Domestic Politics Archive

JOHANNESBURG — The divisions that have time and again beset South Africa’s tripartite alliance — consisting of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) — have returned to haunt the union and further threaten its existence. This time, the rifts are playing themselves out in a devastating public-service strike that pits South Africa’s president and head of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, on one side and the leftist allies that propelled him to power within his party and the country on the other. No sooner had Zuma […]

JUBA, Sudan — In an exclusive interview, Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit told World Politics Review that he doesn’t think “there is any point where southerners will declare a unilateral independence.” The semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan will hold a referendum in January 2011 on whether to secede from the North. The vote is one of the final steps of a comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 that ended the country’s two-decade long civil war. At a Congressional hearing (.pdf) last year, former U.S. envoy to Sudan Roger Winter said the South’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation […]

At the beginning of this year, I made the following observation: The novelty of the Obama presidency has worn off. What remains will be a long, hard slog of rebuilding America’s global position. And while the fancy rhetoric of 2009 convinced many to give Washington a second chance, 2010 needs to be the year of delivery. If not, Obama will discover, as Bush did before him, that America cannot lead if others will not follow. More than halfway through 2010, the Obama administration has made some progress on a number of the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. There […]

In voting overwhelmingly to support a new constitution, Kenyans sent a clear message on Aug. 4 about the need for reform in a country brought nearly to its knees by corruption and bad governance. And in going to the polls peacefully and en masse, capping a campaign season that included a bomb attack in the early days and persistent rumors of preparations for rancor around the country, the more than 70 percent of eligible voters who cast their ballots spoke volumes about the need to obviate the memory of previous elections: the last of which left more than 1,000 dead […]

Leaders from Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) recently announced their intention to run on a joint ticket in the 2011 race for the governorship of the state of Guerrero, and have begun talks to collaborate in an additional four state races. The announcement follows July’s defeat of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) at the hands of the PAN-PRD alliance in gubernatorial races held in three PRI strongholds — Oaxaca, Puebla and Sinaloa — and signals the increasing collaboration between Mexico’s main center-right (PAN) and center-left (PRD) parties as the 2012 presidential contest nears. The […]

BEIJING — Over the past decade and more, China has capitalized on critical transformations in the global landscape to forge new patterns of political and economic influence and significantly further its national interests. But in so doing, it has also become exposed to a growing matrix of risks to its capacity for continued international expansion. While this exposure has rendered China more vulnerable to external actors and threats, the greatest obstacles facing the country’s future trajectory ultimately come from structural deficiencies in the domestic political economy. In the international arena, although China’s most recent gains have been impressive, much of […]

Early this Monday, a small barrage of rockets struck the Red Sea cities of Eilat, in Israel and Aqaba, in Jordan. The missiles, which appeared to come from the Sinai, inside Egyptian territory, killed one Jordanian man and injured five. While few doubted the main target of the attack was Israel, it was less clear who exactly launched the rockets. Jordanian authorities claimed they had proof the strikes had originated in Egypt, while Egypt promptly blamed Hamas, which quickly denied any responsibility. Once again, Hamas and Egypt found themselves in a familiar position — on opposite sides of a dispute. […]

LIMA, Peru — With the entire western Amazon experiencing oil and mining booms, indigenous groups in the Amazon Basin and the Andes — already fighting encroachment by loggers and small-scale farmers, or else struggling to obtain title for their ancestral land — have now stepped up their resistance to efforts to exploit oil reserves, mineral deposits and other natural resources in and nearby their communities. In response, the region’s presidents have accused native leaders and environmentalists who help them of everything from terrorism to being U.S. lackeys. The trends cut across ideological divides. Peruvian President Alan Garcia has taken a […]

According to Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadij, the insurgent group is very happy about the Dutch military withdrawal from Afghanistan that began on Sunday. “We want to wholeheartedly congratulate the citizens and government of the Netherlands for having the courage . . . to take this independent decision,” Ahmadij told the Dutch daily Volkskrant, adding that, “We hope that other countries with troops stationed in Afghanistan will follow the Netherlands’ example.” Ahmadij’s remarks, though intended to be provocative, in fact raise key questions — namely, how many other countries will indeed follow the Netherlands’ example, and how quickly. The decision […]