Domestic Politics Archive

Yesterday, Russia and Ukraine reached a gas deal after months of tense negotiations against the backdrop of violence in Ukraine’s east that has left more than 3,700 people dead. The agreement took place just days after Ukraine’s snap parliamentary elections, which showed surprisingly robust support for pro-European parties. But challenges remain, both in the east, where pro-Russian separatists will stage their own unsanctioned elections this weekend, and in Kiev, where the government must overcome a legacy of corruption and dysfunction. The elections have been hailed as a triumph in the West, and for good reason. Ukrainians resoundingly rejected the far-right […]

Tunisia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday confirm the erosion of trust over the past three years in the Islamist party Ennahda, which failed to live up to its electoral promises and implement an effective post-revolutionary political agenda after the ouster of longtime autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Nidaa Tounes, the secular party led by Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year old anchor of the country’s old guard, won with 39 percent of votes, while Ennahda, which dominated the 2011 elections under the leadership of longtime dissident Rachid Ghannouchi and governed the country until ceding power to an interim government in January 2014, […]

On Tuesday, a court in Bahrain suspended the activities of the country’s main Shiite opposition group, al-Wefaq, ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections. The group, known in Bahrain as a political society, cannot organize rallies, issue statements or use its offices for three months. Al-Wefaq had already announced earlier this month that it would boycott the Nov. 22 poll, so the immediate impact on the election may be limited. The Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit against al-Wefaq seeking its suspension back in July, after the government expelled Tom Malinowski, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights […]

While poverty and violence have pushed thousands of Central Americans to take the long and dangerous trek to the United States, the embattled region now faces another challenge: Droughts and torrential rains have all but ruined the harvests of hundreds of thousands of impoverished farmers in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. And even though climate extremes were exacerbated in recent years by temporary weather phenomena, ill-prepared governments and climate change have put food security in the region permanently at risk. This summer, the most severe drought in over four decades hit the so-called Dry Corridor, a subtropical highland area […]

Years have now passed since one could use the term “Arab Spring” without deliberate irony, or at least quotation marks. Even the sad rhetorical spinoffs from the metaphor—the cold winter, for instance, that followed the spring uprisings—have gone stale from overuse. And yet there is one country where the hopes of the once-euphoric revolutionaries did not turn out to have been misplaced. Dare we say it? Yes, the Arab Spring has bloomed; it has yielded something of a harvest in one country, the country of its birth, Tunisia, whose experience offers some hopeful lessons for a despondent Middle East. Tunisia […]

As a former World Bank official, Columbia University academic and Afghan minister of finance, newly elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani faces high expectations to turn his country’s war-torn economy around. Having actually written the book on fixing failed states, he now faces the challenge of putting theory into practice. Ghani’s deep skepticism of the merits of foreign aid and extractive industries positions him well to avoid the pitfalls of putting either at the economy’s helm. While aid levels will likely decline as foreign troop numbers continue to dwindle, Ghani’s real challenge will be nurturing Afghanistan’s fragile minerals sector while managing […]

Iran has long had one of the world’s biggest drug addiction problems, but the government’s attitude toward the drug war remains rife with contradiction. Iran has taken drug addiction very seriously, as evidenced both by its extensive and heavy-handed law enforcement efforts and by the resources it puts toward prevention, treatment and harm-reduction programs. However, officials have at times downplayed the extent of the problem, as politicians have sought to paint a positive picture of the state of drug addiction in Iran. In a June speech, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said that Iran was home to 1.35 million addicts, […]

Just over a year ago, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto celebrated the first victory of his lauded “Pact for Mexico” coalition after the country’s Senate passed an education reform bill aimed at wresting control of the education system from Mexico’s most powerful union. In subsequent months, he and his team passed a series of other reforms in telecommunications and energy, promising to kick-start a new era of investment and economic growth. This past August, after signing into law the secondary legislation implementing energy reform, Pena Nieto penned an op-ed in the Financial Times declaring that “Mexico’s reform agenda is now […]

Yesterday, Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj visited Serbia, the first minister of Kosovo to do so since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008. While 110 United Nations member states, including the United States, recognize Kosovo’s independence, Serbia does not. Neither does Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, received a hero’s welcome with a military parade in Belgrade last week. Kosovo’s closest ally is neighboring Albania, whose prime minister was supposed to visit Serbia this week but postponed after a drone carrying an Albanian nationalist banner flew over a soccer match in Belgrade earlier this month, sparking a brawl and a […]

Indonesia’s new president, Joko Widodo, or Jokowi as he prefers to be called, was sworn in Monday in Jakarta. However, he has yet to announce his Cabinet since Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) vetoed eight of his 43 nominations owing to their alleged involvement in graft cases and human rights violations. Corruption is a persistent concern in Indonesia and was a key issue during both the parliamentary and presidential elections this year. Writing about April’s parliamentary elections in World Politics Review, Andrew Thornley explained: The primary concern, with Indonesia’s elections and its governance in general, remains corruption, which colors elections […]

On Oct. 20, the World Health Organization declared Nigeria “free of Ebola transmission,” meaning that 42 days had elapsed since the last new case developed. Nigeria’s Ebola outbreak began in July, when an infected Liberian diplomat arrived in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. The outbreak included 19 cases, of which seven proved fatal (other sources give the numbers as 20 cases and eight deaths). The international news media, accustomed to portraying Nigeria negatively, has rushed to publish story after story lauding Nigeria’s efforts against Ebola and explaining how Nigeria stopped the outbreak. Nigeria’s plaudits on Ebola are deserved, but the halt […]

A wild Brazilian presidential campaign is nearing an end, its zigzagging story lines returning to where they began: with the incumbent, President Dilma Rousseff, ahead. After the death of Socialist Party candidate Eduardo Campos in a plane crash in August, the emergence of his running mate Marina Silva as the new Socialist candidate briefly upended the race, and had many expecting a runoff between two female candidates—a first-ever in Brazil. But that never happened. Instead, Silva came in a distant third behind Rousseff’s center-right challenger, Aecio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, who now trails Rousseff by just a […]

Traditionally, U.S. midterm elections have been referenda on how a president has managed domestic affairs, a vote of confidence or rejection of his various policy choices. International events, however, can emerge as issues in the campaign to the extent that they indicate whether the country is moving in the right or the wrong direction. In 2006, for instance, the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the Iraq War became a factor in the recapture of both houses of Congress by the Democrats because it was put forth alongside domestic disasters—such as the handling of Hurricane Katrina—as part of an effective campaign slogan […]

With crude oil prices down 25 percent since June and holding at roughly $86 a barrel on Tuesday, Venezuela is getting nervous. Lower prices will put greater strain on Venezuela’s oil-reliant economy as its government struggles with growing macroeconomic imbalances. Yet even with all the problems that reduced oil prices create for his administration, President Nicolas Maduro is doubling down on his current policies. By stalling in the hopes of a bailout in the form of higher oil prices or Chinese credit, instead of attempting politically unpopular restructuring, Maduro is ignoring cracks in his political and economic program. Booming commodity […]

Mozambique held elections last Wednesday, but by Thursday the main opposition party, the Mozambican National Resistance, known as Renamo, had already rejected the early results, claiming there were incidents of ballot stuffing. Despite being told by the government that a final count would be available within 72 hours of the vote, Mozambicans are still waiting for the final results nearly a week later. The latest figures released by the government, with 51 percent of polling stations reporting, show Filipe Nyusi, the presidential candidate of the ruling Liberation Front of Mozambique, known as Frelimo, ahead with 62 percent of the vote, […]

Nowhere does Russia’s policy of protecting its “compatriots”—Moscow’s loosely defined term for the Russian diaspora and Russian-speakers residing in the former Soviet republics—spell as much concern for the current post-Cold War order as in the Baltic states. All three Baltic states have significant numbers of Russian-speakers that are concentrated in territories close to the Russian border. In Lithuania, Russian-speakers make up 15 percent of the entire population; in Latvia 34 percent; and in Estonia the number might be as high as 30 percent. This has been a major source of worry for the Baltic states, because in the recent past […]

On Oct. 11, Belgium’s King Philippe swore in the country’s new government after nearly five months of negotiations. Led by Prime Minister Charles Michel of the fiscally conservative Walloon Reformist Movement (MR), the four-party coalition government also includes three Flemish parties: the Christian Democratic CD&V, the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (Open VLD) and the nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). Belgium is known for its complicated politics, thanks in large part to its linguistic divisions. Flanders, in the north of the country, is home to 60 percent of the population and is Dutch-speaking. Wallonia, in the south, is home to […]