Domestic Politics Archive

Last week, in a bid to end a months-long political crisis, Guinea-Bissau’s president, Jose Mario Vaz, swore in a new government after initial talks collapsed with Prime Minister Carlos Correia over the formation of a Cabinet. Correia is the third prime minister to hold the post since August, as intraparty rivalries have left Guinea-Bissau without a functioning government for months, risking international aid to a country trying to recover from its latest military coup in 2012. But Guinea-Bissau is not in the clear yet, as the underlying institutional differences at the root of this standoff clearly haven’t been solved yet. […]

When you’re a global superpower with worldwide interests and responsibilities, it’s hard to come up with a very short list of priorities that will set the agenda and organize the bureaucracy. But that’s just what presidential candidates—and sometimes policymakers—have to do when trying to convince voters of the wisdom of their national security to-do lists. In recent days, we heard just such an exercise from the Democratic presidential candidates, as well as a variation of it from Secretary of State John Kerry. At last week’s debate, when asked to name “the greatest national security threat to the United States,” the […]

Last week, when Vanuatu’s president, Baldwin Lonsdale, was out of the country, the speaker of Parliament pardoned himself and 13 lawmakers for allegedly accepting bribes to vote down the previous government. On Friday, 11 of the 14 pardoned parliamentarians were arrested. In an email interview, Derek Brien, the executive director of the Vanuatu-based Pacific Institute of Public Policy, discussed politics in Vanuatu. WPR: What explains Vanuatu’s historical political instability, and what impact has it had on the country’s governance and democracy? Derek Brien: The electoral system rewards personality politics and facilitates minority representation. It also complicates party dynamics, as candidates […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. Bolivian President Evo Morales has overseen remarkable economic growth since he took office in 2006, and last year the economy grew by 5.4 percent, thanks in large part to exports of gas and other natural resources. In an email interview, Jean-Paul Faguet, professor of the political economy of development at the London School of Economics, discussed Bolivia’s economy and its dependence on commodities. WPR: How effectively has the Bolivian government used the past decade’s commodity boom to […]

Sweden, the biggest country at the heart of rich and peaceful Scandinavia, is in many ways in the eye of the current migration storm tearing through Europe. Although it is admitting fewer refugees than Germany in terms of sheer numbers, Sweden is—and has been for several years—the European Union’s biggest per capita recipient of refugees by quite a wide margin. In 2014, Sweden, a country with just 9 million inhabitants, received more than 80,000 asylum applications. This year, that number is set to grow substantially. From one angle, no other country seems better equipped to handle this challenge. Having weathered […]

In the aftermath of last weekend’s horrific bombings in Ankara, the Turkish people and international observers are trying to understand what went wrong with Turkey, a country that until very recently embodied the hopes of a more peaceful and interconnected Middle East. The answer inevitably leads to one man: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The evidence in the twin suicide attack that killed almost 100 people, making it the deadliest in Turkey’s modern history, points to the self-declared Islamic State. And yet, many people, searching for the bigger picture in Turkey’s crisis, have turned angrily in Erdogan’s direction. Turkey’s president, until […]

Tunisia has received more media coverage than usual this week, after the National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.” The award confounded observers; bets were on Germany’s Angela Merkel or Pope Francis. That’s because, with the exception of Tunisia’s closest followers, few had actually heard of the Quartet—which comprised a labor union, an employers’ organization,* a human rights group and a lawyers’ association—or understood its role in advancing Tunisia’s democratic transition. The Quartet, which was spearheaded […]

Canada votes on Monday, and the latest polls show the centrist Liberal Party with a slight lead over the ruling Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. In an email interview, Brian Tanguay, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, discussed what is a stake in Canada’s elections. WPR: What explains the emergence of the New Democratic Party (NDP) as a national political contender, and why have its prospects faded recently? Brian Tanguay: In the early days of this very long campaign, most polls indicated that the NDP would, for a second straight election, sweep Quebec—a phenomenon known as the […]

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Tunisia’s so-called National Dialogue Quartet was deeply moving to those us who are familiar with the country where the Arab uprisings began in late 2010. The Nobel Committee’s selection of the four civil society organizations for their work in facilitating Tunisia’s democratic transition since then was a welcome revalidation of the country’s potential to build a durable democratic state. For long-time watchers of the committee, it was equally striking that the Nobel Peace Prize did not honor an institution or individual committed to nuclear disarmament, as it has at every mid-decade year […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Barely noticed by a world preoccupied with crises ranging from migrants and refugees in Europe and fighting in Ukraine, to civil war in Syria and stock-market plunges in China, Romania put its prime minister on trial for corruption on Sept. 21. Victor Ponta, who stubbornly remains in office and denies all charges, stands accused of a range of activities largely committed before his tenure as premier, when he was working as a lawyer. That the sitting head […]

It has been a bad year for former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his nationalist support base, which comes predominantly from the country’s majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Rajapaksa’s rout in January’s presidential election, followed by his August defeat in parliamentary elections, can be seen as nothing short of a mandate from the Sri Lankan people to distance themselves from his authoritarian tendencies and divisive policies and move toward political reform and reconciliation. Rajapaksa managed to secure a parliamentary seat in Kurunegala district, a stronghold of the United People’s Freedom Alliance in the Sinhalese heartland. But his dissident faction of […]

Mexico’s cartels are known for their violence and ruthlessness, the control they exert over the drug trade and for Hollywood-esque escapes from so-called high-security prisons. But not much is known or even acknowledged outside the country about another network exerting significant power and doing its own damage to the country: an economic cartel that enjoys market domination in major sectors of the economy, beneficial treatment from the authorities and whose fortunes have skyrocketed at the expense of ordinary Mexicans. A new bi-annual report by Coneval, a Mexican government agency evaluating social policies, should raise the alarm. It showed that Mexico’s […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Last month, the mayor of Colombia’s main port city, Buenaventura, was arrested on corruption charges. In an email interview, Elisabeth Ungar Bleier, the executive director of Transparencia Por Colombia, the Colombian chapter of Transparency International, discussed Colombia’s progress in the fight against corruption. WPR: How big an issue is corruption in Colombia, and in what areas is its impact most felt? Elisabeth Ungar Bleier: Corruption is a very big structural problem in Colombia. It permeates all levels […]

Late last month, the pro-independence alliance Junts Pel Si, or Together For Yes, came in first place in regional elections in Catalonia, winning nearly 40 percent of the vote and 62 seats in the regional parliament. The other pro-independence party, Popular Unity Candidacy, known by its Catalan acronym, CUP, won 10 seats—a strong showing for the Catalan independence movement, but not enough for the pro-independence parties to win an overall majority of the votes, as they came in just shy with 48 percent. However, if Junts Pel Si and CUP form a coalition, they will have a majority of seats […]

Miguel Rodriguez can’t quite believe what he’s planning to do on Dec. 6. A father of six, the 47-year-old farmer in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua has voted for the late Hugo Chavez, or for Chavez’s followers and initiatives, in all 17 elections since Chavez was first elected president in 1998. But Rodriguez is breaking his streak this year, abandoning Chavez’s anointed successor, President Nicolas Maduro, and vowing to vote for Chavez’s opponents in the Dec. 6 congressional elections. “I believed in Chavez and the revolution,” says Rodriguez, looking over his fields, which now lay fallow. “But now there is […]

Exactly a week after he was taken hostage by soldiers from Burkina Faso’s elite presidential guard during a short-lived coup led by Gen. Gilbert Diendere and other loyalists of former President Blaise Compaore, transitional President Michel Kafando officially returned to office on Sept. 23. He thanked international mediators from neighboring West African states, the African Union and the United Nations for helping to isolate the coup with their condemnations and threats of sanctions, and praised the loyalty of the regular armed forces. Kafando also highlighted a key factor that received only limited media attention during the week-long crisis: the “national […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the European refugee crisis and European Union member states’ approaches to addressing it. Last month, Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said that “accepting migrants escaping to save their lives is our duty.” In an email interview, Piotr Kazmierkiewicz, an expert at the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw, discussed Poland’s migrant and refugee policy. WPR: How has Poland’s stance toward the European Union’s refugee relocation quota scheme changed over the past year? Piotr Kazmierkiewicz: Poland traditionally objected to any measures interfering with its sovereign decisions on border and […]