Domestic Politics Archive

The two leading candidates for the French presidential elections, whose first round will occur in April, offer the French electorate a clear choice in their differing foreign policies. If elected, either of the two leading candidates — Nicolas Sarkozy, from the governing center-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party, and Ségolène Royal, from the opposition Parti Socialiste (PS) — could introduce considerable changes in French policies regarding the European Union, the United States, and other key issues. Both candidates have made clear their intention to adopt policies that differ from those of the current French president, Jacques Chirac. Since […]

TOKYO — With his cabinet’s popularity hitting new lows according to a poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took the opportunity of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit last week to highlight one of his pet issues — the abduction by North Korean agents of up to 20 Japanese citizens. Abe’s tough stance on North Korea has always been a political trump card for him, bringing him to prominence under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. During Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang in 2002, he led negotiations on behalf of the families of those abducted, and then […]

Corridors of Power is written by veteran foreign affairs correspondent Roland Flamini and appears in World Politics Review every week by Sunday morning. Click here for the Corridors of Power archives. ET TU COSSIGA? — Every Italian political crisis worthy of the name is flavored with a dollop of conspiracy. In Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s sudden resignation earlier this week, one conspiracy involves Senator-for-Life Francesco Cossiga, whose defection from the government ranks in the vote that defeated the Prodi administration came as a surprise. A former president of the republic and still an influential figure in Italian politics, Cossiga is […]

PERUGIA, Italy — Following a humbling defeat in a foreign policy vote in the Senate, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned Wednesday evening. After weathering a nine-month political storm with an extremely narrow Senate majority, the government was beaten on its strongest suit. “Foreign policy was one of the few things that were working,” commented foreign minister Massimo D’Alema, who, boasting a 62 percent approval rating, is the most popular member of the frail Prodi government. Prodi’s government coalition, L’Unione, failed to obtain the majority in a vote aimed at legitimizing the government’s foreign policy ahead of the crucial Feb. […]

Thirteen years ago, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin struggled to build a viable democracy against a post-Soviet backdrop of political instability and ideological ambiguity. While he could call for elections and appoint various ministers, it was more difficult to establish an ideology for both government officials and the voting public to ensure democracy thrived. In an attempt to fill the ideological void, Yeltsin appointed a committee to define Russian national identity in 1994. In the words of famed Russian expert Nicholas Riasanovsky: “[T]heir first task — admirably academic — was to gather everything that has been written and said on […]

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africa has an enviable reputation as a tourism destination. Beautiful scenery and beaches combine with spectacular game reserves, high-quality hotels and a cheap currency to ensure a steadily increasing stream of visitors. But its reputation isn’t all good. Ask people outside the country what they know of South Africa and the word “crime” is seldom far away. And if the perception internationally is of a country where crime is out of control, the local feeling is equally bleak. South African citizens are angry at what they see as soaring levels of crime — much […]

Nigeria is preparing for elections in April that it hopes will burnish its reputation as a democratic, diplomatic and economic leader on the continent, able to handle the multitude of ethnic, religious and class tensions that threaten Africa’s most populous nation and its place as the world’s sixth largest producer of oil. But in promoting an obscure northern governor as his successor and using Nigeria’s anti-graft commission as a weapon against political rivals, outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo may be tarnishing both his legacy and the country’s progress, underscoring the perception of Nigeria as the world’s reigning kleptocracy and risking an […]

MADRID, Spain — On Feb. 15, three senior judges of Spain’s High Court are to hear opening pleas from 29 individuals charged in connection with the March 2004 Madrid train bombings. Eight or nine long, legally convulsive and controversial months later, the magistrates will deliver the verdicts that Spaniards hope will bring closure to a country still traumatized and bewildered three years after it was targeted for one of Europe’s most savage terror attacks, and justice to those deemed responsible for it. How close they come to achieving that remains to be seen. A not inconsiderable tangle of loose ends, […]

WASHINGTON — “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” may have prompted Americans to run and find Kazakhstan on a map. But another recent development appears to have a growing number of Washington insiders talking seriously about political discord in the massive former Soviet republic. A rising young Kazakh politician visited Washington recently trying drum up support from U.S. policy makers and journalists for his newly established and reform-minded Kazakh political party — the official registration of which he claims is being obstructed by his country’s “draconian law on political parties.” The second largest of […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For years, paramilitary death squads and guerrillas waged a campaign of terror and violence against the indigenous Kankuamo people in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northeastern Colombia. Their goal was to seize coca plantations, control narcotrafficking routes and profit from large infrastructure projects. In Kankuamo areas, the paramilitaries would gather the people together to watch as they brutally killed someone, or tossed their victims in the road to be run over by cars. Now, however, many of those and other paramilitary leaders are in jail, facing harsh penalties and potentially large payments that are […]

MONROVIA, Liberia — To Liberians, she is President Ellen, or “our iron lady.” Her supporters call her a difference-maker and a straight talker, a leader who says what she’s going to do and then does it. Those qualities have inspired admiration and even love for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president. “She love the country,” Roland Watson, a driver for an aid agency, said. “I think she want to make things happen in this country.” The same cannot be said about Liberia’s former presidents, who presided over 14 years of civil war that claimed 250,000 lives and impoverished […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Former rebel turned governor, Irwandi Yusuf, stunned many with his victory in the first direct provincial election held in Indonesia’s once pro-secessionist province of Aceh on Dec.11, 2006. Yet, with post-election pleasantries now over, the former academic has a tough job ahead, as hefty expectations weigh on his three-year term, due to start on Feb. 8. Irwandi’s election is the direct result of the peace deal signed between the Indonesian government and the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) in Helsinki, Finland, on Aug. 15, 2005. The peace ended a separatist war that had killed nearly 30,000 since 1976. […]

UNTIMELY DEPARTURE — The U.S. intelligence community is upset at John Negroponte’s sudden departure from his post as the director of national intelligence after less than two years. According to one insider, Negroponte has left unfinished the important structural reform he began shortly following his appointment as overall head of the country’s 15 intelligence services two years ago. President Bush shifted Negroponte, a veteran diplomat, from national security to fill the second ranking position at the State Department when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s first choice, Robert Kimmitt, the deputy secretary of the Treasury, didn’t want to transfer to Foggy […]

Just two days after U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address, it was the turn of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to lay out his government’s agenda. Abe’s policy speech to the Diet last Friday touched on similar themes — the need for stability in the Middle East, the character of the country’s children — and all against the back drop of troubling poll numbers. The key difference is that while Bush was making his speech after heavy losses in midterm elections, Abe is trying to avoid a similar routing in his country’s upper house […]