Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates has worked proactively to embrace Russian business while hoping to evade pressure from the U.S. and its allies. Despite narratives of the UAE and Saudi Arabia drifting from the U.S. orbit, the Gulf states continue to recognize their dependency on U.S. security ties.
Since Donald Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election many commentators have compared his rise with the victory of the anti-EU Leave campaign in the referendum over the U.K.’s EU membership the same year. Yet too often such comparisons have ignored huge differences between these political earthquakes.
Today at WPR, we’re covering tomorrow’s general election in Zimbabwe and the coming month’s marathon of multilateral meetings.
Despite having little to show from his first full term in office, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is the strong favorite to win the country’s election Wednesday. A disunited opposition, voter apathy and state coercion have paved the way to victory for the incumbent.
World leaders face a slew of multilateral summits over the coming month, including the BRICS meeting in South Africa, the G20 in India, and the UN General Assembly in New York. This rare convergence of top-tier international gatherings is a symptom of the increasing importance of high-level summitry in international diplomacy.
Today at WPR, we’re covering the results of yesterday’s runoff presidential election in Guatemala and the fallout from Sierra Leone’s contested presidential election in June.
Guatemalan voters turned out in large numbers yesterday to elect Bernardo Arevalo as their president. Arevalo’s victory is a chance for positive change in Guatemala, but it’s still a troubling sign that traditional parties and systems are failing in the region.
According to Sierra Leone’s electoral commission, incumbent President Julius Maada Bio was reelected to a second—and constitutionally final—term in the June 24 presidential ballot. But opposition in the country as well as international observers have raised serious concerns about the credibility of that result.
Today at WPR, we’re covering the surprise victory of Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential primary and why the U.S. is imposing trade restrictions on China.
Many observers have attributed the victory of Javier Milei, a libertarian economist who rails against the “political caste” and promises to drastically reduce the size of the state, in Argentina’s presidential primaries to anger and anti-establishment sentiment. That is not only a mistake, but also an underestimation of Argentine voters.
Last week, President Joe Biden signed an executive order restricting U.S. companies’ ability to invest in a range of cutting-edge technology sectors in China. Biden has also maintained tariffs imposed on China by former President Donald Trump. That raises a fundamental question: Why is the U.S. imposing trade restrictions on China?
Today at WPR, we’re covering recent scandals in Singapore and political upheaval in the Netherlands.
Though Singapore’s political environment is considered only “partly free,” the long-dominant ruling People’s Action Party has also enjoyed genuine popular legitimacy. Now, though, a series of corruption scandals have shattered the party’s reputation for unbending integrity, even as the PAP faces credible challengers at the ballot box.
When Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced in July that he was stepping down and leaving politics, he unleashed a chain reaction of resignations and political realignments in the Netherlands. The transition to the post-Rutte era has upended the national political landscape, opening the way for a new generation of leaders.
Today at WPR, we’re covering the conflict in Ethiopia’s Amhara region and the far-left threat to Germany’s democracy.
The end of the war in Tigray in November 2022 brought relative peace to the region and eased international pressure on Addis Ababa. Yet, it has precipitated the explosion of another devastating war, this time between Ethiopian government forces and their erstwhile partners in the Tigray war from the country’s Amhara region.
The surge of support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party to over 20 percent in recent polls has led to growing concern over the future of democracy in Germany. Yet even as momentum builds for the AfD, a far-left movement is more quietly preparing their own campaigns to dismantle the country’s political status quo.