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Geopolitics

Slovenia Government Falls, Paves Way For First Woman Prime Minister

SLOVENSKA TISKOVNA AGENCIJA (Slovenia), BBC NEWS (UK), REUTERS

Worldcrunch

LJUBLJANA – The Slovenian parliament has ousted Prime Minister Janez Janša and his conservative government amid corruption allegations and growing discontent over the country's struggling economy.

The country’s National Assembly asked opposition leader and finance expert Alenka Bratušek to form a new government, after Prime Minister Janez Janša -- whose term lasted just over a year – was dismissed in a no-confidence vote late Wednesday, Slovenia’s news agency STA reports.

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Slovenia's new PM Alenka Bratušek - Source: Wikimedia

Bratušek, 42, will become the first woman to lead Slovenia since its secession from Yugoslavia in 1991, according to BBC News. The head of the main centre-left opposition party Positive Slovenia promised on Thursday she would be able to heal its crippled economy and avoid an international bailout.

"Considering that Slovenia is still under the EU average in terms of public debt, I still believe that with the steps we will take Slovenia will solve the position of its public finances on its own," Bratušek told Reuters on Thursday.

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Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

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