After a year of important gatherings for the Chinese Communist Party, starting with the 20th Party Congress in October 2022 that named Xi Jinping to an unprecedented third term as general secretary, 2023 ended not with a bang, but with a whimper: The “third plenum,” often used to announce important reforms, didn’t take place.
Since taking office last summer, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has shown some signs that he understands the country’s need for economic growth. But his moves on the economic front will mean little if Hun Manet remains as authoritarian as his father, longtime ruler Hun Sen, whose political system he inherited upon succeeding him.
In Uganda, a new transport monitoring system, which recently began rolling out in Kampala, will soon allow authorities to constantly observe every vehicle on the road. But the controversial project has been criticized by human rights activists as a violation of the right to privacy, in a country known for suppressing political dissent.
In the four months since taking over in a coup, the junta leading Gabon appears to have consolidated power, relying on a multipronged approach intended to secure domestic popularity and the international legitimacy needed to distinguish from the military regimes that have seized power in other parts of Africa in recent years.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s position was already seen as tenuous before a slush fund scandal embroiled his ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month. It says a lot about the state of Japanese politics that Kishida remains the most viable option to lead the government until the LDP holds a leadership election in September.
Of Latin America’s six presidential elections scheduled for 2024, the incumbent party is currently favored in four. Rather than a clear break in the region’s anti-incumbent trend, however, this year’s elections will be exceptions that prove the rule. Three of them offer examples of the challenges that democracy faces in the hemisphere.