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March 24, 2008

The Long Shadow

Filed under: Democratization, Latin America — Jason Lakin @ 9:12 pm

A tight election between a “radical” and a “moderate.” A jittery crew of partisans allege fraud long before the election even starts, and both sides assure the press and their followers that they will win no matter what (even while claiming that they will “respect” the outcome of the vote). Powerful leaders intervene in the campaign in ways that are at best unethical and at worst illegal. Citizens and lower level partisans call for a moratorium on the distribution of anti-poverty and other social policy resources, arguing that they are being used to influence the vote. After the election, early exit poll results seem to show a clear victory for one side, and the other alleges fraud. A variety of irregularities lead to at least a partial attempt to carefully consider the vote in a number of places. The result hangs in the balance…

This is a decent description of Mexico’s 2006 presidential election, an election that was slammed by the opposition PRD (the Party of the Democratic Revolution) for egregious fraud. It is also, sadly, a reasonably accurate description of the PRD’s own internal elections which took place about a week ago, and which have been challenged by both sides due to an incredibly high degree of brutish behavior on polling day. The abysmal conditions under which the election occurred and the bitter name-calling which has ensued led the party’s founder, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, to call for the annulment of the elections last week.

Mexico is a curious case of democratization. It appeared to transition relatively smoothly from a hegemonic, one-party regime to a three-party competitive regime somewhere around the late 1990s. It has ostensibly powerful political parties. These parties vote as well-defined and disciplined blocs within the national legislature, and they have managed to maintain an impressive monopoly of social representation.

And yet, scratch the surface a bit, and it turns out that Mexico’s parties are rather weak, given to the kind of visceral infighting that has been on display this past week. All three parties are, to varying degrees, at the mercy of a set of power brokers whose factions engage in conflicts that range from the gentlemanly to the violent. The PRI, the former ruling party, was unable to reinvent itself sufficiently as an organization during the 2006 elections and was forced to field a powerful, but highly unpopular candidate who performed miserably. Last year, the PAN edged toward implosion when a conflict emerged between the President of Mexico and the party president, who appeared to be set on undermining President Calderón and regional partisans at every turn. The party has emerged from this mess far more unified, but largely around the President and his close associates: this is the triumph of a clique, not necessarily of institutional discipline. And now the PRD, the youngest and most fractious of the three, has reached the edge of a cliff, driven by factional power struggles which may either drive it into oblivion or split it permanently.

The underlying weakness of Mexican parties today is the result of the long shadow of Mexico’s political history. A one-party dominant regime that consistently undermined the formation of a strong opposition was finally defeated by the PAN in 2000. But the PAN, traditionally a small and reasonably organized party during its many years in opposition, expanded rapidly in order to accomplish this task, opening itself to a wide variety of actors who did not share the party’s core ideology. Both the PAN and the PRD grew regionally, taking on the PRI in specific areas (e.g., the PAN in the North, the PRD in the South), but avoiding others. The nature of competition was frequently two-party, and the logic of opposition was simply to be “non-PRI.” This privileged the construction of broad, loosely structured movements running under a party label, rather than compact and unified party organizations.

Today, these broad coalitions are frail conglomerates, fueled by the quest for power. They maintain their unity on the barest of policy platforms. And sometimes, as seems to be happening before our eyes, they simply fall apart. It is going to be a long week for the PRD. It looks like, more than eight days after the election, the Left is still deciding who it wants to be.

March 18, 2008

“Entertainment Tonight”

Filed under: General — Zehra Hirji @ 1:57 am

It seems as though the media is conducting a popularity contest with international conflicts. Some issues get so much attention, some lives are deemed so much more important, and some parts of the world receive the “spotlight” whenever a conflict arises. What I am wondering is who decides what conflicts are worthy of this attention and why does the world follow along?

Perhaps I am being naïve, perhaps the celebrities of the political world are calling the shots, but in my idealistic world view no life, no person, regardless of their race or ethnicity is more significant than another. A human rights violation is a human rights violation regardless of the perpetrator or the victim.

The Middle East might as well be the Hollywood of the international conflict arena with their issues most often taking center stage, especially when the United States is involved. While this is no surprise, what seems even more interesting are the conflicts in Africa which get the most media attention. Darfur, an undoubtedly serious cause for concern and international attention, has received an unprecedented amount of publicity. 400,000 innocent lives have been lost due to what many believe is a genocide and whether or not we are affectively working towards a solution we are certainly paying attention. On the other hand more than FIVE MILLION people have been killed in the raging conflict in the DR Congo, but we hear NOTHING about it. Several days ago 68 people were killed; not only was that not headline news on the BBC, but you couldn’t even find it on the first page! Why are we so fixated on Darfur yet we don’t care at all about the Congo? What is it that makes one conflict worthy of our attention and not the other? Both Sudan and the Congo deal with domestic conflicts in Africa, but their coverage is far from equal. I know that we cannot solve all of the world’s problems at once, but adequate coverage is the least we can hope for.

This inequity is seen time and time again. Many of us are aware that a death in the United States is far more “significant” to the media than a death in a third world country. Because one society is more prone to hardship than another does that mean that a life in the United States is more significant than a life elsewhere? The violence in Gaza left over 100 people dead last week, with over a half of them being civilians and the majority of the innocent being children. While that was absolutely covered on the news it paled in comparison to the front page, breaking news headline, that was the 8 innocent Israelis killed in the absolutely atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Ehud Olmert has even been quoted as saying that the life of an Israeli is worth more than the life of a Palestinian, but how is it acceptable to still have opinions like that in our progressive world today?! And why is the media going along with it?? 

If we cannot even provide information about such issues equally than how can we expect humanity to be treated in a fair and equitable manner? 

March 17, 2008

Power Corrupts: The PAN Loses Grip On Reality

Filed under: Democratization, Latin America — Jason Lakin @ 9:24 pm

Mexican politicians excel at inventing contorted logic for base actions that cannot be justified. No party is immune. Lately, though, the PAN seems to be unusually prone to defend unjustifiable actions, and it is not even offering the usual contorted justifications that are the daily fare of politicians in a bind. This kind of brazenness can only come from holding power and starting to feel entitled to it.

Recently, the PRI called for the removal of a legislator from a congressional committee investigating former President Fox for illicit enrichment through use of a public office. The legislator in question, Juan de Dios Castro Muñoz, is the son of one of the ex- President’s legal advisors. According to the PRI, this creates a conflict of interest. According to the PAN’s Adrián Fernández, it doesn’t.

His logic? None. It just doesn’t.

Now, it is true that the son shall not inherit the crimes of the father, but in a country like Mexico, where family ties are tight, especially in politics, it strains credulity that a son of the former President’s legal advisor could be completely objective in assessing whether the former President broke the law.

This is not the only conflict of interest that the PAN has panned lately. Last week, I noted that the PRD had begun to provide evidence of a conflict of interest on the part of the current Secretary of Governance, Juan Camilo Mouriño, when he was working for the Secretary of Energy in the Fox administration. Apparently, during that time, he signed numerous contracts between the government and his family’s firm for oil-related services. Camilo Mouriño does not deny that he signed the contracts, but says that he had sold all his shares in the family business beforehand. Ergo…no conflict of interest.

Once again, we are asked to believe that the son of a successful tycoon who has no shares in his family’s business is also completely disinterested in issues that might involve his own father. The claim is preposterous on its face, and (again) doubly so in a patrimonial regime like Mexico’s. And yet, the PAN has not offered a shred of logic to support its claim that this is not a potential conflict of interest. Partisans have simply called the PRD “liars” and resorted to claiming that there is nothing “illegal” in any of this.

The funny thing is that the PAN’s opponents may well be liars, but in both cases, the panistas involved do not deny the facts. That is, there is no lie. And the facts are pretty clear in both cases: a government official with family ties to non-government officials, interceding in business between the two. This is pretty close to the definition of a conflict of interest.

Neither case is necessarily a big deal, in the sense that it involves gross corruption, but instead of accepting that these are ethical lapses, and arguing that they were minor, the PAN has instead opted to deny the ethical content and focus on the fact that none of this is illegal.

But whether or not any of this behavior is illegal is completely irrelevant. After all, the legal loophole is the last refuge of a scoundrel. The PAN, for so many years the victim of “legal” repression by an authoritarian state, should know that as well as anyone.

March 14, 2008

EU’s Reality Check?

Filed under: Economics, Europe, International Institutions — Dominique Gracia @ 7:26 pm

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has hailed the Brussels summit as a ‘reality test’ that the EU has passed, but is that really true? Many EU countries are feeling economic strain—the UK’s new budget and the criticisms of it are only the most recent of events showing that the EU is following in the US’s footsteps toward a shaky economic time, and Bear Stearns’ banking crisis leaving its future unstable and at the mercy of the markets could well be a dark harbinger of things to come in Europe. No wonder that even as he is claiming a ‘reality test’ has been passed—somehow implying that the trouble is behind us—Barroso is also noting that the EU has a storm to weather.

In that storm, every one of the EU member countries will be feeling different pressures and tackling different in problems their own way, and no matter how well the European Central Bank does, the credit crunch of late 2007 is unlikely to be the last of the EU’s economic judders. Globally unstable financial markets are worrying, and a little check mark next to the ‘pass reality test’ box is hardly reassuring. It certainly won’t help European citizens—or European countries—who are going to be wrestling with their finances in the time ahead.

March 13, 2008

Playing at Democracy in Pakistan

Filed under: General — Owen Barron @ 5:13 pm

We’re about to discover just how legitimate Pakistan’s “democratic” institutions really are. The latest news out of Islamabad is the power-sharing deal brokered by Asif Zardari of the PPP and Nawaz Sharif of the PML-Q, and President Musharraf’s subsequent summons to Parliament. The body will convene on March 17, but what exactly happens then is, at this point, anyone’s guess. Here are some things to look for:

The nominee for the premiership. Zardari, who since Benazir’s death has stewarded the party on behalf of his 19-year old son Bilawal, holds the power in this regard. The PPP won a plurality of 120 seats in the 332-seat assembly, thirty more than Sharif’s PML-Q, which finished second. So it will ultimately be Zardari who chooses the premier. PPP Vice Chairman Makhdoom Ali Fahim’s name came up early on, as he is popular within the party, and some insiders believe he, not Zardari or Zardari’s son, was Benazir’s true appointed heir. But Nawaz Sharif appears to have objected to this nomination, because, according to Pakistan’s Daily Times, he “expect[s] the nominee for premiership should be strong enough to implement the agenda of the coalition.” Sharif, who is vehemently anti-Musharraf and wants the president out of office, fears that Fahim is a secret Musharraf sympathizer who would not pursue impeachment with enough vigor. In response to this whisper campaign, meanwhile, Zardari has dithered, and his own name has come up repeatedly as a potential candidate. Zardari had previously scuttled such rumors, saying he wanted to focus on building the party, and for obvious reasons: he is not himself an MP, and thus could not become Prime Minister at this point. But with Fahim fading from the picture, and a majority of MNAs-elect now favoring Zardari’s premiership, the situation has changed, and it looks increasingly as if Zardari will become Prime Minister, if not immediately. Under this scenario, Zardari would appoint an interim PM—probably from Punjab—and then assume the premiership after winning an parliamentary seat. A Press Trust of India wire report mentions that the potential candidates include Yousaf Raza Gillani, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar—all from Punjab. Some MPs would, however, still like to see Fahim as the interim prime minister. I would expect an announcement in the next week, and that it would likely be Qureshi or Mukhtar, whose names have surfaced most often.

Musharraf’s future. The biggest breakthrough leading to the Sharif-Zardari deal appears to have been the agreement by Zardari to reseat the 63 judges that Musharraf sacked. Sharif had insisted on this, because it represents the first step toward unseating Musharraf. In return for this agreement, Sharif agreed to let his MPs take the oath of office from Musharraf, something he had foresworn doing. The issue of restoring judges is tricky. Various legal rulings have surfaced, but most agree that a a two-thirds majority in the Parliament is necessary. And the coalition partners, at least, believe they’ve reached this threshold. The anti-Musharraf coalition now includes not just the PPP and the PML-N, but also the Awami Party and the Jamiati-Ulemi Pakistan, giving them 229 out of 332 seats, or 69%. If this coalition holds and the judges are reinstated, the next step will be the invalidation of the fall 2007 elections, which Musharraf opponents argue was unconstitutional because the general was head of the Armed Forces at the time. If the justices determine that the election was invalid, Musharraf will be compelled—legally, anyhow—to step down. The only tricks up his sleeves right now are his prerogative, as President, to dissolve the parliament, and his ability to replace the heads of the armed forces. Armed Forces Chief Kiyani appears to be signaling that under his leadership, the army will respect the democratic process. But if Musharraf decides to retain power no matter what happens, he may go to extraordinary lengths to manipulate the process. As for the likelihood of impeachment votes, it seems that Sharif is extremely dedicated to removing Musharraf. But since the President holds the trump card of dismissing Parliament, that consideration will likely weigh heavily on the minds of the coalition partners, particularly those outside of the PML-N.

March 10, 2008

Party For Your Right To Fight: The Mexican Left Decides Who It Wants To Be

Filed under: Democratization, Latin America — Jason Lakin @ 3:34 pm

Election season is hotting up in Mexico. But these elections are not for government office. Instead, they are to decide the fate of Mexico’s leading opposition party, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática, the PRD. Since at least the 2006 presidential elections, and in reality a great deal longer, the PRD has been divided (loosely) between radicals and moderates. On March 16, the party’s base will decide which faction should lead it into the 2009 midterm elections.

The radicals are those associated with the PRD’s losing candidate in 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, as he is popularly known. AMLO alleged fraud in those elections and proceeded to appoint himself the “legitimate president” of Mexico. He is supporting Alberto Encinas for the presidency of the PRD. When AMLO left the Mexico City governorship to run for president in 2006, Encinas was his loyal replacement. The party and the AMLO faction alike continue to have their strongest base in the capital.

The moderates are rallying behind former Senator Jesús Ortega. It is somewhat ironic that today Ortega is the moderate. Unlike AMLO, who was a member of the ruling PRI until his defection in 1988 to the nascent PRD, Ortega is a committed leftist and a former leader of the Mexican Socialist Party (PSM). Although Ortega helped to create a somewhat centrist faction within the PRD in 1999, the “New Left,” he also served as AMLO’s campaign manager and was a strident critic of the 2006 elections.

The dilemma for the PRD in recent years has been whether, confronting a polity that is democratizing but not yet fully democratic, to maintain its identity as a confrontational social movement or to shift toward a fully institutionalized political party. The problem has been exacerbated by the fact that Mexico’s democratic transition has been uneven, moving faster at the federal than the local level, which has complicated efforts to select one strategy for the entire country.

Ortega and Encinas personify this dilemma. Those supporting Encinas are largely those who believe that “playing by the rules of the game” and attempting to negotiate with the president is illegitimate, because the 2006 election was illegitimate. The radicals have viciously attacked their own leaders, like Ruth Zavaleta, president of the Chamber of Deputies, for meeting with President Felipe Calderon’s key advisors. The moderates supporting Ortega have tended to take a more pragmatic view, arguing that, in spite of the government’s illegitimacy, the party should shed its radical, anti-institutional image, and seek compromises that advance its agenda.

Until recently, it looked like AMLO’s stridency had managed to isolate him, and that the PRD as a whole was slowly shifting toward the moderates. Recently, however, AMLO’s star has been rising. There are two principal reasons. First, now that some kind of energy reform is on the agenda in Mexico, the public has been primed for a debate about privatization. AMLO has been a tireless champion of protecting Mexico’s state-owned oil company, PEMEX, an extremely popular position. Secondly, AMLO recently presented evidence of a conflict of interest on the part of the President’s Secretary of Governance, Juan Camilo Mouriño, when the latter was working in the Ministry of Energy, where he signed contracts with his family’s company. These new charges seem more credible and better substantiated than the usual AMLO tirades.

As a result, AMLO suddenly looks more reasonable and more in line with the mood of the Left than he has for a long time. But will this outweigh the party’s growing sense that it does better playing by the rules than taking to the streets at the slightest provocation? On March 16, we’ll find out.

March 6, 2008

Breaking the Silence

Filed under: Defense/Military, Human Rights, Middle East — Zehra Hirji @ 1:01 am

This week and for the next two weeks, former Israeli soldiers from “Breaking the Silence” are at Harvard University to present a rare exhibit on their service in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This traveling exhibit features video and photo testimonials of what really happens under occupation, and these former soldiers serve to fill the gap between the American and Israeli civilian perception of what is going on and what is actually taking place on the ground. What is perhaps the most exciting and controversial aspect of this exhibit at Harvard is that it is being presented at the Harvard Hillel. Ironically enough, contention is arising from within the Jewish community as opposed to between Muslims and Jews or Arabs and Israelis. But regardless of the natural controversy that will inevitably arise when discussing any component of this conflict, the exhibit is startling and captivating to any person, on a any side, or on no side at all.

When I lived in the West Bank I despised the Israeli soldiers. I witnessed countless atrocities and corrupt military behavior. I came back to the U.S. with these feelings of sadness, anger, and despair that I just could not reconcile. The volunteers from “Breaking the Silence” changed everything. First of all, they validate the truth of so many of the things that I witnessed by sharing them with people here and in Israel. Second of all, they let people know what really goes on so that more steps can be taken to fix this, and thirdly, which is overwhelmingly of the most importance to me, they helped me understand so much why the IDF does what they do in the territories and demystified those seemingly incomprehensible factors which compel normal, good human beings to commit such acts. By providing these explanations and insights they “rehumanized” this dehumanizing occupation, and helped me to overcome my hatred.

The most profound component of the exhibit is the not the photos, but the captions on the photos explaining how the soldiers felt when they carried out their operations. Realizing that these soldiers are just young men who don’t want to be there as much as the Palestinians don’t want them there is extremely important. Understanding the psychological effects of carrying weapons, having power over a people, and becoming numb to it all after a certain point changes everything to an observer who is merely there witnessing the interactions between the IDF and the Palestinians. This exhibit and these soldiers truly helped me restore my faith in humanity again and brought this conflict down to its essential components. At the end of the day we are dealing with humanity, not politics and not land. No governments are present at these checkpoints, its just people and how circumstances affect their interactions. This exhibit is something that everyone needs to see regardless of their political or personal biases, because it’s a way to understand at its basic form, what war and conflict does to the individual.

Hatred is what fuels this conflict on both sides and if we could just recognize the humanity in all of us we would be in a much better place.

March 1, 2008

Changing of the Guard?

Filed under: Democratization, Europe — Owen Barron @ 9:11 pm

Russia’s electoral promenade is concluding, and when the “votes” are in, we will undoubtedly see Dmitri Medvedev take Putin’s place as Russia’s next president. So what’s fascinating to watch is not the theatrics of the campaign (for those, the world turned into the Iowa Caucuses) but the predictions of Medvedev’s future. Several articles seem to make the point that although Medvedev will certainly be weak, he is less abrasive and will invite more citizen participation than Putin. The NY Times and CFR both point to Medvedev’s comments on the need for freedom in people’s lives, and specifically his attack on excessive state control and corruption.

My perspective is that the optimism is probably unfounded. Forgive the comparison, but those of us at Harvard have just undergone a similar presidential selection process, and I think there are more than superficial parallels. Larry Summers drew widespread criticism to Harvard for his (misunderstood) comments on women and science. He was a lightning-rod for controversy, always speaking his mind in a stodgy institution that shuns such behavior, and he clashed with a faculty that didn’t appreciate his interference. In contrast, Drew Faust is historic in her role as the first woman president of Harvard. Moreover, she’s hewed to the general course of Harvard, proposing minor initiatives but shying away from major confrontation.

In the case of both Russia and Harvard, the insiders and the bureaucrats win, and observers get a figurehead whose main virtue is being inoffensive. Let me be clear: I don’t think that post-Soviet Russia is very much like Harvard at all, so I won’t stretch the comparison. But I don’t think we should read too much into minor policy differences and rhetorical platitudes when we make predictions about Medvedev’s presidency. He’s not a KGB man, and the speculation is that he was picked to avoid further infighting in the FSB (KGB’s successor). If there’s any hint that Medvedev will seriously challenge the status quo, he will be marginalized, and quickly.

So bravo, soon-to-be President Medvedev. You may not have won a real election, but you don’t need to worry about holding real power, either.