Tag Archives: aguirre

Philippines

De Lima’s arrest represents sharp turn against Philippine rule of law

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Leila de Lima, a top Duterte critic, was jailed Friday on drug-related corruption charges in the Philippines.

Nearly 7,000 people have died in the Philippines since controversial president Rodrigo Duterte launched his ‘drug war’ last July, following his insurgent populist victory.

Last week, the chief domestic critic of Duterte’s human rights record, senator Leila de Lima, was imprisoned on charges of drug-related corruption — charges that have been widely met with disgust from human rights groups who say that her arrest is politically motivated.

Since taking power, Duterte has bragged about killing drug dealers himself when he served as mayor of of Davao City, all while encouraging police (and others) to engage in extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers. Last September, Duterte threatened to kill up to 3 million drug addicts, likening himself to Adolf Hitler.

As human rights watchdogs across the world continue to sound alarms, Duterte’s encouragement is already showing signs of spiraling out of control, with far more suspected criminals killed at the hands of vigilante groups than the official police. A South Korean businessman was strangled to death in policy custody, forcing even the sharp-tongued Duterte to pause for a moment. Nevertheless, Duterte has pledged to continue his aggressive campaign through the end of his six-year presidential term in 2022. His blunt speaking, often in vulgar terms, has brought him popularity with an electorate that elected him to be tough on crime and on drug use. Even as Duterte risks becoming an international pariah over human rights, Philippines still give him an 83% approval rating as of the beginning of 2017.

De Lima, who previously served as the chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights under former president Gloria Macagapal-Arroyo and as the country’s justice secretary under Benigno (‘NoyNoy’) Aquino III from 2010 to 2015, has called Duterte a ‘murderer’ and a ‘sociopathic serial killer.’ De Lima has led the fight against Duterte’s drug war from the Senate, the 24-member upper house of the Philippine Congress. Last September, Duterte’s allies removed her from the Senate’s Justice and Human Rights Committee, where she hoped to investigate the abuses of the drug war, most notably the extrajudicial killings.

The two politicians have a difficult history. In 2009, when she was still heading the human rights commission, De Lima first investigated rumors of ‘death squads’ in Davao City, where Duterte served as mayor for over two decades, for the first time in 1988, prior to his election to the presidency last May.

Upon surrendering to authorities Friday morning, De Lima embraced her new, jarring role as one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners: Continue reading De Lima’s arrest represents sharp turn against Philippine rule of law →

Spain

Spain heads toward fresh elections on June 26

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Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, could fall if his party drops to third place in June. (Facebook)

Shortly after the December general election, I wrote that Spain faced three possible choices — a German-style grand coalition, a Portuguese-style ‘coalition of the left’ or a Greek-style stalemate and fresh elections. Spain_Flag_Icon

Spain chose the Greek option.

Five months after a national election ripped apart Spain’s decades-long two-party system, the failure of the country’s four major parties to reach a coalition agreement means that Spain’s voters will once again go to the polls on June 26 for a fresh vote, after a deadline ran out on midnight Tuesday to find a viable government.

Notably, the rerun of Spain’s national elections will fall just three days after the United Kingdom votes on whether to leave the European Union, a critical vote for the entire continent.

spain deputies

The problem is that, with talks stalled for any conceivable governing majority, the Spanish electorate seems set to repeat results similar to last December’s election. For now, markets are not unduly spooked by the political impasse in Madrid, but continued uncertainty through the second half of 2016 could prove different if no clear government emerges from the new elections and, presumably, a new round of coalition talks brokered by Spain’s young new king, Felipe VI.

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RELATED: Three choices for new fractured political landscape

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So who are the four major parties and how do they stand heading into the June vote? Continue reading Spain heads toward fresh elections on June 26 →

Spain

Can Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy survive the kickback scandal?

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It’s hard not to feel some compassion for Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy’s government, which limped to its one-year anniversary only in December 2012.Spain_Flag_Icon

In that time, Rajoy’s government has weathered all of the following:

  • the passage of four budget cut packages and painful tax increases — income tax rates have increased, tax breaks for home owners have been eliminated and the Spanish value-added tax increased from 18% to 21%;
  • a volatile bond market that saw Spanish 10-year rates peak at 7.50% briefly at the end of July 2012, and the constant specter of yet another sovereign debt crisis;
  • an increase in the Spanish unemployment rate to 26%, just narrowly below Greece’s 26.8% unemployment rate;
  • yet another contraction in 2012 to Spanish GDP (1.4%) with a 1.5% contraction forecast for 2013;
  • a European bailout in June 2012 of €40 billion for Bankia, a conglomerate of conglomerate of cajas (savings banks) with exposure to Spain’s sagging real estate market, despite Rajoy’s campaign promise not to seek or accept a bailout;
  • the avoidance of a full European bailout of Spanish sovereign debt, while cagily working to ensure that the terms of any eventually bailout are on terms as favorable as possible (in part by holding out until the last possible moment for any potential future bailout);
  • a separatist coalition, propped up by former leftist supporters of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), took control of the regional Basque government in October 2012;
  • a high-profile showdown with Catalan premier Artur Mas in advance of Catalunya’s regional elections in November 2012 that exacerbated federal-Catalan tensions and all but assured a showdown over holding an independence referendum in 2014.

But now Rajoy’s government — and Rajoy personally — is facing perhaps its biggest crisis yet, in the form of an entirely self-inflicted scandal over slush funds, when it was reported last week that Luis Bárcenas, the former treasurer of Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party), had been keeping unofficial books that provided expense payments for party leaders, including Rajoy, who received payments of up to €25,000 annually from 1997 to 2008.

The accusations come in addition to an ongoing investigation into the prior PP government of José María Aznar, the so-called Gürtel scandal involving kickbacks for contracts.  The most recent allegations involve slush funds, whereby proceeds came to Bárcenas from private construction companies and went out as payments to top party officials.  So the latest allegations could now also become a major focus of a judicial inquiry into the Gürtel corruption matter, endangering Rajoy’s government.

Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, leader of the center-left opposition Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), called on Rajoy to resign as prime minister last Sunday, and 10-year bond rates are already creeping back up once again.

Rajoy’s resignation could open a further Pandora’s box of adverse outcomes for Spain, including the appointment of an even more right-wing prime minister (ahem, Esperanza Aguirre) and early elections result in strengthening more radical leftists, in the same way that Greece’s 2012 parliamentary elections strengthened SYRIZA, a coalition of the radical left, in the Hellenic parliament.

Rajoy didn’t help matters much on Monday, when he perplexingly explained that reports are all ‘untrue — except for some things.’

That’s certainly not a great reassurance for Spain or for Europe — the last thing the European Union wants, with a Cyprus bailout now on the horizon, is for a political scandal to launch Spain into even more turmoil or cause financial panic anew.  German chancellor Angela Merkel, of course, is widely seen as hoping to wait through her reelection campaign later this year before pursuing any dramatic action on a new European treaty or more decisive action in the eurozone.  Continue reading Can Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy survive the kickback scandal? →

Basque Country, Catalunya, Galicia, Spain

Six ways in which Sunday’s Galician and Basque elections will affect the Rajoy government

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Just over 10% of Spain’s population will vote in regional elections this weekend in two key regions, Galicia and Euskadi (the Basque Country), but the elections will play a role in shaping the national politics that affect the remaining 90% of Spain at what’s an especially precarious time for the government of center-right prime minister Mariano Rajoy (pictured above with Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo).

Although Rajoy’s Partido Popular (PP, People’s Party) only recently came to power in November 2011, after the eight-year government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and the center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), Rajoy has faced an unenviably difficult climate.  Spain’s economy is contracting this year after two years of tepid growth under 1%, which followed a contraction in 2008-09.  Unemployment is now just over 25%, among the highest in the eurozone.

Despite the tough economic conditions, Zapatero’s government, and now Rajoy’s government, have been relentless in slashing the Spanish budget.  Although Spain ran a fairly tight fiscal policy throughout the 2000s, the drop in tax revenue has resulted in an exploding budget deficit, which Rajoy hopes to reduce to just 6.3% of GDP this year (and 4.5% next year and 3% in 2014), in order to prevent yields on Spanish debt from rising to dangerous levels.

In less than a year, Rajoy has passed at least four different budget cut packages, including a raise in the Spanish income tax rate, a 3% hike in the Spanish value-added tax from 18% to 21%, the elimination of tax breaks for home owners and spending cuts for education and health care.  Furthermore, each of Spain’s regions are responsible for cutting their own budgets to just 1.5% of GDP.

Although Rajoy campaigned on a promise not to seek any bailouts from the European Union, like Greece has done, everyone in the EU believes it’s only a matter of time before Rajoy requests one — the European Central Bank has already provided emergency funding to prop up Bankia and other beleaguered Spanish banks in June.  Unlike with Greece, however, the most likely path for a Spanish bailout would be through a temporary credit line through the European Stability Mechanism, triggering the purchase of Spanish debt by the European Central Bank.

So on Sunday, when election results roll in from Galicia and Euskadi, here are six items to consider about how the results could affect the Rajoy government and Spain’s national politics: Continue reading Six ways in which Sunday’s Galician and Basque elections will affect the Rajoy government →