Elections in various countries

[Linguoboy]

On the subject of elections, is anyone else surprised that Ordoğan let Ekrem İmamoğlu win his rematch with Yıldırım? I didn't think there was any way he'd rerun the election without fixing it beforehand. I certainly didn't except to see İmamoğlu allowed to increase a tiny lead to a crushing 9 points representing nearly a million more votes. It seems like an egregious miscalculation on his part and the beginning of the end of his political dominance.

[Raphael]

For a start, the German military has been in a pretty dilapidated state for a while, and she's been minister of defense since 2013.

[Salmoneus]

I;d be interested in more detail. Never heard of her.

One of Merkel's top lieutenants, formerly seen as being groomed either to be Chancellor or to be President of Germany. She's from Merkel's right-wing party, so she's a leading EPP figure, but she has a relatively liberal, left-wing record (pro-immigrant, pro-LGBT, pro-minimum wage, pro-parental leave, etc), so the liberals and socialists don't hate her.

I'm not sure exactly why Raphael hates her, but I guess the grass is always yellower on one's own side of the fence.

It's important to bear in mind that the selection process is based on complicated, widespread compromise, so the candidates are never likely to be people anyone adores, but rather just candidates nobody can't live with, and I guess nobody would have particularly hated the idea of von der Leyen.

In particular, a slate of jobs are selected at once, and balance between the jobs is just as important as getting any one job exactly right. Given that, and if we accept that everybody involved quickly decided they had no interest in the democratic spitzenkandidat process in the slightest, this seems like a pretty clever solution they've (finally) found.

Everybody hates Weber, so he's out. Barnier was promoted by the French as the 'sabotage Weber' candidate, so he's out. Timmermans would have been nice, if only because of his wonderful accent, but not only does that take power from the EPP it also seriously pisses off the authoritarians in eastern europe. The top job was always likely to be a conservative, and if not Weber or Barnier then who? Some PMs were putting themselves forward, but they were both very conservative and a bit too closely identified with their countries. The ideal candidate would have to be someone prominent in politics but ideally not a national leader, a conservative but also someone who didn't scare the other factions. It also helps if they're from, or at least have strong cultural connections to, one of the biggest countries.

VDL is German, but known throughout the EU; she's a conservative, but not a very conservative one (unlike some of the eastern european candidates, for example). She has (a vast amount of) government experience (she's been a minister in Germany since 2005), but isn't actually a PM, so it's not TOO nationalist an appointment.

Charles Michel is respected, and spoken about as a candidate for the top job. The EPP, however, wouldn't give that up (after all, they control most countries and are the largest party). He's a PM, but it's only Belgium, and he's only a caretaker now, so nobody's going to protest too much and he won't much mind giving up his domestic career. He's a francophone, which probably placates France, and a liberal, which placates the liberals. As a PM of a country where all politics relies on impossible compromises, he's probably better suited to the role of council president (i.e. wrangling prime ministers) than someone like Vestager would have been.

A positive side-effect: Vestager being passed over for the top two jobs means she's free to serve another five years as competition commissioner.

That leaves the socialists. There might have been a possibility of selecting a German socialist, but since the Germans got the presidency of the commission, that means the spanish pretty much have to have the foreign policy brief. And if you want a spanish socialist to be in charge of foreign policy, it's obviously going to be Borrell.

To complete the deal, Lagarde gets the ECB. The biggest problem with the first three posts is that it gives a top job to a German and nothing to anyone French (though Michel being francophone helps)... so finding someone French for the ECB is a big win for the deal. Lagarde isn't the perfect candidate - she's a lawyer, not an economist - but she's not a bad one either. She's always been highly-rated by economists and is generally seen as having been good at the IMF (an almost impossible job); she's right-wing, but not overwhelmingly so, and socially liberal, and apparently has gotten on well with people from the left (even Varoufakis described her as sympathetic).


Overall, it's a younger and more left-wing team than the one it replaces. Its biggest flaw is probably that all four jobs have gone to western europe (Germany, France, Spain and Belgium), which may enflame dissatisfaction in the east and in the south.

[MacAnDàil]

They're going to nominate whom to lead the EU Commission? Ursula von der Leyen? After all the "amazing successes" she's had in her previous jobs? Ok, it's looking more and more like the EU's biggest enemies aren't right-wing or far-left eurosceptics, but the leaders of the EU themselves. If they don't take the EU seriously, they can't expect other people to take the EU seriously, either. (Ok, she's at least less bad than Weber would have been, but still...)

Well, there's already that Jean-Claude Juncker who loses his place as Luxembourgism prime minister in a scandal only to get a place as the EU Commission president.

[MacAnDàil]

Sal's post sums up the reasoning behind the choices. The reason for the lack of Eastern Europeans is probably the same reason for the lack of Scandinavians: with different political currents dominant in the two regions, the Scandinavians likely appear extreme to the Eastern Europeans and vice versa.

For a start, the German military has been in a pretty dilapidated state for a while, and she's been minister of defense since 2013.

Does Germany need to invest much in its military these days outwith cyberdefense? As far as I can tell, none of the neighbours are likely to attack any time soon. Pretty much the only threat Germany seems to have to contend with these days are Russian hackers.

[Raphael]

For a start, the German military has been in a pretty dilapidated state for a while, and she's been minister of defense since 2013.

Does Germany need to invest much in its military these days outwith cyberdefense? As far as I can tell, none of the neighbours are likely to attack any time soon. Pretty much the only threat Germany seems to have to contend with these days are Russian hackers.

No matter how much or little Germany needs a military, I'd say it's not a good sign if you've been in charge of a department for years and the department is in such a bad state.

[MacAnDàil]

I disagree. A minister should run a department as is appropriate, and the appropriate way to run things does not always involve greater implication or funding.

[mèþru]

Now that Amir Peretz is leader of Havoda I'm switching back to supporting it over Meretz.
That said, the leadership primaries were unfair. No one got a majority, and Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli's supporters would probably have voted for the other candidate over Peretz. There should have been a second round

[mèþru]

If Israeli politics was turned into a tv show, it would do horribly in the US. No one would believe that so much backstabbbing, party splits and re-mergers could be possible. And that's before we get into the ballad of the centrist parties.

[Raphael]

If Israeli politics was turned into a tv show, it would do horribly in the US. No one would believe...

As people wittier than me have probably pointed out fairly often by now, that probably describes the politics of several countries right now, including the US itself.

[mèþru]

But Israeli politics have been like that since way before I was born

A lot has changed, but not the aspects I talked about just now

[Vijay]

I don't really get how a lot of people can react to Aung San Suu Kyi the way they have reacted if they're aware of and haven't forgotten what's been going on in Burma just over the past few decades. I understand being upset and angry and outraged over how the Rohingya are being treated, both in Burma and elsewhere. I understand feeling those same things towards the Burmese military regime. I understand wanting her to publicly do more about it. I even understand the international media continually reporting on it, to some extent.

What I don't quite understand is getting outraged at her because of it. Yes, she is the State Counsellor, but what exactly do they expect her to do about it? It was clear right from the beginning of her administration in Burma that the military government was still very much in power. She didn't try to overthrow the regime. Already there were concerns in the international media about whether she would use her newfound political power to address state-sponsored persecution of the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Burma. If the international media finds out she's doing anything to address that, the military that is carrying out the persecution is bound to find out more information first, and they're not going to just let her undermine them so explicitly. They didn't even let her into the country for over twenty years; why would they allow her to stop the atrocities they're committing?

Also, does it not occur to people that if they want to end the genocide of the Rohingya, demanding the Burmese government to stop it is likely to make the problem worse rather than better for the Rohingya? Back when the international community was eagerly backing Aung San Suu Kyi, they tried all kinds of strategies to combat the military regime. None of them worked, and the problems kept getting worse. What did work was when the clergy turned against the government. Now a lot of the clergy is against Aung San Suu Kyi and already accuses her of doing exactly the sort of thing the international community apparently wants her to do, i.e. help the Rohingya. This time, they're even using social media as one of their weapons. What can she possibly do to combat that? If she can't get the clergy to support her somehow, she's just as screwed as the military was in 2007.

[mèþru]

I'm shocked that a power sharing agreement happened in Sudan. I doubt it will last a whole year though.

[Vijay]

The Indian government has shut down all Internet and phone services in Kashmir (kind of old news but I didn't see anyone mention it and just found out this morning ).

[Travis B.]

The Indian government has shut down all Internet and phone services in Kashmir (kind of old news but I didn't see anyone mention it and just found out this morning ).

Authoritarian bastards.

[tiramisu]

.

[Vijay]

Oh, yeah, that's another thing I read: that some people think the government is trying to bring in Hindu settlers and basically make Kashmir like Palestine. If they do that, they will surely be threatening Kashmiri culture altogether. I don't think they'll try to bring in only Kashmiri Hindus. Even if they did, I'm not sure there are any Kashmiri Hindus outside Kashmir who still speak Kashmiri or have much in common culturally with (other) Kashmiris at this point.

[tiramisu]

.

[Vijay]

I don't think it's going to be an Israel/Palestine situation.

I certainly hope it doesn't! The alternative doesn't sound good, either, though.

[rotting bones]

Conspiracy time. Sources I wouldn't dismiss out of hand are arguing that the RAW (Research & Analysis Wing, India's CIA) hated the idea of the US transferring power to the Taliban, so they advised the government to disrupt proceedings by manufacturing a crisis in Kashmir. It was only the nature of the ensuing crisis that was shaped by preexisting BJP ideology.