Thelma Cabrera and Jordán Rodas launch their candidacy for the presidency and vice presidency of Guatemala in December 2022, which has been vetoed by the courts, in a maneuver that has drawn criticism from human rights groups at home and abroad. CREDIT: Twitter

By Edgardo Ayala
SANTA CATARINA PALOPÓ, Guatemala, Mar 4 2023 (IPS)

Centuries of racism and exclusion suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala continue to weigh heavily, as demonstrated by the denial of the registration of a political party that is promoting the presidential candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera in the upcoming general elections.

On Mar. 2, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against Cabrera’s party, the leftist Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), which had appealed a Feb. 15 Supreme Court resolution that left them out of the Jun. 25 elections.“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities.” -- Silvia Menchú

Cabrera’s candidacy and that of her vice-presidential running-mate Jordán Rodas are now hanging by a thread, with their hopes depending on a few last resort legal challenges.

The deadline for the registration of candidates is Mar. 25.

A centuries-old racist system

Guatemala’s political and economic elites “are looking for ways to keep her (Cabrera) from registering; everyone has the right to participate, but they are blocking her,” Sonia Nimacachi, 31, a native of Santa Catarina Palopó, told IPS. The municipality, which has a Cachiquel Mayan indigenous majority, is in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá.

“We would like a person with our roots and culture to become president, I think it would help our people,” added Nimacachi, standing by her street stall in the center of town.

Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman, sells “granizadas” or snow cones: crushed ice sweetened with syrup of various flavors, perfect for hot days.

“There is a racist system and structure, and we indigenous people have barely managed to start climbing the steps, but with great difficulty and zero opportunities,” Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women, told IPS.

The organization, based in Santa Catarina Palopó, carries out human rights programs focused on indigenous women.

Santa Catarina Palopó, a picturesque Cachiquel Mayan town located on the shore of Lake Atitlán in the southwestern Guatemalan department of Sololá, is preparing for the upcoming general elections, where voters will choose a new president, vice president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, as well as 340 mayors. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“Racism has prevailed, we are mistreated everywhere by the government and the authorities, we are seen as people with little capacity,” said Menchú, of the Maya Quiché ethnic group.

An alleged illegality attributed to Rodas, the vice-presidential candidate, was the cause for denying the MLP the right to register for the elections.

Analysts and social organizations perceive obscure maneuvering on the part of the powers-that-be, who cannot accept the idea that an indigenous woman is trying to break through the barriers of the country’s rigid, racist political system.

Cabrera is a 51-year-old Mayan Mam woman who is trying for a second time to run in the unequal fight for the presidency of this Central American country of 14.9 million inhabitants.

Of the total population, 43.7 percent identify as indigenous Mayan, Xinca, Garífuna and Afro-descendant peoples, according to the 2018 census.

In the 2019 elections Cabrera came in fourth place, winning 10 percent of the total votes cast.

In the Jun. 25 general elections voters will choose a new president for the period 2024-2028, as well as 160 members of Congress and 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and 340 mayors.

In Guatemala, the ancient Mayan culture was flourishing when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century.

The descendants of that pre-Hispanic civilization still speak 24 different autochthonous languages, most of which are Mayan.

Years of exclusion and neglect of indigenous rural populations led Guatemala to a civil war that lasted 36 years (1960-1996) and left some 250,000 dead or disappeared.

The presidential candidacy of Thelma Cabrera, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP), must be allowed by the Guatemalan authorities, so that the indigenous population is represented in the Jun. 25 elections, says Silvia Menchú, director of the K’ak’a Na’oj (New Knowledge, in Cachiquel) Association for the Development of Women. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

A blatant maneuver

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) rejection of the MLP arose from a complaint against Rodas, who served between 2017 and 2022 as head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

In that office, Rodas strongly questioned alleged acts of corruption by the current government of Alejandro Giammattei, who took office in January 2020.

The criminal complaint against the vice-presidential candidate was filed on Jan. 6 by the current head of the Office for the Defense of Human Rights, Alejandro Córdoba.

After Cabrera and Rodas attempted to register as candidates, Córdoba said he had “doubts” about some payments allegedly received by his predecessor in the Office for the Defense of Human Rights.

His “doubts” apparently had to do with some alleged illegality on the part of Rodas, but since Córdoba has not described it in detail, his statements have been nothing but a weak half-hearted accusation.

However, that was enough for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to reject the MLP on Feb. 2, which triggered protests by rural and indigenous people, who blocked roads in at least 12 parts of the country.

According to Guatemalan law, all candidates for popularly elected positions must have a document that attests that they have no pending legal issues.

But analysts have pointed out that this document should only take into account actual legal rulings handed down by courts, and not “doubts” vaguely expressed by some government official.

By vetoing Rodas, the TSE automatically bars his presidential runningmate Cabrera, who may actually be the ultimate target of the maneuver, since she is the one who is trying, once again, to win the votes of the indigenous population.

On Feb. 15, the MLP runningmates filed a provisional injunction with the Supreme Court, so that it would take effect immediately and overrule the TSE’s decision, while the Supreme Court studied and resolved the matter in depth.

But the injunction was rejected, so the MLP appealed the next day to the Constitutional Court, asking it to review the case and order the Supreme Court to admit the provisional injunction, to allow the fight for the registration of Cabrera and Rodas to continue forward.

But the appeal was denied Thursday Mar. 2 by the Constitutional Court.

However, the Supreme Court has not yet issued a final ruling on the injunction, but only a provisional stance. This means that when it is finally issued, if it goes against the MLP, Cabrera and Rodas could once again turn to the Constitutional Court, in a last-ditch effort.

But it seems as if the die is already cast.

In a tweet on Thursday Mar. 2, Rodas wrote: “The constitutional justice system has denied my constitutional right to be elected and denies the population the right to choose freely. We await the Supreme Court ruling on the injunction and the position of the @IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights). Our fight continues.”

Guatemala’s political and economic elites are determined to block the candidacy of indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, says Sonia Nimacachi, a Cachiquel Mayan woman selling snowcones in Santa Catarina Palopó, in the country’s southwest. She would vote for Cabrera again, if her candidacy is finally allowed. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Cabrera’s second attempt

This is Cabrera’s second attempt to run for the presidency. Her first was in the 2019 elections, when she failed to fully capture the indigenous vote.

“I would dare to think that the majority of the indigenous population did not vote for her because of those instilled prejudices: that she is a woman and also indigenous, not a professional, are issues that have nothing to do with the dignity and the quality of a person,” argued Silvia Menchú.

She added that the right-wing parties have been allies of the country’s evangelical churches, through which they keep in submission segments of the indigenous population that end up supporting conservative parties, rather than a candidate who comes from their Mayan culture.

To illustrate, she said that in Santa Catarina Palopó, a town of 6,000 people, there is only one school to cover primary and middle-school education, “but there are about 15 evangelical churches.”

The TSE’s veto of the registration of Cabrera and Rodas puts the credibility of the elections at risk, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned on Feb. 27.

In a joint statement, the two organizations said the electoral authority’s rejection of aspiring candidates “is based on dubious grounds, puts political rights at risk, and undermines the credibility of the electoral process.”

“The electoral process is taking place in the context of a decline in the rule of law, in which the institutions responsible for overseeing the elections have little independence or credibility,” they stated.

In addition to Cabrera and Rodas, the TSE also rejected the registration of right-wing candidate Roberto Arzú, because he allegedly began campaigning too early.

HRW and Wola added that “efforts to exclude or prosecute opposition candidates create unequal conditions that could prevent free and fair elections from taking place.”

Meanwhile, the TSE did endorse, on Feb. 4, the presidential candidacy of Zury Ríos, daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who governed de facto between 1982 and 1983.

In 2013 the general was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of more than 1,400 indigenous Ixil people in the north of the country.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, but the Constitutional Court later revoked the ruling. Ríos Montt died in April 2018.

Article 186 of the Guatemalan constitution prohibits people involved in coups d’état, or their relatives, for running for president.

Meanwhile, snowcone vendor Sonia Nimacachi said in the central square of Santa Catarina Palopó that she still held out hope that Cabrera would be able to register as a candidate.

“If they let her participate, I would vote for her again,” she said, while serving a customer.

#EndSars protests against police brutality is seen by analysts as a turning point in Nigerian politics and the youth vote is expected to be critical in the 2023 election. Credit: Emmanuel Ikwuegbu/Unsplash

By Chuks Ohuegbe
ABUJA, Feb 24 2023 (IPS)

From all indications, President Muhammadu Buhari will be handing over a fractured nation that is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines when he formally hands over to his successor on May 29, 2023. This would-be successor will be inheriting a country mired in economic woes threatening its corporate existence if he’s not assuming the job prepared to address these problems headlong.

Since the inauguration of the Fourth Republic in 1999, the forthcoming poll slated for February 25, 2023, will be the most challenging in so many ways.

Besides the fact that the three leading presidential candidates – Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is Yoruba, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP) is Hausa/Fulani, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party is of Igbo ethnic stock, tribe, and religion after all, may not be the deciding factors in who wins at the poll.

Nigeria, the once giant of Africa, is at a tipping point. Almost all the economic indicators are negative. The security of lives and property is at its lowest. Non-state actors are having a field day.

With a more than 33 percent unemployment rate, the national currency severally devalued, the inflationary rate as of the end of January this year put at 21.8% by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), corruption index spiraling with the organized theft of the nation’s major foreign exchange earner – earner crude oil, at an all-time high, the outgoing administration is suffering trust deficit.

National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko

The picture is grim if one considers the agitation by some ethnic nationalities, such as the outlawed Independent People Of Biafra (IPOB) and Oduduwa Ethnic Nationality Movement pushing for a breakaway as independent states.

Worse still, the insecurity and banditry ravaging Northern parts of the country pose a significant challenge. The porous borders, especially in the northern flank, coupled with climate change and the aftermath of the crisis in Libya, have heightened insecurity in the country. Consequently, the herders/farmers clashes and kidnapping for ransom have made the country a doubtful destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

The business climate does not favor local investors, either. They are instead migrating offshore to invest, leaving an army of unemployed university graduates to roam the streets in search of non-available jobs.

In November 2022, the Nigerian government announced that 133 million Nigerians out of an estimated population of 211 million are living in multidimensional poverty. The #EndSars protest of October 2020, which was triggered by Police brutality of the civilian populace, even though it was a non-partisan protest, reawakened youth consciousness in the polity.

Its organization and execution of the goals, especially in mobilizing youths across most parts of the country, indicated that if mobilized under a political platform, these youths can play a determining role in political leadership.

Indeed, out of the 93.5 million registered voters by the Electoral Commission, the youth demography is about 70 percent. The implication of this demographic dominance is that votes cast by youths could largely decide the outcome of the February 25 presidential poll.

Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Auwal Ibrahim Musa

Per the Electoral Act 2022, the three leading presidential candidates have been on roadshows, traversing the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, wooing voters.

Remarkably, the ordinarily dominant campaign issues of religion and tribe have largely been relegated to the background, with the twin issues of economy and insecurity taking center stage.

The nation’s economy is in a parlous state, with insecurity ravaging most parts of the country.

Corrupt practices are mutating in all the subsectors of the economy, while the unemployment rate is at an all-time high.

National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Emmanuel Onwubiko, warns that voters should not be carried away by soapbox promises by these candidates. Instead, he advises that voters be guided by their antecedents concerning the country’s socioeconomic problems.

“I think what Nigerians need to look at before making their choices is the antecedents of the candidates vis-à-vis the socioeconomic reality on the ground and the prospect of proffering solutions whether in the short- or long-term. These qualities will include accountability, competence, capacity, and capability to accomplish what they promise.”

The Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Auwal Ibrahim Musa, fears that the electorate is not presented with various genuine choices given the processes that threw up some of these candidates.

Nonetheless, Musa challenges the electorates to vote for “a candidate who possesses the capacity and capability to pull the country from the brink.

“It’s important that Nigerians do not elect a person who’ll mortgage their future, loot our common patrimony and trample on the Rule of Law. It’s instructive that they do not vote for a person with liability, so the International community will not laugh at us. Nigeria is a key player in the comity of nations, and it will be pleasing if she gets the right leadership.”

Whether this poll is decided on the first ballot or runs into a run-off, besides being a referendum on the ruling All Progressive Congress, whoever wins will inherit a prostrate country that needs quick fixes to retain its corporate existence.

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Youth involvement in Nigeria’s election is at an all-time high. Here the top three candidates, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu take to the campaign trail in a country where there are 93 million registered voters. Credit: Photos Twitter/Graphic: Cecilia Russell

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 24 2023 (IPS)

Youth have already transformed the narrative of the 2023 elections, and it would be crucial for Nigeria’s newly elected president to consider their issues as he takes on the enormous task of rebuilding the country, says CIVICUS’ Advocacy and Campaigns Lead David Kode.

Speaking on the eve of the Presidential election, Kode told IPS there had been an 11 percent increase in registration since the 2019 elections, and youth have shown more interest in these elections than any other since 1999.

“Youth are really eager to see change.”

Youth activism which established itself as a political force during the 2020 #EndSars protests against police brutality and impunity, has continued on the trajectory of demanding change in the troubled country. The demand for change has gone far beyond just a change in government and leadership, but affected institutions like the church too, says Kode.

It would be necessary for the Nigerian president to tackle youth unemployment and ensure that those looking for jobs can access them. Going hand in hand with this, the civil society organization CIVICUS would like to see accountable and democratic leadership emerging during the election season, one that takes into consideration the concerns of the people.

David Kode, Advocacy and Campaigns Lead for CIVICUS.

Kode refers to the recent saga with the recall of the old naira currency, where people protested after the Central Bank of Nigeria imposed a deadline for swapping old notes. The bank was forced to extend the deadline, but it’s clear that decision-making was an example of a government and administration out of touch with its people.

“In general, as civil society organizations, we can facilitate between decision makers and the people – and that wasn’t done, and the views of the majority of Nigerians were not taken into account,” Kode said.

“And that’s a big problem for a society like Nigeria because once the decision makers are in positions of authority, it’s like they’re far removed from the lived experiences of ordinary Nigerians. They don’t access the schools that ordinary Nigerian access; they send their kids to schools in Western nations. They don’t access the hospitals when they are sick, they go out of the country, so they don’t experience these challenges on a day-to-day basis and do not really take time to consult the people about big decisions.”

He says it would have been logical to consult extensively before changing a currency.

No matter if it is the candidate that seems to have caught the imagination of the youth – Peter Obi – or another of the front runners, Bola Tinubu or Atiku Abubakar, that wins the election, it’s clear that the country needs a reset. No matter who wins, he hopes Nigeria responds in a way that strengthens the democratic process and doesn’t end in violence.

If there are protests, he hopes that they are not violently repressed – and that a free flow of information remains sacrosanct.

“If you have a leader who really has a vision for the country and prioritizes inclusivity, that might be the beginning of the change that is needed.

“Nigeria is a very, very complex, society with a huge population. And so much needs to be done, and it will take years to fix the system.”

Kode believes many challenges today are tied to the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, especially those concerning the economy and security exacerbated by his “ambivalence to the plight of citizens.”

The advantage that the new president will have, for the first time since 1999, is that the leader is not tied in some way to the country’s military dictatorship. Within the country’s constitution, there are structures available for wide consultation – from the federal to national level, where people have direct access to representatives at the national level. However, ordinary people’s concerns were not considered.

“So, we had leaders that are far removed from the lived realities of the ordinary people. And that’s why somebody like Peter (Obi) resonates very much with the youth and many Nigerians, particularly because he’s seen as somebody who is not really part of the establishment. Many people think he might be that person who could start instituting change.”

Youth represents more than 39 percent of the registered 93,4 million voters in Nigeria. Credit: INEC, Nigeria

Kode believes youth activism is exciting for Nigeria and the continent; after all, youth drove many liberation movements. Conversations around the continent prioritize youth, including the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

The youngest presidential candidate is 38 years old, and it is almost as if the youth are saying: In the past, they “stayed away because they are ambivalent, but it’s not led to change.” Youth apathy is an issue because “in Africa, there are more elections (than before), but the same leaders are being recycled.”

With youth involvement, Kode believes Nigeria can perhaps lead the continent in encouraging “active participation.”

“Irrespective of the outcome, I think the call from civil society to the new leadership will be to respect the constitution and democratic institutions. If people want to protest about the outcome, allow them to – it’s their constitutional right,” Kode says. “And I think it’s the responsibility of the state to ensure security and also allow diverse voices to be able to express themselves.”

He points out that elections are exciting because nobody knows who the winner will be. The other good thing is that this is the first election since the return to democracy in 1999 where the incumbent isn’t contesting.

“That provides in itself an opportunity for change, right, because you haven’t got people who may have been tied to some of the vices of the past … but it is the democratic process that should be built upon, and the rights of citizens need to be respected. Because there will be another election in the next few years, and if you kill certain institutions now, you could set Nigeria a few steps back.”

Nobody can predict an election, and while not everybody will be happy, it would be important for the post-election period to be carefully managed.

“Don’t disrupt the internet. Allow the information to flow as necessary. Be conscious of security issues. There are still some uncertainties; people in rural areas may not be well connected. Security or insecurity might prevent many people from voting. We know there are about 93 million registered voters, but some may not be able to vote because of security issues or even because of technical challenges. So irrespective of the outcome, I think the call from civil society will be to respect the rule of law.”

Finally, Kode says they are “encouraged that the youth are actively involved in this process, from what we see from the statistics, many are willing to vote … Let’s hope this is the beginning of a new dawn for Nigeria. A lot of countries on the continent would benefit from a democratic Nigeria.

“When Nigeria is safe, sound secure. Many other African countries will be safe, sound, and secure as well.”

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abitha Siman recalls an attack in Kaduna, Nigeria, which left her twin daughter, husband and co-wife dead. Insecurity in Nigeria is a major issue and is high on the agenda during the upcoming elections. Credit: Oluwatobi Enitan/IPS

By Oluwatobi Enitan
ABUJA, Feb 2 2023 (IPS)

Tabitha Siman, a survivor of an attack at her home, says life is not worth living after her twin daughters, husband, and co-wife were killed during an attack at her home.

Siman lives in southern Kaduna in Nigeria, where the impact of kidnapping in the region hit the headlines when bandits attacked a train heading for Abuja, killing eight and kidnapping 168. Many months later and after about USD 13 million in ransom money was paid, all were released. But the notorious rail incident is not an isolated incident. In the past year, Kaduna has seen more than 1800 deaths due to insecurity, with attacks being reported almost weekly.

Siman recalls her family were at home in Zango Kataf Local Government in July 2021 when they received information that a nearby village had been raided.

Her husband and a friend rushed to warn their neighbours because the Agbak, the village under siege, was very close.

“We started hearing sporadic gunshots. I shouted at the top of my voice, calling everyone to scamper for safety. I shouted the Fulani were attacking.”

She and her parents-in-law and one daughter were able to run to safety.

“Every other person we knew didn’t make it out on time. Here they lie in state in their mass graves.”

Insecurity, insurgency, and banditry are increasing concerns as the country returns to the polls next year for its seventh successive general election since it returned to democracy 23 years ago.

Women pose outside a polling station during the 2019 Nigerian Elections. Analysts say security is one of the major issues Nigeria’s future president will need to address. Credit: Commonwealth

Analysts say rising insecurity in the country could impact its outcome – with Nigeria’s security apparatus unable to guarantee security. Al Chukwuma Okoli writing in The Conversation, lists security as one of the five major challenges facing the next president. Other concerns are national cohesion, the economy, the university system and the fight against corruption.

“Nigeria is more divided and polarised than it’s ever been. The cleavages and fault-lines of ethnocentrism, sectarianism, sectionalism, parochialism and religious extremism are pushing the country to the brink,” Okoli writes.

He describes the state of national security as “apocalyptic”.

“The receding Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast is being substituted by a nexus of banditry and terrorism in the north-west. The north-central is still grappling with the deadly farmer-herder crisis. For its part, the south-east is enmeshed in separatist violence and the associated criminal opportunism. There is an upswing in gang and ritual brigandage in the south-west while south-south is still afflicted with militancy, piracy and oil theft.”

Nigeria’s insecurity has many antecedents, with many attacks, like the one affecting Siman, blamed on Fulani herders – who are seen as violent perpetrators, as climate change is believed to be behind their move to new migratory routes bringing them into conflict with settled farming communities. However, the Fulani are only one of several instigators of violence. According to the International Crisis Group, the insecurity has “escalated amid a boom in organised crime, including cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom and village raids. Jihadist groups are now stepping in to take advantage of the security crisis.”

John Campbell writing for The Council on Foreign Relations, notes that Kaduna is increasingly the epicentre of violence in Nigeria “with conflicts over water and land use escalating in the rural areas.”

In the capital, Kaduna, there has been prolonged political, ethnic and religious violence – some dating back to colonial times when Lord Frederick Lugard, the first governor-general of an amalgamated Nigeria, built the city and encouraged the Muslims to inhabit the north and the Christians the south.

Whatever the cause of the ongoing banditry, kidnappings and violence, it’s uncertain whether the Nigerian security apparatus can keep it under control.

“The government needs put in place a robust and comprehensive security plan to deal with the risks to a smooth election process,” analysts and academics Freedom Onuoha and Oluwole Ojewale write in The Conversation. “Security forces must plan for operations involving, for example, ground and air raids against armed groups in their strongholds. There is also a need for information and psychological operations to tackle the propaganda and disinformation put out by armed groups.”

The International Crisis Group says a multipronged approach is needed. “Nigeria’s federal authorities and state governments in the northwest should work more closely, not only to heal longstanding rifts within communities and curb violence but also to address the structural causes of insecurity in the region. International partners should lend their support and expertise as well.”

Another attack survivor Jonathan Madaki, a schoolboy, remembers what happened on the morning of March 11, 2019, in an attack also blamed on Fulani, which left 73 people dead in Dogonoma Community, Kajuru Local Government Area.

On a Monday morning, they heard the sound of gunfire from a group they identified as Fulani. His mother told him to run; she went in one direction, and he and his sister in another.

“I was hit in the hand by a bullet, and I fell to the ground; despite being in pain, I appealed to my sister not to scream, and she did not scream. We stayed there for hours,” Madaki said.

The siblings finally trekked to another village and were hospitalised; once discharged, a good Samaritan enrolled him in school.

For villagers in Southern Kaduna, who are predominantly farmers, keeping body and soul together has been difficult for years. Farmers often cannot harvest crops because almost all the villages have become an enclave for the attacks.

Villagers like Bala Musa have equally lost hope in the Government restoring peace to the affected communities.

Musa, a blacksmith and a farmer, says they often find themselves in the centre of the conflict, targeted by attackers and accused by the police and soldiers of collaborating with bandits. Musa says the police shot him because they were convinced the locals were concealing weapons and hiding Fulani men.

All presidential candidates for the 2023 elections have pledged to address insecurity, but based on published articles, their promises lack details of in-depth strategies. – Additional reporting Cecilia Russell

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People take time to go to the bank, but not to register to vote. Lower voter turnout and registration are a cause for concern in Zimbabwe. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Mar 31 2022 (IPS)

Activity in the streets of Zimbabwe’s second city is testimony to a thriving informal sector where thousands of people eke out a living selling all sorts of wares.

From vegetables to soft drinks to television sets, mobile phones and anything in-between, all are peddled here, where being self-employed means putting in more hours to ensure food on the table.

It is here where 41-year-old Gilbert Mabutho works as an itinerant vendor, peddling whatever commodity he can sell. Today he is selling boiled maize (corn) because he says, “maize is in season.”

“There are no jobs. This is where my bread comes from,” Mabutho told IPS.

Amid the hustle and bustle, Mabutho is among many who have not taken time off their daily grind to register to vote or check their names in the voter’s roll ahead of the forthcoming primary elections.

Voter registration opened in January and closed on February 28 ahead of the by-elections. Registration will resume after the by-elections from April 10 to 30.

“I haven’t had time to register. I am just too occupied trying to make ends meet,” Mabutho said.

By-elections, considered harbinger of the country’s 2023 elections, were held earlier this month, and analysts are raising concerns about the low response to voter registration and participation.

Yet besides being too busy to make time for voter registration, residents such as unemployed Samson Basvi say they do not see any benefit in voting.

“The country’s hardships have been going for years now, showing me no reason to vote,” Basvi told IPS.

“If voting truly changed anything, surely the people who are voted into power would improve our lives,” he reasoned, expressing a common sentiment here, where the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU-PF) has been in power since 1980.

According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, the country’s second-largest city has the lowest number of registered voters.

In the 2018 elections, where President Emmerson Mnangagwa claimed disputed victory, about three-quarters of about 5.5 million registered voters cast their vote – which was considered a high turnout.

“It is not clear yet if voter turnout in the by-elections is an indicator of the 2023 polls,” said Piers Pigou, southern Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Analysts note that a lack of trust in electoral processes has led to voter apathy.

“The prime cause for apathy is fears of a possible rigging of elections in favour of the ruling ZANU-PF, a long-standing sentiment among voters,” said Stanley Mabuka, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), a government-appointed body tasked with running the country’s elections, has also been criticized for what is seen as poor voter education and voter registration campaign, with some residents claiming they have not heard about voter verification or registration.

“A lacklustre approach by the ZEC on registration exercise in remote areas might also accelerate voter apathy among first-timers. Already the registration exercise is running late due to delays imposed by the coronavirus pandemic,” Mabuka told IPS.

Zimbabwe has for years witnessed a cycle of disputed election outcomes, with opposition political parties accusing the ruling party of manipulating electoral processes. At the same time, some observer missions raised concerns about the credibility of the 2018 poll results.

“We have not seen the number of people registering rising compared with the number of people qualified to vote even if they meet all the requirements,” said Effie Ncube, a political analyst and independent researcher in Bulawayo.

“You then have people registered to vote but don’t vote because of despondency that elections have not been delivering the kind of lifestyle they desire,” Ncube told IPS.

The ruling party says it is targeting 5 million votes in the 2023 elections, while the Citizens for Change Coalition (CCC), led by Nelson Chamisa, says it is targeting 6 million voters. But with the current pace of voter registration and the inspection of the voter’s roll expected to pour into 2023, there is little to show that either party will garner such numbers.

By-elections were called to fill vacant municipality and legislative seats, but some analysts note that by-elections have generally attracted few voters, a phenomenon seen across the continent.

“There is usually less interest in by-elections, but there is also the issue of young people who have turned voting age who are failing to get registration documents that will allow them to vote,” said Pigou.

“Low voter participation has been a general trend across the region (southern Africa), and this has been particularly the case with younger people,” Pigou told IPS.

More is required to be done if voters are to be convinced of a “possibility of change spearheaded by a democratic opposition,” says Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies who has written extensively about Zimbabwe.

“By and large, by-elections attract a low turnout around the world. In Zimbabwe, however, there are added factors of disillusionment with the fragmentation of the opposition and the sense among voters that ZANU-PF is at this point not able to be dislodged from power,” Chan told IPS.

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There is a fear that the crackdown on NGOs in Zimbabwe could impact the observer status during the upcoming election. Other areas that could be affected include access to sexual reproductive health, food aid, and education. This picture was taken during the 2018 elections. Credit: Commonwealth Observer Mission

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Mar 22 2022 (IPS)

Zimbabwe is pressing ahead with a controversial bill that critics say seeks to criminalise the operations of nongovernmental organisations working in the country.

According to senior government officials, amendments to the Private Voluntary Organisations Act is designed to stem illegal money coming into the country under the guise of NGO funding but is allegedly used to push political agendas and political lobbying.

The country’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), has been suspicious of NGOs, routinely accusing them of working with hostile foreign countries to push what it calls a “regime change agenda”.

In recent days, members of the public have been invited by parliament to share their views on the proposed amendments, but violent interruptions have marred these public gatherings by what rights groups say are ruling party activists eager to see the bill passed into law.

This comes as a senior government official, Larry Mavima, said in early March that the country does not need NGOs as Zimbabwe was not at war, advising that NGOs should “go to Ukraine” where their services are needed.

“How long should we continue relying on other people? There was a time when NGOs were necessary, but we to get out of this mentality,” Mavima told a public gathering in the country’s Midlands province devastated by cyclical droughts and where humanitarian needs continue to grow.

The remarks were quickly met with widespread condemnation from the humanitarian sector in a country where millions of people survive on NGO assistance, including sexual reproductive health, food aid and education.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, before the emergence of Covid-19, more than 7 million people in both rural and urban areas required food assistance, with the World Food Programme noting that the numbers grew with poor harvests during the 2020-21 and 2020-22 cropping seasons.

However, there are concerns about the proposed amendments of the law timing on the eve of elections slated for 2023.

NGOs involved in civic education have especially been targeted with a government minister alleging that the public, voluntary organisations working, especially in the rural areas, were straying from their mandates and politicising villagers.

“The banning of NGOs will have a bearing on the upcoming elections because it will undermine the ability of civic society organisations to observe, cover and monitor the elections,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Human Rights Watch Africa Advocacy director.

“Active NGOs and civil society organisations are fundamental to an open, free, and democratic society because of the role they play in protecting and promoting human rights and the rule of law. The PVO Act amendment is a disturbing development that takes place against the backdrop of a broader crackdown on civic space in Zimbabwe.” Nantulya told IPS by email.

This is not the first time Zimbabwe has escalated efforts to muzzle NGOs.

In July last year, the capital city Harare’s provincial development coordinator Tafadzwa Muguti demanded that already registered NGOs seek approval from his office before carrying out any programmes.

The announcement was met swift protests from civic society groups who challenged the directive in court and won, with a high court judge questioning the legality of such demands.

The attempts to muzzle the NGOs also attracted international attention. The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights added its voice and issued a statement calling on the Zimbabwean government to “stop interfering with NGO operations.”

NGO groups have indicated they will challenge the amendment of the PVO Act in court if passed into law.

A joint report, authored by the Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, looked into the possible economic impact of the PVO amendment bill. The report, released in February, raised concerns about the far-reaching impact of outlawing NGO work in Zimbabwe.

“Any disruptions in NGO activities and financing will likely worsen the poverty situation and threaten the development gains that have been made to date. Importantly, in Zimbabwe, there has been no instance of terrorist financing in the NGOs sector,” the researchers wrote.

“The country’s economic situation, human development indices, and progress towards meeting SDGs show that the country needs all the help it can get,” McDonald Lewanika, lead of Accountability Lab Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“The fears around NGOs supporting materially political parties are unfounded in this environment where there has been donor flight and fatigue and where some NGOs have lost funding from big donors on suspicion of the same. It is not in the interest of NGOs to be partisan,” Lewanika said.

Zimbabwe had in the past made numerous calls for assistance, so it is not clear what has changed now for the authorities to declare NGOs are no longer welcome.

“No country can claim that it doesn’t need NGOs, when we know that NGOs, especially in Zimbabwe, are at the forefront of service delivery for communities. For instance, women and reproductive rights and HIV AIDS organisations provided critically needed services to the communities,” Nantulya said.

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Malawi’s small scale traders selling their merchandise at Limbe market in Blantyre. Credit: Lameck Masina/IPS

By Lameck Masina
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Jun 11 2020 (IPS)

Malawi remains one of the few nations in the world that has not gone into a coronavirus lockdown as the government rushes to meet the conditions of a court order to implement a cash transfer scheme for the poor before doing so. But as some parts of the world are slowing coming out of their lockdowns, it could be likely this southern African nation won’t go into one as the rerun of the country’s presidential election nears. 

On Apr. 27, President Peter Mutharika announced the roll out of a multimillion dollar emergency cash transfer exercise aimed to cushion the peri urban poor from the impact of the coronavirus.

Mutharika said the $51 million bailout initiative targeted 172,000 households in the cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Zomba.

The exercise, which was expected to roll out in May, was in response to demands from civil rights organisations, who obtained a court injunction against a planned 21-day lockdown scheduled to start Apr. 18, outlining the lack of measures to cushion the country’s vulnerable. The court ruled the cash transfer scheme be implemented and a lockdown would be suspended until then.

Under the World Bank-funded programme, beneficiaries will receive MK35, 000 (about $47) a month, for six months.

Country’s vulnerable still waiting

Widow Elizabeth Longwe has been earning her daily income by selling tomatoes at Limbe market in Blantyre. But since the country confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Apr. 2, her daily sales have reduced by almost half.

Her customers stopped purchasing from her for fear of contracting the virus, which has killed over 400,000 people across the globe.

“Instead, people started buying things in bulk and using them sparingly, making it difficult for small scale businesses like mine to enjoy the same kind of sales one would do on a normal day,” she tells IPS.

The mother of three says she “thanks God” that her lack of sales came after the government suspended schools in response to the pandemic.

“It would have been a disaster to me because I couldn’t have managed to provide transport money for my two older children to school daily. But still, my worry was how I would manage to feed my children,” she says.

But she had been hopeful for financial assistance when the cash transfer scheme was been announced.

So too was Lackson Tembo, who trades in second-hand clothes, also at Limbe Market.

“This was a relief to me because with this meant I would still be feeding my children. I would be able to buy soap for washing and bathing. I would be able to pay my monthly rent,” Tembo tells IPS.

Where is the money?

But Tembo and Longwe, who are among the first beneficiaries listed for the cash transfers, are yet to receive the money. And they have not been informed why. They fear that remarks by the country’s Vice President Saulos Chilima, who said at a political rally in May that donors have withheld the funds for fear of abuse, may in fact be true.

However, spokesperson for the Treasury Department in the Ministry of Finance Williams Banda tells IPS that the funds are there but disbursement is delayed because they have been working on “implementation modalities”.

“The World Bank was targeting the peri-urban hotspots of the major cities … [but] when the technical committee looked at the list, they noted that the targeted beneficiaries [vulnerable groups] were not on the lists,” says Banda.

Banda says this forced the technical committee to suspend the listing and start engaging with “the ones who do the normal social cash transfer, to get to those who are indeed vulnerable and very poor individuals in the peri-urban hot spots”.

Lockdown versus elections

However, many still doubt if the lockdown will ever take off as political leaders intensify their campaign rallies ahead of the country’s presidential re-run, expected to be held on Jul 2.

• Malawi is expected to go polls after the Constitutional Court nullified the country’s May 21, 2019 presidential elections citing massive and systematic irregularities, including the use of correctional fluid on the ballots. 
• In its verdict on February 3, the court ordered fresh polls within 150 days, which ends on July 3. Parliament, which is currently sitting in the capital Lilongwe, is expected to set a date for the fresh polls.

But at a political rally on Saturday, Jun. 6, in the Zomba City in southern Malawi, former President Joyce Banda accused the government of exaggerating figures of COVID-19 cases.

Malawi has so far confirmed 455 COVID-19 cases with 4 deaths and 55 recoveries. 

“Since April, we have only registered four deaths, and recently we saw the government faking people suffering from the coronavirus, to find an excuse to postpone the election through a lockdown, but still, more are recovering.

“Let’s just thank God that we have been spared from this pandemic rather than deliberately bloating cases to attract donor money,” she had said.

Her remarks were an echo of what other opposition leaders have been saying; that the government should forget imposing a lockdown as Malawians are eager to go to polls.

Cash transfer to start soon … but what of COVID-19 testing?

While it is uncertain if the country will ever go into a lockdown, Minister of Population Planning and Social Welfare Clara Makungwa tells IPS that with or without the lockdown, the emergency cash transfer will still roll out because of the increasing number of people impacted by COVID-19. This includes migrant workers who are returning home, as well as those who are unable to run their businesses as people implement their own social distancing measures here.

“Figures for those affected are getting bigger and bigger now. For example we have 17 busses coming soon with people [migrant workers who were stranded in South Africa because of the lockdown there] who are coming back home, they are helpless. Those that have businesses are suffering. They are not enjoying the usual business as they were doing before. These people still need assistance,” she tells IPS. 

Makungwa says some of the issues which delayed the roll out of the programme have been resolved and expectation is that the exercise would start by the end of this month.

“We needed to train the enumerators, brief the block leaders because they are the ones to benefit and also work with city councils.  So we have come that far and we are now ready for the enumerators to go round doing the enlisting and the programme will roll out,” says Makungwa.

However a lecturer in economics at Malawi Polytechnic, Betcheni Tchereni, tells IPS that although the cash transfer would help mitigate the impact of the virus on the poor, efforts to contain the spread of the virus should also be funded.

“The best thing that we should do is procure enough testing kits and make sure that pretty much everybody has been tested. That way then it will be alright and make sure that porous borders have been closed. Because you have seen that most of the people have been affected or infected because of someone who travelled from abroad,” Tchereni tells IPS.

Malawi with a population of about 18 million has just tested 13 COVID-19 testing sites according to the Public Health Institution of Malawi. About 6,000 people have far been tested.

Millions of South Africans headed out in large numbers, some braving cold and wet weather to cast their ballot in the country's sixth democratic elections on May 8, 2019. Credit: Crystal Orderson/IPS

By Crystal Orderson
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 10 2019 (IPS)

Millions of South Africans headed out in large numbers, some braving cold and wet weather to cast their ballot in the country’s sixth democratic elections this week. The 2019 election was one of the most competitive and contested elections that also saw a whopping 48 parties on the national ballot—up 300 percent from a mere 10 years ago.

For years South Africa’s majority was excluded from this democratic right by the minority apartheid government and the first time they were able to vote was in 1994. The ruling African National Congress, ANC, has won every election since then and there was never any doubt that the ruling party will would again remain in power. However, it was the margin of victory that was key in these elections.

The ruling party received over 58 percent of the vote along with another mandate to rule the country for the next five years. The main issues for citizens in this election was more jobs, a better economy and an end to rampant corruption. For the ANC to keep momentum and make an impact, it will have to deliver on these issues over the next two years.

Senior Economist Dawie Roodt told IPS that the main issue now is what President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans are for the economy and dealing with corruption. “Another issue we are watching is the appointment of the new cabinet and the ministers he will appoint in the key portfolios like finance. The challenges are daunting and there are a  few key priorities how is he going to deal with Eskom and some other economic issues like job creation and the state’s debt levels.”

A Mandate for Change
In this election, Ramaphosa needed a victory to turn the tide against corruption and service delivery protests. In 2014, the ANC won 62.15 percent of the votes, with the Democratic Alliance, DA, receiving 22.23 percent while new political kid on the block, the Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF, took 6.35 percent.

In 2014 voter turnout was at 73,48 percent and this week it dropped by nine percent to around 65 percent—with the decline coming as a surprise to many.

The lack of show at the polls indicates a disillusioned electorate, unhappy with the current state of politics. Ramaphosa will have to work hard to get the electorate to believe in the country again.

Economist Khaya Sithole told national radio station 702 Talk Radio that Ramaphosa needs to keep the momentum of the changes to the economy. “He has the 12-24 months to deliver on the promises of jobs and people will question him if he is going to do the right thing or not.”

Roodt says South Africans voted for Ramaphosa so that he can make the changes needed and there is renewed hope that he will announce a smaller and leaner cabinet to implement these changes.

“Ramaphosa promised us a smaller government and cabinet. I am however not too concerned around the size of the cabinet, I just want to see that we efficient people to be in charge, ministers are often also appointed because of their loyalties and not per se for the job they do,” said Roodt.

All eyes on Ramaphosa
Casting his ballot in Soweto on election day, Ramaphosa told a large media contingency that this year’s vote served to remind people of the 1994 elections.

“In 1994 our people were just as excited as this because they were heralding a new period, a new future for our country and today this is what I am picking up.”

The 66-year-old Ramaphosa added that the vote was also about confidence and about the future, admitting that the party had failed in some cases.

“Over the 25 years, we have achieved a great deal. We have not yet filled the glass. The glass is half full,” he said.
South Africans are desperate for a turn around. The extent of corruption under former President Jacob Zuma’s rule, have left many feeling hopeless, angry and disillusioned.

In recent years, South Africans have become poorer, struggling to support their families with a sluggish economy. With one in three people without jobs, there is growing desperation to see change. And all eyes are on Ramaphosa, who is under enormous pressure to save the sinking ship.

Ailing economy
And South Africans want the new ANC-led government to be decisive in its decisions to re-build a stagnant economy and create much-needed jobs.

The other headaches for Ramaphosa include:

• increasing debt—SA’s debt to GDP ratio will peak at just over 60 percent in 2023/2024;
• continued low growth projections—the growth forecast for 2019 was revised downwards from 1.7 percent to 1.5 percent;
• and failing state-owned entities, like the power utility Eskom.

Ramaphosa has set himself an ambitious task of attracting 100 billion dollars in new investments that he believes will kick start the ailing economy.

Eskom the albatross around South Africa’s neck

Ramaphosa will have to do some tough things, including cutting the number of ministries, reducing the massive government wage bill, and cleaning up corrupt state-owned entities, like Eskom.

Eskom is the largest utility in Africa yet it is also the albatross around Ramaphosa’s neck. The government has had to bail it out with millions of taxpayer’s dollars. The power utility has a debt burden of more than 28 billion dollars and rating agencies see this as one of the biggest risks to Africa’s most industrialised economy.

During Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s Budget Speech in March, he outlined financial support of about five billion dollars to the cash-strapped utility over three years, with support totalling about 10 billion dollars over the next decade as part of the government’s rescue plan.

Roodt said that at the moment the agenda for Eskom is to basically “just survive”. “The dismal state of Eskom is that they are in debt and they need billions to just survive,” he said.

Roodt added he wanted to see action from Ramaphosa concerning Eskom’s excessive wage bill.
“There are far too many people being paid excessive wages and there are about between 20 and 30 000 to many people working there, we need to cut down and trim Eskom.”

Economists argue this is not enough. Ramaphosa will have to go ahead with the break up of the entity and will have to look at public-private partnerships—but the trade union federation may not support this.

This is part of the problem for Roodt. “Cutting the workforce will not be easy—unions are part of the tripartite alliance with the ANC, you will need strong political leadership and hopefully Ramaphosa will have the mandate.”

The tripartite alliance is an alliance between the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Traditionally the latter two parties have always stood with the ANC in elections. However, in 2017, the SACP contested the country’s municipal elections. For this week’s elections the SACP contested once again as part of the tripartite alliance.

All eyes will be on Ramaphosa, a seasoned negotiator who chaired the country’s constitutional-making process, to see how he handles this matter.

What now? Some of the tasks ahead…..

There are 400 seats in the national assembly and during the 2014 election, the ANC had 249 seats, down from the 264 seats it had from the 2009 election. In 2019 this is likely to be less, and at the time of print, the ANC had over 200 seats. This will mean that the ANC will have a majority to make the changes that are needed.

After a decade of former president Zuma’s rule, rampant corruption, maladministration and the high unemployment rate have created a ticking time bomb for the country. Ramaphosa wants to bring renewal to South Africa to ensure job creation and an end to rampant corruption.

He has promised this would be the major issues on his agenda. South Africans will have to wait and see whether he will be committed to this once he takes office at the Union Buildings in Pretoria in June.

Women voters queue outside a local school polling centre in Tejgaon area in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Sheikh Hasan Ali/IPS

By Naimul Haq
DHAKA, Jan 14 2019 (IPS)

It was the first time in the history of parliamentary elections in Bangladesh that a party won with such a huge margin. But according to local analysts familiar with Bangladesh’s political climate, the victory by the ruling Awami League (AL) led coalition—which won over 96 percents of seats in parliament in the country’s 11th national elections on Dec. 30—was expected in the face of the country’s unprecedented development. 

Economic Growth Spurred on Ruling Party’s Win

Growth in this South Asian nation has overtaken that of many developing nations.

“Bangladesh’s economic growth rate hit record 7.86 percent, per capital income has reached 1,751 dollars, exports reached 42 billion dollars annually and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) indicators show we are on the right track. Now having said that, I think the overwhelming majority of the voters understand the development trends and so they chose rightly their leaders,” Professor Abu Ahsan Mohammad Shamsul Arefin Siddique, former vice chancellor of the University of Dhaka, told IPS.

According to the World Bank, the country is predicted to continue to have GDP growth in the 6.5 to 7 percent range well into next year, with key growth drivers being exports (the country’s ready made garments sector has driven this), manufacturing growth, and services.

A leading election analyst, Munira Khan, told IPS: “People have voted for AL to continue the huge social and economic development that we have observed in the recent past. And it is also true that those who voted for AL obviously wanted the spirit of the liberation forces to stay in power.”

Led by Sheikh Hasina, the victory of her ruling party confirmed her as the Prime Minister for a record third consecutive term.

In the final results AL and its allies won a total of 288 seats in parliament while the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party or BNP, which is a member party of the coalition Jatiya Oikya Front (National Unity Front), secured only five. Jatiya Oikya Front is a coalition of opposition parties comprising BNP, Gono Forum, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and Nagorik Oikya.

There had been criticism from many that BNP had ties to  banned Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. However, Gono Forum leader and founder of the coalition, Dr. Kamal Hossain, acknowledged the negative impact on voters and added that he would not have wanted the alliance to include Jamaat if he had known about their inclusion by other party workers.

A further two seats went to members of the Jatiya Oikya Front alliance.

Hasina’s vision for women’s empowerment, educating girls and giving women a greater voice, has contributed to social changes and the country’s economic transformation.

The country, which according to the World Bank has considerably reduced poverty from 2010 to 2016 (the rate has since slowed), is expected to obtain the category of a Middle Income Country by 2021. The government also promised to generate 40,000 megawatts of electricity to fuel economic development.

While Hasina’s government has made huge economic progress, the Prime Minister has also been recognised by the global community for her role in giving shelter to the persecuted Rohingya refugees. She opened the doors for over a million Rohingya’s while many nations have been onlookers.

Claims of Irregularities in the Vote

The election was not without issues as BNP and it’s alliances claimed irregularities in the election process after violence was reported in 23 out of a total of 40,000 polling stations. Sixteen people died in clashes that ensued. Hossain, meanwhile, urged diplomatic mission heads in Dhaka to engage with the AL government to pursue holding fresh elections under a non-party administration immediately.

Many have questioned how AL received such a huge number of votes when the main rival, BNP, which was popular in previous polls and traditionally won seats, lost so miserably.

Reza Kibria, who contested the elections under Jatiya Oikya Front and lost, told IPS: “The so-called election was a farce and it was a shameful episode in the history of our country. The vote rigging took place in a wide scale and it was centrally directed.” Kibria is the son of the slain Shah AMS Kibria, who was the finance minister under the Sheikh Hasina-led government in 1996.

He said that about 30 to 40 percent of the votes were cast before the voting opened at 8am and that polling agents from opposition parties were not allowed to enter the voting centres to check whether the ballot boxes were empty.

“In many centres we had reports that 80 to 90 percent of the voters had turned out to vote by midday, which is physically not possible.”

Kibria’s critical remarks, however, were not supported by any evidence or specific details or a record of the irregularities.

Authorities have denied the allegations. Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, the Press Adviser to the Prime Minister, and also editor of Daily Observer, told IPS that the Jatiya Oikya Front and BNP leaders had failed to act as a responsible political party and convince general people that the alliance, if voted to power, could be a better political party to steer the government.

The win was not a surprise to critics of the government. Sharmin Murshid, Chief Executive Officer of Brotee, an NGO for social change, and a leading election critic, told IPS: “We had expected AL to win the election but not at this rate of enormity.”

“It would be a huge challenge for the government to rule for the next five years without an opposition. So when there is no opposition there is hardly any healthy critique and without such criticism politics may be difficult,” Murshid added.

But she pointed out that since the government has huge confidence and a mandate from the people it must investigate the alleged election irregularities. It would give the government more credibility if they did so, she said.

The Prime Minister has stated that with regards to complaints of irregularities, legal processes will be followed. They are being investigated by the Election Commission of Bangladesh (EC).

Election Commissioner Begum Kabita Khanam, however, told IPS: “The election was largely satisfactory although we had several allegations of irregularities in some centres, which we are now in the process of investigating.”

“Since the EC did not receive any evidence of unfairness in voting, the EC considers the election to be fair,” Khanam added.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Human Rights Foundation, and the Election Monitoring Forum, two independent entities, described the election as ‘peaceful’ and ‘organised’.

And local political analyst and retired Major General, Abdur Rashid, told IPS: “We found the election credible as people voted without fear and independently. Throughout the voting period, we observed that the environment was peaceful in most of the centres in which people voted in festive mood.”

Asked why AL got such a huge mandate, Rashid said, “I think that AL should be credited for restoring the dignity and identity of the new generation in favour of the spirit of the (1971) liberation. BNP leaders, on the other hand, had launched propaganda against the pro-liberation forces trying to divide the nation. This is one of the main reasons why AL got such a huge mandate, apart from the development works of course.”

The Scale of the Elections  

Despite the allegations of vote rigging and sporadic violence, the election was considered generally well organised and monitored.

The scale of the election was enormous. In a nation of 160 million people, there were 106 million registered voters, including 20 million newly-registered youth voters. Voter turnout was above 80 percent. A total of 25,900 representatives from 81 local observer bodies, 38 foreign observers, 64 officials and diplomats from foreign missions, and 61 Bangladeshi nationals working in overseas organisations, were present.

However, there were fewer monitors than previous polls. Many election monitors were not allowed to participate in their professional duties as they reportedly did not register on time, according to the EC.

One of the prominent features of this election was the level of security. Over 700,000 security forces, including the army, were on tight vigil round the clock. Out of 40,051 polling centres, violence occurred in 23 centres, which statistically was less than 0.06 percent.

“I have never seen such a huge number of security men around polling centres,” remarked Mohammed Zakir Hossain, 73, who has been voting since 1970.
Such security measures perhaps raised the confidence and level of enthusiasm among the voters, which is why the queues at most of the centres, even in remote areas, appeared very long.

Amid cool weather, a group of five young ladies were found in festive mood in Dhaka’s uptown in Baridhara. Shirin Mahtab, 28, who was carrying her child, said: “You can see how safe I feel coming to vote bringing my young daughter along with me.”

Professor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah who founded Jatiya Nirbachon Parjabekkhon Parishad (the National Election Observation Council), told IPS that the tight security meant that, “vote fraudulence was hardly possible due to tight vigilance by officials and heavy presence of security. Public movement was very restricted as only voters with valid ID card were allowed to approach the polling centres and throughout we noticed police checking on suspected movements while army patrolled at striking range.”

He also called the elections free and fair.

Despite the claims of irregularities, the election was well accepted internationally. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin were among the first world leaders who congratulated Hasina.

President Daniel Ortega (standing a right) at the Sixth National Sandinista Congress, held June 4, which unanimously proclaimed him the Sandinista Party candidate for president of Nicaragua for the seventh time in a row. On the high rise building, Nicaraguan revolutionary hero Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) is depicted in silhouette. Credit: La Voz del Sandinismo

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Jun 23 2016 (IPS)

The seventh consecutive nomination of Daniel Ortega as the governing party’s candidate to the presidency in Nicaragua, and the withdrawal from the race of a large part of the opposition, alleging lack of guarantees for genuine elections, has brought about the country’s worst political crisis since the end of the civil war in 1990.

President Ortega, a 72-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has been the elected head of this Central American since 2007, and is seeking reelection in the general elections scheduled for November 6. If he wins his term of office will be extended to 2021, by which time he will have served a record breaking 19 years, longer even than that of former dictator Anastasio Somoza García whoruled the country for over 16 years.

He is standing again this year in spite of already having served two consecutive terms as president, thanks to a ruling by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)-controlled Supreme Court (CSJ).

The CSJ determined in 2011 that an article in the constitution banning indefinite reelection was a violation of Ortega’s right to be a candidate. Thus the highest court in the land struck down the constitutional ban against immediate reelection of serving presidents who have served out their term of office.The future situation “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.” - Humberto Meza

Ortega’s electoral hopes were further boosted on June 15, when the opposition National Coalition for Democracy (CND) was elbowed out of the race: their most promising leader, Luis Callejas, was dropped as a presidential candidate.

Earlier the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) cancelled the legal status of the leadership of the Independent Liberation Party (PLI), the largest member of the Coalition, and handed over PLI representation instead to a political faction supportive of the FSLN.

In the view of the opposition and other domestic movements, these measures have undermined the country’s democratic institutions and cast a shadow of doubt over the validity of the elections themselves.

Social scientist Nicolás López Maltez, a member of Nicaragua’s Academy of Geography and History, said that the way Ortega has pursued his presidential aspirations is unparalleled in Central America in the past 150 years.

“He has been a candidate in seven consecutive elections since 1984. He lost in 1990, 1996 and 2001; then he won the elections in 2006, 2011 and is now an official candidate for 2016,” López Maltez told IPS.

Ortega first came to power in 1979 when FSLN guerrillas ousted the last member of the Somoza dynasty of dictators who ruled the country with an iron fist for 43 years.

He was the coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction, the provisional government (1979-1984) installed by the Sandinista rebels following their victory against Anastasio Somoza Junior. Ortega stood for president for the first time in 1984 in the first elections called by the Sandinistas and was elected for the five-year term 1985-1990.

He lost the 1990 elections which marked the climax of a civil war in which armed opposition to the Sandinista revolution received political and military pressure from the United States.

According to López Maltez and other analysts, Ortega has taken control of all government branches, and is therefore practically assured of victory at the ballot boxes in November.

If this happens, then by 2018 Ortega will become the longest serving president of Nicaragua, outlasting the terms in office of liberal former general José Santos Zelaya (1893-1909) and Anastasio Somoza García (1937-1947 and 1950-1956) who each served for 16 years and a few months.

The Somoza dynasty wielded absolute power in Nicaragua from 1937 to 1979. Three members of two generations of this family – or their puppet allies – perpetuated their oppressive and corrupt dictatorship for 43 years.

Pollsters agree that President Ortega enjoys wide social support and the confidence of by groups such as private business and the police and military corps.

In May, M&R Consultores published survey results indicating that 77.6 percent of respondents backed Ortega, and 63.7 percent of voters said they would cast their ballots for his socialist FSLN party.

“Over the last 15 years several Latin American presidents have overturned the myth, previously regarded as incontrovertible by political scientists, that the region’s presidents enjoy high approval levels when they enter office, but high disapproval levels when they leave,” the head of the M&R consultancy, Raúl Obregon, told IPS.

In his view, there are several reasons why Ortega is one of the exceptions to the rule.

In the first place, he said, Ortega’s prospects are enhanced by the fading of popular fears that the FSLN would cause another war if they were returned to power, a fear much played upon by the opposition in the 1990, 1996 and 2001 election campaigns.

Secondly, he said, Ortega has followed sound macroeconomic policies and this is recognised by both domestic and international organisations.

The rolling out of social projects for poverty reduction has benefited the most vulnerable members of society.

Rightwing parties governed the country between 1990 and 2007, but they have now been torn apart owing to internal conflicts, and they have lost influence among the electorate.

“They are out of touch with the problems and needs of the people. They talk politics while the population wants to hear proposals to solve their main problems, namely unemployment and lack of access to basic necessities,” Obregón emphasised.

Thirty-eight percent of Nicaragua’s 6.2 million people live in poverty, according to international organisations. The 2012 electoral register identifies 4.5 million registered voters.

Despite the picture painted by the polls, opposition politicians accuse Ortega of manipulating the laws and institutions in his favour to ensure the outcome of the election and secure his continued grasp on power.

Opposition sectors claim the results of municipal elections in 2008 and of the 2011 general elections were fraudulent. Observers from the U.S. Carter Center and from the European Union observers/ said they lacked transparency.

This year a number of civil society organisations and other institutions, including the private sector and the Roman Catholic Church, have asked Ortega for greater political openness and for international observers to monitor the elections to guarantee fair play.

But in May Ortega decided not to invite international or local electoral observers, whom he referred to as “shameless scoundrels.”

After that came the move against the PLI leadership, followed in June by the engineering of the disqualification of the candidate nominated by the CND coalition, an umbrella group for the main opposition forces.

CND leaders said they were abandoning the contest in order to avoid being involved in an “electoral farce.”

These events rang alarm bells at international organisations as well as for the secretary general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, a native of Uruguay.

Humberto Meza, who holds a doctorate in social sciences, said that Ortega’s stratagems to perpetuate himself in power “will drastically affect the legitimacy of the elections,” no matter how high his popularity rating.

The Supreme Court “is condemning a vast number of voters to non participation in the electoral process,” he told IPS.

The aftermath, in Meza’s view, “will depend on the opposition’s power to create instability in the electoral system, after announcing its official withdrawal from the contest.”

“Nicaragua is polarised. Many people are critical of but remain silence for fear of official reprisals,” he said.

Democratic institutions are fragile now to an extent not seen since 1990, Meza said.

However, “democracy has plenty of other options for self-nurture apart from the voting mechanism,” he said. “Apparently a large sector of the opposition is placing its hopes in these alternatives.”

Meza said the concern expressed by the OAS secretary general and any pressure exerted by the international community, led by the United States, were unlikely to have “much impact” on Nicaragua’s  domestic crisis.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee

In the near future it will become clear whether the triumph of Mauricio Macri, to become president of Argentina on Dec. 10, marked the start of a new era in South America, with the emergence of conservative governments in a scenario where leaders identified as left-wing have been predominant so far this century. Credit: Mauricio Macri

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 24 2015 (IPS)

Different degrees of economic problems are a common denominator in South American countries where governments that identify as leftist may start to fall, in a shift that began in Argentina and could continue among its neighbours to the north.

“It is not possible yet to say whether this is the end of a cycle, because the reasons for it are still very present…but there is a very complex crisis affecting the governments that I call ‘distributionist’, which are facing difficulties, especially in Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela,” Professor Tullo Vigevani of the São Paulo State University told IPS.

For his part, retired diplomat Marcos Azambuja, a former Brazilian ambassador to Argentina and France, told IPS: “It’s not the end of a cycle in Latin America, but the waning of a group of governments tending towards populism associated with nationalism.”“My fear is that the dying Chavismo will come to an undemocratic end, given the fragile position of President Nicolás Maduro, while in Brazil the change will surely be democratic.” -- Marcos Azambuja

“Left” is a concept that has lost validity, he added, preferring to talk about populist governments, stressing the ones along South America’s Atlantic coast. “The ones along the Pacific coast are more modern,” he said.

Argentina is experiencing “the end of a cycle in a completely normal democratic manner, which should be celebrated,” after 12 years of presidency by the Kirchners, he said, referring to the consecutive terms of the late Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and his widow and successor Cristina Fernández, who steps down on Dec. 10. Both belonged to the Justicialista – Peronist – party.

“But any non-Peronist government will face great difficulties in that country,” Azambuja warned.

Neither of the last two non-Peronist presidents, Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) and Fernando de la Rua (1999-2001), managed to serve out their full terms; they were both forced to resign.

That will be a challenge for Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires since 2007, who won the elections for president in the Nov. 22 runoff, representing the centre-right opposition Cambiemos (Let’s Change) coalition, made up of his conservative Republican Proposal (PRO) party and the traditional Radical Civic Union (UCR).

Helping him win the elections were the division of the Justicialista Party, on the political front, and the economic crisis.

But now he will have to deal with the country’s economic woes.

The problems include stagnation and the subsequent high unemployment, high inflation – close to 30 percent, say analysts, but only half that according to the authorities – dwindling foreign reserves, and a black market where the dollar is worth nearly 50 percent more than the official exchange rate.

There are also distortions, such as protectionist measures in some sectors, export duties on agricultural products, and subsidies that affect national production and trade with Brazil, whose main market for industrial exports used to be Argentina.

The economic changes promised by Macri, such as the removal of currency controls and restrictions on foreign trade, will affect relations with Argentina’s neighbours. But it is his foreign policy that could drastically modify things in the region.

He wants, for example, to exclude Venezuela from the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) as long as the current government there remains in power, by citing the bloc’s democratic clause, which already led to the suspension of Paraguay’s membership for over a year, due to the impeachment and removal of former president Fernando Lugo in 2012.

A return to warmer ties with the United States, trade accords with the European Union and Pacific rim blocs, and greater openness to trade in general form part of Macri’s plans, in contrast to the protectionist tendencies of governments described as leftist, populist, “distributionist” or Bolivarian, depending on the vocabularies used by different ideological currents.

But regional organisations like Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbbean States (CELAC) will not fall into crisis as a result of the political changes in the region, according to Vigevani.

These kinds of organisations are slow to react, which “has adequately served a few limited objectives,” he said.

The change in Argentina and the crises in Brazil and Venezuela, which have political as well as economic aspects, point to a probable wave of right-leaning, neoliberal governments in Latin America, that put a higher priority on the economy than on the social policies of their predecessors.

The situations are different. In Venezuela, where the economy is virtually in a state of collapse, “my fear is that the dying Chavismo will come to an undemocratic end, given the fragile position of President Nicolás Maduro, while in Brazil the change will surely be democratic,” Azambuja predicted in his conversation with IPS.

In those three countries along the Atlantic coast of South America governments “did not adequately administer economic policy, leading to low levels of investment, low savings rates, and scarce technological training, and failed to develop policies to expand, rather than reduce, consensus. Thus, the capacity to prevent neoliberal advances was decisively reduced,” said Vigevani.

Brazil has been suffering from an economic recession since late 2014, aggravated by nearly 10 percent annual inflation and a fiscal deficit that scares off investors. To all of this was added a corruption scandal involving the state oil giant Petrobras as well as all of the country’s major construction companies and around 50 politicians.

In addition, the campaign that led to the reelection of left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff in October 2014 was marked by an unprecedented degree of violence, with clashes and accusations that destroyed the chances of dialogue and negotiation.

As a result, the contradictions between the government’s election promises and its actual practices became so obvious that they undermined the legitimacy and popularity of the president, who had the approval of less than 10 percent of the population according to the latest polls, and is facing the threat of impeachment.

The political bickering has made it impossible to cobble together a stable majority in Congress, which has stood in the way of a fiscal adjustment programme that requires legislative approval of public spending cuts and a rise in taxes.

The economic crisis, blamed by the government on an adverse international environment and by the opposition on mistakes by the government, thus drags on.

“Economic results are important factors in the shift in favour of conservative candidates,” said Vigevani. “But besides the crises and the recession, there are underlying theoretical problems to be addressed, which the neoliberals don’t have answers to either, and this leads to a balance, even in the case of Argentina.”

“Distributionism without a capacity for investment, innovation and adjustment of the productive system is not sufficient, although it is necessary,” he said.

Underestimating or poorly managing economic questions would seem to be the Achilles’ heel of governments seen as leftist or populist in Latin America.

That curse has not affected leaders who, even though they are distributionist or “Bolivarian”, adopted orthodox economic policies, such as Evo Morales, in power in Bolivia since 2006, or Rafael Correa, who has governed Ecuador since 2007.

At the same time, it does not seem to be possible for new or future leaders, even right-leaning ones, to eliminate or even reduce social programmes that “populist” governments have used to pull millions of families out of poverty. Macri has already announced that he will keep them in place.

Everything would seem to indicate that these programmes are now a new dimension incorporated into regional politics, while poverty and social inequality remain unacceptably high in a majority of the countries in Latin America which, despite these “inclusion policies,” remains the world’s most unequal region.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Brazil’s Supreme Court during the Sep. 17 reading of the landmark ruling which declared that laws allowing corporate donations to election campaigns are unconstitutional. Credit: STF

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 29 2015 (IPS)

From now on, elections in Brazil will be more democratic, without corporate interference, which had become decisive and corruptive. A Sep. 17 Supreme Court ruling declared unconstitutional articles of the elections act that allow corporate donations to election campaigns.

The 8-3 verdict came in response to a legal challenge brought by the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) against the laws authorising and regulating donations by big corporations to political parties and candidates.

In its challenge to the constitutionality of the elections act articles in question, the OAB argued that they violate the democratic principle – the backbone of the 1988 constitution – which established that all citizens are political equals, with each individual vote carrying the same weight.

The verdict also stated that corporate financing runs counter to the first article of the constitution, which establishes that the political representatives elected by the people must serve the public good and that there must be a strict separation between the public and private spheres.

Citing academic studies, the OAB further asserted that corporate donations transfer economic inequality to the political sphere, negating democracy and tending towards a “plutocracy” or government by the rich.

Campaign donations from corporations give them undue influence over politics by putting candidates in their debt, bound to defend “the economic interests of their donors in the drafting of legislation, the design and execution of the budget, administrative regulation, public tenders and public procurement,” the OAB added.

Corruption is also a major factor in this promiscuous relationship between money and politics. And campaign financing is almost always an element present in political scandals.“The legal door of donations was closed and the illegal route has become more difficult, after the scandals, imprisonment, and disqualification of many of the people implicated in the corruption, but they will look for loopholes in the law.” -- Fernando Lattman-Weltman

Today’s big scandal, which decisively influenced the Supreme Court ruling, involves a kickback scheme in the state-owned oil firm Petrobras, which suffered at least six billion dollars in losses from graft and overvalued assets.

More than 30 politicians have been accused of receiving bribes from large construction and engineering firms in return for inflated contracts, and part of the funds allegedly financed candidates and political parties in election campaigns.

The ban on corporate donations will also lead to a reduction in gender imbalances in politics, sociologist Clara Araujo at the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) told IPS.

Female candidates receive little campaign funding from their parties, but they are given larger proportions of donations from individuals than from companies, the opposite of male candidates, she said, based on the study “Women in the 2010 Elections”, which she co-authored, and on figures from 2014.

As a result of discrimination by political parties, reflected by underfunding and less advertising time, especially on TV, women are underrepresented in Congress, where they hold only 10 percent of seats in the lower house and 13.6 percent in the Senate, although they make up 52 percent of voters.

“The Supreme Court judgment is good news in the midst of the chaos of Brazil’s political crisis,” because it brings new balance to a game that was unfavourable to women, Guacira de Oliveira, one of the directors of the Feminist Centre of Studies and Advice (CFEMEA), told IPS.

But it has come at a moment of great uncertainty, when the crisis tends to have a greater impact on progressive political currents, and it will not change the rules that maintain inequality within and between the political parties.

Public resources, such as the official Party Fund, and radio and TV time for candidates will continue to benefit the big parties, since they are distributed proportionally to the number of seats held by each party, Oliveira lamented.

Only in-depth political reforms, called for by civil society organisations, could effectively democratise the election process. But the current legislature, where conservative lawmakers are a majority, would never approve that.

Far-reaching political reforms would require a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution – which may become a possibility if the crisis gets worse.

But without corporate donations, “campaigns will suffer a sharp drop in funding, which means candidates and parties will have to cut costs. Internet and the social networks, which already had a growing participation in the elections, will become much more important,” said Fernando Lattman-Weltman, a professor of politics at the UERJ.

“But money will seek other ways to influence politics,” he added. “The legal door of donations was closed and the illegal route has become more difficult, after the scandals, imprisonment, and disqualification of many of the people implicated in the corruption, but they will look for loopholes in the law,” he told IPS.

Gilmar Mendes (left), one of the three Supreme Court magistrates who voted against the ban on corporate funding for elections in Brazil. In April 2014 he successfully stalled for time, requesting a longer timeframe to analyse the issue, which enabled private companies to finance much of last year’s presidential election campaign. Credit: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/Agência Brasil

Election campaigns have become expensive in Brazil in the last two decades, with the intense use of advertising techniques. Media advisers have become indispensable, and more and more costly to hire. Some have become celebrities, whose fame has transcended national borders.

After their triumphs in Brazil, they have been hired for tens of millions of dollars to head campaigns in other countries of Latin America, or in Africa.

Large campaign teams specialising in working the airwaves and the press have turned election campaigns into a media war between well-paid armies of advisers, following the U.S. model, with ongoing qualitative surveys providing guidance for speeches, slogans and TV ads and appearances.

Now candidates will have to return to the basics: personal speeches, direct public relations, street rallies and armies of volunteers, said Lattman-Weltman.

Without resources to produce and broadcast sophisticated ads, “candidates will try to seduce the media, trying to make them more biased and identified with specific parties,” like in the United States, he said, referring to dangerous side-effects of the new scenario.

Generating new political developments and creativity in campaigns will also become more important factors, he said.

Without the millions of dollars in donations from companies, the game will be less unequal, but candidates who already have power and are well-known by the public, like legislators, governors or other political leaders, will enjoy a big advantage over new candidates, Oliveira said.

That is a disadvantage faced by women in general, who began to participate in elections more recently, and who make up a small minority in the executive and legislative branches – even though one woman, Dilma Rousseff, has been president of this country of 202 million people since 2011.

Celebrities like TV hosts, actors and footballers, along with prominent trade unionists and social activists, will likely be the most sought-after by the parties.

The next elections, for mayors and city councilors in Brazil’s 5,570 municipalities, will be a test of how campaigns will work without legal and illegal donations from the big sponsors, especially in big cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Statistics from the Superior Electoral Court from 2010 and 2014, when presidential, state and legislative elections were held, point to “a strong correlation between the amount of spending and victory,” said Araujo.

So without a right to vote, companies had become a decisive factor in elections. In other words, “the big voter was money,” said Claudio Weber Abramo, director of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency Brazil, in a statement reflected by the OAB in its successful legal challenge that led the Supreme Court to put an end to elections dominated by corporate financing.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The results of the Turkish elections of Jun. 7 have put an end to the suspense that has dominated national politics in the past three months. For the first time in this Asian republic’s history, a Kurdish party has succeeded in being elected to the legislature, with an impressive 15 percent of the seats available.

The breakthrough of the People’s Democracy Party (HDP) has radically changed the political landscape of Turkey, as it has come at the expense of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power since 2002. AKP has regressed in the latest contest by nine percentage points, from 49.8 percent in the 2011 elections to 40.86 percent.

The other two main contenders, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have retained their electorate, with MHP making a small gain over the previous general elections.

Of the 54.8 million qualified voters, 47.5 million cast their ballots, representing a participation level of 86.6 percent. AKP received 40.86 percent of the votes, CHP 24.9, MHP 16.29 and HDP 13.12 percent.The ceasefire [between the PKK and the Turkish government in 2013] disposed the Turkish civil population more favourably towards the Kurds than in past decades. This gave the opportunity for the creation in 2014 of a Kurdish political party, HDP, whose aim is to enter national politics through the main door – the Parliament.

AKP remains the largest political formation, but the loss of parliamentary seats to the newcomer HDP steals its privilege of legislative majority.

The Turkish Grand General Assembly is composed of 550 deputies. Pending the final official results, due to be announced in 11 days, AKP will have 258 seats, CHP 132 and MHP and HDP 80 each.

HDP’s performance is quite remarkable, considering that it won 6.1 million votes out of an estimated 9 million total Kurdish voters.

Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, with 15 million people out of a total of 77 million Turkish citizens. Their past, under the Turkish republic formed in 1923, has been turbulent, as they have not been recognised as a minority by the Constitution. Their attempts to obtain civic rights, including the use of their own language, were violently oppressed, intermittently, in the 1930s and from the 1970s onwards.

As a reaction, in 1978, the more combative elements of their society formed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an activist organisation which, together with its People’s Defence Forces (HPG) paramilitary wing, engaged in armed conflict with the country’s security forces from 1984 until 2013, when a ceasefire was agreed on the basis of a negotiated peace process with the government.

The peace process has had ups and downs, but no agreement has been reached so far. Over the past 30 years, the conflict has cost 40,000 lives among security forces and PKK fighters. PKK is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

But the ceasefire disposed the Turkish civil population more favourably towards the Kurds than in past decades. This gave the opportunity for the creation in 2014 of a Kurdish political party, HDP, whose aim is to enter national politics through the main door – the Parliament.

Salahattin Demirtas, co-leader along with Figen Yüksekdağis of the Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), set up in 2014. Credit: ©J.N. Couvas

Its co-leader along with Figen Yüksekdağis, is a 42-year-old lawyer, Salahattin Demirtas, who participated in the presidential elections of August 2014, just weeks after creation of the party.

Although he only received 9.76 percent of the votes, he won the hearts and minds not only of Kurds, but also of many of the underprivileged of the country – women, unemployed, homosexuals, artists, Yazidis,  Rom, Syriacs, Christians and Jews – and of those who have been disappointed with either the AKP or the opposition CHP.

HDP presented 268 women candidates in the elections, while AKP only listed 90.

So the clear winner of these elections is Demirtas, whom The Guardian has labelled the “Obama of Turkey”, and who has been seen in the past weeks by many as the “Tsipras of Anatolia”, in reference to the equally young and unconventional winner of the Greek elections earlier this year, Alexis Tsipras.

The verdict of the Jun. 7 polls indicates that the campaign of the ruling AKP did not convince a large part of its own electorate, because 9 percentage points lost represent an 18 percent voter decline in comparison with 2011. The absolute number of losses nears 3 million votes. These have grossed the gains of both MHP and HDP.

The campaign, which mobilised huge masses of AKP followers, considerable funds and the support of public agencies and government resources, such as state television, was led simultaneously by incumbent prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in person. Erdogan is considered the most charismatic and energetic leader modern Turkey has had since its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

In principle, such a heavy artillery should have guaranteed a resounding triumph for AKP. In his numerous rallies, Erdogan had exhorted the population to “give him 400 seats” in the parliament, an extremely optimistic expectation. But Erdogan had been elected president in the 2014 elections with 52 percent of the votes, and overconfidence prevailed within the party. This probably backfired at the last moment among moderate Islamists who resent exuberant and over-assertive leadership behaviour.

Erdogan’s objective in these elections was to secure at least 367 MPs. This would have given him a free hand to have the Constitution changed by AKP representatives alone. The line of retreat was 330 seats, which would have still enabled Erdogan to call a referendum for the change. The 258 seats now obtained fall even short of the 276 threshold for having a majority in order to run the government.

The scope of a new Constitution was to approve the adoption of an Executive Presidential regime, which would grant Erdogan full control over state affairs on a daily basis. The current Constitution, introduced after a military coup in 1980, limits the presidency to a ceremonial role.

Erdogan’s vision for a presidential system has certainly been frustrated, but a careful study of his personality leads to the belief that he will pursue his aspirations, albeit with their achievement being somewhat postponed.

AKP, having obtained the highest number of votes, will be asked to form either a coalition or a minority government, provided that at least one of the opposition parties commit to supporting it in the parliament. The only likely candidate for this is MHP, an ultra-nationalist formation with strong Islamic membership, which grants it a common denominator with AKP. But MHP has repeatedly affirmed that it will never concede to a presidential system. However, in Turkish politics ‘never’ does not always imply what it appears to mean.

An alternative to the above scenario is a coalition among CHP, MHP and HDP, totalling 292 MPs. This is rather unlikely, especially because of the anti-Kurdish ideology of MHP’s constituency. Moreover, coalitions have historically failed in Turkey, so a new one would be a recipe for instability.

In either case, the president will be the sole judge for accepting or rejecting the solution proposed by the parties. If there is no successful proposal within 45 days, a new election will be held in the following two months. If a coalition or minority government is formed, its life span will be short, considering Turkey’s present realities.

The economy is in decline, foreign direct investment and exports have dropped sharply since the beginning of the year, and foreign relations with Middle Eastern neighbours, the European Union and the United States are problematic.

The Istanbul Stock Exchange opened on Monday with a 6 percent loss, while the Turkish lira declined by 4.5 percent, bringing the total depreciation of the currency in respect to the U.S. dollar to 19 percent since January 2015 and to 45 percent in 18 months.

In spite of Sunday’s results, which came as music to the ears of 60 percent of Turks and proved a good degree of democratic maturity, no one seems to be euphoric. Officials from the different parties consulted confirmed that their respective headquarters are already working on preparations for the replay of the electoral match – to be held most likely in October.

Edited by Phil Harris    

By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 24 2015 (IPS)

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa is not permitted to get close to an airport, train station or port without authorisation from a judge.  He cannot travel outside of the capital of his native Burundi, Bujumbura. Whenever called upon, he must present himself before judicial authorities.

These are some of the onerous restrictions underlying the bail conditions of one of Burundi’s most prominent human rights activists since he was provisionally released on medical grounds in September last year, after spending more than four months in prison for his human rights work.

David Kode

Mbonimpa was arrested and detained on May 15, 2014, and charged with endangering state security and inciting public disobedience. The charges stemmed from views he expressed during an interview with an independent radio station, Radio Public Africaine, in which he stated that members of the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, were being armed and sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo for military training.

The arrest and detention of Pierre Claver is symptomatic of a pattern of repression and intimidation of human rights defenders, journalists, dissenters and members of the political opposition in Burundi as it heads towards its much anticipated elections in May and June 2015.

The forthcoming polls will be the third democratic elections organised since the end of the brutal civil war in 2005.  The antagonism of the CNDD-FDD government and its crackdown on civil society and members of opposition formations has increased, particularly as the incumbent, President Pierre Nkurunziza, silences critics and opponents in his bid to run for a third term even after the National Assembly rejected his proposals to extend his term in office.“The international community and Burundi’s donors cannot afford to stand by idly and witness a distortion of the decade-long relative peace that Burundi has enjoyed, which represents the most peaceful decade since independence from Belgium in 1962”

Tensions continue to mount ahead of the polls and even though the president has not publicly stated that he will contest the next elections, the actions of his government and the ruling party clearly suggest he will run for another term.  Members of his party argue that he has technically run the country for one term only as he was not “elected” by the people when he took to power in 2005.

Civil society organisations and religious leaders recently pointed out that Constitution and the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement – which brought an end to the civil war – clearly limit presidential terms to two years.

As the 2015 polls draw closer, state repression has increased, some political parties have been suspended and their members arrested and jailed. The Imbonerakure has embarked on campaigns to intimidate, physically assault and threaten members of the opposition with impunity. They have prevented some political gatherings from taking place under the pretext that they are guaranteeing security at the local level.

Civil society organisations and rival political movements have on several occasions been denied the right to hold public meetings and assemblies, while journalists and activists have been arrested and held under fictitious charges in an attempt to silence them and force them to resort to self-censorship.

Legislation has been used to stifle freedom of expression and restrict the activities of journalists and the independent media.  In June 2013, the government passed a new law which forces journalists to reveal their sources.

The law provides wide-ranging powers to the authorities and sets requirements for journalists to attain certain levels of education and professional expertise, limits issues journalists can cover and imposes fines on those who violate this law.  It prohibits the publication of news items on security issues, defence, public safety and the economy.

The law has been used to target media agencies and journalists, including prominent journalist Bob Rugurika, director of Radio Public Africaine.

The government does not see any major difference between opposition political parties and human rights activists and journalists and has often accused civil society and the media of being mouth pieces for the political opposition, describing them as “enemies of the state”.

In the lead-up to the last elections in 2010, most of the opposition parties decided to boycott the elections and the ruling party won almost unopposed. However, the post-elections period was characterised by political violence and conflict.

Ideally, the upcoming elections could present the perfect opportunity to “jump start” Burundi’s democracy.  For this to happen, the media and civil society need to operate without fear or intimidation from state and non-state actors.  On the contrary, state repression is bound to trigger a violent response from some of the opposition parties and ignite violence similar to that which happened in 2010.

The international community and Burundi’s donors cannot afford to stand by idly and witness a distortion of the decade-long relative peace that Burundi has enjoyed, which represents the most peaceful decade since independence from Belgium in 1962.

It is increasingly clear that the people of Burundi need the support of the international community at this critical juncture. The African Union (AU), with its public commitment to democracy and good governance, must act now by putting pressure on the government of Burundi to respect its democratic ideals to prevent more abuses and further restrictions on fundamental freedoms ahead of the elections.

The African Union should demand that the government stops extra-judicial killings and conducts independent investigations into members of the security forces and Imbonerakure who have committed human rights violations and hold them accountable.

Further, Burundi’s close development partners, particularly Belgium, France and the Netherlands, should condemn the attacks on civil liberties and urge the government to instil an enabling environment in which a free and fair political process can take place while journalists and civil society activists can perform their responsibilities without fear.  (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 21 2015 (IPS)

The “surprise” re-election of incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Mar. 17 elections has been met with a flood of media comment on the implications for the region and the rest of the world.

However, one of the reasons for Netanyahu’s victory has dramatically slipped the attention of most – the support he received from young Israelis.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, 200,000 last-minute voters decided to switch their vote to Netanyahu’s Likud party due to the “fear factor” and most of these were voters under the age of 35.

Roberto Savio

Perhaps the “fear factor” was actually an expression of the “Masada factor”. Masada is a strong element in Israeli history and collective imagination. The inhabitants of the mountain fortress of Masada, besieged by Roman legions at the time of Emperor Tito’s conquest of the Israeli state, preferred collective suicide to surrender.

Israelis today feel besieged by hostile neighbouring countries (first of all Iran), the continuous onslaught by the Caliphate and the Islamic State, overwhelming negative international opinion and growing abandonment by the United States.

Netanyahu played a number of cards to bring about his last-minute election success, including his speech to the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress on Mar. 3, which was seen by many Israelis as an act of defiance and dignity, not a weakening of fundamental relations with the United States.

His support for Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, his denial of the creation of a Palestinian state and his show of contempt for an international community unable to understand Israel’s fears led Netanyahu’s Likud party to victory.

In Israel, being left-wing mean accepting a Palestinian state, being right-wing means denying it. In the end, the Mar. 17 vote was the result of fear.“Taking refuge in parties that preach a return to a country’s ‘glorious’ past, blocking immigrants who are stealing jobs and Muslims who are challenging the traditional homogeneity of society, country … is an easy way out”

Israeli’s young people are not alone in moving to the right as a reaction to fear. It is interesting to note that all right-wing parties which have become relevant in Europe are based on fear.

Growing social inequality, the unprecedented phenomenon of youth unemployment, cuts in public services such as education and health, corruption which has become a cancer with daily scandals, and the general feeling of a lack of clear response from the political institutions to the problems opened up by a globalisation based on markets and not on citizens are all phenomena which are affecting young people.

“When you were like us at university, you knew you would find a job – we know we will not find one,” was how one student put it at a conference of the Society for International Development that I attended.

“The United Nations has lost the ability to be a place of governance, the financial system is without checks and corporations have a power which goes over national governments,” the student continued. “So, you see, the world of today is very different one from the one in which you grew up.”

As Josep Ramoneda wrote in El Pais of Mar. 18: “We expected that governments would submit markets to democracy and it turns out that what they do is adapt democracy to markets, that is, empty it little by little.

This is why many of those of who vote for right-wing parties in Europe are young people – be it for the National Front in France, the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain, the Lega Nord (North League) in Italy, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) in Germany and Golden Dawn in Greece, among others.

Taking refuge in parties that preach a return to a country’s “glorious” past, blocking immigrants who are stealing jobs and Muslims who are challenging the traditional homogeneity of society, country, and bringing back to the nation space and functions which have been delegated to an obtuse and arrogant bureaucracy in Brussels which has not been elected and is not therefore accountable to citizens, is an easy way out.

This is a major – but ignored – epochal change. It was long held that an historic function of youth was to act as a factor for change … now it is fast becoming a factor for the status quo. The traditional political system no longer has youth movements and its poor performance in front of the global challenges that countries face today makes young people distrustful and distant.

It is an easy illusion to flock to parties which want to fight against changes which look ominous, even negative. It also partially explains why some young Europeans are running to the Islamic State which promise a change to restore the dignity of Muslims dignity and whose agenda is to destroy dictators and sheiks who are in cohort with the international system and are all corrupt and intent on enriching themselves, instead of taking care of their youth.

What can young people think of President Erdogan of Turkey building a presidential palace with 1,000 rooms or the European Central Bank inaugurating headquarters which cost 1,200 million euro, just to give two examples? And what of the fact that the 10 richest men in the world increased their wealth in 2013 alone by an amount equivalent to the combined budgets of Brazil and Canada?

This generational change should be a transversal concern for all parties but what is happening instead is that the welfare state is continuing to suffer cuts. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), young people in the 18-23 age group will retire with an average pension of 650 euro. What kind of society will that be?

Without the safety net now being provided by parents and grandparents, how can young people in such a society avoid feeling left out?

We always thought young people would fight for social change, but what if they are now doing so from the right?

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Guillermo Medina
MADRID, Dec 22 2014 (IPS)

Political and institutional corruption has become the main concern of Spanish citizens after unemployment and the dramatic social consequences of the economic crisis, according to opinion polls.

The systemic nature of corruption – recognised by most analysts but denied by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing People’s Party (PP) – is coinciding exasperatingly with the impoverishment of most of society and the enrichment of a few of its members, leading to a rejection of current politics and institutions that verges on social rebellion.

In the 2011 municipal elections, 39 percent of candidates under investigation for corruption throughout Spain were re-elected, according to a report by the Politico analytical group. Some notoriously corrupt officials even claimed that the “favourable judgment of the electorate” was a kind of absolution.“The systemic nature of corruption is coinciding exasperatingly with the impoverishment of most of society and the enrichment of a few of its members, leading to a rejection of current politics and institutions that verges on social rebellion”

But indifference towards corruption was transformed into intolerance when the crisis arrived and scandals began to emerge.

In October 2004, a poll by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) found that only 0.6 percent of respondents mentioned corruption among their main concerns; by October 2014, according to the same source, 42.3 percent were naming it as their second-highest concern.

Citizens have now made a direct connection between corruption and the crisis, profligacy, unemployment, impoverishment, inequality and a political style. Irritated and provoked by their observation of the obscene ostentation and impunity of the corrupt, many have reached the conclusion that it will not be possible to eradicate corruption without profound change.

In the view of many Spanish citizens, corruption has its origins in a model of party politics that reduces democracy to a mere mechanism for deciding – every four years – which party will occupy the seats of power, with no substantial change for the people.

The meteoric rise of Podemos (“We Can”), the movement and political party proposing radical change, is therefore not surprising. Founded in January this year, Podemos secured 25 percent of voter intentions in a survey published on Dec. 7 by the newspaper ‘El País’.

Due to deficiencies in the electoral law and certain flaws in their original make-up, the other parties have thwarted the wishes of the electorate and have created a crisis of representation.

Frequently, lax laws, long criminal proceedings, short statutes of limitations and the most varied tricks of judicial ingenuity conspire to grant impunity to conduct that is harmful to the common interest and causes public scandals.

No wonder Carlos Lesmes, president of the General Council of the Judiciary, said recently: “We have a criminal system devised to penalise the petty thief, but not the large fraudster; it does not work in cases such as we are seeing now, in which there is so much corruption.”

People today are aware of the relationship between politics and corruption. One of the most pernicious effects of this omnipresent phenomenon is that it monopolises and conditions political debate, weakening institutions like Congress and the government itself, which should be focusing their attention on solving the country’s crucial problems.

Politics are deadlocked. Accords have become unviable because the country is divided by two contrary and reactive forces, between those who are enraged at the “caste” and are seeking a radical alternative, and those who are frightened by what they rightly consider to be a threat to their interests and prioritise attacking their rivals, while trying to convince us that they are fighting corruption.

At this point, the corruption and disrepute of the political class has resulted not only in the growth of Podemos, but is perceived as a curse even by the business community, which sees it as a hindrance to economic recovery.

A survey among the 500 participants at the recent National Congress of Family Business awarded only 1.08 out of 9 points to the political situation. Last year the result was 1.66 out of 9.

Democracy does not create corrupt people, but corrupt people end up corrupting democracy, and then corruption becomes a structural, systemic problem. Multiple abscesses turn into gangrene and after that, ending corruption means cleansing the entire system.

Fighting corruption is only possible in the broader context of political and institutional regeneration. So it seems to those who demand regeneration, and because they feel that the established parties are lacking in political will, they state their intention to vote for Podemos.

The anti-corruption measures proposed so far by the government are uninspiring and lack depth because they do not make the necessary connection between corruption and political regeneration. The opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) goes further than the PP although its proposals are also inadequate and somewhat vague.

It is impossible to fight corruption effectively without reforming the bipartisan model, introducing internal democracy and carrying out a thorough reform of the system of justice to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, as judges and magistrates are demanding.

Political corruption goes hand-in-hand with the exercise of power, whether in Andalusia (PSOE), Catalonia (Convergence and Union), Valencia (PP) or Spain as a whole (PP). Therefore the existence of regulatory institutions, a real separation of powers, and free and independent media are essential for combating it.

Even if it is accepted that ending poverty and unemployment is more important than regeneration, I do not see how the former can be achieved without the latter.

The idea that the economic crisis has generated a political crisis is widespread, but the reverse is equally true, so we are up against the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

For a time, the Spanish government has tried to face the economic crisis, leaving aside the political crisis, with dire consequences. Unfortunately the Prime Minister does not take this view and believes instead that the long-heralded economic recovery will be the panacea for all ills. The results are clear for all to see. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

The chairman of a Tashkent polling station opens a curtain to a voting booth during the Uzbek presidential election of December 2007. Uzbekistan’s Dec. 21 parliamentary elections feature only four staunchly pro-regime parties to fill the 150-seat lower house, or the Legislative Chamber. No opposition parties are permitted to legally exist in Uzbekistan, and independent candidates are barred from standing. Credit: OSCE

By Joanna Lillis
TASHKENT, Dec 19 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Uzbekistan’s parliamentary elections on Dec. 21 will offer voters a choice, but no hope for change.

Only four staunchly pro-regime parties – the Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, as well as the National Revival and the Justice parties – can field candidates for the elections to fill the 150-seat lower house, or the Legislative Chamber.“People have gotten used to all these elections as something staged, and they don’t really care what the outcome will be, because most people think it will all be the way the authorities want it to be." -- A Tashkent-based businessman

They will be joined by representatives of the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan, which has a “green” quota of 15 seats reserved under electoral law.

No opposition parties are permitted to legally exist in Uzbekistan, and independent candidates are barred from standing.

“The state of political freedoms [in Uzbekistan] is non-existent,” Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told EurasiaNet.org. “Genuinely independent voices have not been allowed to register and participate in this election, as in all previous ones.”

HRW and other watchdog groups routinely rank Uzbekistan as among the most repressive states on earth. That reputation is not stopping strongman President Islam Karimov from touting this election as evidence that Uzbekistan – which he has led for over two decades, brooking no opposition to his iron rule – is on the path to democracy.

Uzbekistan is “building an independent democratic state” and “creating a civil society” that prioritises “human interests, rights, and freedoms and the supremacy of the law,” he claimed in his Constitution Day speech earlier in December.

Critics say Karimov is merely attempting to add a democratic veneer to a dictatorial system. Thousands of political prisoners are languishing in jail, the media is muzzled, and most civil society activists are “either in prison or in exile,” said Nadejda Atayeva, a France-based human rights campaigner exiled from Uzbekistan.

“The Uzbek government is doing all it can to portray this election as legitimate, without actually making it legitimate – without making the election free and fair,” Swerdlow says, adding that Tashkent is harnessing the vote “as an act of consolidation and public mobilisation around the regime.”

Observers expect a high turnout. “Uzbekistan has never had free and fair elections, but the government will ensure that the turnout is sufficiently high,” Alexander Melikishvili, a Washington-based analyst at the IHS Country Risk think-tank, told EurasiaNet.org.

“The government will organise voting drives among public sector employees, and local administrations will compel people to vote through the community (mahalla) councils.”

Voters in Uzbekistan readily acknowledge that mahallas – state-sponsored residents’ councils that control local affairs – rely on coercive measures to get out the vote.

“Mahalla committees will be going round the houses asking people to go to vote,” one Tashkent-based businessman told EurasiaNet.org on condition of anonymity. “That’s exactly what happened last time there were parliamentary elections.”

The public will dutifully turn up at polling booths to avoid reprisals, he added, but will cast their votes without enthusiasm. “People have gotten used to all these elections as something staged, and they don’t really care what the outcome will be, because most people think it will all be the way the authorities want it to be,” he said.

In practical terms, the parliamentary elections mean little for day-to-day affairs in Uzbekistan. As David Dalton, an Uzbekistan analyst at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, points out, “Voting to parliament is heavily controlled, and the real levers of power are anyway located elsewhere.”

International observers will be in Uzbekistan on election day, but the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or ODIHR, the election-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, will field only a limited mission, partly due to what it describes as “the limited nature of the competition” in the election.

ODIHR has never deemed conditions conducive to sending a full observation mission to Uzbekistan, or judged an election in the Central Asian nation to be free and fair.

Meanwhile, Karimov has been on what Swerdlow describes as a “media blitz” in an attempt to legitimise “an electoral process that’s genuine in form, but not in substance.”

That may be designed to help bolster the legitimacy of another, far more important vote next year: a presidential election due in the spring, in which Karimov has not stated if he will stand, although he has hinted he will.

Editor’s note:  Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specialises in Central Asia. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Post-election garbage outside a voting station in a populous neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, a day after the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections – a metaphor for the dirty campaign. Credit: Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 7 2014 (IPS)

The dream of electing Brazil’s first black president, an environmental activist from the Amazon jungle, lasted only 40 days and was frustrated in Sunday’s elections. In the end, it is the two parties that have dominated Brazilian politics for the last 20 years that will face off in the second round of voting on Oct. 26.

Former environment minister Marina Silva, who was briefly the frontrunner in the polls after she was named presidential candidate by the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) on Aug. 16, saw her popularity plunge in the last three weeks. She came in third, with 21 percent of the vote.

Aecio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), which governed Brazil from 1995 to 2003 under former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT), garnered 33.5 and 41.6 percent of the vote, respectively.

Improvisation, a result of her sudden designation as candidate and the diverse coalition that backed her up, headed by the party that thrust her into the race, may have contributed to her failure and makes the political future of the black former Amazon activist unclear.

If projections are borne out, the economy will be the central focus of the new campaign, which will be the sixth time since 1994 that the PSDB and the PT, both of which have a social democratic orientation, face off at the polls.Improvisation, a result of her sudden designation as candidate and the diverse coalition that backed her up, headed by the party that thrust her into the race, may have contributed to her failure and makes the political future of the black former Amazon activist unclear.

But in elections characterised by sudden shifts, such as Silva’s rise and fall, a new surprise could come from a scandal at Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras, involving billions of dollars in kickbacks over the last decade.

During part of that period, Rousseff chaired the Petrobras board.

The investigation is in the hands of the police and the legal authorities. But the names of some politicians and companies implicated in the scandal have been leaked to the press.

The fear, especially in the government, is that other information will come to light.

The opposition criticises the current administration for what it calls errors in the management of the economy, which it says have led to the current stagnation, high inflation, fiscal deterioration and imbalances in the external accounts.

But Rousseff, for her part, can point to the low unemployment rate – just five percent in August – the result of the generation of millions of jobs during the nearly 12 years of PT government, as well as the progress made in income distribution and poverty reduction.

The results of the Oct. 5 elections also reflect a geographically and socially polarised country. In the industrialised south and the state of São Paulo in particular, the strong desire to unseat the PT gave rise to a “useful vote” cast by many who, as they saw Silva’s popularity decline, threw their support behind Neves. In the state of São Paulo, Neves took 44 percent of the vote, compared to Rousseff’s 22 percent.

The PT’s strongest backing is in the impoverished Northeast, which has only slightly more voters than São Paulo. The president took nearly 60 percent of the vote in the Northeast, Brazil’s poorest region.

The country thus remains ideologically divided, since the first victory by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011).

The two rivals are now both hoping to win the support of Silva and the coalition that backed her, headed by the socialists, which could be decisive in the runoff.

The difference between the moderate left-wing Rousseff and the business-friendly centrist Neves in the first round was 8.37 million votes, while Silva took 22.17 million votes.

What is still unclear is the direction that will be taken by the heterogeneous coalition headed by the PSB. In 2010, when the environmentalist ran for president as the Green Party (PV) candidate, she won 19.3 percent of the vote and remained neutral during the campaign for the runoff between candidates of the same two parties as today.

But the situation was very different back then. Silva presented herself as a third alternative, criticising the polarisation between the PT and the PSDB, and setting forth her own proposals.

Dissatisfied with the PV, she abandoned the Greens to create the Sustainability Network, aimed at promoting socioenvironmental sustainability and a new way of doing politics.

But her group did not achieve the necessary 492,000 signatures to become a political party because the electoral court failed to validate 95,000 signatures. Silva then decided to join the PSB, which named her vice presidential candidate on the ticket led by socialist leader Eduardo Campos.

However, Campos died in a plane crash on Aug. 13 and Silva replaced him as presidential candidate. Seen as the leader who best represented the widespread discontent that fuelled the June 2013 nationwide protests, her popularity soared, until she was ahead of Rousseff in the opinion polls.

But the future of Silva, who took only two percentage points more of the vote than in the 2010 elections, is now cloudy. Her political and personal weaknesses were revealed by the harassment from her opponents, especially the Rousseff campaign, which mounted aggressive ad attacks against the other woman in the race.

For example, the PT charged that Silva would eliminate the Bolsa Familia programme, which provides cash transfers to nearly 14 million poor households, would reduce investments in pre-salt oil fields exploration, and would hand power over to the bankers.

Under Brazil’s election laws, Silva’s team had just two minutes of electoral programming on nightly television – hardy enough time to defend herself from the allegations, let alone set forth her environmental proposals, which brought her international renown, or other attractive points on her platform, such as a “renewal of democracy”.

Because free electoral programming time in Brazil is proportionate to the parliamentary representation of each coalition, Rousseff had 11 minutes a day of broadcasting time.

For the second round, the time allotted is the same for both candidates: 10 minutes each.

But the ambiguous policy proposals and reversals that marked Silva’s campaign also hurt her image. She started out by reversing her stance just after the socialist party officially announced its support for same-sex marriage and other rights for homosexuals. She later fell into other contradictions regarding her record in the Senate.

Nor did Silva perform well in the televised debates.

It is not yet known whether she will stay with the PSB, which was left without a strong leader to hold it together, or will go it alone with her Sustainability Network. The socialists seem to be coming apart: Some of the PSB’s leaders have already come out in favour of Neves, while others have ties to the governing PT.

On the economic front, Silva’s advisers are close to their counterparts in the PSDB, which would push her towards supporting that party’s candidate in the second round. To that is added the accusations by the PT, which include the label “neoliberal” because of Silva’s economic orientation.

Backing either of the two candidates still in the race would hurt her central stance, which is to lead a third route to overcome the polarisation between the PT and the PSDB while renovating and cleaning up Brazilian politics.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Shaman Víctor Jacanamijoy, spiritual leader of the Inga indigenous people from the Colombian province of Putumayo, leads a ceremony in Bogotá during a Jun. 11 “spiritual harmonisation for peace” event organised nationwide by native authorities to send out a clear message for the elections. Credit: Courtesy of Tatiana Ramírez/ONIC

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jun 11 2014 (IPS)

Colombians will basically decide Sunday whether to continue the five decade counterinsurgency war or persevere in the attempt to negotiate a political solution to the conflict, in order to allow the children being born this year to experience what their parents have never known: a country at peace.

Depending on the outcome of the Jun. 15 runoff election, an emerging violent sector could take over control of the state, perhaps for the next few decades.

In the second round of the elections to choose the president who will govern this war-torn South American country for the next four years there does not seem to be much choice, between the centre right and the extreme right.

The former is represented by sitting President Juan Manuel Santos, who is seeking reelection, and the latter by Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a follower of senator-elect and former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

The two candidates are now neck and neck in the polls, after Zuluaga took 29.3 percent of the vote and Santos followed with 25.7 percent in the first round on May 25, when turnout stood at 41 percent.

Both candidates would apply neoliberal, free-market policies, according to which a prospering business community is the lever for the country’s development. They would both keep taxes low for the wealthy, while providing cash subsidies for the poor financed with the revenue expected over the next 20 years or so from the massive production of oil, coal and gold by multinational corporations.

Neither of the two promise to industrialise the country with the capital generated by these non-renewable resources. And both support free trade agreements and associations, which threaten the production of many national industries as well as agriculture, and more specifically small farmers.

Both candidates were ministers under Uribe: Zuluaga headed the Finance Ministry and Santos the Defence Ministry.

Under the Uribe administration some 2.5 million people were displaced by the war and at least 3,000 civilians were murdered by the military and passed off as guerrillas killed in combat – so-called “false positives” – under a body count system in which members of the armed forces were offered incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad for killing insurgents.

Zuluaga is seen by his opponents as Uribe’s puppet.

But while Santos was elected in 2010 with the votes of the right, including Uribe supporters, he angered his former boss as soon as he took office by countering several of the ex-president’s main policies and criticising some of his government’s actions – prompting fierce opposition from Uribe.

Santos also patched things up with his awkward neighbour, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez – detested by Uribe – who governed from 1999 until his premature death in 2013.

With Chávez’s aid, Santos undertook negotiations to put an end to the war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which was founded as a communist-inspired peasant army and turned 50 years old on May 27.

After two years of exploratory talks, formal negotiations began in November 2012 in Havana. The talks are closely followed by the international community, and are moving ahead even as the conflict rages on, because Santos has not agreed to declare a ceasefire.

Now, five days ahead of the runoff vote, Santos and a smaller but more radical guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which also emerged in 1964, announced that since January they have been holding exploratory talks that could lead to formal negotiations.

The exploratory phase with the FARC was kept secret and only revealed once it gave rise to full-blown talks. So because he reported the contacts made with the ELN, Santos was accused this week of using the peace talks for electioneering purposes.

In Colombia, the armed conflict has always been decided at the ballot box. Without fail, candidates promise to bring it to an end, with the only difference being in how they propose to do so: by a negotiated solution or promising once more to defeat the rebels by military means?

While Uribe opted for the latter, Santos has combined the two approaches.

Zuluaga, like Uribe, denies that there is an armed conflict in Colombia, referring instead to “the terrorist threat.” He has accused Santos of “negotiating with terrorists.”

Santos responds that the money that is swallowed up by the war could catapult Colombia into the big leagues of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – the so-called rich countries’ club.

Zuluaga initially announced that he would suspend the peace talks as his first measure as president – although he later toned down the threat.

But he said that he was not bound by what had been agreed so far by the two sides in the negotiations.

There is a real possibility that he might withdraw from the FARC talks at the first chance, and that he may never launch negotiations with the ELN, if he becomes president.

The risk that Zuluaga could sink the peace process, seen by international observers as a serious attempt at peace, has led to the unthinkable: two-thirds of the left, according to surveys, say they would vote for Santos – who represents the traditional oligarchy – even though they only see eye to eye with him with regard to his peace policy.

The other one-third of the left see no difference between Santos and Zuluaga/Uribe and say they have serious doubts that Santos will live up to any agreement signed with the guerrillas.

There is a real possibility of that. Which is why the unprecedented backing of Santos’s reelection by anti-establishment sectors takes on even greater significance.

This has been fuelled, in the last 15 days, by a new movement in support of the peace talks. Every day, dozens of initiatives emerge, by artistes, intellectuals, victims’ organisations, central trade unions, indigenous and women’s groups, journalists and political leaders, to protect what has been achieved so far and press for the talks to continue.

This diverse, and partly spontaneous, pressure group could make the peace talks truly irreversible if Santos wins. But in any case the movement would be more organised to confront Zuluaga if he was to walk away from the negotiating table as president.

In contrast with those who do not see any differences between Santos and Zuluaga and his mentor, the reality is that Colombia’s economic elite is divided. And this is precisely why Santos has managed to push his peace policy forward so far.

Álvaro Uribe forms part of an emerging economic elite that has accumulated wealth thanks to the war, and is completely immersed in the logic of confrontation and counterinsurgency.

Uribe is a member of a clan that has been wrapped up in scandals, lawsuits and accusations for its ties with the far-right death squads that grouped together in the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) to fight the guerrillas, but then drove millions of peasants off their land to seize their property.

Perhaps that was why Uribe was the only one who managed to convince the AUC paramilitaries to demobilise; 80 percent of them did so, although many regrouped.

The division seen in Colombia’s leadership may originate in competition over business. Santos represents a more modern segment of the economic elite. For example, they do not need drugs to be illegal – a necessary condition in order for drug trafficking to generate the enormous revenues that financed the AUC.

The sector represented by Santos has done its math and concluded that the armed conflict is an obstacle to economic growth. For at least 15 years, they have believed that better business could be done if Colombia were not caught up in war.

The Jun. 15 elections will demonstrate whether that sector is still a minority.

Tens of thousands of Syrians flocked to the Syrian embassy in Beirut on May 28. Voting was extended to a second day due to the large numbers. Credit Eva Bartlett/IPS

By Eva Bartlett
BEIRUT, May 30 2014 (IPS)

Roughly three kilometres north of Beirut’s Syrian embassy in Baabda, Syrians crammed in one of an endless stream of buses, exited and continued on foot. The masses opted to walk the remaining few kilometres rather than sit in a traffic jam generated by the tens of thousands flocking to vote.

Clogging the main street leading to the embassy, vehicles of all sorts – many decked out with posters of President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian flags – sat waiting to inch forward. Those on foot moved faster than the halted traffic, and the many long-haul truck drivers gave up, rigs pulled off to the side, resigned to wait until the crowds thinned out, a wait that lasted well into the night.

Syrians in Lebanon were on their way to cast votes at their embassy in Syria’s presidential elections. Although Syrians in Syria will vote on June 3, those overseas were called to vote this week. Due to the heavy flow, the embassy in Beirut had to extend voting to a second day.“We want to elect President Bashar al-Assad. There's no one like him, nor will there be. The terrorists believe everyone else is an infidel. They'll kill me, they'll you, they'll kill anyone who isn't with them” – Hassan, a Syrian from Raqqa, eastern Syria

Lebanon has over 1 million registered Syrian refugees, many more unregistered and others who have been working in Lebanon for years.

The Lebanese army was present, soldiers checking each person who neared the embassy, a helicopter circling above. “Bless the army, they are protecting us, protecting the elections,” said Hassan, a Syrian from Raqqa, eastern Syria, an area where foreign insurgents are killing Syrian civilians for not being Muslim enough, even crucifying them. Syrians of all faiths reject this external sectarianism, from Saudi sheikhs’ fatwas, and the funding of many of the armed insurgents in Syria.

“We want to elect President Bashar al-Assad. There’s no one like him, nor will there be. The terrorists believe everyone else is an infidel. They’ll kill me, they’ll you, they’ll kill anyone who isn’t with them.”

Voters of all ages and faiths were present, the majority having walked several kilometres from their halted vehicles. A veiled woman with the Syrian flag draped around her shoulders, her daughter wearing a t-shirt with Bashar encircled in a heart, posed for a photo. Young women in sunglasses wearing Bashar t-shirts and carrying ‘like’ posters and Syrian flags passed by.

The energy was of defiance and determination to vote, for Syria, though for most it entailed waiting for hours under the sun in crowded quarters.

Amassed under and beside the bridge nearest the Syrian embassy, the crowd of Syrians waited for their chance to approach the embassy, and ultimately vote.  Such a high voter turn-out meant their wait was long. “I arrived here at 9 am and didn’t get to vote till 4 pm,” said one voter.

Closer to the embassy, those waiting were jubilant, others exhausted but determined.

An older woman from Aleppo sitting on the pavement off to the side of the road said her family had told her to stay home. “I’m ill, they were worried about me. But I will vote even if I die trying to do so.”

Her son, like most in the crowd, was emphatic in his support for President Assad. “The terrorist rebels are in my city. God bless Dr. Bashar al-Assad and the army. We don’t want anyone else.”

Every so often, the Lebanese army would push the crowds back, to which chants praising the Lebanese soldiers broke out.  More dominant were the chants praising Assad and Syria.

“Syria will get back its dignity,” said an engineering student from Tartous. “The ‘revolution’ is a lie, it’s a farce engineered by the West and Saudi Arabia, Qatar,” he said.

“We don’t want anyone else, we love him,” said another man nearby.

Others vied for their chance to praise how Syria was before the manufactured crisis began. “We had free health care, safety, our bread was subsidised. We were happy. We want Syria to be like it was,” was a widely shared sentiment.

Syrian supporters of President Bashar al-Assad at Beirut’s Syrian embassy. Children and elderly alike went to lend their support and cast their votes. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS

The chorus of cheers and chanting was punctuated by the thud of the helicopter circling above, tight security to ensure that the elections were not derailed.

“We love him.  I’m Sunni, not Alawi,” Walid, from Raqqa, noted. “They’re afraid our voices will be heard,” he said, regarding the many countries which will not allow Syrians to vote.

The United States – at the forefront of those nations calling for “democratic change” in Syria – did not allow Syrian expatriates a vote. Nor did Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and others.

To allow voters in countries where voting is prohibited, the Syrian government is encouraging Syrians living abroad to fly to Syria and cast their votes.

Roland Dumas, former French Foreign Minister, supported Syria’s elections, and criticised France’s refusal to allow Syrians their right to vote as “ridiculous, politicised and morally unacceptable.”  Dumas is notable for having publicly stated that the chaos is Syria was engineered long before the events of 2011.

“I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.”

Syria’s Sana News reported that over 200,000 Syrians voted at 39 Syrian embassies overseas on Wednesday and cited ambassador Ali Abdul Karim as stating that the vast number of votes was, “an expression that the Syrians are proud of their Army and its achievements as well as it is a reflection on the Syrian people’s support to their wise leadership.”

“I’m from Deir Ezzor,” said a voter. “ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is in our area. We want Bashar al-Assad. The guy walks straight,” he said, with a gesture of his hand.

Another man, from Aleppo, reiterated what many already said. “There’s no revolution, absolutely not. People from around the world have pounced on Syria. People who cut off heads … what kind of revolution is that?”

Emphatically pro-Assad, he did say that the two other candidates were respected. “Maher al-Hajjar and Hassan al-Nouri, they are good. But not like Bashar, our hero.”

Formerly a teacher in Aleppo, he now works construction in Lebanon. “In another month or two, I’m returning to Syria, to stay.”

In a Hamra mini-mart, Abu Mohammed, from Sweida, commented on Ahmad Jarba, the candidate backed by Western countries.

“We don’t know him nor where he came from. We want one of us, a Syrian in Syria. People in Syria aren’t blind, we know this has been planned for years. They want to do to Syria what they did to Libya. Today, thousands went to the embassy. Why? Because we know Bashar is the right person. Be sure, if we didn’t want him, he wouldn’t have lasted three years.”

Flowers laid out in Kiev earlier this year for those who died in the Maidan protests. People who fought for change in Ukraine are hoping the new president will not let them down. Credit: Natalia Kravchuk

By Pavol Stracansky
KIEV, May 30 2014 (IPS)

As Ukraine’s president elect Petro Poroshenko prepares to begin his presidency, Ukrainians are hoping he will not forget that separatist violence is just one of a long list of problems he needs to help solve in the country.

Poroshenko, a billionaire confectionary magnate, won a resounding victory in the first presidential elections this week following the revolution that saw his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, ousted in February.

But he comes to office with Ukraine in turmoil, having seen its territory annexed by Russia, separatists in the east of the country waging war, a collapsing economy and many activists and protestors who led the Maidan movement that paved the way for a new regime angry and confused at some of what has come to pass since their protests.“As a Ukrainian citizen, I would hope to see my country developing as a free society that brings opportunities to hard working and honest people” – 32-year-old teacher Yury Shevtsov

And while most Ukrainians agree that unifying the country and putting a stop to the conflict in the east of the country is the new president’s top priority, they say that he must not ignore the many other challenges Ukraine is facing.

Yury Shevtsov, a 32-year-old teacher in Kiev, told IPS: “Getting some stability in the country is important but once the president has done that, as a Ukrainian citizen, I would hope to see my country developing as a free society that brings opportunities to hard working and honest people.”

Prior to the Maidan protests, many Ukrainians perceived the country’s institutions, from the presidency and parliament to the civil service down to the judiciary and police, as systemically corrupt. Nepotism and cronyism were seen as rife.

The country’s human rights record was dubious, with police brutality and persecution of minorities and other groups commonplace.

Third sector organisations, while not facing the kind of intimidation and persecution their peers in Russia or Belarus have been regularly subjected to, complained of obstructions to their work and a lack of cooperation from authorities.

Meanwhile, the economy has been slowly falling apart since the financial crisis, with already low living standards falling further. But despite this, the country’s leaders were seen to be only getting richer and consolidating their grip on power.

While the Maidan protest movement was originally a reaction to Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union – seen as a first step on the road to greater European integration – it soon turned into a wider protest against the regime and its failings.

Protestors demanded an end to the corruption and other problems that blighted society, moves to fix the ailing economy and bring at least the hope of some prosperity to the country.

Analysts see Poroshenko’s unexpectedly resounding victory as a reflection of Ukrainians’ demand for change and a regime that will address the country’s problems as much as support for him as an individual candidate.

But they also say that Ukrainians must understand that the new president alone will not be able to effect the kind of changes the country needs.

Balazs Jarabik, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told IPS: “The urgent reforms which need to be undertaken are things like agreeing a deal with the International Monetary Fund to avoid bankruptcy, improving the business climate to attract investment, electoral reforms and decentralisation, curtailing bureaucracy and making state subsidies transparent and justified.

“But they need to be gradual reforms instead of radical ones which could fuel conflict instead of building [society]. There needs to be a lot of communication with, education of, and explanations given to, the average Ukrainian. But importantly, Ukrainians should understand that neither Poroshenko, nor the EU, will do the job for them. The participation of Ukrainians in the reforms is crucial.”

Some NGO groups have already started working with the interim government to help push through legislation related to reforms and say they are seeing important progress made. And Poroshenko has made it clear that he wants to make sure Ukraine signs the Association Agreement with the EU that his predecessor fatefully rejected.

But many Ukrainians are impatient to see some kind of visible improvement in their lives.

As Shevtsov told IPS: “People are fed up with uncertainty and tension and we definitely need some stability in the economy. Corruption, to name just one thing, urgently needs to be dealt with.”

However, economists are not hopeful that Ukrainians, many of whom live with an average wage of just 200 euros a month, will feel any economic improvement in the near future.

Vasyl Yurchyshyn, an economic analyst at the Kiev-based Razumkov Centrethink tank, told IPS: “Ukraine is facing some serious economic challenges over the next few months and there is potential for the recession to continue.

“I am not sure that anyone’s standard of living will be improved in the near future. But at the same time I believe that the government will implement reforms that will expand opportunities for growth and development. But it will be a year or so before any average Ukrainian would feel any difference.”

The progress of any reforms is also likely to be slowed by the violence in eastern districts.

Although most Ukrainians see unifying the country and ending the conflict with separatists as Poroshenko’s top priority, analysts say that concentrating solely on this could hurt the Ukraine’s prospects.

Jarabik told IPS: “The more Ukrainians will have to focus on Russia, the less time and energy they will have to build a new Ukraine.  The key issue is whether the majority of Ukrainians will want to build or to fight.”

But many people in Ukraine continue to believe that it is only by dealing with the separatists – or their backers in Moscow – and bringing peace to a unified state that any rebuilding can begin.

Nadezhda Vlassovskaya, a 31-year-old accountant from Kiev, said: “Starting to talk to Russia officially is needed and by doing so I think that would bring some hope to Ukrainians that our new leader has started to sort things out.”

An empty polling station in Garden City, Cairo. Credit: Amanda Mustard

By Annabell Van den Berghe
CAIRO, May 29 2014 (IPS)

With a result already known before the race started, many did not even bother heading to the polling stations and the streets in Cairo were unusually empty during the election process that ended Wednesday, just like the ballot boxes.

Egyptians had been called on to vote for their second president in two years, but the low turnout threatened to undermine the credibility of the popular candidate. former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who wanted to show the world once and for all that the overthrow of the first freely-elected president, Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, was not a coup by the military but a revolution backed by the Egyptian people.

Sisi himself had aimed for an 80 percent turnout but, after two days, this turnout seemed unachievable. Observers estimated that 20 percent of the electorate had cast votes over two days, while organisers of the campaign of Hamdeen Sabbahi, Sisi’s only opponent, said they had logged a turnout of no more than 15 percent turnout.

In a first attempt to boost these numbers, Egyptian authorities extended the voting on Tuesday by an extra hour. And shortly after that, another effort was made by granting an extension of an extra day on Wednesday.“Real change lies in the hands of the youth. We are the ones fighting for a better Egypt, but we need time. When we reach the age to rule the country, we will do it differently” – 23-year-old law student

The Presidential Election Commission defended this decision stating that it was a response to calls by citizens who were struck by the heat wave in Egypt and therefore could not go to vote. But this latter attempt was seen by many as a fraud.

“This was ridiculous,” said Omar Amin, a 28-year-old architect. “We all knew it is not about who would win these elections, but how many votes there would be. It made no sense to extend the voting by another day, just to reach the numbers they had in mind.” Amin is one of many young people who decided to stay at home instead of casting a ballot.

But the concerns about turnout were already clear long before the heat wave arrived on Tuesday. After the authorities declared the second day of voting a national holiday and several other measures were taken to improve the turnout, the worry was crystal clear. Major shopping centres had to close their doors hours before normal closing time to make sure Egyptians would not use their newly announced holiday for shopping instead of doing their duty as citizens.

Egypt’s highest Islamic state-run authority Al-Azhar preached that failure to vote was “disobeying the nation.” And the head of the Coptic church in Egypt, Pope Tawadros, gave a speech exhorting voters to head to the polls

“It is such a paradox to use religion and religious authorities to move people to voting,” a women in her thirties who did not want to give her name, told IPS. “Those who are fighting the Muslim Brotherhood by calling them terrorists because they used religion as an instrument to gain popularity, are now doing exactly the same thing.”

But not only the churches and mosques tried to convince Egyptians to vote. State television as well as national radio scolded the public for not showing up at the polls. A TV anchor said that those who were not voting “should be shot”, or “at least should shoot themselves.”

But not everybody was convinced by the propaganda of local media loyal to both the interim government and frontrunner Sisi. “I am not voting. Even if I were in Alexandria where I should be voting, I wouldn’t make the effort. I’d rather shoot myself,” Marc Dimitri joked during the elections, referring to the controversial quote of the TV anchor.

Dimitri is a 23-year-old law student from Alexandria, residing in Cairo. He doesn’t believe Egypt’s future lies in the hands of the current politicians. “Whoever will be our president, now or in the coming years, will not be able to make a change,” he believes. “Real change lies in the hands of the youth. We are the ones fighting for a better Egypt, but we need time. When we reach the age to rule the country, we will do it differently.”

Ahmed Mohamed Seif, a 24-year-old colleague of Dimitri agreed. “We have an incredibly strong judiciary system, based on the French system. The problem in Egypt isn’t the skeleton of institutions, it’s the executive part. Egypt is corrupt. That’s what needs to be changed, and only a new generation can do this.”

Young Egyptians seemed to stay far away from the polls. The women lining up at the “females only” polling station in the Garden City district of Cairo were all in their early forties or older. They believed their vote would make a difference. “Sisi will win the elections! Our hero, I love him,” chemistry professor Malak Mehdi shouted. “He understands the Egyptian people, he knows our needs. Sabbahi is nobody, Sisi will assure the stability of Egypt,” she added.

While the female crowd was chanting for Sisi, patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers just outside the polling station. Maya Husein, a 52-year-old woman next in line, chimed in: “Sisi is a strong man with a strong hand, this is what Egypt needs. He freed us from terrorism and will continue protecting us.”

Sisi’s propaganda machine seemed to have worked. The adulation of Sisi over recent months pushed many to vote for him, mostly women who adore him and see him as the saviour of the nation.

But a couple of blocks away, at a local coffee shop, some friends gathered for tea instead of casting votes. Like Dimitri and Seif, they questioned the capability of Sisi to rule their country. “His (Sisi’s) campaign was totally focussed on the war on terror, he didn’t talk about the future. But what is next? What will he do after all Islamists are jailed or killed?” wondered 31-year-old Nader Abdelrahmen.

“A year ago we were told that someone would be held accountable for the hundreds of deaths during the dispersal (of a pro-Morsi sit in at Rabaa in August 2013, ed.). Today we see all Muslim Brotherhood leaders and its members arrested or even sentenced to death – nobody talks about the massacres anymore. And we are the next to come: they have already started threatening us. Is this justice? Is this how he will rule over Egypt?” complains Ammar Abubakr, a prominent 33-year-old graffiti artist and activist.

“I am not boycotting because I agree with the Muslim Brotherhood. I am boycotting because I am against the failure of this system. At this point, there is no suitable option for this generation,” he continued.

Although the Brotherhood called for a boycott of these elections, and most of its supporters stayed away from the ballot boxes, there are apparently many other reasons why the turnout was beneath all expectations – and the extension of the voting did not substantially affect the final results.

Number one in this race for president is he who stayed at home. Sisi ended up right behind, with 90% of the votes out of the roughly 40 percent turnout, which makes him the new leader of Egypt – despite the heat.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, May 28 2014 (IPS)

“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted” is a phrase from Arthur Miller which applies well to the European elections that have just ended. What those elections showed was that disenchantment with Europe as an ideal has grown to a dangerous point.

It is true that the European elections have been always more about domestic national issues than Europe. They were moments to check how national parties were rated by the electorate, with its government as the first to be judged.

But this is the first time, since the birth of the European project, that a remarkable part of the electorate has coalesced on parties which identity themselves as enemies or sceptics of Europe.

It is revealing to see the sense of relief with which the system has declared that the anti-Europe parties only received 20 percent of the vote. Yet, 20 percent of the vote, with abstention close to 50%, is a remarkable show.

And of the 80% who voted for pro-European parties, the large majority does not look on the embodiment of the project – the European Commission – with much sympathy.

According to the Eurobarometer, those with a positive opinion of Brussels fell from 72 percent in 2000 to 37 percent last year. If the present trend continues, in the next European elections there will be only one European in three harbouring some faith in the European Commission and, by extension, the credibility of European construction.“The sense of solidarity and common destiny which accompanied the birth and growth of the European project has disappeared”

Much has been written on the disenchantment which has ushered in 20 percent of the members of the new European parliament who are, in fact, internal enemies of the institution itself.

It is in fact the programme of austerity imposed by the European Commission (under German instructions) which has given a terrible image of Europe, especially to the millions of unemployed young people.

It is true that the Eurocrats have appeared more and more unaccountable and isolated, in a maze of bureaucratic rules: it is also true that the leaders that member states have conveniently installed have lacked charisma and never connected with the people.

But the real problem is much simpler, and much more tragic: the sense of solidarity and common destiny which accompanied the birth and growth of the European project has disappeared.

Roberto Savio. Credit: IPS

The creeping code word which has accompanied this Commission for the last four years, has been “reappropriation”.  Governments, strong or weak, have all been looking to the European supranational space as something from which to recover as much as possible.

In the last four years, Germany has simply ignored any element of solidarity with the other European countries, and looked only to its interests. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the strongest European politician, but dedicated basically to German interests.

Reports abound on how the absolute priority behind the aid given to Greece, Ireland and Portugal was to refund the loans by German banks, and only after that directed to the national priorities of the recipients.

The German balance of payments is another excellent example of how Germany does not care about the internal imbalance its present policy is creating in Europe. Simply said, everybody buys from Germany, but Germany does not buy from anyone.

Some analysts think that the policy is not directed towards Europe. They argue that Germany wants to be a big Switzerland, and is not participating in any international policy. It has kept out of all important decisions, from Libya to Syria, and on Ukraine it has been considerably silent. But Germany’s self-centred participation in Europe is now the rule, even with the weaker countries.

A good example is the tragedy of immigrants, now basically heading for Italy, which now number several thousand per month. In 2013, the official count was 140,000 people. They emigrate because there are no functioning states in many Arab countries, which have also themselves become sources of emigration, like Syria. An estimated 25,000 have left Libya alone. While it is difficult to count how many have lost their lives during the crossing of the Mediterranean, a common estimate is over 7,000.

The reaction of Europe has been total indifference. Italy is spending close to 100 million euros on rescuing the immigrants, and any appeal for solidarity has fallen on deaf ears. Maybe now, Matteo Renzi, the Italian Prime Minister, who chalked up the greatest success of all European leaders, will be able to change the situation.

But what it is important to stress is that the European Commission has not lifted a finger, citing the lack of support from member countries (read Germany and the other Northern countries.)  When it came to rescue Greece, which represented two percent of the European budget, it was considered necessary to punish people who lived beyond their means, and who falsified the budgets that they presented to the European Commission. Then, the same was said for Ireland and Portugal (a very doubtful claim because both countries were in a totally different situation).

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman noticed that it was the first time that economy had become a branch of morality, and that in German sin and debt use the same term. Not only there was no solidarity, there was a campaign about austerity as the moral compass necessary to build a sound macroeconomic situation. People, of course, are part of microeconomics: but they have been consistently ignored, in favour of banks, for which all the funds necessary for the big bail-out were found.

The issue of immigration is the best example for understanding that the crisis of Europe is a crisis of values, which are well written into the various constitutions and are part of the rhetoric of European identity. Beyond solidarity, those values were social justice, participation and accountability. On those four counts, the European Commission is largely absent. And today it would be very difficult to find a European citizen who feels obliged somehow to other European citizens.

The same can be said the same about American, Russian, Indian or Chinese citizen … but they have common structures which take care of redressing regional inequalities and helping general development. This is not the case of Europe, which has only one real element of unity: the euro, which is as inspiring an ideal as a banknote!

Then there is quite a difference in the realities of the north of Europe and the south of Europe. Germany has now over 10 million immigrants, and receives more of them than the United States. But German industries and the economic world know well that without immigrants Germany would no longer be competitive.

According to UN projections, Europe needs to receive at least 20 million immigrants over the next ten years to remain economically competitive with United States, whose immigrants keep the working population in constant balance. Yet, what has been the lesson of the last elections? That the ant-immigrant theme was so strong that it propelled close to 50 parliamentarians to the Europarliament. In every crisis there is the search for a scapegoat, but then let us abandon the European rhetoric.

It is anyhow clear that if there is not a radical change of the way in which Europe is perceived by its citizens, the next elections will be even more negative for the European project. Now for the first time, the Europarliament  has a voice over the nominations of the new European Commission. Possibly, countries should no longer be able to place obscure people at the helm of the institutions – previous elections have brought to the forefront figures barely legitimised by the will of citizens.

Yet, it will be interesting to see if governments do not find a way to bypass this indication. And anyhow, it is not a question of revolutionaries coming to the fore.

Suffice the case of Jean-Claude Juncker, former prime minister of Luxembourg. When he was still prime minister and chairman of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN), which brings together the economic and finance members of the European Union,  he famously opened a meeting saying: “We heads of government all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected when we do it”, very much in the vein of Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann,  who said: “If I please the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I am the ruin of Europe; but if I please Europe, I lose the support of Germany.”

Maybe the new value for European identity is realpolitik. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Excerpt:

Joël Des Rosiers (2nd from right) with other poets at the Biennale Internationale des Poètes en Val-de-Marne, with festival director Francis Combes (far left). Credit: A.D.McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, May 27 2014 (IPS)

As acclaimed writers arrived in France this week for an international poetry festival, many expressed shock at finding that 25 percent of the country’s vote had gone to a far-right party in elections for the European Parliament. “I’m afraid for Europe, I’m afraid of what’s going on here now,” said Joël Des Rosiers, an award-winning Haitian-born poet and psychiatrist, whose family fled François Duvalier’s dictatorship in the 1960s to take refuge in Canada. “It’s as if Europe is losing its capacity for universality,” he told IPS.

“There’s a feeling of insecurity and a fear of losing identity, and some Europeans seem not to believe anymore in civilised humanism.”

France’s anti-immigration party, the Front National (FN), came first in last Sunday’s election, beating the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and pushing the governing Socialist Party into third place.

While the FN celebrated, Des Rosiers and other writers from Haiti, Guyana, Martinique and elsewhere came to Paris to take part in a week-long festival organised by the Biennale Internationale des Poètes en Val-de-Marne, a French cultural association that supports contemporary poetry and especially writing that has a strong humanistic element.

“There’s a feeling of insecurity and a fear of losing identity, and some Europeans seem not to believe anymore in civilised humanism” – Joël Des Rosiers, Haitian-born poet
Although not a political movement, the Biennale promotes diversity in literature, and this year it has organised a Festival of Caribbean Poets (Poètes des Caraïbes) that runs until June 1.

Des Rosiers, who did part of his university studies in Strasbourg, the main seat of the European Parliament, said writers had a role to play in pushing back the tide of nationalism in Europe and especially in France.

“As writers, we are here to explain to Europeans who can still listen that we are part of you. I’m a person of African origin who speaks French because of you. You have a responsibility for that. This is not to make anyone feel guilty, but we have a history that is common to all of us,” he said.

Delia Blanco, a poet and professor of art and comparative Caribbean Literature in the Dominican Republic, also expressed stupefaction at the vote, especially for a continent that has “seen two world wars”.

Her ancestry is French and Basque and she visits France often, but she said she is disturbed by current anti-immigration politics. “We all have origins that come from elsewhere, we’re all members of the displaced, especially in the Caribbean,” she said. “Think about the people who left Spain during the Spanish Civil War to settle in Cuba, Mexico and other places, including the Dominican Republic.”

In response to a question about anti-immigrant or racist movements in the Caribbean itself, concerning Haitians for instance, Blanco said that “racism comes from ignorance”.

“When people take the time to know others, it’s a different thing,” she said, adding that there was also a difference between the actions of people and those of the state. “Maybe being a poet is to believe in illusion, but we have an ethic and poetic vision of unity,” Blanco told IPS.

“Perhaps this can be the message from Caribbean writers to France and the world. Despite our different languages, despite our different origins and being separated by the sea, we speak a common tongue, of life and mutual existence.”

France is not the only country that voted for radical parties in the elections. The United Kingdom handed victory to the Euro-sceptic U.K. Independence party (UKIP), with 27 percent of the vote, while the Labour Party received around 25 percent, and the Conservatives (part of the coalition government) got just under 24 percent.

In Greece, it was the far-left that scored highly, as Alexis Tsipras’ SYRIZA coalition grouping garnered over 26 percent, in comparison to the 10 percent for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which came in third.

But the result in France, a country that sees itself as an icon of equality and fraternity, sent shudders through the main traditional parties.

In response to the vote, President François Hollande said that people had to be listened to but that the “worst” thing would be renounce France’s “values”. Promising reform and calling for a “reorientation” of the 28-country European Union to become transparent and effective, he said the future was not in closing doors and “rejecting” others but in working to boost the economy.

Hollande and other leaders were scheduled to meet Tuesday in Brussels and expected to discuss ways to address European voters’ anger and dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Even with the low turnout overall, the elections for the Parliament had been closely watched because of the legislative body’s expanding powers. MEPs, who shuttle between Brussels and Strasbourg, have been making their voices increasingly heard on a variety of topics, ranging from international trade agreements to health-care policies.

They will influence EU legislation during their mandate, and will also help to determine who becomes chief of the European Commission, the Union’s executive branch.

These are some of the reasons that Front National head Marine Le Pen heightened her campaign, using the familiar themes of less globalisation and fewer immigrants, in the run-up to the vote.

As with the French national elections two years ago, she tried to distance her party from its more radical past, but her father Jean-Marie Le Pen showed the dark side of the Front in a speech ahead of the polls.

At a reception in the southern town of Marseille, Le Pen suggested that the deadly Ebola virus could “solve” population growth in the world and thus the “immigration problem” in Europe, according to media reports.

He expressed fears that France was facing a “migratory invasion” that was just beginning.

Des Rosiers, the poet, told IPS that as a human being and medical doctor he found Le Pen’s words to be “sickening”. “This is a virus that has killed many African people,” he said. “Marine Le Pen might have tried to un-demonise the party, but the father is still a fascist of extraordinary dimensions.”

Local party workers on the campaign trail in Mazar-e-Sharif. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS.

By Giuliano Battiston
FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, Apr 4 2014 (IPS)

“If Abdullah will become president, the will of [the] Afghan people will be respected. Otherwise – especially if Zalmai Rassoul will be indicated as the winner – a new conflict will start and our country will become more insecure.” The remark by Abdullah Abdullah supporter Qazi Sadullah Abu Aman is typical of the uncertainties and accusations rising as election day draws close on Saturday.

Sitting in his two-storey house in Faizabad, the largest city in the northeastern Badakhshan province, Abu Aman says only a massive fraud in favour of Rassoul, the presidential candidate backed by outgoing President Hamid Karzai, can stop former foreign minister and prominent Tajik leader Abdullah winning."The Independent Election Commission is independent only in name. It knows the ways here, but does not act.” -- Dr Anisgul Akhgar, director of the Relation & Cooperation Women Organisation

Abu Aman is one of the most authoritative figures in the province, as former head of the Provincial Peace Council, the government institution that runs the peace process with armed opposition groups, and a former member of the Afghan Upper House (Meshrano Jirga).

Abu Aman is a member of Jamiat-e-Islami, the predominately Tajik Islamist political party founded in the 1970s by Burhanuddin Rabbani. This was one of the major Afghan mujahedeen parties that fought the Soviet occupation in the eighties. He is also a candidate for election to the council of Badakhshan, one of the 34 Afghan provinces whose representatives will be elected Apr. 5, simultaneously with a new president to succeed Karzai.

“People will vote for him [Abdullah Abdullah] because he was a mujahed [religious fighter] who bravely fought the Soviets, and because he understands the problems of ordinary people. He is the right man to replace Karzai, whose government is corrupt and was unable to provide a better life for Afghans,” Abu Aman tells IPS.

Karzai, he says, has “activated the governmental machine to help Rassoul.”

Just a few hundred metres from Abu Aman’s house is the provincial office for Rassoul’s campaign. The office is headed by Basiri Khaled, a former mujahed with huge appeal.

He admits that Abdullah is a strong competitor: “He is known by everybody, kids and old men – and when you go to the bazaar you buy the product you already know. This is true. But Zalmai Rassoul has more chances to win, due to his programmes: he has promised to build schools, hospitals, roads, and to create new jobs through the mineral sector.”

In 2009, Khaled had coordinated Abdullah’s campaign; now he is running Rasoul’s. He sees no incoherence here, and says he still is a member of the Jamiat-e-Islami: “I’m a Jamiati since I was a kid,” he tells IPS. “I was a strong commander, the first to push away the Soviets from Badakhshan. I have fought together with commandant Masoud [the iconic leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, killed in September 2011, whose portraits overlook the main buildings here]. Nobody can expel me from the party.”

As evidence of the strength of his preferred candidate, Khaled says “thousands of people took part in his rally here in Faizabad.”

That may not mean much. “All candidates spend a lot of money to bring a huge number of people to their gatherings,” says Samiullah Saihwn, who works for the local radio Bayan-e-Shamal. “They gave money to the local commanders, and to community and village leaders to ensure broader participation. So it’s hard to understand who really will get the votes.”

On Mar. 31, Saihwn chaired a debate with some of the provincial council candidates. Promoted by the Badakhshan Civil Society Forum (BCSF), the debate was vibrant and frank. Many of the 250 or so people gathered at the Setara-e-Shar wedding hall in the city fired some very blunt questions.

“We had organised something similar in the earlier elections,” BCSF director Saifuddin Sais tells IPS. “But this was the first debate in town for the 2014 elections. We also have promoted debates and seminars in five rural districts, reaching more than 1,000 people and explaining to them the electoral process and their rights.”

Despite the awareness programmes by the BCSF, the gap between Faizabad and the rural areas remains huge.

“In Faizabad people somehow know their political rights, they know they can choose whoever they want, but in districts they have no information, no idea of what is going on,” says Saihwn. “They just follow what a local mullah, a commander or a power broker tells them. Ability is not a criterion.”

Dr Anisgul Akhgar, director of the Relation & Cooperation Women Organisation (RCWO), agrees. “Here in the city I perceive a great will to vote. Here anyone is free to select any of the candidates. But in rural districts local power brokers collect voter cards or indicate the people who have to be voted for.”

She fears that the election may therefore be unfair. “No effective measures have been taken to prevent fraud and rigging. The Independent Election Commission [the institution that should manage all the electoral process] is independent only in name. It knows the ways here, but does not act.”

Despite such apprehensions, Akhgar, a women’s rights activist since the days of the Taliban regime, will vote. “I will use my constitutional rights and I am encouraging all the women I know to do the same,” she tells IPS.

Zofanoon Hassam, head of the provincial Women Affairs Department, is also trying to encourage women’s participation.

“Through our awareness programmes we have spoken with more than 2,000 women. We have a registration centre here at our main office, and many women got their electoral cards here. According to our estimate, around 78,000 women in Faizabad – 44 percent of the total number – got it. We are particularly proud of this.”

The road to equal inclusion of women in politics is still long and difficult. “In many areas women are told who to vote for by their husbands. It’s a bad habits like this we are trying to dismiss. But more time is needed,” Hassam tells IPS.

Dr. Isatou Touray, executive director of women’s rights NGO Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children says that increased women’s representation in the Gambia’s is important for development. Credit: Saikou Jammeh/IPS

By Saikou Jammeh
BANJUL, Mar 30 2014 (IPS)

The countdown to the Gambia’s 2016 general elections has begun with a rare move to bring together female politicians from across the divided political spectrum to ensure increased female representation.

This week, local women’s rights NGO Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (Gamcotrap) launched a campaign calling for political reforms to ensure the effective participation of women in all positions of political leadership.

“We are now saying that we want to fetch our own water and drink with men from the same well,” Dr. Isatou Touray, executive director of Gamcotrap, tells IPS. The NGO has received support for the campaign from the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. non-profit that supports freedom across the world.“We are now saying that we want to fetch our own water and drink with men from the same well.” -- Dr. Isatou Touray, executive director of Gamcotrap

“What we’re doing has nothing to do with partisan politics,” says Touray. “It’s not about disempowering men. It’s about development, and it’s about gender politics.

“When we talk about gender politics, we’re talking about women from different political parties coming together to look at their issues and promote it, under one umbrella.”

The preliminary results of this tiny West African nation’s 2013 census show that women constitute more than 51 percent of the country’s almost 1.8 million people.

As of 2011, women represent 58 percent of national voters. Their numerical strength is not, however, reflected in the number of women in governance and leadership positions at both national and local level.

This is despite the fact that the Gambia has a female vice-president, Dr. Isatou Njie Saidy, who has held the post since 1997.

“Out of 53 National Assembly members, we have only four who are elected and one nominated female deputy. That’s nine percent,” Amie Sillah, a gender activist and politician, tells IPS.

“Also, out of 1,873 village heads, only five are women. There’s no female governor, no female district chief. So is that impressive?”

The structures within various political parties, at best, relegate women to being permanent deputies of male propagandists. Women mostly only hold leadership positions in the female wings of their political parties.

And the majority of politically-active women here spend their time campaigning for votes and financial donations for their male counterparts.

“In the selection committees of parties, even if a woman is made chair, as our proverb goes: ‘They [men] give you the head and take out the tongue’, so that the woman is not able to speak out. Men give you just a nominal power. In a nutshell, you propagate what they want you to,” Sillah says.

The Constitution guarantees women’s right to participate in politics and criminalises any form of gender-based discrimination.

Over the past four years, at least three pro-women laws have been passed: the Women’s Act of 2010, the Domestic Violence of Act, and the Sexual Offences Act, both of 2013.

Yet, women remain politically marginalised.

Activists say that because men dominate the political scene, the pro-women’s legislation has been watered down.

“Most of [women’s] issues have not been passed into law…and if passed, critical clauses are removed,” Touray says

Sillah explains: “They took out all the good things, all the crucial provisions in the Women’s Act dealing with marriage, inheritance … Also, they’ve refused to pass the provision on female genital mutilation. They took it out and this is about the reproductive health rights of women.”

Sillah called for an affirmative action quota system for the National Assembly that will allott at least 30 percent of seats to women.

“It’s time for women to be where the laws are made. So that when laws come that protect women’s rights, they can effectively engage to allow the bills to be passed.”

Haddy Nyang-Jagne is one of the four female members in the National Assembly from the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC). She thinks that the government has done a lot to ensure women’s participation in politics and that one of the reasons for the low number of women in parliament is the existing cultural barriers.

“The government has created the enabling environment, sensitised women. Now, is it stigmatisation? Women are afraid to come out because people speak ill of them.”

“Is it lack of funding? In APRC, money is given to candidates…Sometimes, it’s about religious and cultural barriers. Some people would tell you our religion of Islam does not accept women taking part in politics and we know that proposition is unfounded,” Haddy, who is serving her second term in the National Assembly, says.

However, women from the opposition say that the democratic space for vibrant multi-party politics has shrunk as arbitrary arrests and detention of opponents have become the norm.

Mariama B. Secka, the secretary-general in the opposition United Democratic Party’s female wing, explains that it is hard to be part of the opposition in the Gambia. The country has been a one-party dominant state since 1996 when army leader and now President, Yahya Jammeh, formed the APRC after he took power in a 1994 coup.

“I was invited to a forum by the women’s federation. When I started introducing myself as a member of opposition party, I was heckled. I was totally harassed. It’s not easy at all. We need a more level playing ground,” she tells IPS.

And the only people who can change this are the country’s majority female voters.

“We’ve observed that most of the educated women don’t even vote. We want to remain in our comfort zones,” says Touray. “And until the educated woman goes to the grassroots, we may not be able to achieve what we want.”

But Touray is optimistic and doesn’t rule out the possibility of a female presidential candidate for as early as the 2016 presidential elections.

“Of course yes! Why not! It’s possible,” she says. “The political landscape is for everybody. Women are saying that they have a right to be there and we’re going for elective positions rather than being nominated.”

Afghans want justice before they see a new President in Kabul. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS.

By Giuliano Battiston
KABUL, Jan 7 2014 (IPS)

Will we get justice? That is the question many Afghans are asking as their war-ravaged country heads for presidential polls in April. For, the list of candidates includes several warlords who have been accused of heinous crimes and who are yet to be brought to justice.

“The upcoming presidential election is crucial in determining whether Afghanistan will have a future as a rights-respecting country or whether abuses and impunity will continue,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

According to the international body, those in the presidential race include “former military and militia commanders implicated in serious rights abuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”“America and the international community provided power to the wrong people, to those who committed the worst crimes."

HRW posed 17 questions on the country’s most pressing human rights issues to 11 presidential candidates. The questionnaire was publicly endorsed by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) at a meeting in Kabul in December that called upon the government to implement transitional justice and hold those responsible for rights violations and war crimes accountable.

Some members of the Upper House of the Afghan Parliament have called for removing the names of war criminals from the list of presidential candidates.

According to the local news agency Pajhwok, Balqis Roshan, a woman senator from Farah province, said: “The nation’s blood is dropping from the beards and neckties of some people on the list. They should not be running.”

But many other senators fiercely opposed the proposal, and called it a conspiracy against the democratic process.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was overthrown in 2001, and elections were held in 2004, bringing President Hamid Karzai to power. For most Afghans, however, past crimes remain a big issue.

In Afghanistan, 90 percent of the population consider themselves victims of war; they’ve suffered abuse and atrocities, either directly or indirectly. “How can we achieve peace without taking this into account?” asked Aziz Rafiee, executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum Organisation.

“If justice is sacrificed simply for the sake of a ceasefire, it will not be real peace. It will be a very, very fragile peace,” he told IPS.

A 2005 survey by AIHRC, based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with thousands of people, showed that 94 percent of people consider justice for past crimes either “very important” (75.9 percent) or “important” (18.5 percent).

These findings as well as those emerging from more recent opinion polls show that the majority of Afghanistan’s 30 million people not only want accountability for human rights violations and war crimes but also consider justice a necessary condition for peace.

Hundreds of people had gathered in central Kabul for a demonstration organised by the Social Association of Afghan Justice Seekers (SAAJS) to mark National Victims Day, a day after International Human Rights Day Dec. 10.

They criticised the Afghan government as well as the international community for lack of commitment to promoting accountability for past and present crimes. They cited the November 2013 Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office found that “war crimes and crimes against humanity were and continue to be committed in Afghanistan.”

Raz Mohammad Dalili, a well-known civil society activist and director of Sanayee Development Organisation, says the cause of violence in Afghanistan is injustice, rooted in a culture of impunity and lack of ways for citizens to make their demands heard.

“If I commit a crime today and nobody stops me, how can I even consider accusing someone for past crimes? In the last 12 years, many crimes have been committed, but many of those who committed them are in power and in key positions.

“We know who they are – they are the so-called warlords, but how can we bring them to justice?”

Most Afghans believe that ignoring the cries for justice would increase the causes of insecurity, conflict and violence, he said, but very few think the government or the international community will actually live up to their expectations.

Naim Nazari, executive coordinator of the Civil Society and Human Rights Network, told IPS, “The problem is criminals have important positions in the government and in institutions. The international community did not and does not have the political will to implement a process through which to prosecute them.”

The common view here is that after the Taliban’s fall, the international community opted to seek short-term stability by backing political and military leaders with a shady past instead of promoting a genuine social reconciliation process based on people’s expectations and demands for justice.

“America and the international community provided power to the wrong people, to those who committed the worst crimes,” said Mir Ahmad Joyenda, former parliamentarian and now deputy director for communication and advocacy at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research organisation based in Kabul.

“The Afghan people’s demand for justice was underestimated while the power and consensus of warlords was overestimated,” Joyenda told IPS.

“In 2003, Lakhdar Brahimi (at that time the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan) had warned that justice should not be sacrificed for peace. Today we have neither peace nor justice. The international community is guilty of having supported criminals and warlords,” he said.

Michelle Bachelet in a meeting with the representatives of the Nueva Mayoría coalition the day after her victory. Credit: Michellebachelet.cl

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Dec 16 2013 (IPS)

The promised structural reforms to modify the political system inherited from Chile’s 1973-1990 dictatorship and reduce the severe social inequalities in the country propelled Michelle Bachelet to a resounding triumph in the Sunday Dec. 15 runoff election.

But the 62-year-old pediatrician and public health expert, who governed the country from 2006 to 2010, will not only have to respond to the demands that the people have been voicing in nationwide demonstrations over the past few years, but will have to overcome enormous differences in her centre-left coalition.

The Nueva Mayoría (New Majority), the new coalition that Bachelet represented in the elections, added the Communist Party (PC) and other smaller groups to the centre-left Concertación or coalition for democracy that governed Chile between 1990 and 2010.

The main parties in the Concertación, which started to govern after the 17-year dictatorship of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet came to an end, were the Christian Democracy Party and the president-elect’s Socialist Party.

Highly ideological campaign promises, such as the decriminalisation of therapeutic abortion – Chile is one of the few countries in the world where abortion is illegal under all circumstances – will force her to negotiate heavily among her allies.

Bachelet won a landslide victory over right-wing candidate Evelyn Matthei,with 62.15 percent of the vote against her rival’s 37.84 percent.

The socialist leader, the first president reelected by popular vote in Chile since 1932, also won the highest proportion of votes since the restoration of democracy.

In her campaign Bachelet promised to reform the constitution put into effect by Pinochet in 1981 – a longstanding demand of many Chileans. She also promised tuition-free quality higher education for all, like in the rest of South America, and tax reforms based on raising corporate taxes.

Bachelet will have to meet the expectations for change expressed by massive student protests since 2011, which put the government of right-wing President Sebastián Piñera up against the wall, before the demonstrations extended to other sectors of society.

Chile’s strong economic performance – annual GDP growth of 5.5 percent and unemployment under six percent – conceals a high level of inequality.

In this country of 17 million people known as Latin America’s tiger, two out of three households have incomes of less than 1,200 dollars a month and are deep in debt. And half of all workers earn less than 500 dollars a month, whereas the basket of essential items costs 250 dollars according to unofficial estimates.

By contrast, the 4,500 richest families have monthly incomes of over 40,000 dollars.

Chileans have become increasingly fed up with the abyss between rich and poor, a sentiment that led to Bachelet’s massive win, according to analysts.

But turnout was low. In the first round on Nov. 17, it stood at 50 percent, and went down to 41 percent in the second round. (Chile dropped compulsory voting in late 2012.)

The president elect, who will begin her second term on Mar. 11, 2014, will have an absolute majority in both houses of Congress, because in the November elections her coalition won 21 of the 38 seats in the Senate and 67 of the 120 seats in the lower house.

But contradictory positions in her coalition indicate that some reforms face an uphill battle. To that is added the fact that constitutional amendments require a 67 percent majority.

Analyst Guillermo Holzmann told IPS that “Bachelet will have to define what relationship she will have with the political parties and how much room she is going to give each one, and that will be reflected in the makeup of her cabinet.”

With respect to the differences, Holzmann said Bachelet will be able to play the role of mediator within the Nueva Mayoría or “exercise a kind of leadership that would force the parties to submit themselves to what she decides, leaving the responsibility of mediation in the hands of the parties” in her coalition.

This will form part of her government strategy, he added, which is why it is so important to see who she names to her first cabinet.

According to Holzmann, “if the president chooses independent people and sets up a cross-cutting government, her message will seek to connect with the many people who didn’t vote.”

In that scenario, “inside the Nueva Mayoría we would see a greater willingness to generate a consensus or cohesion, where the most likely thing is that the PC won’t want to be part of the problem but of the solution instead.”

He predicted that “the PC will tend to win lower-profile posts in the government, which will not be so visible even if they have a strong influence.”

Analyst Domingo Namuncura, with the Barómetro de Equidad, said the leftist and centre-left parties of the Nueva Mayoría “have come together around a common programme.” That means, he told IPS, that “there has been a first signal of adhesion to the principles on the programme.”

He added that the differences over how to move forward on the points of the agreed programmewould be resolved by means of internal debate within the coalition.

Namuncura said one of the key differences could arise when it comes to deciding how to push the constitutional reforms forward, given that wide sectors of the PC want a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution – an option to which the Christian Democrats are opposed.

Above and beyond the differences within the future governing coalition, Bachelet will have to deal with the pressure from the social movements, which will be pressing for quick responses to their demands.

On Monday Dec. 16, the Confederation of Chilean Students (CONFECH) warned that it would not support in any educational reforms during the next administration if they were not drawn up with the participation of the social movements.

While Bachelet’s supporters were still celebrating, CONFECH announced new demonstrations, with the aim of maintaining the pressure. It also said it would hold former leaders of the student movement, like Camila Vallejo who was elected to the lower house of Congress for the PC, accountable.

“The new government will have to seek mechanisms to reflect and address that broad range of demands that are not being channeled by the system, to provide responses within a reasonable timeframe, because society does not appear to be willing to wait,” said Holzmann.

Xiomara Castro making the victory sign and surrounded by supporters during the Sunday Dec. 1 march in Tegucigalpa against alleged electoral fraud. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 3 2013 (IPS)

The recent elections which were expected to strengthen the fabric of governance in Honduras failed to do so. Now the country has a president-elect with just 38.7 percent support who is facing accusations of electoral fraud, along with a fragmented parliament where the governing party will be in the minority.

“It won’t be easy for Juan Orlando [Hernández], his task is going to be complicated, he’ll have to negotiate,” university student Juan Sánchez told IPS, referring to the candidate of the governing right-wing National Party (PN), who was declared winner of the Nov. 24 elections.

Sánchez was watching from the sidelines as thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital, on Sunday Dec. 1, to protest the alleged fraud.

They were called out by the left-wing Libre party, whose candidate, Xiomara Castro, 58, took 28.7 percent of the vote, according to the electoral tribunal.

“I don’t know if there was fraud, I’m not sure about that. But I do know that the PN government will be tough on the people, and that it’s good it won’t have a majority in Congress; I hope the different political forces balance each other out,” Sánchez commented.

He said he has been looking for work for a year and in the meantime is scraping by on the commissions he earns from selling cosmetics.

As a warm-up for Jan. 27, when Hernández will take office, the supporters of Castro and her husband – the head of the Libre party former president Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted by a coup in 2009 – marched through the capital.

They were demanding a vote-by-vote recount due to supposed irregularities such as altered tally sheets, the inclusion of dead people on the voter rolls, and inadequate monitoring of polling stations.

Castro, Zelaya and their followers marched to the electoral tribunal warehouse where the votes are counted. The candidate and her husband rode in a pickup truck carrying the coffin and body of José Antonio Ardón, the leader of the fleet of motorcyclists who have headed Libre’s marches since the coup. Ardón was kidnapped and murdered the day before the demonstration.

Although the leaders of Libre say his death was politically motivated, they have no evidence.

The authorities are investigating his murder, which happened in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods of Tegucigalpa, the capital of this country that has one of the highest murder rates in the world, according to United Nations figures.

“They mounted a fraud against us, they dealt us a technical, democratic blow, but this struggle isn’t over,” Castro said in a passionate speech. “I am the president-elect of Honduras, and today’s demonstration is a clear message for those who took part in the fraud.”

Zelaya talked about filing a legal challenge. But he also said that “it is on the streets where peaceful revolutionary processes emerge; soon we will bring them down and win political power.”

The electoral tribunal said it would look at the tallies from thousands of polling booths, but it stopped short of agreeing to a full recount.

Another university student, Waleska Zavala, who took part in Sunday’s protest, said she did believe “bad things happened in the elections; they stole the elections from us, but they did it with kid gloves, so it’s difficult to prove.”

In her view, “Libre should now prepare itself to be in the opposition, because one thing I can tell you: the people have changed, and with them we young people,” she told IPS while tying her party’s trademark scarf around her forehead.?

That change, according to Aquiles Uclés, a driver for a private company, should involve social inclusion and coverage.

“If the new government wants to change things, it will have to live up to its promises, which are jobs and security; it will have to govern for everyone, and not just for the rich,” he told IPS.

Political analyst Miguel Cálix said Hernández won’t find it so difficult to govern because “they already knew what was coming and they began to forge alliances from the presidency of Congress, where Hernández reached important decisions with the consensus of the different blocs of legislators, even though they had a parliamentary majority.”

Hernández, 45, was president of the single-chamber Congress until June, when he threw himself into his campaign. “He is an astute, skilled politician, and as far as I know he’s already negotiating to be able to count on a majority in Congress,” Cálix told IPS. “In the executive his performance will be sound, and there will be reforms and a high level of social concern,” he predicted.

One of the novel aspects of the elections was that the brand-new Libre party became the main opposition force, pushing aside the moderate right-wing Liberal Party (PL), which has traditionally alternated in power with the PN.

But expert in electoral issues Adán Palacios said the effort to forge alliances should be ongoing.

“We are facing the need for electoral reforms that would usher in a second round of voting, which should not be delayed, now that Honduras has moved from a two-party system to a multi-coloured political map,” he told IPS.

Palacios said that power is increasingly shifting from the executive branch to the legislature, “and with this atypical Congress made up of many political forces, where the PN will not be in the majority, other scenarios guaranteeing better governance, such as a second round of elections, should be tried out.”

But sociologist Mirna Flores told IPS that a run-off would be costly for a poor country like Honduras. “In theory it’s feasible, but governance problems here should be solved with more sustainable policies and real responses to structural problems like poverty, health, education, inequality, unemployment and insecurity.”

In the new 128-member Congress, the PN will hold 48 seats, Libre 39, the PL 25, the centre-right Anticorruption Party 13, and three small parties will hold one seat each.

This panorama is very different from the one faced by outgoing President Porfirio Lobo, who had 71 legislators – a big enough majority to reform the constitution and introduce the possibility of holding referendums and plebiscites, and to impeach political office-holders.

The reforms were aimed at responding to some of the demands voiced by the people after the coup that toppled Zelaya and sparked a major institutional crisis, as well as to requirements set by the international community in order to recognise the Lobo administration after he was elected four years ago, within a difficult process of stabilisation that was to be crowned by the Nov. 24 elections.

Hernández, as president of Congress, played a key role in drumming up support for the reforms, which required the votes of 81 legislators. He also managed to build broad backing for the removal of Constitutional Court and Supreme Court judges and for the replacement of the heads of the prosecution service and other government departments, which the PN now controls.

Honduras’ electoral tribunal has declared Juan Orlando Hernández the clear winner of the country’s presidential elections, despite persisting allegations of fraud from the opposition candidate.

Figures from 81.5 percent of polling stations tallied by Wednesday gave Hernández, a conservative, 35.88 percent of the vote, compared to 29.14 percent for his rival, Xiomara Castro.

The electoral tribunal said Hernández’s lead was insurmountable.

“These numbers that we released today clearly indicate that the winner of the general election is Juan Orlando Hernández,” said David Matamoros, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

“In the coming days, we will issue the official declaration, once we have added the records that are needed.”

Castro has accused the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of manipulating 19 percent of the votes, in order to favour Hernández. Her campaign has called for massive protests over the alleged fraud.

“On Saturday, we are going to summon people to protest. The Libre [Party] and Xiomara [Castro] have been robbed of their victory, and we are going to show it,” Castro’s husband, ex-president Manuel Zelaya, told Radio and TV Globo.

In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Castro said: “We will defend the will of the people as it was expressed at the polls.”

A struggling state

The governments of Colombia, Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica congratulated Hernández on his victory, while Nicaragua’s leftist President Daniel Ortega also recognised Hernández as the winner.

Tensions were running high as the political standoff spread to the streets with protests by about 400 students.

On Tuesday, police beat and used tear gas against about 800 pro-Castro protesters.

About 100 police in helmets and riot gear used gas and then truncheons to beat the chanting youths.

The clash between Hernández and Castro brought new uncertainty to a country reeling from gang violence, poverty and the wounds of a 2009 coup that removed Zelaya from his seat.

In Honduras, known as one of the world’s deadliest nations, gangs run whole neighbourhoods, extorting businesses large and small.

Drug cartels have used Honduras as a transfer point for shipping illegal drugs, especially cocaine, from South America to the U.S.

Honduras is the poorest country in the Americas after Haiti, with the majority of the population living in poverty.

Published in agreement with Al Jazeera.

In poorer Tegucigalpa neighbourhoods like Flor de Campo, the gangs mark the limits of their territories by hanging dolls from power cables. Credit: Thelma Mejía/IPS

By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 22 2013 (IPS)

The capital of Honduras, one of the world’s most violent countries, has turned into a huge cage, where people lock themselves into their homes behind barred windows and iron doors along the steep winding, narrow streets of the city.

And in the poor areas of Tegucigalpa, a city of 1.6 million, people have to make protection payments to the maras or gangs, which set curfews for entering and leaving the areas under their control.

In some of the poor neighbourhoods, the maras mark the limits of their territory by hanging dolls from the power lines, IPS saw.

In the Sunday Nov. 24 elections, 24, this society held hostage by soaring levels of violence crime will choose between hard-line zero tolerance and more integral approaches that take into account prevention and socioeconomic aspects, to combat the problem.

On average, 20 homicides a day are committed in this impoverished Central American country of 8.5 million people. In 2012 alone, 7,172 murders were committed, according to the Autonomous National University of Honduras’ Violence Observatory.

That makes Honduras the country with the highest homicide rate in the world, according to the latest ranking by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), with 96.1 murders per 100,000 population, compared to a global average of 8.8, a Latin American average of 29, and a Central American average of 41.

In Peña por Bajo, a poor neighbourhood on the south side of Tegucigalpa, the police announced with great fanfare three months ago that they had seized control of a dozen houses from the gangs. But a month ago, after the police had stopped patrolling the area, the maras destroyed the houses and the people who were living in them had to flee.

The people of Tegucigalpa are also fed up with extortion rackets – which not even the politicians escape. Candidates have told the media that they have had to pay “taxes” to criminals to be allowed to enter certain areas to campaign.

In the last four years, 2,607 people have also been displaced from their homes because of the violence, according to the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.

Karim Vargas is tired of living in danger, and says she doesn’t know to what extent Sunday’s elections will change her life.

She lives in Peña por Bajo and works as a receptionist in a hotel. And although she wants security, she is not convinced that militarisation is the answer.

That is the proposal of the candidate of the governing right-wing National Party (PN),
Juan Orlando Hernández, who promises to be tough on crime.

Hernández, the president of Congress, which his party controls, is the architect of the recently created Military Police of Public Order (PMOP), which will carry out intelligence work to fight organised crime.

In October, the new force’s first 1,000 agents began to patrol the streets of Tegucigalpa and the second-largest city, San Pedro Sula, in the midst of the election campaign, without receiving training for their new policing and intelligence tasks.

“You feel a little bit safer when you see them in the streets,” said Vargas, 28, the mother of a two-year-old daughter. “But we know this won’t last, because when they leave, the mareros [gang-members] will come back and spread fear and everything will be the same again.

“It’s all politics, and that won’t save my life,” she told IPS.

Bringing down the rates of violence and crime is the most pressing issue in the campaign for the election of President Porfirio Lobo’s successor, who will take office Jan. 27.

Political analyst Ernesto Paz told IPS that Hernández, who promises the most aggressive approach to crime, is trying to convert “the vote to punish the government for its policies into a vote of fear; we’ll see if he manages to pull it off.”

The PN candidate told foreign correspondents: “I am going to bring back peace and tranquillity by the hands of the military police.”

Hernández is competing with seven other candidates from nine political parties, in elections that will mark the end of a two-party system and the emergence of a multi-colour array of political forces after decades of control by the PN and the Liberal Party (PL), a more moderate right-wing party.

Besides the PN and PL, the parties disputing the elections include the social democratic Innovation and Unity Party, the Christian Democrat Party, and the left-wing Democratic Unification party – all of which are smaller traditional parties.

But the political, social and institutional upheaval caused by the June 2009 coup that toppled then president Manuel Zelaya, leader of the PL at the time, led to the emergence of four new parties, which people who want change have pinned their hopes on.

The parties are the left-wing Freedom and Refoundation (Libre) party, created by Zelaya when he returned to the country from exile in 2011, the leftist Broad Front of Political and Electoral Resistance (FAPER), the centre-right Anticorruption Party, and the far-right Patriotic Alliance.

These elections will also mark an end to the institutional effects of the coup, because the elections that Lobo won four years ago were organised by a government that had taken power in a coup, and it took months for the new president to be recognised by the rest of Latin America and by the international community.

Libre, Zelaya’s party, stands a real chance of turning the PN and the PL into opposition parties. The party’s candidate is Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, who is neck and neck with Hernández according to the latest polls, carried out in October.

Castro has 29 percent poll ratings, compared to Hernández’s 27 percent, while the third in line, Mauricio Villeda of the PL, has recently seen his popularity spike, which has created a new sense of uncertainty about the outcome.

Castro, like Villeda, advocates an integral approach to fighting crime, which would combine police measures with prevention and rehabilitation. She proposes community policing, with agents who establish a closer relationship with the people in the neighbourhoods they patrol.

Ombudsman Ramón Custodio complained to IPS about the “politicisation of insecurity,” saying that tackling the problem is a priority for the state “and should not be a platform for generating votes.”

Custodio does not believe the problem will be solved by any of the candidates, no matter who is elected. He recommended that Honduras enter a new era of broad pacts and reforms, to avoid opening a “Pandora´s box” that would generate greater problems of governance.

Besides electing a new president Sunday, voters will choose three vice presidents, 128 legislators and their alternates, and the mayors of the country’s 298 municipalities.

Hugo and Daniel Hurtado are bucking the trend in Chile: it is not common for a waiter’s son to attend the university. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Nov 19 2013 (IPS)

Hugo Hurtado, 47, is a chef. Anyone would say that in his country, Chile, the Latin American “tiger”, his profession would be synonymous with success and even fame. But unfortunately that’s not true.

Hurtado works as a waiter. “I studied a profession that is too elitist, because if you don’t have contacts or your own restaurant, the only choice is to be a cook, which means earning 500 dollars a month and working eight to 10 hours a day, six days a week,” he told IPS.

“As a waiter the hours are exactly the same, but between the wages and the tips, I earn 700 dollars a month,” he said.

Half of all workers earn less than 500 dollars a month in this country of 17 million people, which has seen economic growth above six percent a year in the last 20 years.

Hurtado, a father of three who is separated from his wife, lives with two of his children in his new girlfriend’s house in Puente Alto, a working-class neighbourhood on the south side of Santiago. Daniel, the oldest, an excellent student, decided to study medicine.

But he didn’t manage to pass the university entrance exam known as PSU, and his family couldn’t afford to send him to a private prep school – a big business in a country where tuition-free higher education does not exist, in contrast to most of Latin America.

At the age of 18, Daniel won a scholarship because of his good grades and his family’s limited income, and completed the first year of studies in science at the University of Chile. After a second year of studies he will qualify to apply for medical school, without having to take the university entrance exam again.

“If he didn’t have a scholarship, he wouldn’t be able to study at the university,” his father said.

But things could become difficult if his dream of making it into medical school actually comes true.

“Medical school costs between 900 and 1,400 dollars a month, plus the study materials, food, locomotion and other expenses,” Daniel’s father says. “So we’re thinking that it would be better if he went to [neighbouring]Argentina [where university education is tuition-free], to study there.”

Neither father nor son are typical.

“We’re swimming against the current….The normal thing would be for Daniel to work at a call centre, as a bag boy in some supermarket, in construction, or as a waiter like me,” Hugo Hurtado said.

“There’s no way a normal family can afford to send a child to med school,” said Daniel.

The Hurtados are an example of the segment of Chileans who are fed up but hopeful that the results of the Dec. 15 presidential runoff vote will help them to finally share in the benefits of living in a Latin American “tiger”.

The danger is that the sense of being fed up is growing.

In the Sunday Nov. 17 elections, turnout was low, with nearly half of all voters staying at home.

Former socialist president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) took 47 percent of the vote, against 25 percent for her right-wing opponent Evelyn Matthei. They will face off in the second round.

Today, Bachelet and Matthei are the faces of the centre-left and the right which, since the end of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, have maintained a socially fragmented status quo characterised by growing inequality.

“People can still remember a state that was more inclusive, that was part of a process of social participation, that accepted the presence of representatives of lower-income sectors in its administration, and that was toppled by the military” in 1973, anthropologist Juan Carlos Skewes from the Alberto Hurtado University told IPS.

The incomes of the richest five percent of Chilean families are 270 times the incomes of the poorest five percent, according to statistics provided to IPS by the Fundación Sol, a think tank that specialises in labour and social issues.

Daniel Hurtado believes that “the state should assume the role of guaranteeing education for society as a whole, rather than handing out crumbs.”

He said the country’s economic development model “is reflected in the fact that a very few have the means and are the owners of everything. That is another world; they govern, they progress. All the majority of us can do is swim against the current, pick up the scholarships that they toss our way, so we can study.”

Tuition-free education is one of the central demands of protests held in the last few years, especially since the massive student demonstrations that began to rock the country in 2011.

In Sunday’s elections, four former leaders of the student movement won seats in Congress, some of them by large margins, including Camila Vallejo of the Communist Party.

To achieve their demand for universal tuition-free education, they will have to negotiate with the next government, which will almost certainly be headed by Bachelet.

Bachelet, who pushed through an educational reform that fell short when she was president, has promised tuition-free university education within six years.

Edilia Rojas, a 69-year-old pensioner, told IPS: “If she says it, I believe her…I hope she lives up to her promise. I would like my grandson to study, to have opportunities.”

Rojas, who has one son and is a grandmother, works as a full-time domestic to cover her basic needs.

“I have been working since I was 16. I thought I would stop when I retired, but since my pension is small [300 dollars] I had to keep working,” she added.

Monday through Friday she cleans a family’s house, for less than 500 dollars a month. “That means I’m a slave to work,” she said.

Thanks to her hard work, her son went to the university, and didn’t have to fall into debt to do so. “My entire wages went towards tuition. We managed to eat thanks to the fact that I rented out some rooms in my house, and because I eat lunch in the house where I work. But it was very difficult nonetheless.

“My life has been kind of hard, but I’ve had good health,” she said. If her life had been different, Rojas added, she would have loved to live in the countryside, together with her two brothers who don’t have decent housing.

So in response to the question of what is most urgently needed in Chile, she doesn’t hesitate: access to affordable housing and a decent pension.

Like many Chileans, Alejandro, who owns a small supermarket, hopes the next government will curb social inequality. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Nov 15 2013 (IPS)

Voters fed up with the extremely unequal distribution of wealth and power in Chile are expected once again to elect a centre-left government Sunday.
According to the latest poll by the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP), a local think tank, former socialist president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) is set to win outright in the first round of voting, with an at-least 30 percent lead over Evelyn Matthei, the candidate for the governing right-wing alliance.

Bachelet needs 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a run-off – which only occurred once, in 1993, since democracy was restored after the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

But CEP also projected a low turnout, as did the Latinobarómetro Report 2013, which found that Chileans were highly critical of the system because the economic prosperity of the last 20 years has only been enjoyed by a minority of the population.

According to the World Bank, per capita income in Chile is 21,500 dollars a year.

But in this South American country of 17 million, two out of three households have incomes of less than 1,200 dollars a month and are heavily in debt, according to the Fundación Sol, a non-profit organisation that focuses on labour and social issues.

And over half of all workers earn less than 500 dollars a month.

By contrast, the wealthiest 4,500 families have an average monthly income of over 40,000 dollars.

Poverty is measured by the “national socioeconomic survey”, which estimated the poverty rate at 14.5 percent of the population in its latest edition, in 2011.

But to gauge poverty, Chile only takes into account the monetary aspect. A person is categorised as poor if they earn less than 144 dollars a month in urban areas or less than 100 dollars a month in rural areas.

This cut-off line is based on the cost of the basic basket of foods – which was constructed in 1987 with products that Chileans no longer even consume, such as cooking oil sold in bulk.

Experts agree that if the methodology for estimating poverty were updated, the rate could climb as high as 28 percent.

That explains the roots of the discontent that has fuelled a wave of protests and demonstrations since 2011 and threatens to pose a major challenge to the government that takes office in March 2014, if the profound changes demanded by Chileans are not forthcoming.

Economist Gonzalo Durán at Fundación Sol told IPS that “many indicators depict the country in a very positive light,” but that access to the trappings of development was limited.

He stressed that inequality is so marked that the richest five percent of the population have incomes 270 times those of the poorest five percent.

And he said that gap doubled between 1990 and 2011, which meant that “according to this indicator, inequality in Chile has increased 100 percent in the last 20 years.”

Durán cited a University of Chile study which shows that the wealthiest one percent accounts for 30 percent of all income – compared to just under 22 percent in the United States, for example.

Sociologist Alberto Mayol told IPS that “poverty is definitely a very urgent issue. But inequality is not the same thing as poverty, and in Chile it has never been addressed by public policies.”

In societies in general, he said, a not insignificant portion of the population tends to be left out of benefits and bears the brunt of the policies dictated by the country’s social model.

“That proportion is generally around 30 percent. But in Chile, for example, 60 percent of workers suffer from precarious employment.”

Chileans, who are generally not familiar with these hard-hitting statistics, live with them nonetheless day to day. Many people in this country cannot afford a decent diet, and millions rack up credit card debt just to buy their groceries.

Alejandro, 62, and Juanita, 56, a couple who worked hard to have their own small supermarket on the south side of Santiago, hope the next government will finally address the needs of people like them.

At great sacrifice, they managed to send their two children to university. Their daughter still lives at home, and they give their son help when he needs it. “Both of them went to the university, thanks to our blood, sweat and tears,” Alejandro says with emotion.

“I don’t care who governs; work is my government,” he adds, before stating that “people have to take to the streets to protest because being able to do that is one of the important things about democracy, and because there are many reasons to do so.”

His wife, however, says it is very important that the right does not govern, because when it does, “the rich continue to call the shots, and the middle and lower classes continue to sink further and further.”

Mayol said Chile is reaching Sunday’s elections “at a time of acute protests challenging the fundamental values and cultural conditions of this model of society.”

The election of multimillionaire business tycoon Sebastián Piñera as president in 2010 “was the cultural triumph of profit as a form of social relations, as a political mechanism.” But as the right-wing president’s four-year term is coming to an end, “profit is akin to Satan in Chile,” he said.

The analyst said “the economic, political and institutional model is suffering a crisis of legitimacy, and in politics, legitimacy is like motor oil – it prevents friction.”

Once Bachelet wins the elections, he said, she will have to defend her new coalition, Nueva Mayoría (New Majority), which represents “a confluence with the social movements of the old Concertación,” the centre-left coalition that governed the country from 1990 to 2010.

To do that, he said, she will have to govern together with representatives of social movements, like two former student leaders – Camila Vallejo of the Communist Party, and Giorgio Jackson, an independent – both of whom have a strong chance of being elected to Congress.

On Sunday, voters will also elect the 120 members of the lower house, and 20 of the 38 members of the Senate. In addition, regional advisers, who will act as liaisons between the citizens and the government, will also be elected for the first time.

Bachelet will have to live up to her main campaign pledges: tuition-free higher education for all within the next six years; a tax reform making it possible to finance this; and the most strongly-voiced demand – a reform of the constitution left in place by former dictator Pinochet, which is still in force.