Domestic Politics Archive

Earlier this month, Mozambique passed an amnesty law that will allow Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the opposition Renamo party, to return from hiding and run in the Oct. 15 presidential election. In an email interview, Elisabete Azevedo-Harman, research fellow at Chatham House, discussed the evolving political landscape in Mozambique. WPR: How much support do the Renamo and ruling Frelimo parties have, and is there a clear front-runner for October’s elections? Elisabete Azevedo-Harman: Mozambique does not have a tradition of comprehensive electoral polls and it is therefore not possible to predict outcomes. General perceptions indicate that Frelimo and its presidential candidate […]

The life story of Brazil’s Marina Silva is so unlikely that she explains key moments as the result of divine intervention. Among the most dramatic and potentially life-changing of all the unlikely turns came last week, when a private plane in which she was supposed to be traveling crashed, killing Socialist Party presidential candidate Eduardo Campos and suddenly turning her into a formidable contender for the presidency of Brazil. Silva, a charismatic environmental activist and former environment minister with an ideology that does not fit neatly into any single current, was Campos’ running mate on the Socialist Party ticket for […]

Two Indian police officers were injured over the weekend when Maoist insurgents detonated a landmine below their convoy. In an email interview, P.V. Ramana, a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, discussed the insurgency of Maoist groups, also known as Naxalites, and the Modi administration’s response. WPR: What is the current status of the Naxalite insurgency in India? P.V. Ramana: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was banned in 2009 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967. The Maoist insurgents have a presence to varying degree—intense to negligible—in 182 districts across 20 […]

The United States is at a transitional point in its national security strategy at least as important as the one after Vietnam and perhaps as crucial as the opening years of the Cold War. Although debate today about America’s future role in the world is limited to think tanks, academia and the media, during the 2016 presidential campaign, this will change. National security will move into the limelight as differing visions within and between the Democratic and Republican parties clarify policy options and choices. For both U.S. and global security, much will be at stake. It is, of course, too […]

On Jan. 25, 1986, rebel fighters overran the final hideouts of Uganda’s crumbling military government of Tito Okello after five years of bush war and tens of thousands of deaths. Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) concluded its Maoist-inspired insurgency with a promise to end 24 years of violent, corrupt and militarized post-independence politics. The 42-year-old Museveni became an American ally, economic liberalizer and, in the eyes of many Ugandans, a youthful visionary who would marry the leftist progressivism of Julius Nyerere in Tanzania with the realpolitik exigencies of post-Cold War politics and Western hegemony. Nearly 30 years on, an […]

Malaysia’s opposition coalition risks being torn apart after its leader Anwar Ibrahim sacked the chief minister of Selangor, the country’s most populous state. In an email interview, Clive Kessler, professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales, discussed the state of Malaysia’s opposition. WPR: How is the current leadership struggle affecting the unity of Malaysia’s opposition? Clive Kessler: The opposition Pakatan Rakyat, or Popular Front, coalition is not really a coalition. The Pakatan is an election-day pact: an agreement that opposition parties will not run against each other in the same constituencies and split the opposition vote. Their agreement […]

By Aug. 24, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court must deliver a ruling on the legal challenge mounted by presidential contender Prabowo Subianto to last month’s hotly contested and highly polarized election. Prabowo has questioned the legitimacy of the poll, in which Jakarta’s governor, Joko Widodo—or Jokowi as he is popularly known—was declared the winner with 53.15 percent of the vote. It is widely anticipated that the Constitutional Court will rule against Prabowo and uphold Jokowi’s victory. If so, Jokowi would be sworn in on Oct. 20 as the seventh president of the world’s third-largest democracy and most populous Muslim country. A former […]

Last month South Korea unveiled a $40 billion economic stimulus package designed to boost a lagging growth rate. In an email interview, Dwight Perkins, professor emeritus of political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, discussed the state of South Korea’s economy. WPR: What are the main factors behind South Korea’s recent economic slowdown? Dwight Perkins: South Korea’s growth averaged 3 percent between 2011-2013. That rate of growth is slightly below South Korea’s average growth rate over the past nine years, but that is hardly surprising given the weaknesses in European and North American economic performance. We do not […]

In an address to Foreign Ministry officials on Aug. 11, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani did not hold back his frustration with critics who have regularly slammed his administration’s nuclear negotiations with the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, known as the P5+1. Sharply deviating from his usual calm and moderate tone, Rouhani told his critics to go “to hell.” “Some people deliver slogans but they are political cowards and as soon as there is talk of negotiations they say ‘we’re trembling,’” Rouhani said. “Go and find a warm place for yourselves,” he added. “God has made you fearful […]

Last week Bulgaria nominated Kristalina Georgieva to be the European Union foreign policy chief. Her nomination appears to be gaining momentum after several countries, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, raised objections to Italy’s candidate, Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, given her close ties to Russia. The debate over the selection of the next EU foreign policy chief highlights the east-west divide that has existed since the bloc’s 2004 enlargement, when 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU. The very different histories of Eastern and Western Europe since World War II have shaped the political, cultural and economic […]

Nations across Europe are commemorating the centennial of World War I, but in Hungary the bitter memory of the war has always lingered. Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which left roughly one-third of ethnic Magyars in neighboring countries. Even today, maps with the pre-Trianon borders are a common sight in Hungary, a country whose nationalist drift is increasingly a source of alarm within the European Union. In April, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative Fidesz party maintained its majority in parliament in national elections, which also saw 20 percent of the vote go to […]

Ironically for Poland, World War II—a conflict that officially started in order to defend Polish sovereignty and territorial integrity—resulted in the country ceasing to exist as an independent state and military actor. During the Cold War, the Polish People’s Republic military, which was the second-strongest member of the Warsaw Pact after the Soviet Union, primarily served Moscow’s plans, rather than Polish national interests. Formed with little divergence from Soviet vision and doctrine, it was large, with over 400,000 troops in peacetime; heavy, with over 7,000 tanks and armored vehicles; hierarchical; and devoid of indigenous strategic guidance. The fall of the […]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fulfilled practically everyone’s predictions by winning the country’s first direct presidential election Sunday. But rather than putting an end to the divisive political battles that have roiled the country and the inflammatory stance that has strained Turkey’s relations with neighbors, Erdogan’s victory promises to usher in yet another era of contentious domestic and international politics. The newly elected, soon-to-be President Erdogan will start a new phase of his plan to become an even more dominant figure in Turkey’s political landscape for many more years to come. As Ian Bremmer put it on Twitter following […]

This year, while Europe commemorated 100 years since the beginning of World War I, a long-forgotten conflict on the edge of the continent rumbled on. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a contest for control over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 25 years. Beginning as an obscure conflict in a remote Soviet province during perestroika, the Nagorno-Karabakh stand-off has evolved into an enduring rivalry between two independent states, profoundly affecting both and casting a consistent shadow of insecurity across the South Caucasus. The conflict began in 1988, when a movement formed by the local Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh, then an […]

On Aug. 1, heavy clashes erupted along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, prompting worries that the unresolved conflict over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh was about to reignite into a full-fledged war. With a death toll of at least 15, the skirmish was the worst outburst of violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the cease-fire protocol came into effect in 1994. Publicly, each side has tried to blame the other for the escalation. However, a number of factors suggest that the recent escalation might have less to do with the two belligerent parties and more with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s growing geopolitical […]

Last month, scientists discovered that the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), so far responsible for just under 300 deaths in Saudi Arabia, may spread through the air. In an email interview, Jeremy Youde, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, discussed Saudi Arabia’s public health system and its response to the MERS outbreak. WPR: What is the current status of the MERS outbreak, both in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf region more generally? Jeremy Youde: WHO has identified 837 cases of MERS and at least 291 deaths. More than 80 percent of the cases are […]

Eyebrows arched in Chile at the end of July when President Michelle Bachelet canceled her participation in a summit of MERCOSUR leaders in Caracas, Venezuela, to focus on her domestic agenda. Critics suggested this was because her signature education reforms are in trouble. The Chilean president was elected for a second time at the end of 2013 and inaugurated in March with a mandate for overhauling the country’s education system, and she has moved quickly to introduce the first phase of a process that will ultimately lead to universal free higher education by 2020. Students have been a well-organized and […]