Domestic Politics Archive

For the Latin American right, Chile is a model country that gives credibility to their pro-market policies and reassures citizens that these policies can be socially inclusive. Conservative leaders from Argentina’s outgoing, center-right president, Mauricio Macri, to Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have lauded Chile as an example for their relatively closed economies to emulate. Yet the unexpected eruption of popular protests and the repressive security response that has cost the lives of at least 18 demonstrators have shaken the country’s image as a stable democracy, while raising questions about the downsides of those pro-market policies and the lingering legacy […]

A retired law professor with no prior experience in government won by a landslide in Tunisia’s presidential runoff in mid-October. Kais Saied’s victory, with more than 70 percent of the vote, was widely seen as a sign that the electorate is fed up with the country’s political establishment. In parliamentary elections held between the first and second round of the presidential race, no party won more than 19 percent of the vote. Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party, won a plurality of 52 seats but is likely to face difficulty assembling a coalition government in the 217-seat parliament. In an email […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Frederick Deknatel and Laura Weiss talk about the death of the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the impact it might have on the group. They also discuss Argentina’s election results and their implications for the country’s deep economic crisis, as well as the new Brexit questions raised by the upcoming U.K. elections. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The space for dissent in John Magufuli’s Tanzania is closing rapidly. Amnesty International issued a report this week accusing Magufuli, who was elected president in 2015, of creating a “climate of mounting fear with growing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.” Magufuli, who earned the popular nickname “the Bulldozer” from his time as minister of public works, was elected promising to reform Tanzania and end corruption. Instead, his administration has steadily trimmed the rights of opposition […]

Russia is launching one of the boldest experiments in the recent history of the internet, but perhaps not in the way it thinks. On Nov. 1, a strict new law meant to impose Russia’s own version of China’s “great firewall”—the autocratic gold standard for state control of cyberspace—officially takes effect. While the law’s details are sketchy, it aims to cut off Russia’s connections to the World Wide Web and replace them with its own tightly controlled “domestic internet.” Whether or not the Kremlin knows it, when the history of 21st-century cyberwars are written, this move could be seen in retrospect […]

There were no surprises in Argentina’s presidential election on Oct. 27, when leftist candidate Alberto Fernandez, with former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as his running mate, defeated the center-right incumbent Mauricio Macri. That outcome had been anticipated by primary elections—essentially a preview of the vote—held in August, when the Fernandez-Fernandez ticket trounced Macri as Argentina’s economy continued to deteriorate. The new administration will take office on Dec. 10. For Cristina Fernandez, this is all personal vindication. When her presidency ended in 2015, she left behind economic stagnation and a trail of corruption allegations. She attempted a political comeback in […]