World Political Blog » Election

US Republican race – now the focus will be on Rick Santorum

Ashish — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:09:59 +0000

Each time the political parties get into this dance, things get more intense. This time is an especially interesting year in the Presidential race, with Obama having come down sharply to earth since his election just 3 years ago. His election promised to bring about a radical change in politics, some amount of moderation of the harsh politics between the Democratic and Republican party, and bring the country out of the depression it had got into (whether these be the wars it had got into, where soldiers and money were being spent in huge numbers, and without seemingly making too much change in the ground; and the recession that started with the crash in 2009 and continued with low morale and low levels of employment).
However, the President was somewhat of a disappointment, with an inability to take the country out of the economic downturn it had got into (although his supporters claim that he managed to prevent the fall of many eminent economic institutions of the US and prevented the country from getting into an even deeper recession). In addition, the Republican establishment was totally against him, and did whatever they could to oppose any measures he took. The Tea Party movement that came up was vehemently for a rationalization of the economic policies of the country, for reducing the high debt levels of the country, and also against the policies that Obama had been pushing. This movement, and a low level of confidence in the President, saw the Republican party making advances, getting a clear majority in the House and also reducing the strength of the Democratic Party in the Senate.
With this environment in place, and not much of a movement in terms of improvement in the economic situation, it seemed that the Presidential election was for the Republican Party to win, as long as they had a candidate who would appeal to the conservative base of the Republican Party and also the Independent voters who have supported Obama in the previous election. But there remains a problem – the list of candidates leading the Republican Party had to seem conservative enough so that the candidate can get past the primaries, and yet appeal to voters in the end. The only person from the list of candidates is Mitt Romney, but a seeming liberal who has supported abortion rights, who had a state health care plan similar to the one by Obama (and hugely hated by Republicans) and other policies (on all of which, Romney has gone back, or ‘flipped’), make him a difficult candidate for the GOP to support. But, on the other hand, he is the only likely candidate who is centered enough that he can draw an overall majority. But, any person who seems more conservative than Romney gets support (atleast for some time), and the latest was Rick Santorum, which is a staunch anti-abortion, against gay marriage, and other policies that make his a favorite among conservatives.
So, in a surprise, Rick Santorum, challenged Romney for the lead in the first primary, the Iowa caucus, and almost made it. And guess what, so far the Romney campaign had targeted Gingrich and Perry, seeing them as the primary contenders; now, with the sudden emergence of Santorum, he will become the main target of the Romney campaign. Already, one can see the impact of an increased focus, there is investigation about the earmarks he did, as well as his involvement with the companies which he promoted when he was a senator. Such articles would seem to portray the Senator as a lobbyist, which would discredit him very badly.

Britain’s split verdict – the Conservatives have it, but not fully

Ashish — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:24:04 +0000

Tony Blair must be having the last laugh; he was pushed out of the Labour party by a much less flamboyant personality, Gordon Brown; and now Gordon Brown has lost the election for the Labour Party, leading to the Conservatives becoming the leading party in the elections. There have been a number of factors that have contributed to the decline of the Labour Party, with the overall economic recession being one of the biggest contributory factors, as well as the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (although it is a moot point whether the Conservative Government would have not sent armed forces to these 2 countries). Voters have voted with their feet towards the policies of the Labour Government in overcoming the recession, as well as their policies on many other areas such as Immigration (and feelings against immigration harden) when the economy starts dropping, when the impact of immigration on jobs and social security networks becomes more prominent.
However, the fractured mandate from this 2010 election is pushing Britain towards a new era (or rather a pushback to a previous era, since the last time that such a situation happened was in 1974 when a Labour Government finally took office). Britain, with this election, has moved away from the stage of a 2 party Parliament (with a majority leading party and an opposition that is also numerically strong), and moved to coalition politics where the leading party has to depend on a third party for MP’s, and where some policies of the government are dictated by coalition politics rather than being totally driven by the leading party.

The Conservatives have now taken the lead, but the strong electoral support for the Liberal Democrats (which did not get converted into too many seats, but enough for them to seem like a kingmaker) will lead to some time period of jockeying for power. Gordon Brown would not want to go into opposition, since the minute he loses power, he will face huge internal opposition in the party; but is stuck by the fact that currently the Liberal Democrats would not want to support a party that has lost the elections. However, supporting the Conservatives is not so easy since the policies are widely separate, and it will be distressing for both of them if they have to bring their policies to a common ground in a number of areas.
It would seem that the possible options are:
- Conservatives come to power with the support of the Liberal Democrats – People are not really looking upon this as a feasible arrangement because of the internal pressures
- Labour forms a Government with the support of the Liberal Democrats – this will still remain a minority Government
- Conservatives get outside support from the Liberal Democrats – will work for some time, but there will be many compromises that will be required
In all these cases, there will be a fear that a new election will be required soon to resolve these issues and come up with a new Parliament with new numbers.

Run off in Afghanistan polls on 7 November 2009

Ashish — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:18:45 +0000

The Presidential elections in Afghanistan are key to the stability of the country, and in the fight against the Taleban and foreign militants. Afghanistan and border regions of Pakistan hold the key in the fight against global terrorism, and ensuring that there is an effective Government in Afghanistan is an integral part of that battle. However, this is easier said than done, and there have been a series of bad decisions taken in the past that have made things pretty bad right now, to the extent that the Taleban, which seemed defeated in 2001, is now resurgent and is control of an increasing large section of the country.
Hamid Karzai became the President when the country was removed from the grip of the Taleban, and over a period of time, the hopes and promises from Karzai have gradually decreased, to the extent that there is now a distance between the US administration and Karzai. There is less public support for Karzai from Obama and his team, and Karzai also openly condemns the US when there is some bombing or other steps that kill civilians.

In the midst of all this, there were the elections that took place. These elections were fraught with allegations of fraud and malpractices, with the contender, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah claiming that Karzai had taken a number of steps to influence people to vote for him, and during the time of elections, there was voter fraud. These charges have been repeated often enough that the election was seen as disputed, even though Karzai claims that he won the election and there was no need for a runoff.
However, it now seems that Karzai has accepted that the election was not as straight forward as he initially stated, and that he has agreed to a run off (even though the article states that it was not easy to get Karzai to agree to a run off) (link to article):

It had been hard to get President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off, he said. Earlier, there were indications that Mr Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah were discussing a power-sharing deal. The UN meanwhile announced that 200 top officials who had allegedly been complicit in electoral fraud in August were being replaced.
In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Mr Eide admitted that there had been difficult days of discussion in Kabul to convince President Karzai to accept a second round vote on 7 November.

Afghan election scenario gets murkier

Ashish — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:24:13 +0000

In the run upto to the Afghan elections and soon after the elections, there were wide-spread allegations of election fraud, of corrupt practices, and downright stealing of the election. The Afghan elections were structured that if no candidate got more than 50% of the vote, there would be a run-off to decide the final winner. Soon after the election, the current President, Hamid Karzai, declared that he was the winner by a significant margin, a claim disputed by the supporters of his challenger, the former Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. That claim has not been settled till late, and it is of no credit to the Election Commission that it has allowed the process to continue till now. This happens at a time when the credibility of the Government is low, since it does not control an increasing larger section of the country (the resurgent Taliban is fighting in larger sections of the country), with the Government being accused of corruption and of being unable to provide effective governance, with large sections of the population claiming that they do not have basic facilities.
At such a time, the Government, and its supporters among the major powers can ill afford to have this kind of instability in the country, but the fact is that the allegations of voter fraud have served to reduce the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai, and his Government, which is also not fully supported by the United States.

At such a time, the independent election commission is also undergoing turmoil, with the recent firing of the top deputy of the UN (Peter Galbraith) over allegations of voter fraud. An important member of the election commission, and a native Afghan, Judge Mustafa Barakzai, resigned from the commission claiming that his views were ignored (link to article):

Complaints of irregularities have dogged the presidential elections. The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, admitted Sunday that the vote was marred by “widespread fraud.” Eide’s recently fired deputy Peter Galbraith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday that Eide earlier refused to share details of voting irregularities with Afghan election officials. Galbraith also said his former boss could have prevented some fraud by closing unsecured polling stations.
With findings of the fraud complaints investigation upcoming, Galbraith said he anticipates the commission will determine that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will not have enough votes to avoid a runoff. “I think there’s a very strong likelihood that the election complaints commission will find that he’s below 50 percent, and then the question is whether Karzai will accept that decision and whether the Independent Election Commission, which is not independent but a pro-Karzai body, will accept that decision,” Galbraith said.

EU treaty gets a boost with plus vote by the Irish

Ashish — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:39:40 +0000

18 months back, the EU treaty was in a bad state. A negative referendum by the Irish people had put paid to the chances of the treaty from proceeding (since it required all the member countries to accept the treaty). Further, there was opposition from the Czech and from Poland, which was in turn impeding the treaty from moving ahead.
What has changed in the last 18 months that the Irish people have over-turned their opposition ? The Irish voted with a 2/3rd majority to pass the referendum this site, giving a huge boost to the treaty, and putting pressure on the Czech and Poles to play their part in giving the final approval to the treaty. Well, the last 18 months has seen a huge financial depression in the world economy, and would have scared the Irish. When things are bad, it makes sense to be a part of a larger economy that provides the support that people desperately need, and this would have been the over-riding sense that cause the Irish population to say yes to the treaty (link to article):

Irish voters overturned their “No” vote of a year ago, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said it was a great day for Europe. “The Irish have understood how important and how useful the European Union response to the economic crisis [was],” he said. “Secondly, this time there was a real campaign not only with the government – but with different political forces, with the civil society and that’s why there was a bigger participation – bigger turnout.”
“It’s a vote inspired by fear, fear of job losses, fear of economic ruin which is what the yes side were promising and of course a fire hosing of resources and funds to the yes side in this campaign.” The political focus now switches to the only two countries yet to ratify the treaty – Poland and the Czech Republic.

Congress the grand victor of the 2009 Indian elections

Ashish — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:31:26 +0000

So, the bitterly contested election results of the Indian Lok Sabha (Parliamentary elections) are out, and it is the incumbent party, the Congress Party that is the decisive winner. During the course of the campaign and even during the month long multi-stage voting process, it seemed that there was a tight fight between the Congress and the BJP led camps. It was also projected that there would be an incredible fight for support from the smaller parties all over the country. This prospect saw these parties salivating over the prospect, and over the demands they would make from the major parties for this support.
So there was a constant tussle about whether existing partners are viable or not, and some parties made gambles. The Biju Janta Dal gambled that it would come back to power without the support of the BJP, the Congress gambled that it would need to build long-term in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (and in Bihar, it did not have much of a choice, since Lalu gave the party only 3 seats). The Congress gambled about going with the DMK even though Jayalalitha seemed to be the one riding the victory wagon. However, as the election result day came closer, nervousness gripped the Congress and it talked about changing partners, soliciting the support of the Left, looking to Nitish and Jayalalitha for support, and even trying to get closer to the Samajwadi Party.

The exit polls that started getting published once the stay on them was removed after the 13th (the last phase of election) were again off the mark, since they all projected that the Congress will have a narrow lead over the BJP and would need support from many parties. The BJP of course refused to believe such polls and stood fast in projecting that they will be the victors.
And then came the election results – and they were shocking to everyone. The Congress led poll, the UPA, is almost at the point of having half the seats, while the BJP led alliance, the NDA, is way behind. The Congress gained seats all over the country, with the party looking to reach 200 seats on its own (its best result since it started declining in the 1989 polls); it trounced the BJP in many states that the BJP should count as core constituencies such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttranchal, and made gains even in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujrat. The Congress made real good in states such as Andhra Pradesh, with the partners, the DMK, in Tamil Nadu.
However, the major surprises in this election happened in multiple states; in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress needs to get back its core constituency and it seems that the gamble it took seems to have paid off (it has got 20 seats on its own), in Maharashtra, the MNS seems to have bitten into the seats of the Shiv Sena and the BJP and led the Congress to victory. The biggest surprise has been the Left strongholds of Kerala and West Bengal. Kerala frequently changes between the Congress and the Communist, and in this election, the fight between the different factions of the Communist party propelled the Congress to victory. The biggest surprise seems to have been in West Bengal where the Congress combination with Mamta Banerjee blew away the Communist party in the state where the Communists have held sway since 1977.
What are some of the conclusions from this election:
- Manmohan Singh re-emerges as the Congress Prime Minister with a much stronger support and with less interference from supporting parties
- The BJP leader LK Advani will slowly fade away – he is already 81 years old and unlikely to be the leader in the next election
- Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are the unquestioned leaders of the country now – even people such as me who do not believe in dynastic based leadership have to acknowledge that they have led their party to a genuine victory
- Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik are new emblems of victory, with strong shows of performance and low individual corruption levels
- The Left, having been used to a much stronger influence in the last Parliament will be a pale self with questions about the leadership becoming much stronger
- Mayawati has faced a severe setback in her quest for national leadership; the same goes for former influential leaders such as Mulayam Singh Yadav (who suffered after inducting Kalyan Singh), Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan
- Economic policies and world related policies should remain the same and in fact become more clear and without the holding back due to the Left

Zimbabwe stand-off between Mugabe and opposition getting worse

Ashish — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:59:03 +0000

For many months now, there has been a major stand-off between the ruling party in Zimbabwe headed by President Mugabe, and the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai. The dispute started after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed victory in the elections, and the ruling Zanu-PF of President Mugabe refused to admit defeat. And then, in the Presidential run-off elections, Morgan Tsvangirai backed down claiming systematic violence by the ruling party (the fact that the ruling party was using planned violence and attacks was pretty clear by that point).
In the meantime, the country was rapidly going downhill. Inflation was ballooning, with inflation levels in the millions of percentages, and people having a hard time making ends meet. The country was collapsing economically, and Morgan Tsvangirai seemed like a breath of fresh blood who could change things (if he was allowed to take power). Finally, there was a compromise and it was decided that there would be sharing of portfolios; however, it was too soon to declare the problems over. The portfolio sharing has become the sticking point, with control of the Home portfolio (responsible for the police and security services) being a major contention point:

Zimbabwe’s main opposition party says it is preparing to face a government crackdown after it yesterday rejected a South African-backed proposal to share the ministry that commands the country’s police force and controls its electoral machinery. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change and prime minister-designate, rejected the idea of sharing the home affairs portfolio with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF as unworkable. “They [Zanu-PF] are on the warpath,” said an MDC spokesman in Harare, who said that party leaders would meet later this week. “Now we have rejected the carrot, the next thing will be a very, very huge stick.”
The MDC won elections in March but then withdrew from presidential polls, citing violence against its supporters. In a recent report Amnesty International, the human rights group, said 180 people had been killed and 9,000 injured since March, blaming the security forces, Zanu-PF and pro-Mugabe veterans for most violence. Mr Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders have been concerned that failure to secure control of either the police force or the army would make it impossible to agree a wider division of power. According to The Herald, a pro-government newspaper, Zanu-PF was reluctant to hand control of the police to the MDC because it alleged the opposition party was training anti-government militias.

In the end, it comes down to whoever has control of the police and security agencies having the upper hand, and once can be sure that President Robert Mugabe will do what he can do to retain control of these agencies.

Tension in the McCain camp over Palin

Ashish — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:37:49 +0000

More and more, it seems like John McCain did not do the right amount of thinking before selecting his vice-Presidential candidate. Sarah Palin has turned out to be an extremely polarizing figure, with a section of conservatives very enamored of her; a large section of the electorate however sees her a person who is certainly not presidential. Her view-points, her seemingly lack of grasp of international issues and the fact that if McCain became President, she would be next in line to be President (in case something happens to McCain, and he is 72 years old after all), all have combined to turn large sections of the electorate away from her.
It also seems clear that she has ambitions of her, and the support of sections of the conservative legion have only increased this level of ambition. Initially, when the McCain campaign seemed to be running close to the Obama campaign in terms of numbers, she would have accepted the lead of the McCain campaign to govern her activities, including a stifling press interaction. But as time passed by, and it seemed that McCain is on the verge of losing, Sarah is striking out. She is projecting that she was not comfortable with some of the campaign policies including a reduction in the direct attacks on Obama, that she was not comfortable with her careful and gradual introduction to the campaign. For her, the current campaign is just a springboard to get the public and the conservatives to get to know her as a national figure, not a Governor of a state on the edge of the country. Towards this end, she is also constantly projecting herself as a person representing small town America, the real America. This is also making the McCain campaign staffers see red:

With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say. Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin “going rogue.” A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to “bust free” of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone,” said this McCain adviser. “She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. “Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.” But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.

No matter whether she decides to increase her national persona, and campaigns for the 2012 election (assuming that McCain loses this one), she will remain a deeply polarizing figure – somebody very popular with the conservatives and who turns off a large section of voters on the center and the Democratic voters. If a section of the Republican Party feels that with her current appeal to conservatives, she can become a national figure who could stand for President in the following election, they have another think coming.

Zimbabwe deal under tremendous strain

Ashish — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:45:49 +0000

Zimbabwe has been under a tremendous political and economic whirlwind for the last several months. The country is a basket case economically, with all development indices down and inflation levels in the million percent level (the highest in the world). On the political front, the disputed last elections (which both the separate fronts claim and which independent observers claim were deeply flawed) led to a massive increase of tension in Zimbabwe. To try to resolve this situation, a deal for power sharing was negotiated by the then South African Prime Minister Thabo Mbeki, in which the 2 fronts of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe agreed to share the ministries and resolve the tension sweeping the country. However, the deal is now getting bogged down in disputes over who gets which ministry:

South African former leader Thabo Mbeki said he was “very optimistic” about the chances of a breakthrough in talks Monday to resolve the deadlock between Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe. Mbeki and several leaders from the 12-member Southern African Development Community were in Harare Monday to meet with Tsvangirai and Mugabe in a bid to salvage the power-sharing deal signed last month.
The power-sharing agreement was to end months of turmoil and violence that followed the country’s March presidential elections. Tsvangirai garnered the most votes in March but did not win enough to avoid a runoff with Mugabe, who has ruled the country since its independence from Britain in 1980. The MDC leader withdrew days before the June 27 runoff with Mugabe, alleging that Mugabe’s supporters had waged a campaign of violence and intimidation against opposition supporters. He said he could not participate in the election.

Getting the tension resolved, getting a smooth Government in operation, and creating an atmosphere conducive to the smooth running of industries (including getting back investors) is necessary to prevent Zimbabwe from continuing on the current path of economic disaster.

Sarah Palin’s new wardrobe and controversy

Ashish — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:47:06 +0000

When John McCain selected the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin as his vice-Presidential candidate, it was initially seen as a master-stroke. After all, for conservatives who were dubious of his credentials given his many maverick policies, it was the presentation of a person who was everything that a good conservative should be. Family oriented, anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, believing Christian, and so on. And then she would also try and sway some of the women to her side.
However, things have not been turning out quite that way. It now seems quite obvious that John McCain did not really vet the nomination to the required detail. She is turning out to have quite a few skeleton’s in her closet. It was initially itself understood that she does not have national security credentials and any grasp of foreign affairs, but the long drawn out process for letting her give interviews, for letting the press ask her the tough questions (more like a thorough grilling that they give to candidates), all of them make it seem that she is just not ready for the post of being a person who is next in line to the President, and would act as the President in the case of any emergency.

However, it was the next shock of her involvement in the constant bringing of pressure on as well as the firing of the head police man (who refused to fire the state trooper Wooten, in a messy divorce with the sister of Sarah Palin) that made things even worse. An enquiry just barely cleared her, but made it clear that she had not acted appropriately (what the enquiry said was that she had the right to fire the police chief, but there were ethical issues involved). And now this:

Even if it was legal for the Republican National Committee to drop $150,000 at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, it went against the spirit of the campaign finance law John McCain championed in the Senate, legal experts said. The news of how the party laid out the big bucks to put Palin in fancy frocks, leather stiletto boots and a new hairdo divided the electorate.
But Russ Glines, 48, a McCain supporter from Salem, N.H., said her Alaska governor’s wardrobe should have been good enough. “She’s a fine dresser on her own,” he said. “We should use our money more wisely. “Her appeal is not in her dress as much as in her belief system,” Glines added. Amy Elliott, 37, of Dunedin, Fla., a stay-at-home mom at a pro-Obama rally in Tampa, was shocked by the expense.
“I would be a Republican if they would do my hair and makeup for me,” she said. “I didn’t even spend $150 on my [three] children’s clothes this year.”

This is an issue that can stoke a lot of controversy. In these tough economic conditions where there is a problem with respect to consumer spending, such behavior can be a problem. It puts off a lot of people who suddenly feel squeamish about the amount of spent, the sheer disregard for feelings of people, and has the potential to reduce her support to some extent. There are others who are unconcerned about such things, and would try to decide on a candidate based on their policies and past history.