Domestic Politics Archive

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Thailand’s political scene descended into chaos on Tuesday morning when supposed pro-democracy protesters stormed a television station, took over government buildings and blocked roads in an attempt to force the downfall of a democratically elected government. Samak Sundaravej, a generally unpopular prime minister, has stood firm but resisted using heavy-handed measures that could easily see the return of a military-led government. Oddly enough, a violent response may be exactly what the protesters, led by members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) want. PAD leaders have called the protests “the final showdown” and machetes, sling shots, […]

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It was a long time coming, but the dissident and sometimes mischievous politician Anwar Ibrahim has bloodied the nose of Malaysia’s ruling coalition by winning Tuesday’s by-election, marking his return to parliament and positioning himself for a tilt at the nation’s top job. “The message is clear,” he told thousands of cheering supporters. “We in Permatang Pauh and in Malaysia, we demand change for freedom and justice.” “We want an independent judiciary, we want the economy to benefit the vast majority and not corrupt the few,” he said to the chants of “reformasi” and “merdeka” which […]

Moments of candor from sub-Saharan African politicians are rare, but they do occur. Near the end of 2005, Eriya Kategaya, then a former cabinet minister in Uganda, criticized the role of Western donors in supporting the personal rule of leaders like Yoweri Museveni. “Hinging the destiny of a country to an individual is absolutely not correct,” he said. Granted, Kategaya, once again a cabinet minister, delivered his lament while temporarily ejected from Uganda’s ruling party for opposing Museveni’s push to erase presidential term limits. But that should not blunt his analysis. The West and its development industry have serially backed […]

SAN JOSÉ DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia — At a military base in this eastern town on the edge of the jungle, Juan Manual Santos, Colombia’s defense minister, recently delivered a triumphant appraisal of the country’s fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Just a few years ago, it would have it would have been hard to imagine staging such an event here, for fear of a guerrilla ambush. “We have chosen San José del Guaviare because it symbolized the old Colombia, a country ridden with narcotraffickers, paramilitaries and guerrillas,” said Santos as he addressed the country’s generals and elite troops […]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Last week, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC), the Argentine government’s statistics agency, released the official inflation figure for the month of July: 0.4 percent. Such a report would have caused jubilation among the Argentine public, had they believed it. “It’s a lie,” responded Yamila, a local drama teacher, without hesitation when asked about the figure. The coordinators of the INDEC report appear to be the only ones who have failed to notice the recent price increases in Buenos Aires. Charles, a French researcher who has resided here for the last three months, scoffed […]

ELDORET, Kenya — As he stands amid the rows of mud-strewn tents, Eliud Njoroge recounts a familiar tale in the narrative of this country’s recent post-election crisis. Njoroge, an ethnic Kikuyu, had lived for 32 years in the Kalenjin town of Soy, a stronghold of Raila Odinga, the opposition candidate in last December’s presidential election. When violence erupted following the contested victory of the incumbent Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, Njoroge’s house was burned by machete-wielding youth, and his life threatened by neighbors who demanded that he and his family return to Central Province, the Kikuyu ancestral homeland, where they’d never […]

As Venezuela prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of its Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez has little cause for celebration. His stewardship of the state economy has largely resulted in failure: Income inequality is on the rise while inflation has skyrocketed to nearly 30 percent. Basic food staples — such as milk, eggs, and meat — are scarce, raising fears of a looming food crisis. Violence is rife. Venezuela’s murder rate has grown so ruinous — with more than12,000 homicides in 2007 — that the country no longer releases official data. On the political front, matters are equally troubling. In the […]

AUGUST BLUES — “August is the month when wars start,” wrote the late Al Aronowitz, the rock writer. Both World War I and II started in August, and now the Georgia-Russia conflagration has followed suit. In planning their attempt to retake South Ossetia, did the Georgians think the Russians would all be on vacation and not notice? Their second miscalculation was to forget the lesson of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and somehow believe that their patron, the United States, would step in. That’s what the Hungarians believed when they launched their revolution against the Soviet presence, based mainly on […]

The excitement — however artificially stimulated by opening rock bands and generously inflated crowd estimates — of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin is now passed. What remains are some serious questions: notably, for German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. The two leading Social Democrats — both touted as possible candidates for the chancellorship in the 2009 German elections — were also the two politicians most closely associated with the push to have the American presidential candidate give a high-profile public speech in the German capital. It is a well-established principle of international law that […]

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — On the road into Tripoli from the south, Lebanon’s condo- and casino-dotted coastline rises sharply inland to hills crowded with apartments, churches and mosques. Cable cars running to the high ground provide spectacular views of the turquoise Mediterranean to the west, and of Beirut to the south. Further on, as traffic enters Tripoli, a reassuring sign overhead reads: “Relax, you are in Al-Mina, the city of waves and horizon.” Al-Mina is the name for the section of the city surrounding the pristine harbor, where tourists can take boat trips to islands in the Mediterranean, under the shadow […]

ISTANBUL, Turkey — It seems a rarity these days that a political party’s religiosity would work against it. In the last several decades, parties with religious affiliations have scored victory after victory in voting booths around the world, and seldom does their piety put them in jeopardy. Yet in Turkey, where the country’s secular establishment still wields considerable power, that’s very nearly what happened this week when its national court narrowly avoided banning the majority AK Party — a coalition of moderates with decidedly Islamic roots — from the country’s political scene. The court’s decision brought an end to a […]