French President Nicolas Sarkozy has yet to officially declare his imminent re-election campaign, but that hasn’t kept a teeming field of rivals from launching their own bids for the Elysée. That pack of presidential hopefuls …
elections
Congo’s Election Chaos: When Having the Vote Fixes Nothing
When the Democratic Republic of Congo held its first multiparty general election for 41 years in 2006, the event was hailed as a milestone on the slow march out of civil war and towards functionality for the world’s largest failed state. Five years later, as the country holds another poll, the naivete of the Western belief in …
Should Foreign Residents Be Allowed to Vote in France? Sarkozy Flip-Flops
Even when opinions in the U.S. and France do manage to generally agree on certain subjects, meshing trans-Atlantic views often end up differing in some rather remarkable ways. Take immigration. The issue remains an equally high-temperature political flash point in both countries. So, too, does the conjoined challenge of integrating
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On Cairo’s Violent Streets, an Untenable Status Quo Meets an Unwritten Future
With reporting by Abigail Hauslohner / Cairo
“Say it, don’t be afraid: the military council has to leave,” chanted some of the tens of thousands of protesters who thronged Cairo’s Tahrir Square Tuesday night. Their slogan was a combative response to the junta’s plan, announced hours earlier in an unprecedented television address …
Egypt Bleeds as the Battle over Democracy and Power Escalates
The last time blood flowed so freely in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the battle lines were simple to discern: Last January’s showdown was a classic people vs. the regime battle to oust President Hosni Mubarak, with the Army stepping in at the crucial moment to ease out the strongman. But the ongoing battle for control of the Square that …
Fayyad Reported Sidelined as a New Palestinian Political Era Emerges – Will Abbas Follow?
Once hailed by Western pundits as the technocrat-magician who would conjure a Palestinian state into being through irrepressible institutional competence, Salam Fayyad has been unceremoniously sidelined from his job as Palestinian Prime Minister according to a deal announced Tuesday — a sign of the collapse of the illusions …
Baaaad Behavior: What the Kidnapping of a Goat Says About the Switzerland’s Elections
The kidnapping of two goats may seem to have little relevance to politics. But then you realize the four-legged victims belong to the far-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which has built up massive support by scapegoating immigrants.
Zottel, the SVP’s official mascot, has come to symbolize the party’s anti-immigrant stance, and …
Recommended Reading: BBC’s Hewitt On The Sarko-Hollande Battle
For anyone who hasn’t done so yet, I suggest having a read of a very well-focused and evenly-argued story by Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor for BBC News, on the opportunities and challenges for power-seeking European leftist parties at the very moment when French Socialist candidate François Hollande looks like a decent bet to unseat …
Hollande Wins French Socialist Primary, Looks to the Battle Ahead with Sarkozy
Though it may seem cliché to say so, it’s nevertheless true that with his party’s 2012 presidential nomination now secured, the hard work for French Socialist candidate François Hollande is about to begin. With the first round of presidential polling a bit more than six months away, the popular Hollande now becomes the …
In a First for Poland, Ruling Government Gets Re-Elected
Donald Tusk, Poland’s center-right prime minister, won re-election on Sunday night, marking the first time since the fall of communism in 1989 that a ruling government has managed to keep its grip on power. With more than 99% of all votes counted, Tusk’s pro-market Civic Platform party claimed 39% of all votes, putting it nine points …
Historic Win By French Left Further Darken Sarkozy’s 2012 Re-Election Hopes
With just seven months to go before general elections, France’s unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy has gotten another signal of just how difficult his effort to retain the Elysée will be. That reminder came in voting on Sunday, when French leftists took control of the upper house of parliament for the first time since France’s …
Will Egypt’s Military Hijack its Revolution?
Turkey, with its pluralistic democracy and booming economy under the stewardship of a moderate Islamist party, is hailed as the model for post-Mubarak Egypt by many leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the latest initiatives by the 25-man military junta that has ruled since February’s ouster of President Hosni Mubarak suggests that …
Why Greek Tumult Signals the Coming of Europe’s Own ‘Arab Spring’
Are the youth-led protests rocking Greece and other European countries a sign Arab Spring uprisings have jumped the Mediterranean? Kinda-sorta, say experts watching these movements. They warn that even if democratic systems in Europe can’t be compared with the brutally authoritarian regimes under fire in the Arab world, the angry …