The social explosion of 2019, a referendum the following year, and last month’s ‘mega election’ have pushed the country in a whole new direction. But is there any method to the madness?
Tag: election
Alexander Lukashenko’s regime is sending more and more protesters to prison to try to prevent a new mass mobilization.
In the kingdom, a ‘revenge porn’ case revived the debate on article 490, which criminalizes sexual relations outside marriage. Activists say it’s time to modernize the country on the issue of sexual freedom
How can you hold on to wealth if you are no longer in power?
The head of state, a political outsider who had promised to fight corruption, must contend with the powerful oligarchs in his own entourage at the risk of disappointing his voters.
When I was a kid — 12,13 — my dad’s shrink friend was a frequent guest in our house. His usual business on these visits was to review for us the degenerating state of the world, and list the ways it all made his profession difficult. “Wanna catch a glimpse of the future?” he asked […]
The assault on the Capitol wasn’t an attempted coup, per se. But the ramifications of how to hold Trump responsible are fundamental for the future of the American democracy.
A dictator-in-waiting orchestrates a violent assault on the seat of government. Shots are fired. A stunned world watches what most agree is an attack on democracy itself, a rejection of what had long seemed self-evident: that a nation’s health and prosperity depend on an orderly transfer of power from one elected leader to another. Two […]
The raid of Congress by a crowd of Donald Trump supporters is the culmination of a tumultuous presidency that has deeply fractured the American political system.
From Venezuela to Belarus, there are countries that have elements of democracy but fall well short of acceptable standards of freedom and transparency. Will the U.S. end up there too?
The West African country is training and arming everyday citizens to protect remote communities from terrorist groups. But some fear the strategy will lead to even more violence.
-Essay- PARIS — Every aspiring strongman must fulfill a number of prerequisites. He should be skilled at demonizing his opponents and intimidating his allies, manipulating the media and restricting free speech — all the while mixing different doses of serial lying, fear-mongering and nationalism to rile up the masses. But, of course, the long-term success […]
It’s Joe! After the world watched for four days as the United States counted its votes, Joe Biden has clinched victory over Donald Trump in one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history. Trump’s four tumultuous years in the White House are now bound to end, even if the outgoing president has vowed […]
Trump’s legacy will be profound: his impact as an unconventional politician, the way he turned the Republican Party upside down, the extreme polarization it’s brought to American society. Biden’s hardest work is ahead
-Analysis- PARIS — It was the kind of headline that risks fading into your news feed as if it were barely news: “Ivory Coast: As Presidential Election Approaches, International Criminal Court Worries About Violence,” Jeune Afrique magazine announced last week. And so it followed, as votes were cast this past weekend in President Alassane Ouattara’s […]
The decisive reelection of the left in Bolivia, after Evo Morales was crudely ousted, is a message to all those powers that aim to unseat the popular will.
What is happening in India is casting a long shadow on the forthcoming U.S. elections.
A leader can, in good conscience, conceal dysfunctions, hide problems or mitigate difficulties. Telling white lies allows him to restore hope for his allies, and rekindle their desire to act. But what happens when it is the very definition of self-serving
-Analysis- LIMA — Last August, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration published its Western Hemisphere Strategic Framework paper, which designated the Western Hemisphere — North and South America — as a “geo-political priority for the United States.” National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who presented the document, insisted the region was incredibly important to the United […]
The bombastic president seems to have little regard for precedence or decorum. But is he just an anomaly? And if not, what happens if he loses?
Forced into exile in Lithuania after the contested Aug. 9 Belarusian presidential election, Tikhanovskaya is not giving up the struggle to push strongman Alexander Lukashenko from power.
Violent clashes continue to rock Belarus after opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was forced to flee the country, following President Lukashenko’s reelection.
A largely unknown figure until recently, candidate Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya is now challenging to end the 26-year presidency of Alexander Lukashenko.
Welcome to Tuesday, where Biden calls for Gaza ceasefire, 6,000 refugees reach Spanish shores in a day, and a Sicilian Mafioso takes grandparenting to a new low. We also tune in to Hong Kong-based digital media The Initium for some *strait talking* about the stakes in Taiwan. • Biden calls for Israel-Gaza ceasefire: The U.S. […]
When a virus sucks all the oxygen out of the public space — and then another arrives.
Spaniards born of Latin American families are running for the first time in the European Parliament elections. They have a unique agenda.
Political Scientist Soner Cagaptay once dubbed Recep Tayyip Erdogan the “inventor of 21st-century populism.” There may be some truth to that, especially given the way the Turkish president’s style of leadership has quickly spread in recent years. But as we progress further into the millennium, it’s also clear that populism has evolved. Those with a […]
Turkey’s president first burst on the scene in 1994 when he was elected mayor of Istanbul. Now, his party tries to hold the city.
With the rise of social networking, fake news and changing psychologies, political parties have little use now for traditional campaigns.
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — Two newly released reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 election have been nothing short of revelatory. Both studies — one produced by researchers at Oxford University, the other by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge — describe in granular detail how the Russian government tried to sow discord and confusion among American voters. And both conclude that Russia’s campaign included a massive effort to deceive and co-opt African Americans. We now have unassailable confirmation that a foreign power sought to exploit racial tensions in the United States for its own gain. Ever […]
-Analysis- MUNICH — Angela Merkel has seldom sounded so straightforward and genuine. It was a clear speech, it was an honest speech. It was such a remarkably clever speech too that you could almost believe that after retreating as party chief, Merkel actually wants to and will remain chancellor until Germany’s next general election. But […]
A view from Russia on the topic of Russian-American relations: time to keep a low profile.
PARIS — When they met Thursday in Berlin, Angela Merkel and Theresa May were two leaders in crisis: the German Chancellor trying to salvage her governing coalition in the face of criticism of her migration policy, while the UK Prime Minister is being dragged ever deeper down in the Brexit quagmire. The meeting, mocked in […]
Andrés Manuel López Obrador promises to give Mexico an extreme socialist makeover. But he also wants to keep doing business with the U.S. and boost investor confidence.
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Mexico’s Election, Between Fear And Disgust
There are three candidates but really just two choices in Sunday’s presidential election in Mexico: Move forward? Or try to recreate the past?
BERLIN — They lined up in motorcades, honking horns, waving flags. It was as if Turkey had just won the World Cup, except that Turkey isn’t even in the tournament this year. Instead, these enthusiastically noisy German-Turks were fans of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the just re-elected Turkish president who earned a particularly clear victory in […]
Ince, a social democrat, is now the opposition’s leading presidential candidate. With support from Kurdish voters, he may even force a runoff.
-Analysis- BERLIN — While Brussels is palavering over a plastic tax that will never materialize, dark clouds are gathering over Europe. Right now, in plain view, the European Union is sliding straight into the next (and potentially deeper) euro crisis. The chaos in Italy — which holds the world’s third-largest public debt, totaling 2.3 trillion […]
Researchers used visuals and scanning technology to gauge how people ‘feel’ about the contenders in Colombia’s current presidential election.
-OpEd- Viktor Orban was beaming on the evening of his victory this past weekend, which brought him his fourth term as Prime Minister. The Hungarian loves the taste of success. But what he loves, even more, is to triumph over those whom he believes feel superior to him. This says much about a Hungarian inferiority […]