Art, politics, and diplomacy
In China it's impossible to separate art from politics and now the Canadians are adding a diplomatic issue.
Embassy walls provide safe haven for free speech in China
 |
| Ai Weiwei |
Late last year, the Canadian embassy in Beijing invited a group of artists and critics to a meeting to discuss China’s modern art. Some displayed their work and talked about it. Others came to listen, drawn in part by headline speaker Ai Weiwei, the prominent visual artist and dissident.
Social events are the bread and butter of diplomacy, and embassies in Beijing began holding exhibits in the late 1980s when foreigners were the chief buyers of newly emerging Chinese modern art…
As Chinese authorities jail large numbers of activists and dissidents, foreign diplomatic missions have become among the few places inside China where people can voice their thoughts without fear of arrest, or worse. Inside embassy walls, artists can broach topics that would otherwise be considered dangerous in public, including the Tiananmen Square massacre and criticism of the Chinese political system…
Providing a haven for free speech is risky in China, which is in the midst of a campaign to root out Western influence and looks dimly on anything that appears like foreign meddling. To underscore the sensitivity, participants at the Canadian embassy event received warnings from Chinese authorities that future meetings at other embassies could be in jeopardy…
China has taken an increasingly harsh stance against criticism in recent years, particularly under President Xi Jinping, who has been accused of overseeing the worst clampdown on free expression in 20 years…
“During the last two years of crackdown under President Xi Jinping, we’ve basically seen that sentencing for activists and dissidents has just become heavier and heavier,” said Maya Wang, China researcher with Human Rights Watch…
Last fall, Mr. Xi called on artists to reflect a “correct” understanding of Chinese history and culture in their work, saying their aim should be to “inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and clean up undesirable work styles.”…
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Labels: censorship, China, politics
A constitution for the UK?
Devolution is a major issue in this election. That includes allowing English MPs exclusive votes on English issues. Other issues are whether 16-year-olds should vote, whether a constitution should be written, and whether the House of Lords should be abolished or replaced.
Here's a useful guide to nearly 20 issues and the positions of a dozen political parties.
This is a guide to political parties' positions on key issues and will be updated as each manifesto is launched. Choose a party or an issue below to see the details…
[You'll have to go to the BBC article to get live links.]
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Labels: elections, parties, politics, UK
Nigeria's Youth Service Corps
Those of us outside of Nigeria don't hear much about the
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Too bad, because it's one of the great ideas and programs for nation building in Nigeria.
Graduates of universities and polytechnics are required to serve for a year in a program that resembles a domestic version of the US Peace Corps.
During this national service year, "corpers" are assigned to work in areas far from their homes with people whose ethnicity, religion, and culture are quite different from their own.
During the last two presidential elections, "corpers" have worked for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to move election materials and man polling places.
NYSC and the 2015 Election
Against all negative predictions, the 2015 general election was conducted and concluded with relative peace. Central to the balloting was the strategic collaboration between the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). To the extent that the partnership turned out to be a huge success, these youth corps members who worked at the risk of their lives should be recognised as heroes and heroines of our democracy. And so should the NYSC management led by its Director General, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawunmi.
While 11 NYSC members were lost to the election crisis of 2011, safety of corps members was given primacy this time around and at the end, none was put in harm's way. Indeed, the sparingly-trained ad hoc staff demonstrated a high level of dedication to the system, and even where and when some logistic difficulties were encountered, they remained steadfast…
Olawunmi indeed directed senior staffers in the NYSC to go round the country to monitor the welfare of corps members before and during the electioneering period to avoid inducement from politicians or such conducts contrary to the electoral laws. The NYSC also collaborated actively with the election security committee…
At the end, all the efforts paid off with what is generally regarded as credible and relatively peaceful general election… we therefore commend the NYSC and INEC for the successful collaboration…
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Labels: cleavages, Nigeria, political culture, political integration, recruitment
Will more information help?
If corruption and anti-democratic practices take place mostly in secret, will more information make Mexico more democratic and less corrupt?
Mexican Congress expands reach of freedom-of-information law
Mexico's Congress has approved freedom of information legislation that will allow public access to data from almost any entity that receives government funding.
The measure was passed… in the lower house on a 264-68 vote and now goes to the president for his signature.
President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote in his Twitter account that the law "will strengthen the accountability of the Mexican government and combat corruption."
Mexicans can currently use freedom-of-information requests to get data from government agencies. But the new law now also covers requests to unions, political parties and government-supported councils and commissions…
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Labels: corruption, democracy, Mexico
Uniting the oppostion
Anyone looking at the politics of Russia has to wonder, what factors keep Putin's opposition from uniting? Diverse goals? Irascible politicians? Little likelihood of success? Structural obstacles?
Does this news herald the beginning of a more unified opposition?
Russian opposition parties form anti-Putin alliance
The political party founded by murdered Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov is to join forces with another opposition party ahead of Russia's 2016 elections.
 |
| Alexei Navalny |
RPR-Parnas will share a joint platform with the Party of Progress, founded by opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
Russia's political opposition has in recent years been riven by infighting, weakening its ability to challenge President Vladimir Putin…
In a joint statement on Friday, the two parties called on opposition figures to "consolidate on a common platform of a rejection of lies, corruption and aggression".
Mikhail Kasyanov, co-chairman of RPR-Parnas and a former prime minister, said the parties would form an alliance rather than merge.
Mr Kasyanov later announced they had been joined by a third party, Democratic Choice…
The parties said they would begin by running together in regional elections due to be held in 2015 before the full parliamentary elections due in 2016…
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Be Prepared!
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Labels: elections, parties, politics, Russia
Instead of free and fair elections, let's have a call-in show
Over the past few years, Russian President Putin has been able to display his patience, stamina, and charisma in hours-long call-in television shows.
The shows are carefully orchestrated, and they are wonderful public relations. It might make Russians wish they'd voted for Putin.
Putin the problem-solver: Russian leader's annual TV phone-in marathon
Former government ministers, hunger striking construction workers and a British farmer called John have all been given an audience with Vladimir Putin as the Russian president put in a performance of characteristic stamina in his latest carefully choreographed televisual marathon…
The Russian president’s phone-in session with the nation has become an annual tradition, with questions coming from audience members in the studio and phone calls from around the country.
 |
| Putin and moderators |
Economic themes dominated the discussion, with foreign policy and the war in Ukraine taking a back seat…
The organisers said there had been over 3m questions received by telephone, video message and email. However, the vast majority of those that made it on air were carefully screened and often came via correspondents sent out to the field…
On international affairs, Putin was reasonably conciliatory. Answering a question about a boycott of celebrations for the 70th anniversary of victory in the second world war this May, he said it was unfair to compare Stalinism and nazism but conceded that some in central Europe are justified in their ambiguous views on the Soviet victory.
“After the second world war we tried to impose our model of development on many eastern European countries and did it by force,” said Putin. “We have to admit this. And there’s nothing good about it.”…
There was no chance for a follow-up [question]… underlining the usefulness of the single-question format for the Russian president…
After four hours, he left the studio with a stack of handwritten notes and a promise to bring regional leaders to task over the issues that had been raised. If Putin’s appearances are designed to prove one thing, it is that whatever problems might face ordinary Russians, he is not part of the problem, but instead is the only person who can solve them…
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Labels: campaign, leadership, politics, Russia
Translation from journalistic language to political scientific language needed
Use the link. Read the article. Explain why a political scientist would say the headline is all wrong.
European officials may be pushing regime change in Greece
There are various narratives for what is happening to Greece as another deadline looms – the April 24 gathering of eurozone finance ministers in Riga, Latvia — and European officials show no sign of compromise. The most common tale is that this is a game of brinkmanship, with the Germans and their allies pushing for “reforms” that the Syriza government in Greece doesn’t want to adopt…
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Labels: concepts, government, regime
Challenges of economic policy
Linda Yueh's review at the BBC offers a clear view of the challenges facing China's rulers in the area of economic policy. Can the CPC leaders control consumption as easily as it controlled industrial production? (You might want a briefing about the factors of production and the elements that make up the GDP to go with this article.)
The end of an era for China
Probably the least surprising thing about China's GDP growth rate for the first three months of the year is that it slowed to 7%. After all, that's the target for the year.
 |
| Chinese consumers |
What's more surprising are the drivers: consumption more than investment, services outpacing manufacturing, and domestic demand rather than exports. Taking today's figures and the data for March together with the full year picture for 2014 shows that China's growth drivers are changing.
Consumption contributed 3.8 percentage points to 2014's 7.4% growth rate, which is more than investment which accounted for 3.6 percentage points. Net exports - so exports minus imports - contributed nothing.
Consumption has risen to account for more than 50% of GDP… and finally places China in the realm of market economies where consumption is between half to two-thirds of GDP.
Indeed, industrial production in March expanded by 5.6% in March, the slowest on record, which was significantly outpaced by retail sales - a measure of consumption - which grew at over 10%.
This is what China has been trying to achieve…
It's part of their aim of overcoming the middle income country trap to become prosperous by improving the quality of the growth drivers in the economy.
Growing more through consumption and services is similar to the growth drivers of developed economies such as the U.S. and Europe. So, China's re-balancing also marks the beginning of the end of a period of rapid growth that is based on industrialisation…
So, the picture in terms of re-balancing looks better than the headline growth rate of the slowest quarterly growth rate since the global financial crisis…
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Labels: China, economy, policy
Will victory equal reform?
Promises during the campaign won votes. Will voters wait patiently for results in Nigeria?
Please don’t expect miracles: The president-elect faces enormous tasks, starting with halting corruption
MUHAMMADU BUHARI… promised frustrated Nigerians that he would bring change once he is inaugurated on May 29th. Many will take him at his word. “Most people are expecting a new Nigeria,” says Ahmad Lamido, a civil servant in the northern city of Kano…
Mr Buhari will start by trying to deal with mismanagement in the army. Embezzlement by generals is one reason why, despite a huge budget, the army lacks the equipment to defeat the jihadists of Boko Haram…
Mr Buhari’s new lot will look into the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Investigation into opaque operating contracts is the starting place, reckons Thomas Hansen of Control Risks, a London-based consultancy. The state-owned oil giant signed operating contracts worth billions of dollars without bidding during Mr Jonathan’s presidency. Such “strategic partnership agreements” have been a way to steal cash from federal coffers, says Lamido Sanusi, a former central-bank governor sacked by Mr Jonathan for alleging that $20 billion in oil revenue had vanished…
Mr Buhari must keep the current fragile peace in the oil-producing Niger delta. He is expected to axe an expensive deal which, since 2009, has paid former militants to stop them blowing up oil installations and kidnapping workers… The new government may come up with another deal instead…
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Labels: corruption, leadership, Nigeria, politics, reform
Feedback without meaningful elections
An autocratic regime needs to assess public opinion, at least to identify opposition to its policies and existence. Rather than holding effectively democratic elections, the Communist Party of China has begun using public opinion polls.
The critical masses: Officials increasingly ask people a once taboo question: what they think
IN RECENT weeks official media have published a flurry of opinion polls. One in China Daily showed that most people in the coastal cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou think that smog is getting worse. Another noted the high salary expectations of university students. Yet another found that over two-thirds of respondents in Henan province in central China regard local officials as inefficient and neglectful of their duties. For decades the Communist Party has claimed to embody and express the will of the masses. Now it is increasingly seeking to measure that will—and let it shape at least some of the party’s policies.
Since the party seized power in 1949 it has repeatedly unleashed public opinion only to suppress it with force, from the “Hundred Flowers Campaign” in 1956… to the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. For the past two decades, the party has effectively bought people’s obedience by promising—and delivering—a better, richer future. This will be tougher in the years ahead as the economy slows. Members of a huge new middle class are demanding more from their government in areas ranging from the environment to the protection of property rights. So the party must respond to concerns in order to retain its legitimacy.
Xi Jinping, who took over as China’s leader in 2012, has shown even less inclination than his predecessors to let citizens express their preferences through the ballot box. Yet the public has become ever more vocal on a wide variety of issues—online, through protests, and increasingly via responses to opinion polls and government-arranged consultations over the introduction of some new laws. The party monitors this clamour to detect possible flashpoints, and it frequently censors dissent. But the government is also consulting people, through opinion polls that try to establish their views on some of the big issues of the day as well as on specific policies. Its main aim is to devise ways to keep citizens as happy as possible in their daily lives. It avoids stickier subjects such as political reform or human rights. But people are undoubtedly gaining a stronger voice…
Opinion polls today cover a vast range of subjects. The biggest growth in demand for them is driven by the Chinese government itself, says Yuan Yue who set up a private company, Horizon Research and pioneered commercial polling in China… ([and] who is a party member)… [W]hat Mr Yuan describes as “customer satisfaction surveys” by local governments are used “very extensively”…
Horizon’s Mr Yuan says he can ask almost anything these days, but he avoids the most politically sensitive subjects… Last year he conducted polls on attitudes toward pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and even about the country’s most senior leaders—but he is guarded about who commissioned him and what he found. Most polls for the government are not made public…
But even to report a poll, as state-run media do almost daily, gives weight to the notion that public opinion matters. It is a message that is sinking in among citizens and fuelling demands for more responsive government. “People are more and more clear about their rights and about what they can express,” says Mr Shen. That is a trend the party would ignore at its peril.
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Labels: autocracy, China, concepts, elections, feedback
R U paranoid or just annoyed?
Caitlin Dewey b
logs at the
Washington Post about part of the effort in Russia to control Internet content.
Russia just made a ton of Internet memes illegal
In post-Soviet Russia, you don’t make memes. Memes make (or unmake?) you.
That is, at least, the only conclusion we can draw from an announcement made this week by Russia’s three-year-old media agency/Internet censor Roskomnadzor, which made it illegal to publish any Internet meme that depicts a public figure in a way that has nothing to do with his “personality.”…
“These ways of using [celebrities’ images] violate the laws governing personal data and harm the honor, dignity and business of public figures,” reads the policy announcement from Roskomnadzor.
To be clear, this isn’t a new law passed by parliament or anything — it’s just a (pretty startling) clarification of existing policy…
If that sounds crazy to U.S. readers, it probably should: U.S. law gives a very, very wide berth to Internet speech, even when it depicts private people or children — and especially when it depicts public figures.
Russia, on the other hand, has taken a series of steps to increase government control of the Internet in recent months. Just last August, Russia enacted a law that forced all bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers to register with the Roskomnadzor, basically outlawing anonymous blogs. Earlier in the year, Russia approved a law that lets Roskomnadzor unilaterally block Web sites without explanation; the sites of prominent Putin critics were among the first to go dark…
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Labels: censorship, political culture, politics, Russia
No bourgeois golf (well, less)
A former student of comparative politics wrote recently about another battle in China against the dilution of Communist culture.
China's War on Golf Courses
Last week, the Chinese government quietly went to war against golf -- or, to be more specific, against golf courses. Two-thirds of the country's approximately 600 fairways were allegedly built in violation of a 2004 national moratorium, and Beijing is no longer willing to look the other way. On Wednesday, China's Ministry of Land and Resources shut down 66 illegally built courses…
This isn't China’s first golf crackdown. In 1949, Mao Zedong deemed the game a “bourgeois” excess and had all the country's courses destroyed…
Golf crept back into China in the 1980s, together with free enterprise… Chinese businessmen… were eager to treat the sport as a networking opportunity. It was also a convenient chance for newly wealthy Chinese elites to indulge in some conspicuous consumption. (Course fees -- currently over $150 per round, on average –- have always been well beyond the means of ordinary Chinese.)…
What sparked the current crackdown? In part, it seems to be an extension of President Xi Jinping's ongoing campaign against extravagance on the part of public officials…
But Beijing also seems intent on using the golf crackdown as a way to reassert its control over the country's real estate market…
The crackdown against golf is likely also motivated by environmental concerns. Golf courses can have a negative impact on the local environment, both as a result of their extensive water demands, and… the chemicals and pesticides used to keep them green…
Shutting down 66 courses is a strong start, but it leaves behind hundreds more, as well as many dozens frozen in various stages of development. In all likelihood, some of those will remain (if only to nurse Chinese dreams that they can eventually earn gold medals in another Olympic sport). But for Chinese officials, in particular, it’s clear that the days of approving, much less enjoying, an afternoon on the course, are over.
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Labels: China, economics, political culture, politics
Henry Paulson on China
This morning while walking, I heard an interview with the controversial Henry Paulson. He was Secretary of the Treasury and head of Goldman Sachs. He has done a lot of business and with China. He is selling his new book. He makes the standard argument that economic development will lead to a more open, more democratic society and to greater competition for the USA.
His analysis sounded reasonable. I was going to recommend it, but radio interviews are usually difficult to use. Then Lindsay Marshall posted a link to an interview at
Quartz at an AP Government Teachers Facebook page. I reposed it to the AP Comparative Facebook page and now here.
From Horses To High-Rises: An Insider 'Unmasks' China's Economic Rise
Eventually, China will likely surpass the U.S. and become the largest economy in the world, Paulson says. "But it's also a country with monumental challenges. There's as much danger in overemphasizing China's strength as in underestimating its potential."
In his new book… Paulson describes some of the major challenges China faces as its people become richer…
Both publicly and privately, China's president — Xi Jinping — is very direct about his own views on this topic, and his colleagues' views.
"They don't aspire to have a Western-style, multiple-party democracy," Paulson says. "They don't aspire to have Western values. Jinping believes that the future of the country, the stability, is dependent on a strong Chinese Communist Party.
"I feel quite strongly that won't work long term," Paulson says. As more people prosper, they'll demand information and rights…
"The Chinese leadership over time has been pretty pragmatic… "
Hank Paulson on the Chinese economy, Xi Jinping, and what Americans don’t get about China
For the last two decades, China’s rise could be explained in a string of cliches: explosive growth, strong one-party rule, and fledgling diplomatic clout. This era of simplicity is over now. The economy is slowing, and while cronyism is eroding the Communist Party’s authority, the country wields ever-more clout abroad.
China’s handling of these new complexities bears huge consequences for the rest of the world…
What are the biggest challenges currently confronting China?
The biggest challenges are rebooting the economy—its economic model is running out of steam—coming up with a new urbanization model, curbing corruption, working to curb pollution, dealing with food security issues, property reform, and income disparity, which is creating social distress.
To do all this, the vehicle Xi is using is a party that’s rife with corruption. And he’s doing this all without the modern institutions you need to govern a society like this—without a legal system, without a rule of law…
This is a leader who has really consolidated power quicker than anyone since Deng [Xiaoping… And he seems to be the most ideological leader since Mao. I’m not sure that is something that many outsiders would have suspected. He’s also very direct in being clear that he is not aspiring to transform China into having a Western-style, multiparty democracy, or Western values…
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Labels: China, economics, leadership, politics
A primer on UK regime, government, and politics.
Excellen.
A guide to the British election for non-Brits
On 7 May, voters across the four nations of the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – will go to the polls to elect a new government and new prime minister.
This is the most complex and unpredictable British election in living memory, and with less than a month to go, the pollsters and the politicians themselves remain as flummoxed as the rest of us as to what the next government might look like.
If you’re not from the UK, have never voted for a local MP, or are just a bit confused about how the whole thing works, hopefully this will help…
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Labels: elections, government, politics, regime, UK
No room for criticism
President Xi's China has no room for political criticism — even of (especially of?) Chairman Mao. This is true even though the official line is that
Mao "made mistakes."
Joking About Mao Lands Chinese TV Host in Hot Water
Mao Zedong famously said a revolution is not a dinner party, and nor in China these days, it seems, is a dinner party a safe place to mock Mao’s revolution. Some tipsy jibes by a Chinese television celebrity, Bi Fujian, have been enough to inspire tirades from the state media and imperil Mr. Bi’s career…
 |
| Bi Fujian |
Mr. Bi apparently thought he was amusing a few guests around a banquet table when he sang some lines from a Mao-era opera and peppered the lyrics with sarcastic asides. But shaky video of the performance lasting a minute or so leaked onto the Internet in recent days, and now Mr. Bi stands accused of political sacrilege, which cannot be good when your job depends on echoing party propaganda themes…
It seems unlikely that the regulations, whatever they are, will let Mr. Bi off easily. The Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, has demanded that citizens, especially artists and writers, uphold party orthodoxy, and has warned against “historical nihilism,”…
Mr. Bi’s sin was to offer his own interpretation of a song from “Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy,” one of the eight “model” operas and ballets that Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, and her artistic underlings developed in the 1960s to replace traditional performances with revolutionary content…
Like quite a few Chinese celebrities, Mr. Bi seems to have combined a politically wholesome public persona with an irreverent sense of humor in private. And the reaction to Mr. Bi’s brief performance has illustrated the divide in China between Mao’s sacred official stature and public opinion, which is much more mixed between reverence and revulsion.
Commentaries in the state media and on the Internet reviled Mr. Bi as a traitor and heretic for mocking Mao, but online, some people defended his right to his opinions and welcomed his satirical take on Mao’s grievous mistakes…
Under Mr. Xi… the party has imposed even tighter censorship on public discussion and research about Mao’s era. Party publications have also dismissed as lies the conclusion, shared by many historians in China and abroad, that tens of millions of people, possibly 30 million or more, died because of the famine and other suffering brought on from the late 1950s by Mao’s Great Leap Forward, when his attempt to catapult the country into Communist abundance crashed disastrously.
Unlike the intellectuals of Mao’s era who dared to question the party’s policies, Mr. Bi appears unlikely to spend time in prison for his performance. But his days in the limelight appear over, for now at least…
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Labels: China, history, leadership, political culture, politics
Step Two: strengthen rule of law
The anti-corruption campaign in China is more than a power struggle.
The devil, or Mr Wang
 |
| Wang Qishan |
FEAR is Wang Qishan’s favoured weapon. As leader of the Communist Party’s most sustained and wide-ranging anti-corruption campaign in its history, he often urges his investigators to be “frightening”. One story goes that at a meeting of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), convened after Mr Wang took charge of it in November 2012, senior members—themselves among the most feared officials in the party—were presented with dossiers of their own sins. Mr Wang’s aim, it appeared, was to terrorise the enforcers themselves…
Now few dare to complain. At the age of 66, Mr Wang is the sixth-ranking member of the Politburo but is clearly second only to President Xi Jinping in the power he wields. He is perhaps the most feared…
Fear has spread throughout the bureaucracy and the management of state-owned enterprises. Mr Wang’s army of hundreds of thousands of party investigators, who have licence to detain and interrogate suspects without legal restraints, have taken down senior officials in redoubts such as the domestic security apparatus and the People’s Liberation Army, powerful state-owned enterprises and state regulators.
More than one-third of provinces have lost at least one member of their senior party leadership to corruption inquiries. The coal-mining province of Shanxi has lost the majority of its 13-member party leadership…
Normal bureaucratic life has been widely disrupted… Provinces and ministries gutted by the CCDI squads are in desperate need of personnel. On March 6th the party chief of Shanxi said his province still needed to fill nearly 300 vacancies left by graft investigations there…
Mr Wang and Mr Xi may deem such disruption to be an acceptable risk. From almost his first day in power Mr Xi has declared the party to be riddled with corruption; life-threateningly so, indeed. Predecessors have used similarly strong language, but Mr Xi appears to be taking the problem far more seriously…
Mr Xi, Mr Wang and others on the Politburo Standing Committee have paid visits to members of the so-called “red nobility”, as relatives of former leaders are often described, to secure their co-operation. (Mr Xi and Mr Wang are princelings themselves.) Families belonging to the party aristocracy have so far escaped the worst of the anti-corruption campaign, but they have been told to turn over illegal assets to the state and rein in extravagant spending. Those so instructed have included Mr Xi’s own relatives…
Mr Wang is due to retire in 2017, but he is trying to beef up the CCDI to enable it keep on catching “tigers”, as senior targets are known. He has hired detectives from other agencies and forensic accountants from state-owned firms…
Independent activists who dare to speak out about party corruption, however, are being suppressed as ruthlessly as the corrupt themselves…
Mr Wang has spoken of dealing with corruption in three stages. The first involves instilling fear, but the second would require strengthening rule of law to make it harder to be corrupt in the first place. The final stage would be to change China’s political culture so that officials would not even think of taking backhanders. For now, however, there is nothing but fear itself.
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Labels: China, corruption, political culture, rule of law
It's not just Lagos
The APC was also successful in governors' races across the country.
President-elect's party dominates regional election in Nigeria
The party of Nigeria's president-elect Muhammadu Buhari has won governorship elections in a majority of Nigeria's 36 states, building its strength nationwide after a historic presidential win, official results Monday showed.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) took control of at least 19 governor's seats…
President Goodluck Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP) had controlled the federal and most state governments since the end of military rule in 1999 but suffered major losses during Nigeria's gripping 2015 election cycle.
Jonathan's PDP lost governorship seats it had controlled in the northern states of Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi and Adamawa, the latter having been hit particularly hard by armed group Boko Haram.
According to official results released so far, the only state the PDP wrestled away from Buhari's APC was the southern, oil-producing hub of Rivers.
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Labels: elections, Nigeria, politics
Labour Party "platform"
In the USA, parties' campaigns are based on platforms — collections of policy positions to which candidates supposedly are dedicated. In the UK, these platforms are called manifestos. Here's the Labour manifesto for the May election. Check the BBC complete report for details.
Election 2015: Labour manifesto at-a-glance
Key message: The theme of Labour's manifesto is that "Britain only succeeds when working families succeed".
The party says every policy pledge in the document is funded and will be paid for without any additional borrowing.
It promises that the first line in Labour's first Budget, if elected, will be that it "cuts the deficit every year".
The sections of the article are:
- Key policies
- The economy
- Health and education
- Families and communities
- Democracy
- Foreign policy
There is also a link to a one-minute excerpt of Ed Miliband's introduction to the manifesto and brief summaries of reactions to the document.
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Labels: elections, parties, politics, UK
The Americanization of the British political culture?
Former prime minister Tony Blair was accused of being too presidential. Maybe that's what the British regime needs.
Britain's election: rise of Scottish and English nationalists threatens old order
On 7 May, Britain goes to the polls. Voters are deserting Labour and the Tories in favour of resurgent Scottish nationalists and an English version of the Tea Party. The result could spell the end for the system as we know it…
When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they were determined to prevent a tyranny like George III’s, and so separated out the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government to keep each other in check.
That didn’t happen in Britain, where reforming governments wrestled royal prerogatives away from the monarch, and kept most to themselves.
Thus, in a parliamentary system where the leader of the party with most elected members of parliament (MPs) gets to become prime minister, a Commons majority allows the cabinet to do “anything except change a man into a woman”, as the old Victorian joke goes…
In the 1951 election, Labour and the Conservatives – or Tories – shared 96% of the vote. By 2010 they could only manage 66% between them…
Contrary to predictions, the 2010 coalition has survived its full five-year term, partly thanks to the Fixed Term Parliament Act, which Cameron and his deputy, the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, passed to stop each other walking out on the deal and triggering an early election at a self-serving moment.
They also had hopes of passing constitutional reform, but fell out over scrapping Britain’s first-past-the-post voting system… with a European-style system of proportional representation, and replacing the House of Lords… with an elected, regionally based Senate.
Hereditary lords, heirs to medieval warriors, can still vote on legislation in a 21st century democracy? Constitutional reform must be a slow process in Britain, you may well think.
Correct. But pressure for change from below is coming fast – and from two previously unlikely directions. And this is where the 2015 UK general election becomes seriously tricky…
 |
| Nicola Sturgeon |
The Scottish national party has barely paused for breath since losing last September’s referendum on independence for Scotland…
Since the referendum result… disaffected working-class Labour voters have flocked to the SNP. Polls suggest the Scottish nationalists, now led by Scotland’s new first minister, the formidable Nicola Sturgeon, will slaughter Labour north of the border, winning dozens of Scotland’s 59 seats and perhaps holding the balance of power in London. If she finds herself in that position, Sturgeon promises to block Cameron and prop up a minority Miliband administration…
 |
| Nigel Farage |
Meanwhile, in England, the populist anti-European right, in the form of the UK independence party (Ukip), has evolved under the skillful leadership of Nigel Farage from a ragbag collection of misfits, eccentrics and renegades into a real party. It is one whose proven ability to win protest votes at four-yearly elections to the 28-nation European parliament is now threatening the status quo at Westminster…
Ukip’s “little guy” rank-and-file is not always quite so on-message. This is disruptive Tea Party Republicanism with added potency. Imagine if Washington were required to enact laws by a mixture of Nafta and the UN, its HQ located in, say, Toronto…
As the eurozone crisis continues, anti-establishment insurgencies like the SNP’s are surfacing all over Europe: nationalist, populist, separatist, left or right.
But nowhere… do identity politics combine with economic grievance more disruptively than in Britain. A nightmare stalemate may be the outcome on 7 May – more populist, more localist than ever before. More unstable, too? A second 2015 election may well follow the first…
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Labels: cleavages, elections, political culture, UK
Lagos state election
APC victory in Lagos adds to the party's strength.
Buhari's Party Wins Lagos Vote, Shoring Up Nigeria Rule
The party of Nigeria's president-elect Muhammadu Buhari has retained the Lagos state governorship, the electoral commission said on Sunday, consolidating his administration's power by giving it control of the commercial capital…
Retaining Lagos is important for the APC as the city of 21 million people generates up to a third of Nigeria's GPD with an economy twice the size of Kenya’s.
Outgoing APC governor Babatunde Fashola is credited with transforming the metropolis with infrastructure projects, although he has also been criticized for slum clearances.
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
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Labels: cleavages, elections, Nigeria, politics
