Blogging the democratic revolution
It has been ten years since the Dayton Accords ended officially ended the war in Bosnia, which killed over 200,000 people and displaced over a million more. The agreement marked a peaceful separation of nations into a loose, autonomous confederacy of three peoples who had been forced together under Soviet totalitarianism and left to kill each other after its fall. But after all these years, it’s possible that these people are willing to begin the move toward living — together — under a unified nation. The first step will be reforms to enable more effective governance, along with the capture…
”We are not a shill for anyone in this,” claimed Steve Schwadron, chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Delahunt who’s just concluded an oil-for-loyalty deal with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, in the first-ever brazen effort to buy political influence through cheap oil to the underclass through the offices of willing U.S. Congressman. The real story on this gamy political deal to buy political influence in the U.S., and the dangerous implications for Venezuela’s democracy can be read in this spectacular expose by a Venezuelan oil director here. Meanwhile, the depth of Venezuela’s own poverty can be seen in photos here…
Instapundit has found a terrific blog called Yannick Laclau from Spain showing that Nicolas Sarkozy of France is getting ‘down in the trenches’ of the blogosphere, which is to say, actually publishing comments on other peoples’ blogs. Yannick, the blogger who discovered this notes that while Dominique de Villepin writes love poetry and Napoleonic history, Sarkozy hops into the blog pool and blogs with the normal people. It’s an extremely clever political move and is certain to get him both popularity as well as headlines. It shows that he is both nervy and in tune. Yannick’s terrific post and analysis…
Somewhat more literally, Kenyans had an orange revolution of their own, rejecting a new consolidation of power by President Mwai Kibaki in a fair, democratic process. This represents significant progress in Kenya’s ongoing struggle over its freedom from corruption and pursuit of real democracy; the story I linked to has a good amount of detail. Mr Kibaki has spent a large amount of political capital trying to push through what would have been the first major amendment of Kenya’s constitution since it won independence from Britain in 1963… Mr Kibaki told the nation that any new effort to revise or…
This article was posted to my blog over the weekend, prior to the second round of voting. As indicated in my Middle East Week in Review post, the second round took place on Sunday amid a major crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Early indications are that this crackdown has had the result intended by the regime. A more detailed analysis is to follow when the results of the second round are clear. The first stage of Egypt’s three-stage elections, including both the initial round and the run-off, has left three basic results clear: the ruling National Democratic Party is showing…
It’s been one year today since the beginning of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine’s democratic movement that has solidified a prompt for change across the entire region. Genuine and copycat attempts have broken out all over, some failing and some reaching realization. This blog was started based on inspiration drawn from the Orange Revolution. With its one year anniversary, what has the legacy of these mass popular movements been? What do you think the future holds for this part of the world, where freedom and democracy have been so elusive? There are plenty of assessments out there, but I want yours’.
Looking for a fiercely independent country in the heart of Central Asia, with a penchant for free enterprise and building a working democracy? Then you’re looking for Mongolia, a stab in the heart to all of the region’s dictators. Well, President Bush just made history by being the first U.S. president to visit Mongolia, a visit he used to praise the country’s developing democracy. Gateway Pundit has a roundup. Registan has links to Mongol blogs.
Two rounds of voting out of three have been undertaken in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, with the Muslim Brotherhood scoring approximately one fourth of the total seats. But after its initial strong showing in the relatively peaceful first round, the government took the initiative to crack down on the organization by arresting hundreds of its members during the second round. DAMANHOUR, Egypt: Police arrested hundreds of activists from Egypt????????s strongest opposition group and thugs trying to intimidate voters shot dead a man in legislative elections yesterday. The thugs shot Mohamed Ibrahim in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and set fire to…
This is the scariest picture ever of evil Donald Rumsfeld, couretsy of CBS. Why does he have no pinky? And is he doing some Darth Vader move, or did he just rip out the CBS producer’s face? What is going on? Via Academic Elephant.
I have now posted my Middle East Week in Review bulletin for the past week. Topics for this week’s bulletin include Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Morocco, Yemen and Iran. Notable for democracy watchers is that the second round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections took place on Sunday, and this time the government clamped down hard on the Muslim Brotherhood, even reportedly sending armed thugs to polling places to attack MB supporters.
Venezuela’s Aleksander Boyd at VCrisis has a stunning piece translated from the Mexican press about the extent of Hugo Chavez’s and Fidel Castro’s political meddling in Mexico and its elections. That’s MEXICO – right on our border, walking distance from San Diego and El Paso and Laredo and Matamoros and Yuma – that Mexico! The extent of the cash shoveling and gunrunning is far deeper than anyone knew, and extends even to violent groups who have commenced blowing up banks in Mexico these days, over free trade. Which just happens to be what Chavez has declared war on. With Chavez’s…
…through free trade. It’s put Mexico on the world map as a player, while Venezuela grows ever less significant. The Fox-Chavez spat just brought it all to everyone’s attention. Investor’s Business Daily has the editorial here. Meanwhile, via Boz, I read in Marcela Sanchez’s pretty good column of the critical need for free trade and all the Neanderthals in Washington who are blocking it. She’s right, but doesn’t mean they should not be fought. The whole story is here. Andres Oppenheimer hit a true home run, one of his best columns, called ‘Chavez Started It’ describing what went on at…
Where’s the hemisphere going politically? Boz has an excellent news roundup showing the latest political cross currents. Among these are a poll showing left-leaning Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador dropping down in the Mexican polls, Evo Morales of Bolivia apparently ticking downward, Michelle Bachelet of Chile a little lower and possibly facing a runoff and Lourdes Flores in Peru holding her lead (and I’m really glad the godawful Alan Garcia can’t get more than 15%). There are a host of smaller indicators of public sentiment too. Go read the whole thing here.
Election results from Egypt’s first round of parliamentary elections are coming in, and due to the greater transparency and lesser violence than before, the Muslim Brotherhood took a big chunk of seats. Of course, there were instances of fraud, intimidation, and genereal irregularities, but they seem to be committed on an individual basis instead of being part of a widespread campaign. Members of the more liberal opposition, however, didn’t fair so well despite that the Al-Ghad party candidate, Ayman Nour, taking second place in the presidential election. Egypt’s ruling party won 112 seats in the first stage of the country’s…
In the wake of the Fox-Chavez spat, Mexico’s leftist presidential frontrunner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has slid by nearly 8 basis points in the presidential polls. From a Goldman Sachs research note: Gentlemen, Start Your Engines – AMLO Slightly Down on the Polls According to pollster Mitofsky, in November Lopez Obrador (AMLO) lost some ground in the opinion polls, falling to 29.5% in November from 37.9% in August. Most of the intentions to vote lost by AMLO went to PANista candidate Felipe Calderon, who climbed to 24.4% in November from 20.2%. Madrazo (PRI) remained stable in second place in the…
Jane Novak at Armies of Liberation writes regularly about the perfidy of President Ali Saleh of Yemen and the way his government pretends to support the U.S.-led war on terror. Now she’s done it on Al-Jazeera, and it appears to have stirred the pot. This is the specific post regarding her appearance: Jane Novak Slams President Saleh’s Regime on Al-Jazeera.
It seems that regime thugs in Tunisia are giving French journalists the kind of treatment American journalists have come to expect from the Sudanese. This is from Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Information Summit: Crisis Between Tunisia & France Because of Assaults on Journalists: On the evening of the “World Summit on the Information Society” which Tunisia is hosting tomorrow lasting through Friday, the French government demanded from the Tunisian government a guarantee of freedom of the press after a French journalist was physically accosted by unknown individuals. This comes in the context of increasingly tense relations between Tunisia on the one hand…
I’ll be going to the Pajamas Media launch tomorrow in New York City. But first I have to get there. And since I’m too cheap to get a hotel, I’m leaving on the 2 a.m. bus! We might be taking a bit of a detour tomorrow then, with some liveblogging of the conference, pictures, all that good stuff. It’ll be fun.
I’ve never been one to put it past Assad to have much class, but this is a bit much. The Syrian government has called unequivocally, through its state-run media, for people to take to the streets of Beirut in order to topple Lebanon’s first independently elected government. Anyone else thinks the heat is starting to get to his head? Syria has called through its state-controlled Damascus daily Tishreen for a massive demonstration in Beirut Thursday to overthrow Premier Saniora’s government as Lebanon’s confrontation with the Assad regime and its Lebanese supporters seems to be climbing to a new peak. The…
Miguel Buitrago at the first-rate MABB blog has the whole dynamic explained. The short story is this: Based on current polls, far-left leader Evo Morales is in nearly a tie with his nearest rival. Due to how legislative seats are distributed in the Senate, Morales may not get the majority of votes he needs in the upper house of Congress to become president. In the lower house, the outcome is more uncertain. If the polls are right, this is very good news in one sense – that Morales won’t be able to confiscate land and energy through the power of…
After nearly three weeks of silence when France was in a desperate time of need for leadership, President Chirac finally made a speech on television outlining his plan for solving the root problems that caused the violent suburban riots. He spoke bluntly of France’s problem with racism, a change of political discourse quite refreshing, but failed completely to recommend fundamental changes to the French social model. Instead of proposals to officially acknowledge the existence of racial demographics and create the economic conditions by which opportunity and growth can occur, he has proposed that the model for integration should remain unchanged.…
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, one of the gold standards of Latin American journalism, has a great new Spanish-language blog with The Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank in Oakland. It’s full of excellent items, and has contributions from first-rate journalists and thinkers from all over the hemisphere. It’s so nicely done – and already I can see it’s going to be a success – Alvaro has an item here about Patricia Poleo, whose case we have been following at Publius, among other topics. Check it all out here.
I have just posted my Middle East Week in Review news bulletin for the past week. This week’s bullet-points include links on Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Yemen, Iran and Australia. I have a separate post, Abdullah’s Struggle With Islamic Terrorism, which is a follow-up to last week’s attacks in Amman. It focuses on the counter-terrorism angle, but some of the analysis is also relevant to why, despite having the Arab world’s most liberal ruler, Jordan has had very little democratic reform.
The main Ugandan opposition leader has been arrested and charged with treason, sparking riots all over the country. VIOLENCE broke out in Kampala yesterday after Kizza Besigye, the opposition leader and presidential hopeful, was arrested and charged with treason. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty. Police fired teargas and rubber bullets at thousands of protesters on the streets of the capital. One man was reported to have been shot dead as he tried to loot a shopping centre. Telephone booths were left smouldering on the pavements, and government vehicles were overturned and set on fire as rioters…
I just spat my drink out through my nose, or would have if I’d been drinking, when I came across this subtitle at Reason: Palestine, not Iraq, is the best shot at an Arab democracy. I suppose in part that’s because I was recently planning on using the same comparison to make the point that externally imposing democracy is more likely to succeed than, well, anything at all in Palestine. After running through the usual pie in the sky hopes naive liberals commonly hold of a peaceful Palestinian people laying down their arms and taking up democratic politics, or at…