BJP, भारतीय जनता पार्टी), it won’t necessarily be the easiest sell for Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat since 2001.

In contrast to Gujarat, which is one of the wealthiest states of India, Uttar Pradesh is one of the poorest — it had a state GDP per capita of around $1,586 (as of 2009), less than 50% of Gujarat’s equivalent. Continue reading The path to India’s next government runs through Uttar Pradesh →

European Union, United Kingdom

UKIP’s Farage is winning the British debate on Europe

Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2014-04-02 at 6.04.14 PM

It’s not hard, watching the two debates over future British membership in the European Union, to see why Nigel Farage, the leader of the euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), is such a successful politician.United Kingdom Flag IconEuropean_Union

In the last of two debates with deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Farage asked voters in his closing remarks to ‘join the people’s army and topple the establishment that got us into this mess.’

British viewers apparently agree — in an instant Guardian poll following the debate, they believed that Farage won the debate by a margin of 69% to 31%. The debate precedes the May 22 elections to determine the United Kingdom’s 73 members in the European Parliament.

If former prime minister Margaret Thatcher was the British answer to US president Ronald Reagan, Farage (pictured above) is its answer to Newt Gingrich in his ability to lead an anti-establishment political revolution. In the same way that Thatcher reshaped the Conservative Party in the anti-government, pro-market mould of the US-style conservatism, Farage is reshaping the way that Britons conceive the debate over EU membership, just as Gingrich rewired the nature of political debate in the United States — by attacking the consensus of a longstanding political elite through a simple, compelling message that scrambles the traditional lines between left and right.

Farage is doing to ‘Brussels’ exactly what Gingrich did to ‘Washington.’

Farage’s performance has been so smooth, it’s tantalizing to wonder just how well he might do in a four-way televised debate in the campaign for the May 2015 parliamentary elections alongside not only Clegg, but also Conservative prime minister David Cameron, and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband — or how effective Farage might be leading the ‘no’ campaign in the pending 2017 EU membership referendum, a vote that Cameron was forced to promise to hold (if reelected next year) largely as a result of UKIP’s rise in popularity over the past two years.

Here are just three examples from Wednesday’s debate that show just how effective Farage can be — he manages to argue against EU membership as a champion of greater globalization, of protecting minorities and the working class, and of greater world peace.

You don’t have to buy what Farage is peddling in order to acknowledge that he’s devastatingly effective in framing the UK-EU debate in uniquely new and powerful ways.

It’s no longer an academic point.

A March 26-27 YouGov poll for The Sun shows a three-way race in the European elections: Labour wins 28%, UKIP wins 26% and the Tories win 24%, leaving the LibDems far behind at 11%. Nearly one in two Conservative voters from 2010, and nearly one in five Labour voters, plans to back UKIP. Among the most likely to vote, UKIP leads with 30%.

Continue reading UKIP’s Farage is winning the British debate on Europe →