COUNTRIES AT THE CROSSROADS GOVERNANCE BLOG

Cultivation of Corruption Among South Africa's Elites

Photo credit: Flickr user World Economic Forum

Criminal proceeding against Jackie Selebi, the South African police commissioner, began in Johannesburg this month. Selebi, whose CV includes positions such as former ambassador to the United Nations and chief of the international crime group Interpol, is on trial for corruption and other serious crimes. In one of the more colorful moments of the trial thus far, Glenn Agliotti, one of the country’s more notorious drug smugglers, testified to picking up the tab for Selebi’s designer clothing. He also bought couture handbags for Mr. Selebi’s wife, and paid the commissioner about $135,000 in cash in exchange for sensitive information.

Agliotti, for his part, is accused of murdering a corrupt mining magnate in a separate trial, and made a deal with the state to testify in exchange for indemnity for his dealings with Selebi. 

South Africa is far from the most corrupt country in the world (it ranked 54th best out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index), yet neither is the anticorruption record of the country’s leaders impeccable. In 2004, Tony Yengeny, the anti-Apartheid activist and former African National Congress (ANC) speaker of parliament, was convicted for taking bribes from a weapons manufacturer. He served four months of a four-year prison sentence. And Jacob Zuma, the current president, was charged with corruption in 2005 and sacked from his position as deputy president, though after years of legal battles all charges were dropped in April 2009. The now-dormant charges against Zuma were related to a multi-billion dollar arms purchase in the 1990s an illustrative case as the awarding of government contracts has been an area of activity plagued by graft accusations.

The ANC’s overwhelming control of the executive and legislative branches lends itself to the cultivation of corruption, as accountability mechanisms are rendered ineffective. The Parliament has been criticized for failing to sufficiently investigate corruption scandals of members of the executive branch. In addition, political interference hampers the ability of the judiciary to fully combat corruption. The politicization of the judiciary was especially apparent in the corruption prosecution of Zuma and the suspension of Vusi Pikoli as National Director of Public Prosecutions by justice minister Brigitte Mabandla. In the latter case, it became apparent that the suspension was related at least partially to the fact that Pikoli approved an arrest warrant for Selebi.

South Africa’s constitution outlines three institutions meant to combat corruption, but for various reasons, none of them are fully effective. The Office of the Auditor General is responsible for reporting to the National Assembly on the finances of any agency that receives public funding, but suffers countless deficiencies such as a lack of resources and incomplete reporting by agencies. The Public Prosecutor investigates complaints on the part of the public against governmental officials, but its independence has been called into question, especially since the current PP, Leonard Mushwana, is a former ANC MP and has been accused of inhibiting investigations of senior ANC members and the party itself. Finally, while the Independent Electoral Commission regulates the public finances through the Represented Political Parties’ Fund, private contributions are totally unregulated, and parties do not have to reveal the size or sources of their donations. There are a handful of other, smaller agencies in the government that combat corruption, but all have similar limitations.

Furthermore, while South Africa has an independent media, government and especially ANC-affiliated officials have accused investigative journalists of treason or racism. A number of private newspapers and magazines—among them, the Mail & Guardian, the Cape Times, and the Sunday Times—express sharp criticism of the government, to which the ANC has been particularly sensitive. As a result, many private media outlets have been issued gag orders and lawsuits related to investigations into corruption, and the ANC has in some cases even threatened to withdraw advertising. 

As a result, about half of South Africa’s population believes corruption is widespread among government officials and civil servants. This perception is intensified by a heightened awareness of inequality between South Africa’s elites and the population as a whole. While much of South Africa’s society is poor and lacking running water, electricity, and toilets, members of the ruling class flaunt luxurious lifestyles. Haroon Bhroat, an economist at the University of Cape Town, reported that South Africa now harbors “the most unequal society in the world.” According to Bhroat’s calculations, South Africa’s Gini coefficient, which measures the level of income inequality in a given country, is at 0.679 (0 is completely equal, 1 is completely unequal). He warned that the situation could lead to social instability and, indeed, protests comprised of citizens from the lower rungs of society have recently broken out in Johannesburg.

President Zuma says he is committed to rooting out corruption, and in fact he has made some progress in certain fields. A “mood of intolerance” toward corruption is newly noticeable and criminal charges, rather than light wrist slaps, are becoming a more regular punishment for accused officials. He is also trying to make public finances more transparent and to create more barriers between companies that perform work for public bodies and public sector employees, forbidding the latter to seek employment with the former. How effective such measures will be has yet to be determined, and it’s perhaps a bit difficult to believe that Zuma--  whose involvement in one of South Africa’s most serious corruption scandals was thrown on out due to prosecutorial transgressions rather than a determination of innocence-- when he talks about rooting out graft. If the experience of other single party-dominant regimes is any guide, the overwhelming control of the ANC in South African politics, and the sense among aspiring officials that pleasing party elites is the key to professional advancement, will serve as a serious obstacle to effective and sustained reform.

Violence in Peru: The Government's Role

Last Friday a brutal clash occurred between Peruvian police attempting to open up a highway and the hundreds of Amazonian indigenous protesters that had been blocking the road for weeks. At least a dozen police and 9 protesters – though possibly many more – were killed during the protests; Saturday brought the discovery of another dozen dead police who had been held hostage by protesters. The protests, which have mobilized a number of different tribes throughout the vast Peruvian Amazon, are based on a series of decree laws issued by the government in the first half of 2008. The protesters perceive that these laws will violate their ancestral territorial rights by opening their lands to resource exploitation. In addition, they were not consulted – as is necessary under international agreements to which Peru is a party, including International Labor Organization Convention 169 – prior to the enactment of the decrees. Thus, their stance was that the laws must be rescinded entirely. The government refused to cede, arguing that the laws were necessary for Peru’s modernization and that the violence was entirely the fault of the protesters. President Alan Garcia has been particularly aggressive in declaring that the violence was the result of a conspiracy carried out by malign forces, both international and domestic, that who do not wish to see Peru advance.

No proof has been offered for what appear to be these absurd accusations. Moreover, while the government is absolutely correct that the killings of the police are unacceptable and must be investigated and perpetrators held accountable, the government’s own attitudes and actions have been determinant during the course of the conflict. President Garcia’s statements, which repeatedly state that the indigenous are being manipulated by outsiders, treat them like sheep and deny them all agency. The government also seems to lack any context – regardless of the content of these specific decrees, the government should be able to understand why a group of people who have been excluded from policy decisions regarding their ancestral lands for hundreds of years might have justifiable suspicions regarding their future. The protesters have undoubtedly made serious mistakes, but the government’s attitude has represented the worst facets of a state that is prone to Lima-centric political fiddling while the jungle (or mountains, or anywhere else outside the capital) burns. Below is the translation of a column from Tuesday’s La Republica in which the well-known, centrist Peruvian political scientist Martin Tanaka provides some of that context.

The State, Organizer of the Protest

Martin Tanaka, La Republica (Lima), 6/9/09

Social organization in the Amazon, like the country as whole, has been marked in recent years by localism and fragmentation. It could be argued that the broad protest movement throughout the Amazon is the consequence of government action: the adoption of the DL [decree laws] without indigenous consultation created the perception that the indigenous way of life was at risk, triggered the memory of historical grievances and feelings of regional exclusion and distance from the state, and laid the foundations for a conflict in which the general identity and dignity of the Amazon was at stake. It also created a common demand (the repeal of the DL) and a single adversary, the central government, which must be addressed. AIDESEP ended up circumstantially channeling these demands, as it was the organization best positioned to lead the demands of the widely heterogeneous groups.

The demand for the repeal of the decrees is also the creation of the state. Since the protests of September of last year and until very recently the government gave signals that it would repeal the decrees in question (like 1090, which was declared unconstitutional by the [congressional] Constitutional Commission on May 20). It was only in recent weeks that the government took the position of defending the constitutionality of the decrees, and proposed a comprehensive revision of these decrees in the PCM [council of ministers].

Too late: the government created the image of having been “rocking” the indigenous peoples. This led to the radicalization of the protests. The violence unleashed as a result of attempting to clear the Fernando Belaunde roadway is also the creation of the state; many leaders in the area are reserve soldiers, former patrolmen and members of self-defense groups, ex-soldiers from Cenepa [ed.: a reference to the brief 1995 war between Ecuador and Peru]. The existence of these capabilities for mobilization explains why the resistance to police action has been so fierce.

The government’s mishandling of the whole situation can help one to understand the ease with which extremist speeches are propagated, irresponsible leaders are exalted, false information is taken as true (such as the information that speaks of the killing of tens or even hundreds of indigenous people), all of which results in the brutal assassination of policemen. Those who sympathize (and we do sympathize) which the demands of the indigenous population should be the first to say clearly that no protest, no matter how just it may be, that confronts a democratic government, however misguided it may be, justifies the murder of unarmed policemen.

The worst thing is that even today the government’s answer continues to create conditions for more protests and violence. The persecution of indigenous leaders, the talk of manipulation, ignorance, misinformation, and the presence of foreign interests only increase the anger and annoyance of the Amazonians. The president of the republic himself has made frankly irresponsible declarations. A path of relaxation, prudence, and dialogue such as that being promoted by the Ombudsman must be opened.

Photo Credit: Flickr user powless

20 Years After Tiananmen, a Different Form of Undermining Democracy

Freedom House has just released a new report, Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians, describing the efforts of authoritarian states including China, Russia, Venezuela, and Iran to sustain their autocratic models and even advance alternatives to democracy in other countries. The report explores how these leading authoritarian regimes are threatening democratic development by promoting repressive policies and manipulating and distorting democratic discourse. Their efforts to redefine – and ultimately empty out – the concept of democracy have not only been pursued within their borders, but have also been exported abroad.

Among the tools that these regimes have used to further their interests internationally, the promotion of “win-win” economic arrangements and “no-strings-attached aid” stand out. In April, we addressed this issue in a blog post about China’s aid policy towards Africa in particular. At the time, we discussed the dangers of championing China’s unique development model, along with the pernicious effects that China’s offers of unconditional aid can have for governance. Because Beijing’s foreign assistance isn’t conditioned on the adoption of reforms and a general respect for human rights, it opens the door for corruption and neglect of the rule of law. Undermining Democracy includes a more comprehensive analysis of China’s foreign assistance efforts, along with those of other authoritarian regimes, analyzing the modern strategies and methods used to project authoritarian influence.

As Undermining Democracy explains, China’s is systematically developing its own brand of “soft power.”  After becoming aware of the necessity of increasing its clout in an increasingly interdependent international system, China began to ramp up efforts to promote its own model of political and economic development in its international relations. Due to China’s impressive economic development, the model is often touted as a superior alternative to Western prescriptions.

As it happens, Undermining Democracy has been released on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. An article in the Financial Times last week traced China’s political trajectory since the crackdown, explaining how China’s Communist Party weathered both extensive criticism and countless predictions of its demise to propel its country to a leading role in the world sphere. As it notes, Chinese officials have ceased to adopt an outwardly apologetic stance towards their more repressive political policies, instead becoming increasingly confident in their model’s superiority over its Western counterpart. Most importantly, it argues that China’s remarkable ability to persevere and prosper can be attributed to its willingness to adapt and modernize. In other words, whereas mere repression might not have been enough to counteract the pre- and post-Tiananmen calls for change, China has survived and flourished due to its policy of economic opening. While these reforms have boosted growth and ameliorated some citizen complaints, more fundamental reforms of accountability and transparency have been absent.

China’s economic success has created a major dilemma for advocates of good governance. This success has obvious appeal as a formula for economic prosperity for struggling developing countries.  Nevertheless, there are some important points to consider. First, by championing the undemocratic Chinese model, the benefits in terms of basic ethics and justice of democratic rule in comparison to China’s oppressive political regime are ignored. The coercive nature of China’s political regime cannot be underemphasized. China is a highly repressive state, which is evidenced by the regime’s dismal human rights record. China has, every year, by far the highest number of executions of any country and has consistently and arbitrarily applied state power to restrict basic freedoms including freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Secondly, it is important to realize that the Chinese model of adaptation is not the norm. As the Financial Times article notes, China was successfully able to learn from the Soviet Union’s mistakes and to become aware of the need to “adapt and change or atrophy and die.” If any lessons are to be learned from the past, however, China’s adaption method is the exception: authoritarians are often drawn to the repressive part of the model while ignoring the technocratic, adaptive element. Some but certainly not all developing countries will be able to follow China’s trajectory. For example, in the past few months, Hugo Chavez has frequently praised the comparative advantages of the Chinese model over the Washington Consensus at the same time that he has ramped up his efforts to curb trade union autonomy and freedom of the press in the country.  In addition, Kremlin officials have frequently evoked the Chinese success story to justify Russia’s autocratic policies. In addition to providing these leaders with validation for their despotic ventures, the opportunities the model provides for corrupt practices are extensive, as is evidenced by China’s ranking of 72 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

Moreover, it is not just the model in conceptual terms that is a threat to the democratic order, but also China’s means of promoting it. Most notably, China has sought to facilitate the model’s advancement by offering “win-win” economic arrangements to foreign countries and coupling its aid provision with a promise of “non-interference” in domestic affairs. Apart from the African countries listed in our previous post, China has provided unconditional assistance to numerous Latin American countries and several Asian countries, most notably Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, many of which have questionable or downright execrable human rights records. As we noted in our previous post, the negative consequences of providing unconditional aid are a real threat to democratic governance.  As Undermining Democracy argues, these arrangements also threaten democratic development on a greater scale. By framing these new economic relationships in “win-win” terms, China seeks to tarnish the legitimacy of the Western development model, and more particularly the traditional Western requirement that aid be conditional upon reform and respect for human rights standards.

Other contemporary authoritarian regimes have used foreign assistance of one sort or another to exert influence. Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, for instance, have used their oil wealth to court developing nations, leading them to ignore governance reform.  While these active efforts are providing new competition to reform-based assistance, the authoritarians’ approach is not perfect. As Undermining Democracy notes, China’s increasingly powerful position – and even more so the other states – has its own inherent flaws. The global economic crisis, along with other factors, could hamper its efforts to propel the new model; alternatively, discontent at home could herald a loosening of the authoritarian reins. In any case, 20 years after Tiananmen, the Chinese authorities have modernized their authoritarianism and, for the time being at least, offer a serious challenge to the notion that economic growth in China would inevitably lead to political liberalization and sounder governance. 

1000 Days of Alan Garcia: the Peruvian Take

Wednesday marked the 1000th day of the presidency of Peru's Alan Garcia, and there are various potential perspectives on his presidency. First, it is critical to recall that the first Garcia administration, from 1985 to 1990, is widely regarded as the worst in Peruvian history, an era when the country came perilously close to failed state status. This carried two implications entering the current term. First, it was obvious that Garcia would seek, above all, to maintain macroeconomic stability in order to inoculate himself against the fear that this term would turn out like the previous one. Second, many hoped that he would energetically devote himself to a wide range of reforms in order to assure that the legacy of his second term would serve as his primary political epitaph.

At this point, the latter set of hopes have been largely extinguished. Especially from abroad, Peru's fundamentals looked strong before the crisis hit. GDP growth was enormous, poverty rates fell, and inflation remained contained. Yet the hope that such a favorable economic environment would lead to broader reforms in critical areas, such as the justice system, anticorruption, environmental conflict, and the country's appalling social breaches, have been largely dashed. For a mix of reasons, the Garcia government has stagnated in all these areas and more, with only incremental achievements in most areas where reform is urgently necessary.

But don't take this blog's word for it. Below the fold is a translation of a report giving a critique of the first 1000 days from the perspective of Peru.21, one the country's more centrist newspapers. While not shy about criticizing the administration, it is the type of media outlet that could have been won over had Garcia decided to govern as he said he would during his campaign (i.e., as a center-leftist) rather as he actually as (largely from the right).

THE LEADER FOR LIFE, CONTINUED

In March of this year, we posted on the subject of presidential succession (The Leader for Life), noting the absence of a meaningful rotation of power in a number of strategically important countries and its negative impact on democratic governance.  Among other things, these countries exhibit exceedingly high levels of corruption. A chart detailing time in office for leaders in 20 states indicated that none of these politically managed systems could perform better than 105 (out of 179 countries examined) in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Egypt came in at 105; the next best were Yemen and Iran at 131.

Since that time, several critical countries have made news by virtue of their leaderships’ determined effort to extend their term in office.

In Zimbabwe, discredited President Robert Mugabe said on December 19 that he would “never surrender”.  To emphasize the point, Mugabe added that “Zimbabwe is mine”.  Meanwhile, his beleaguered and impoverished country is suffering from a growing list of severe problems, including an outbreak of cholera that has killed hundreds of people. A BBC video clip explains in horrifying detail the devastating price cholera is exacting on ordinary Zimbabweans.

In Russia, CNN reported that the country’s upper house of parliament on December 22 approved an extension of the presidential term from four years to six, a step that could presage former President Vladimir Putin’s return to the nation's top office. Putin now serves as prime minister but is viewed by many as the country’s paramount leader.  The speedy move to amend the constitution comes at a time when low energy prices are putting increasing pressure on the Russian leadership’s ability to maintain the social and economic model that has been forged under Putin.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is also working diligently to remove institutional checks on his power.  On December 22, Chavez suggested that a referendum could be held on February 15, 2009 that would among other measures lift term limits. A December 2007 referendum that included a host of measures that would have removed checks on presidential power was narrowly defeated. Like Russia’s leadership, Chavez confronts a rapidly shifting and less predictable political landscape, as the energy resources that have been integral to his power dwindle.

A December 19 Washington Post editorial observes that while democracy advocates might welcome a vote of this sort in Venezuela, it carries real risks because:

"elections in Venezuela are no longer free and fair. Mr. Chavez has turned national television into a state propaganda outlet, and the Miami Herald reported [on December 14] that the government spent tens of millions of dollars to buy votes in the recent state and local elections. The state election authority, which is controlled by Mr. Chavez's loyalists, delayed the announcement of his defeat in last year's referendum; reliable sources say the president conceded only after he was told by military commanders that they would not put down protests against a falsified result. The official results, showing the margin of Mr. Chavez's loss, have not been released".

Unlike the Russian petrostate, where opposition has tended to be muted, in Venezuela opposing voices still make themselves heard.

RUSSIA’S RECENT ELECTIONS: A POST-MORTEM

Russia’s recent presidential election has been criticized for the muzzled media environment that preceded it, the marginalization of opposition candidates, intimidation at the polls, and a lack of independent election observers. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty describes the phenomenon of “election season hostages,” the case of Maksim Reznik being the most notable. Such proximate factors played a role in forging a lop-sided outcome, but Dmitri Medvedev’s victory was also the result of a wide-ranging, systematic effort over the course of President Vladimir Putin’s second term to centralize a variety of legal and administrative tools to sharply tilt the electoral playing field.

Of the four main issue areas analyzed in Countries at the Crossroads, the Russian authorities’ performance in Accountability and Public Voice (which includes a sub-indicator on Free and Fair Electoral Laws and Elections) is the weakest.

The effort to control the March 2 Presidential elections stretches back to at least 2004, when legislative amendments made it exceptionally difficult to register new political parties.  The measures raised the minimum number of party members required to register five-fold, from 10,000 to 50,000.

Subsequent changes to the electoral law have further removed power holders from accountability. For example, Kremlin-managed measures have led to presidential appointment of governors, rather than election by Russian voters; the threshold for Parliamentary representation was raised from five to seven percent; and the opportunity to vote “against all candidates” was eliminated, thereby removing one of the more popular protest options on the ballot available to voters.

An article in the Moscow Times citing an intriguing analysis of the December 2007 Duma elections suggests that voter turnout figures and United Russia's percentage of the vote were tweaked by regional officials. This analysis, which appeared on a blog called Podmoskovnik, indicates that results clustered at improbable data points, hinting that local officials may not have appreciated the extent to which the use of round numbers - those ending in 0 and 5 - would suggest a manipulation of the figures.

Moreover, the recently released US State Department Human Rights Report on Russia for 2007 highlights the abuse of “administrative resources” in regional and Parliamentary elections. An article in Novaya Gazeta delves into so-called “special electoral cultures,” where curious quirks of statistics arise in various shapes and forms throughout Russian electoral jurisdictions, in rural areas in particular.

Russia’s Central Elections Commission (CEC) also features in this equation. In March 2007, Alexander Veshnyakov, who had served as head of the CEC since 1999, was moved out of it on the heels of his too-critical comment on the behavior of pro-Kremlin parties and restrictive electoral amendments. After an amendment eliminating the requirement that the post of CEC head be held by someone holding a law degree, Vladimir Churov was selected to succeed Vashnyakov. Churov worked with Putin in St. Petersburg during the 1990s.

Further centralization of the voting process can be seen in GAS-Vybory, the computer system used to tabulate the recent Presidential elections. The vote marked the second time that national elections have been administered through GAS- Vybory, a database originally created in 1995. One domestic observer claimed to witness presidential election results being filed into the system before having been officially certified. While there is no direct evidence that the computers were used to manipulate the election results, the fact that responsibility for the system was transferred from the disbanded Federal Agency for Governmental Communications and Information to the FSB and the Defense Ministry in 2003 is unlikely to allay concerns.

Photo Credit: Flickr user gesus14

Weekly Governance Links: Miscellaneous

Because sometimes interesting governance developments just don’t fit into one particular theme...

Human Rights Watch has released an extensive report detailing the suffering of HIV positive women in Zambia, where generally weak rights for women have had a negative impact on their ability to cope with the disease.

A Reuters article notes that the chief of the anticorruption unit has stepped down. The woman, Suzanne Rich Folsom, was associated with former World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz and had come under increasing pressure ever since last year’s Paul Volcker-led commission suggested her unit for further investigation. Another quality report related to corruption comes from the Center for Global Development, which reports on ways to combat deceptive partnerships that companies in the industrialized world use to issue bribes in developing countries.

Two scholars at the Carnegie Endowment analyze the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s draft party platform. In other Egypt news, Human Rights Watch describes the recent repression of a demonstration, thereby providing yet another example of the enormous obstacles the Muslim Brotherhood or any other prospective Egyptian party will face on the path to a democratic opening in Egypt.

An ongoing crackdown in Iran has received significant attention of late. With parliamentary elections scheduled for March 14, the New York Times notes that, once again, reformists are being disqualified in large numbers. Another Times article details the increasing pressure being put on a group that had managed to evade harsh treatment, the radical left. Meanwhile, Amnesty International decries the continued use of stoning as a method of capital punishment.

With Georgia’s presidential election now complete, attention turns to its neighbor Armenia, where elections will be held on February 19. Transitions Online has two articles providing some context to the election.

Given the troubling findings detailed in the release of Freedom in the World 2008, a timely paper from the Center for Global Development on how the international community can work with troubled young democracies to firm up their institutions in ways that promote further democratization and resist backsliding.

In the context of rising tensions related to immigration throughout the world, Human Rights Watch blasts the Libyan government’s decision to deport all of its undocumented workers, many of whom could be exposed to persecution at home. Note that the New York Times had an interesting article in December about the rise and effects of increased immigration within the developing world.

A September post noted the announcement of Chile’s extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and provided links detailing some of the many evils associated with the regime. Good news: the legal process is not going well for the former strongman. He has already been convicted and sentenced in one case, and recent damning testimony has been received in several others. For continued monitoring, visit the Fujimori on Trial website.

Weekly Governance Links: Latin America

             

         

The Latin American nations represented in Countries at the Crossroads receive the highest scores of any region in the survey. Nonetheless, each featured country faces a host of governance challenges, from internal conflict and human rights issues in Colombia to the reconstruction of discredited political institutions in Ecuador and sustained one-party dominance in Paraguay. Below are some links to highlight developments in recent days in the Crossroads set of countries.

Colombia: Negotiations with the FARC rebels aimed at securing the release of some or all of the group’s “high-value” hostages are largely stalled in the wake of the Colombian government’s stoppage of talks brokered by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Nonetheless, both President Alvaro Uribe and the FARC remain engaged in a political game whereby each side tries to do just enough to make the other look like the more intransigent party.  The most recent step is the seemingly imminent release of three hostages by the rebels, which will put the ball back in the Colombian government’s court. In other news, 2007 has been another year in which Uribe’s tempestuous relationship with the press has been on full display. An article in the Miami New Times provides background, while a post on the Center for International Policy’s Colombia blog brings the story up to date.

Ecuador: Although most attention is being paid to the Constituent Assembly currently working on drafting a new constitution, over the last month Ecuador’s northeastern Orellana province was the scene of some fierce protests, met at moments by equally fierce repression. In other news, President Rafael Correa has proposed a redefinition of penalties for drug convictions in the country. Such a move – depending of course on how it’s carried out – could be a welcome development, as narcotics enforcement in drug-production and transit countries has focused far too much attention on small-time dealers while major traffickers go unpunished.

Guatemala: 2007 was a bloody year in Guatemala, both in terms of the congressional and presidential elections and day-to-day on the streets. One major concern is the degree to which organized crime has consolidated its power and infiltrated the state. A recent Washington Office on Latin America paper examines the reach of organized crime in Guatemala and several other states in the region.

One of the primary topics of international attention in Honduras this year has been media freedom. President Manuel Zelaya, whose administration suffers from low approval ratings, has often blamed the media for its supposed bias against him. In addition, a reporter at a station known to have conflictive relations with the government was killed in October. The situation has recently drawn the attention of the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, who issued a statement of concern following a visit to the country.

Nicaragua: The central political battle in recent months in Nicaragua has revolved around the creation of citizens’ political councils, which President Daniel Ortega claims will encourage participatory democracy, but which the opposition claims are a tool for increasing Sandinista party and executive branch political control in the country. Interestingly, one potentially salutary aspect of the battle is the grievous wound it has struck against the already weakening alliance for impunity between Ortega and the Liberal Constitutionalist party led by ex-president and convicted embezzler Arnoldo Aleman.

Paraguay: The Colorado Party, which has ruled the country for sixty years, held primary elections for what is expected to be one of Paraguay’s most competitive elections in decades. Tensions ran high as the Colorados split between Blanca Ovelar, a candidate favored by President Nicanor Duarte, and Luis Castiglioni, who was supported by the business class. With a charismatic left-leaning former priest and recently-released-from-prison former coupster among the candidates, Paraguay’s 2008 contest promises to be the tightest three-way race in the region since Mexico’s battle in 2006.

Peru: President Alan Garcia, whose approval ratings have generally been in decline throughout the year, has carried out his first cabinet overhaul. The general perception is that the changes shift the cabinet mildly to the right. Meanwhile, the portion of former President Alberto Fujimori’s trial related to human rights violations – specifically, two massacres conducted by a supposedly Fujimori-endorsed death squad – has begun, with Fujimori pursuing a strategy of alternately showing defiance, apologizing, and claiming not to remember important details about the events, which took place in 1991 and 1992.

Venezuela: Not surprisingly, much of the activity in Venezuela in recent weeks has revolved around the fallout from President Hugo Chavez’s semi-surprise loss in the December 2 constitutional referendum. The Nation magazine hosted a forum of Venezuela-watchers evaluating what the process revealed about the state of democracy in Venezuela. The always-interesting Oil Wars blog, meanwhile, used a detailed series of charts as the base for a discussion of  some of the fundamental governance issues that the Chavez government should address in order to win back political support among Venezuela’s poorer sectors. Finally, the opposition Caracas Chronicles blog compiled a year-in-review, with links to posts discussing key events throughout the year in Venezuela.

Photo found at Surimages photo agency

Georgia on our Minds

Picture by AFP via Al Jazeera

With protesters taking to the streets in the largest numbers since the Rose Revolution of 2003, the durability of Georgia’s reforms are being closely scrutinized. In the Commonwealth of Independent States, where democratic governance is in painfully short supply, Georgia has taken on the role of a test case for the advance democratic reform. As a result, a range of audiences are paying particularly close attention to developments in that country. Despite the considerable hurdles of impoverishment (GNI per capita under $800) and the legacy of Soviet institutional culture, Georgia, a country of less than 5 million, has managed to propel itself to the 18th place (from 112th) on the World Bank Doing Business report and has also made demonstrable progress on corruption in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. Last month, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services raised its outlook on Georgia to positive from stable on strong economic growth prospects despite a challenging external environment.

An article in the New York Times touches on some of the reforms that distinguish Georgia within what it describes as “a region with a history of corrupt, brutal and autocratic governments.”

[The government] has set new standards for education, increased tax collection and revenue-generation, improved the readiness of the country’s once feeble army and repaired Soviet-era infrastructure to the degree that the country, once plagued by blackouts, now has a reliable electricity supply.

At the same time, the Times piece hits on the criticism that represents a key obstacle to institutionalizing democratic governance, namely that there is no established and credible counterweight to the current leadership: “opponents accuse [President Saakashvili] of hoarding and abusing power, and of running the nation through a clique that will neither tolerate dissent nor engage in dialogue with the opposition.”

Georgia, along with Ukraine, is the only non-Baltic former Soviet republic to achieve a meaningful degree of progress on key governance reforms. As the turmoil of the last days makes abundantly clear, however, bringing about the next, more mature set of reforms will be an enormously difficult task.