Domestic Politics Archive

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez will be seeking an unprecedented third 6-year term when voters go to the polls on Oct. 7. But this time, the challenge from opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski is expected to be credible, in what many analysts believe will be Chávez’s closest contest since his initial election in 1998. Capriles was able to unite a historically divided political opposition by winning the February 2012 primary in decisive fashion, taking 62 percent of the popular vote. His victory galvanized a wide spectrum of political parties behind a single opposition candidate for the first time since Chávez took […]

Vietnam has made international headlines in recent weeks, but for all the wrong reasons. Vietnam’s dynamic economy, which until recently dominated news coverage of the country, has been replaced by accounts of economic decline, political infighting and the arrest of leading figures tied to the party leadership. Until a few years ago, because of its remarkable economic growth — about 7 percent a year — Vietnam was considered one of the world’s hottest emerging markets and a rising Asian star racing to catch up with its neighbors. However, all of that is apparently over: The country’s economy has slowed sharply, […]

The Indian government finally approved a plan last week to allow international firms such as Wal-Mart to own 51 percent of multibrand retail stores. In an email interview, Pravakar Sahoo, an associate professor at the Institute for Economic Growth in India, discussed India’s retail opening. WPR: What concrete changes will the retail opening bring to India’s economy? Pravakar Sahoo: The approval of 51 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multibrand retailing, which was initially approved by the Cabinet in November 2011 after two years of deliberation but suspended due to the ensuing political furor, is a big step. It will […]

In the years that preceded the Arab Uprisings, the term “Islamist,” particularly in the West, often carried connotations of a monolithic movement. The word served as shorthand, but it blurred significant distinctions that have long existed within the movement. Political Islam has always included a variety of views, particularly regarding timing and tactics. Islamists have long held differing positions regarding the acceptability of violence, and they have stood at numerous points along an ideological axis that ranges from gradualism and moderation to fast-track radicalism. Since the fall of a number of Arab dictatorships, however, it has become even more apparent […]

In the first palpable sign that the social unrest that has plagued Greece during recent years is now spreading to Spain, demonstrators have clashed with police in the Spanish capital over new government austerity measures. Video News by NewsLook

President Hugo Chavez’s image is getting a makeover with a graffiti campaign as his challenger tries to convince young voters their government has failed them. Video News by NewsLook

Fifteen years ago, the peace process in Northern Ireland was at a critical juncture. With the IRA having restored its cease-fire at the end of July 1997, Sinn Fein was judged to be in compliance with the so-called Mitchell Principles and admitted to the peace talks that would eventually produce the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (.pdf) in April 1998. However, Sinn Fein’s entry into the process prompted the exit of Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, which refused to negotiate with what it considered to be a terrorist group. A decade and a half later, the DUP and Sinn Fein co-exist in […]

Perhaps no contemporary political figure is more emblematic of where El Salvador stands 20 years after the end of its bloody armed conflict than the country’s current president, Mauricio Funes. In winning the 2009 election, Funes became the first president elected from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the political offshoot of El Salvador’s guerrilla insurgency, breaking the 20-year reign of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). Like the other two Cold War-era civil wars in Central America, El Salvador’s internal armed conflict pitted the country’s anti-communist military government against guerilla groups that took up arms to pursue political, […]

In India, a growing number of political leaders are threatening to withdraw their support for the governing coalition of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the face of new economic measures that, among other changes, allow for greater foreign investment by global retail giants in India’s heretofore protected domestic retail sector.* The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mamata Banerjee, the populist chief minister of West Bengal, announced that her party, the Trinamool Congress, would formally leave the government. Meanwhile, Kunal Ghosh, a member of the Indian Parliament from the same party, suggested that Singh should resign. “India is passing through […]

One hot day last July, India — one of the world’s largest, fastest-growing economies — suddenly and unexpectedly ground to a halt. Unable to handle soaring electricity demand, much of the country’s electrical grid collapsed, leaving more than 600 million people without power. Observers abroad reacted in disbelief. At home, exasperated residents responded in a manner that tells us much about what electrical service has come to signify in emerging economies. A common joke asked, What do you call a power failure in Delhi? Answer: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In other words, an electrical failure is a power failure — […]

Some commentators have argued that last week’s attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia will strengthen the radical and anti-Western Islamic factions in those countries. However, a number of political and economic realities suggest that the violent attacks might instead marginalize the extremists and strengthen these countries’ moderate Islamists. In Tunisia and Egypt, recent elections resulted in governing coalitions led by moderate Islamist parties. But gaining control of the executive branch has made moderate Islamists responsible for dealing with the mounting economic and social problems that have plagued both countries since the 2011 uprisings. Indeed, in both countries, […]

Three separate incidents this week have all highlighted how the growing distraction in Washington over the upcoming U.S. presidential election is undermining U.S. diplomacy. The first has to do with the territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands, possession of which confers exploitation rights to the lucrative fishing grounds and vast offshore hydrocarbon fields in the exclusive economic zone that surrounds them. The Japanese government earlier this week announced that it would buy the islands from the family that holds the deed to the property, raising tensions with China, which also claims the islands as the Diaoyou. […]

When Peruvian voters headed to the polls last year, the presidential election looked like a proxy contest for two radical views of the South American country’s future. Ollanta Humala, who emerged victorious, had left advocates of free-market economic policies feeling nervous due to his past support for the policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Humala had previously run for president as an anti-business socialist in 2006, and before that, he had attempted a military coup in 2000. Many voters worried he would take the country in a radical, populist, anti-market direction. More than a year later, Humala’s presidency could not […]

New strikes are hitting South Africa’s mining Industry. Gold Fields — the world’s fourth largest gold miner — is the latest victim and there’s still no sign of an end to the crisis at Lonmin’s Marikana mine. Video News by NewsLook

In Kenya, clashes between rival tribal groups in the Tana River area continued this week, as tensions over access to land and water triggered revenge attacks between the seminomadic Orma pastoralist community and the Pokomo farming community.* On Monday and Tuesday, more houses were set on fire, forcing many to flee and driving the death toll higher. Meanwhile, with the government so far unable to restore order to the region, deadly riots also raged on in the port city of Mombasa, following the killing of a radical Muslim preacher. “What is going on between the Pokomo and the Orma is […]

Colombia and the leftist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to launch peace negotiations. Chile and Venezuela will be observers at the talks, which will begin in Oslo, Norway, and continue in Havana, Cuba. As the Washington Post reported, the talks represent a “new attempt to end the Western Hemisphere’s longest-running conflict” and the first such effort since three years of negotiations “ended disastrously in 2002.” Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, offered several reasons why the talks could possibly succeed this time around. “The Colombian security forces […]

The Indian financial capital of Mumbai is struggling to realize its dream of becoming the South Asian nation’s version of China’s Shanghai. Ill-equipped and underpaid, laborers working on the expansion of Mumbai’s infrastructure face the greatest risks.