Domestic Politics Archive

The newly elected government of socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou faces massive pressure from EU member states to tackle its budget deficit and growing public debt. Brussels fears that the Greek economy’s continued slide could create a contagion effect across the eurozone and pose a threat to the stability of the common currency. “The Greek example is putting us under great, great pressures,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said recently, setting aside her usual diplomatic tone. “The euro is in a very difficult phase for the coming years,” she added. The euro rests on the Stability and Growth Pact adopted in […]

As the dust settles from the first round of Ukraine’s 2010 presidential elections, two things are clear: First, the hero of the Orange Revolution of 2004, Viktor Yushchenko, was decisively defeated; and second, both of the run-off contenders, Yuliya Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych, are likely to follow through on pledges to improve relations with Russia if elected. The last time Ukrainians went to the polls to select a president, the battle between Yushchenko and Yanukovych was portrayed as an apocalyptic clash, presenting a momentous choice for Ukrainians between a bright future with the West and a return to its post-Soviet […]

A coalition government formed early last year is seen by many Zimbabweans as the last hope for a country that has long teetered on the edge of open conflict. In February 2009, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party agreed to form a fragile unity government with the Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), the party of long-time autocrat, President Robert Mugabe. The two parties’ power-sharing deal, brokered by the Southern African Development Corporation, was meant to head off potential widespread violence following disputed presidential and parliamentary elections in March 2008. The election, in which Mugabe finished […]

“I have . . . decided to open a new page in the ongoing reforms I am spearheading. Indeed, we shall soon be launching a gradual, sophisticated process of regionalization which will cover all parts of the kingdom, especially the Moroccan Sahara region.” — King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Nov. 6, 2008, 33rd anniversary of the Green March Introduction In a speech on Nov. 6, 2008, King Mohammed VI of Morocco announced his plan to decentralize the kingdom, including the Western Sahara. The date marked the 33rd anniversary of the Green March, when 350,000 unarmed Moroccans crossed into Spain’s former […]

Chile has not voted a right-wing president into office since Jorge Alessandri campaigned and won as an independent, center-right candidate in March 1958. But Sebastián Piñera may well break that precedent on Jan. 17. Having won the first-round election on Dec. 13 with 44 percent of the vote, Piñera fell shy of the simple majority required to avoid a run-off. He now faces Eduardo Frei, a former president representing the governing center-left Concertación coalition, who took only 30 percent of the first-round vote. In a country that has not seen a right-wing government since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship […]

India continues to burnish its international image with initiatives like Brand India, a public-private campaign whose stated mission is to “build positive perceptions of India globally.” But when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged the country’s undernourished children as a “national shame,” it highlighted how India’s economic success co-exists with its persistently high rates for hunger, malnutrition, and income poverty. According to the World Bank, 46 percent of Indian children below the age of five are underweight, and the World Food Program says that 230 million Indians are living with hunger. Clearly India’s robust 8 percent growth in GDP does […]

NEW DELHI — Fly three hours in just about any direction from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, and you’re likely to land in a zone of either ongoing or recently resolved armed conflict — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma for the former, Sri Lanka and Nepal for the latter. What might be surprising, though, is that those odds are not diminished if you travel by road within India. As a result of structural complexities inherent to the Indian state, New Delhi faces internal security challenges that range from terrorism and militant Naxal extremism to insurgencies and proxy wars. Violence, […]

Bereft of an ally since the collapse of monarchical rule in Nepal nearly four years ago, China has been struggling to secure its place in the buffer state, wedged between China’s volatile Tibet region and its regional rival, India. Hardly a month goes by now without a high-level Chinese delegation arriving in Kathmandu seeking assurances on its security interests. In February 2005, China offered then-King Gyanendra a lifeline by calling his seizure of power, which otherwise prompted widespread international condemnation, an internal matter. A year later, when the royal regime no longer seemed tenable, China scrambled to build ties with […]

On Jan. 9, North and South Sudan marked the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that brought an end to Africa’s longest civil war, but the mood has been anything but celebratory as the two sides proceed toward a referendum over Southern secession. Long-simmering ethnic tensions in the South are boiling into unrest — stoked, according to many in the Southern capital of Juba, by a Khartoum government unwilling to contemplate the oil-rich South’s seemingly inevitable secession. A massacre in Warrap state on Jan. 7, that left at least 139 dead and nearly 100 injured, was the latest clash […]

MADRID — Spain’s six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, which began on Jan. 1, 2010, is off to a bumpy start. With the Lisbon Treaty now in effect, the traditional role of the EU rotating presidency has been downgraded. Responsibility for many issues which were once the domain of the rotating presidency now falls to the newly named permanent EU president, Herman Van Rompuy, and EU foreign minister, Catherine Ashton — who together are supposed to comprise the new “public face” of the EU. Nevertheless, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has announced a series of ambitious initiatives […]

For the past seven months, countless parallels have been drawn between the current uprising gripping Iran and the events that ultimately led to the demise of the Pahlavi monarchy some 30 years ago. Whether or not the comparisons are accurate, one irony that cannot be escaped is that the regime is facing increasingly vocal dissent from the very clerical class that brought it to power. In fact, as the Islamic Republic deviates more and more from its theocratic roots and transforms into a military dictatorship, it risks alienating the very marjas who have given it legitimacy since its inception. Most […]

ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatian voters face a stark choice this Sunday when they go to the polls to elect a new president, between the Social Democrat, Ivo Josipovic, and the former Social Democrat and Zagreb’s mayor, Milan Bandic. The outcome of the election will serve as a litmus test of the country’s European aspirations, and could have an impact on regional stability. Although the president’s constitutional powers were much curtailed under incumbent, Stipe Mesic, the office still carries considerable weight, according to Josip Kregar, an independent member of the Zagreb city council. “Croatia is a young democracy and the personality […]

Chile’s left-wing Concertación coalition might very well lose the presidency for the first time since the country’s return to democracy in 1990. But don’t blame outgoing President Michelle Bachelet. With record-high approval ratings, Bachelet would be a shoe-in for a second term, if not for the constitutional prohibition on consecutive re-election. Instead, as the country’s first woman president and, before that, its first woman defense minister, Bachelet will undoubtedly be remembered for breaking the gender barrier to Chile’s most powerful positions. She also appointed equal numbers of men and women to her cabinet when she took office in 2005. Subsequent […]

This WPR Special Report compiles news, analysis and opinion from WPR’s pages to provide insight into the Mexican government’s war against the criminal enterprises that control the country’s drug trade. The report includes expert analysis on the war on the ground, the local and federal response to the problem, and the future of Mexican politics and policy. Below are links to each article, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a pdf version of the report. Not a subscriber? Subscribe now, or try our subscription service for free. The Pre-2009 Environment ‘Merida Initiative’ Would Provide Counter-Drug Aid […]

Last month, the Indian central government abruptly ended days of violent protests by carving out a federal state for the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. In an effort to end a five-decade-long internal conflict, the world’s largest democracy ceded a state for the greater good of stability and governance. India’s war-weary neighbor, Sri Lanka, would do well to take a page from New Delhi’s playbook as it looks to foster peaceful relations with its own minority Tamil population. The Sri Lankan government must take advantage of its recent military defeat of the Tamil Tigers insurgency (LTTE) by negotiating for political […]

The governments of the United States and its NATO allies routinely characterize Afghan President Hamid Karzai as corrupt and incompetent. These unjust accusations come after the West grossly mishandled Karzai for years, often placing damaging and contradictory pressures on him since he assumed the presidency in 2004. Karzai’s recent decision to expel two ministers tarnished by graft allegations is a positive sign of his efforts to improve the effectiveness and transparency of his administration, one that warrants recognition from the often-critical international community as a concrete example of good governance. The silence from the West following these firings speaks volumes […]

Introduction In recent years, Ghana has made impressive progress with regards to socio-economic and political development. This has lead to contemporary Western media and international donors portraying the country not merely as a success story, but as a model for Africa. While some elections in Africa have been followed by violent conflicts and other political struggles, Ghana has held five relatively peaceful and successful national elections between 1992 and 2008, including two that resulted in an alternation of power between parties. In particular, to the extent that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost the December 2008 presidential election by […]