Parliamentary elections in Indonesia, as elsewhere, are usually an ordinary affair as local politicians jockey for position among voters at the grassroots level. Normally voting revolves around homespun issues: a new school library, the local waters works or paved roads. But in the lead-up to legislative elections in Indonesia, campaigning has taken on much broader implications, providing a battleground for separatist forces in the troubled province of Papua, a testing ground for the fragile peace in Aceh and a vibrant backdrop for the presidential poll in July. Keith Loveard, a Jakarta-based security consultant with Concord Security said electoral-related violence in [...]
SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — The newly appointed High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina takes office as the country’s finances are on the verge of meltdown, making the need for an arbiter to break the stalemate of the country’s dysfuntional political system more urgent than ever. The 59-year-old Austrian diplomat, Valentin Inzko, is the seventh high representative since the Dayton Peace Agreement created the position 14 years ago. Unlike each of his three immediate predecessors, Inzko was not expected to be the last to exercise the office when he was introduced last Thursday. The acceptance of the continued need for [...]
Get a .pdf version of this report. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey remained a staunchly secular Western ally, serving as a NATO buttress against the Soviet Union. But in the aftermath of the November 2002 elections that brought the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power, its foreign policy orientation has undergone a gradual shift. The AKP initially emphasized Turkey’s European ambitions, doing more than any previous government to move Turkey closer to EU accession. Yet in recent years, the AKP’s drive for EU membership appears to have lost momentum, while the previous domestic consensus on the country’s [...]
