Freedom at Issue

Secretary Clinton’s Burma Opportunity

by Rachel Jacobs 
Research Analyst, Countries at the Crossroads


Hillary Clinton’s impending visit to Burma will be the first by a U.S. secretary of state in 50 years. It comes after a year of tentative reform by a nominally civilian government that has raised hopes for a more comprehensive political opening, but this optimism needs to be tempered by caution.

The Burmese government’s ultimate intentions remain unclear. If its goal is to permanently expand the regime’s domestic legitimacy and international acceptance, then the positive changes and commitments to date may be both lasting and a sign of greater improvements to come. If, however, President Thein Sein’s government views its reforms as an expedient way to boost its international image in the near term, then a freeze or backsliding on the modest reforms enacted so far can be expected.

Freedom House Questions for Republican Presidential Candidates

It is a core belief of Freedom House that American foreign policy should be grounded on support for democratic values and the global expansion of freedom. Practically every aspirant to the American presidency would agree that the United States should remain the world’s beacon of democracy. But especially in an era of rival claims for global leadership and calls for fiscal austerity, the development of a U.S. strategy to propel freedom forward poses a serious challenge. Thus far, the presidential candidates have failed to grapple with the complexities of this challenge, and the discussion has been far from illuminating, to put it mildly.

After a democratic power transfer, Zambia must tackle Chinese investment issues and human rights reforms

by Thomas R. Lansner*
Guest Writer

The victory of opposition Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata in Zambia’s September presidential election was a welcome example of an almost entirely peaceful rotation of power in a maturing African electoral democracy. President Sata can now carry Zambia further into a position of continental leadership by quickly making good on three campaign promises: revising Zambia’s draft constitution to better protect basic freedoms, fighting corruption, and properly protecting the rights of all Zambian workers, especially those employed in the growing number of Chinese-owned mines and related industries.

The election stands as a credit to the vast majority of Zambians who desired and worked for a fair campaign and a free vote. Civil society groups fielded domestic election observers and deployed new technological platforms for reporting potential irregularities. The Electoral Commission of Zambia conducted a massive voter registration campaign and supervised a largely transparent and efficient electoral process, one that was endorsed by international observers despite shortcomings such as the use of state resources and state media to support incumbent president Rupiah Banda and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). Yet Banda conceded Sata’s convincing victory in a timely and graceful manner after initial delays in reporting results sparked scattered rioting in Patriotic Front strongholds in northern Zambia.

Outlook for democracy in post-uprising North Africa

by Mary McGuire
Senior Communications Manager

On November 4, to mark the release of this year’s edition of Countries at the Crossroads, Freedom House and the Atlantic Council hosted a discussion on the prospects for successful democratic transitions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—particularly in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, which were among six MENA countries examined in the new Crossroads report.

The study, which assesses democratic governance in 35 countries around the world, found that despite promising post-uprising openings in areas including freedom of expression and freedom of association in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, the task of “rebuilding basic institutions like the justice system, law enforcement agencies, and regulatory frameworks for the media and civil society, all of which have been warped and corrupted by decades of authoritarian rule, will require many years of effort.”

Do’s and Don’t’s on Belarus

by David J. Kramer
President of Freedom House

 Never before has Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenka faced an economic crisis in his country like the one he bears responsibility for today, with a collapsing currency, severe shortages, and dwindling hard currency reserves.  Never before has he been under more pressure from the European Union and United States through sanctions for his human rights abuses and from Russia through its cut-off of subsidies.  Together, these unprecedented developments are leading some observers to suggest that Lukashenka’s days might be numbered.

The Tunisian elections in pictures

by     Sarah Trister                               
         Manager for Congressional Affairs

          Joseph Emru     
          Program Officer, Middle East and North Africa

On Sunday, October 23, millions of Tunisians went to the polls for the country’s first elections since a popular uprising ousted authoritarian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January. The balloting, held to select a constituent assembly that will serve as a transitional legislature and draft a new constitution, has been widely hailed as free and fair.

Through its “Nchoof” project, Freedom House worked with a group of local nongovernmental organizations to enable ordinary Tunisians to serve as citizen monitors during the elections. Using a system set up by the project, Tunisians could send and receive critical information, including reports of electoral violations, in real time via voice calls, text or multimedia messaging, Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail.

Nchoof employed Ushahidi open-source crowd-sourcing technology to encourage civic awareness and citizen participation. The technology, originally developed in Kenya, has been used to collect citizen reports during elections and crisis situations in countries around the world, including in a previous Freedom House election-monitoring project in Egypt, and in other projects in Haiti, Mexico, and Lebanon.

The following photographs show the Tunisian elections as Freedom House staff experienced them. Click below to see the photos and the full gallery.

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Acting just like a woman: Leadership advice for authoritarians in Central Asia

by Katherin Machalek
Research Analyst and Assistant Editor, Nations in Transit

At the end of this month, national elections will decide who will serve as Kyrgyzstan’s first full-term president since the April 2010 revolution that ousted the increasingly authoritarian Kurmanbek Bakiyev. And at the end of the year, Central Asia’s first and only female president, interim leader Roza Otunbayeva, will also become the first leader in Central Asia to leave her post in a voluntary and peaceful transfer of power.

Democracy advocates, who have regrettably witnessed a great deal of backsliding in the region, have good reason to commend Otunbayeva’s short presidency. Her even-handed approach and personal dedication to pluralism and transparency have allowed Kyrgyzstan to experience possibly the most democratic period in its history. The integrity of Otunbayeva’s leadership has won the interim government a legitimacy that no other regime in Kyrgyzstan’s neighborhood has come close to achieving.

Prime ministers in the dock

by Arch Puddington 
Vice President for Research
*With  assistance provided by Elizabeth Kagedan
 
About a year ago I attended a meeting whose purpose was to showcase newly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych before an audience consisting mostly of representatives of the world’s largest multinational corporations. Yanukovych’s remarks were carefully crafted to appeal  to these guests. But he devoted the bulk of his presentation to an explanation of his commitment to the strengthening of Ukrainian democracy. Ukraine, he declared, would be Western-oriented under his watch. He promised to protect freedom of the press, minority rights, and—here he was especially emphatic—the rule of law. 

Having crossed his Rubicon, Putin lands in Central Asia

Photo Credit: www.kremlin.ru

by Tyler Roylance
Staff Editor, Publications

When Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced last week that he intended—and had always intended—to return to the presidency, he effectively tore down a flimsy veil of constitutional rectitude that had separated Russia from the autocracies of Central Asia. For over four years, Russians were invited to believe that unlike the perpetual presidents in those countries, their leader would uphold the rule of law and make way for new blood in the form of his chosen successor, Dmitri Medvedev. Now, however, it appears that Medvedev’s entire presidency was an artifice designed to circumvent the ban on more than two consecutive terms.

In this sense, the maneuver was only the most elaborate and circuitous among many similar techniques employed by the rulers of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, as well as Azerbaijan and Belarus. These presidents have relied on rigged referendums and rubber-stamp legislatures to enact repeated term extensions of one type or another. When it comes to elections, they have methodically suppressed any genuine opposition parties and then won lopsided votes against the nonentities that remained. In 2007, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan brazenly secured a new term without bothering to remove the constitutional restriction. (For a summary of term-limit manipulation in each country, see the text box on page 5 of the release booklet for Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2011 survey. Russia’s gradual convergence with Central Asian governance standards is apparent in the Nations in Transit scoring data.)

Egypt's democratic facade continues to crumble

Photo credit: Flickr user Sarah Carr

Egypt’s November parliamentary elections saw, as expected, a sweeping victory for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), though that triumph occurred amid allegations of the worst fraud, electoral rigging, and political repression that Egypt has ever seen.  Much has been said in recent weeks about the deeply flawed campaign period and elections but, as protests continue, it is clear that the uproar is about more than electoral politics. The issue, it seems, is not that Egypt’s ailing electoral system will contaminate other facets of the governing structure, but that the electoral problems are just one symptom of the Mubarak regime’s more systemic governance failures. A quick overview of problems over the course of the year reveals the extent to which unaccountable institutions and repressive actions permeate the Egyptian system. These maladies raise serious doubts about the government’s interest in altering the basic rules of the game in a way that will increase confidence in the system as the 2011 presidential election approaches. 

Perhaps most notable about 2010 was the steep increase in police brutality and torture.  In June, police publically beat to death Khaled Said, a 28-year old Alexandrian, after he posted incriminating videos of local police officers.  Protests in Alexandria and across the world apparently did not spur reform by November, when Ahmed Shabaan was found dead in a gutter after having been arbitrarily arrested by police in the same precinct. Most recently, Alexandrian police allegedly beat to death Mustafa Attia, and appear to be withholding information to prevent the outcry that the other two cases have engendered. These deaths are in addition to the everyday accounts of torture and harassment that repeatedly surface about Egypt’s security services.  The level of criminality in the security sector and the fact that police can apparently act with nearly complete impunity sends the message that the government either views such behavior as a low priority or, worse, prefers the current set of institutional incentives.

Freedom of expression has also taken a serious hit. Though the state has always had a dominant role in Egyptian media, 2010 has been an especially tough year for Egyptian journalists and bloggers.  Ibrahim Eissa, a prominent government critic, was fired as editor of the independent newspaper al-Dustour after publishing an opinion piece critical of the military, and also abruptly left his position as host of a political talk show in the middle of the season.  His producers denied that his exit from the show was politically motivated, but Eissa himself refused to comment on the situation, fueling rumors that he was dismissed because of political pressure.  In addition, several political talk shows and opinion columns were cancelled following disputes with government agencies. The popular show “Al Qahira Al Youm” was cancelled after a government-owned studio accused the show’s producers of failing to pay its rental fees; however, as was the case with most media closures, people close to the show argued that the cancellation was simply a government attempt to control content in a tense political period. 

Sectarian clashes between the Muslim and the Coptic Christian communities are common in Egypt and 2010 has been no exception.  Riots spread throughout the country in January, after six Coptic Christians were killed in a drive-by shooting following a Coptic mass, an apparent act of retaliation for the alleged rape of a Muslim girl by a Coptic man.  In July, conflicting stories about the missing wife of a Coptic priest, rumored in some accounts to have been forcibly prevented from converting to Islam and in others to have been kidnapped by Islamists, incited violent protests in Muslim and Christian communities alike.  Government mismanagement of both episodes enabled what could have been isolated unrest to spread throughout the country.  The government has in the past used the threat of sectarian violence as an excuse to implement politically repressive measures, but it has been continually unable or unwilling to quell interreligious tensions before they reach the point of violence. 

Nor does it seem that the judiciary can play a mediating role in any of these problems. The police who killed Khaled Said were eventually arrested, but were charged with mistreatment rather than Said’s death.  Further, it was only a few months ago that the death penalty ordered for a billionaire businessman found guilty of soliciting the murder of his actress girlfriend was summarily overturned and replaced with a 15-year jail sentence before his retrial was even complete. Years after the judiciary was excised from electoral oversight, it is unclear if its attempts to assert independence, most notably in a group of unrelated court cases advancing public freedoms (for example, by expelling police from university campuses, and ruling against the government’s position on SMS regulations can create any real democratic advances.

It is widely thought that the November elections were a trial run for the 2011 presidential elections and that increased repression is a nervous attempt to maintain stability leading up to what will almost certainly be a tumultuous year.  Actors within Egypt and abroad have issued post-election calls for sweeping electoral reform that implore the Egyptian government to dissolve the fraudulently-elected parliament and establish a fair and effective framework in time for the 2011 election.   Judging by the government’s performance in a range of other areas, however, the state’s attitude toward better governance appears to be “maybe later,” and there is little reason to expect that the elections will be any different.

Kenya's Simmering Governance Crisis Threatens to Boil Over

Photo Credit: Flickr user ActionPixs (Maruko)

By Thomas Lansner, Columbia School of International and Public Affairs

Professor Thomas Lansner, author of the Kenya report in Countries at the Crossroads 2010, observes that Kenya is currently confronting an outright crisis of governance. He argues that the country's political elite needs to end zero-sum politics in order to resolve the situation before it boils over into a nation-threatening catastrophe.

Kenya’s crisis of governance today threatens not only its peoples’ security and livelihoods, but potentially its continued existence as a state. Like other countries artificially and often arbitrarily created by external powers, its citizens share a constructed identity. Loyalty to such an identity is neither intrinsic nor unbreakable. It must be earned by the legitimacy of ruling institutions. And a notional national identity is even more tenuous if a country’s resources are perceived to be captured and distributed in ways that effectively exclude large portions of the population on the basis of race, religion, language, or ethnicity.

Since achieving independence from Britain in 1963, Kenya’s leaders have intensified ethno-linguistic rivalries over control of scarce resources, particularly land. As I reported in Freedom House’s 2010 Countries at the Crossroads, “The country’s ethnic divisions have been reinforced by successive generations of politicians who have used patronage to build personal and party loyalties based on ethno-regionalism.”

The effects of ethnic and clan-based patronage politics include endemic corruption and pervasive impunity that undermine the legitimacy of governmental institutions by weakening their efficacy and flouting their fairness. In Kenya today, checks and balances that in democratic systems are meant to control the more venal and brutal tendencies of the powerful are almost entirely absent. The judiciary is mostly emasculated. Governmental watchdogs remain toothless even if they raise alarm. The executive is virtually unaccountable for high crimes as well as misdemeanors.

Some hope for positive change in Kenya rises from an often vibrant — if still imperiled — mass media, and a growing network of civil society organizations that transcend ethnic lines and are building citizen pressure for better governance.  But these voices remain mostly ineffective at convincing powerholders to concede to their demands.

Is Kenya is en route to becoming a “failed state”? Lack of resources and capacities inhibit development even in countries with the best-intentioned administrations. If a country that does not or cannot provide security and justice and opportunities for its peoples is defined as failing, then Kenya would join a bevy of other nations, not all of them in the “developing” world, that should be so labeled. Honest efforts by accountable leaders can win citizen trust on which progress, even if gradual, and “nationhood” is built. Yet political infighting in Nairobi is so severe that the coalition cabinet has not even met since early February.

Kenya’s potentially catastrophic failure would be far broader than public dismay at poor performance: it would be active rejection by its citizens of the possibility that the state as constituted will ever serve all its peoples with a reasonable degree of fairness and competency. Absent this faith, other loyalties might prevail, and formally fracture the country among ethno-linguistic groupings that functioned as the precolonial loci of power.

This remains a worst-case scenario, but it is imaginable if Kenya’s leadership across political parties and ethnicities continue to place personal and group privilege ahead of justice. Deeply flawed December 2007 elections, contested largely along ethnic lines, evoked bloody confrontations—often promoted by various politicians—in which at least 1,100 people were killed. There are credible reports that ethnic militias that then nearly launched a civil war while battling mainly with spears, machetes, and bows and arrows are now stockpiling automatic weapons.

As the Countries at the Crossroads Kenya report urges, international pressure and mediation are desperately needed to help properly empower the country’s democratic institutions, and to ensure acceptable elections in 2012. Maintaining politics as a zero-sum competition for ethnic-based spoils, rather than an arena for national compromise, could drive Kenya to a conflagration it will be lucky as a nation to survive, and one that many of its citizens surely will not. Parliament's approval on April 1 of a draft constitution that will now go to a national referendum is an encouraging sign. But Kenya's recent history gives scant hope that the country's leaders will honor its highest laws, or their own most solemn promises.

Former Army Chief Poses Surprising Challenge in Upcoming Sri Lankan Elections

Photo Credit: flickr user foto.rajith

On Sunday, General Sarath Fonseka, the former chief of Sri Lanka’s army, officially announced his candidacy for the country’s presidency, challenging current President Mahinda Rajapaksa, General Fonseka’s wartime partner. Referring to the current president as a “tin-pot dictator,” Fonseka in his announcement promised to “scrap the executive presidency within six months, hold parliamentary elections and adopt a new constitution that will uphold democracy, social justice and media freedoms.” With these words, Fonseka has presented an unexpected and potentially viable competition in the January 26th elections.

The contest will be held in a political climate dominated by the end, last May, of the decades-long war between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE – commonly called the Tamil Tigers) – a war which intensified greatly after Rajapaksa came to power in 2005. By stepping up the campaign, Rajapaksa managed to defeat the rebel group and kill almost all of its leaders. The war’s conclusion, however, was accompanied by a large increase in human rights abuses and persistent allegations that the president was becoming more authoritarian, including by stifling dissent and condoning violent attacks against his opponents. His administration’s attitude toward freedom of the press has worsened from an already less-than-laudable situation: the state dominates the media sector, using highly restrictive slander and libel laws to prevent media criticism of public officials and failing to protect journalists from harassment, intimidation, and, increasingly, physical attacks.

Additionally, as Fonseka implied in his announcement, during his tenure as president Rajapaksa has centralized considerable power in the hands of him and his brothers. Though Sri Lanka’s constitution, which is modeled on the French constitution, does not outline a clear division of power between the three branches of government, Rajapaksa has created an executive branch with much more sweeping powers than its predecessors. His brothers hold major government posts, and effectively most controls over decision making and public spending are in Rajapaksa’s and his brothers’ hands. Rajapaksa has ignored Supreme Court rulings, usurped the powers of the constitutional council, and directly appointed loyalists to important posts in the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and the police force. In his announcement on Sunday, Fonseka indicated that he intends to limit executive rule.

Rajapaksa has also failed to address the Tamil grievances that contributed to the strength and duration of the Tigers’ insurgency. In order to unify the country in the postwar era, analysts argue that the Sri Lankan government must go beyond freeing Tamils from camps for the internally displaced and take more long-term steps, like repealing the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act, which allows for the detention of LTTE suspects without legal representation or safeguards, or establish a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the final weeks of the war.

Fonseka is not without his own potential vulnerabilities on rights questions; indeed, critics protest that his military strategy killed thousands of civilians. However, although he is perceived as sympathetic to nationalist groups, in his speech Fonseka attempted to undermine the president’s populist appeal by condemning the poor conditions of the displaced persons camps in which tens of thousands of Tamils remain, promising to shift more power from the presidency to the parliament, and accusing Rajapaksa of failing to bring together the country after the war’s end. By bringing the grievances of the Tamils to the forefront, Fonseka may be able to gain an advantage among voters who fear the insurgency will return should Tamil grievances remain unaddressed.

At the same time, even though Fonseka provides a glimmer of hope for the Sri Lankan opposition, President Rajapaksa perceives that the defeat of the LTTE will carry him through another election, as long as the balloting happens soon. While the elections were scheduled for November 2011, Rajapaksa signed a decree last month to hold elections in January 2010 in order to maximize political gains from his current popularity. The majority of his support comes from the Sinhalese-dominated south, where, according to the Washington Post, army families sang songs calling him king following the victory over the Tigers. However, dissent against Rajapaksa exists—thousands of protesters marched in November, pointing to encroaching dictatorship, increasing corruption, and a sinking economy.

Though Fonseka’s announcement on Sunday was the first time he formally announced his candidacy, his potential challenge was no secret. Like the president, Fonseka has the victory of the civil war to count on. According to the New York Times, Fonseka’s wartime strategy struck “a mortal blow” to the Tamil army. And his retirement from his post in November, more than a month before the end of his term, prompted rampant rumors that the general would compete in next year’s elections. His letter announcing his retirement to President Rajapaksa was not greeted warmly; though Fonseka requested to retire on December 1st, Rajapaksa said Fonseka could pack his bags and be out two days later, minus his security detail and official residence. The pair’s relations had been strained since the end of the war, when Rajapaksa placed Fonseka in a largely ceremonial post, leading Fonseka to accuse Rajapaska of sidelining him and suspecting him of plotting a coup.

Fonseka appears to have a substantial following, providing a surprising dose of choice in a country that is often seen as subject to increasingly personalized rule. According to the Washington Post, Fonseka’s Facebook page is covered in messages of “adulation,” including a mock billboard that bore a striking resemblance to the famous Barack Obama “Hope” poster. When rumors arose that Fonseka would appear on the ballot, the country’s other political forces sprouted up to claim him for their own. Former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) hinted that Fonseka would be their candidate, and urged the Janatha Vimuthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to support the UNP’s bid. However, the JVP wants Fonseka for itself, and the TNA has not declared their support for the general. As a party that was once seen as a proxy for the Tamil Tigers, they have a history of antipathy toward Fonseka, even having once deployed a suicide bomber to assassinate him.

Signs indicate that Fonseka will not win without a fight, but Rajapaksa already appears nervous. In a particularly lurid manifestation of this insecurity, the president had the nation’s most popular astrologer jailed for nine days this summer for being a threat to national security after the astrologer predicted that Rajapaksa would be kicked out of office or killed. Moreover, after Fonseka criticized the “appalling conditions” of the camps and hinted that he would focus on the treatment of those living there, the Sri Lankan government freed hundreds of thousands of Tamils on December 1. Knowing that even a relatively small Tamil turnout could swing the vote in January, this could be a calculated step on the part of Rajapaksa to attract some of those votes, or at least defuse the issue as a political hot button. Either way, the future of Sri Lankan politics now looks more unpredictable than was anticipated just a few short months ago.

Frelimo secures major victory in Mozambican elections

Photo credit: Flickr user ComSec

Frelimo, the political party that has ruled Mozambique since the country became independent in 1975, scored a victory of unprecedented magnitude in the country’s October 28 presidential election. Frelimo has won every national election since the 1992 peace agreement, this time garnering 75 percent of the vote, in contrast to its main rival, Renamo, which took a mere 16.5 percent. While the victory was unambiguous, it enlarges already instilled fears about growing single party rule in Mozambique. 

With this result, Armando Guebuza, the incumbent president and one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, surpassed his 2004 triumph over Renamo leader Afonso Dhaklama, when Guebuza gained 63.7 percent of the vote to Dhaklama’s 31.7 percent. According to the New York Times, Frelimo officials anticipated a dramatic victory, with the party spokesman claiming that the Frelimo was “really just competing with ourselves; our aim is to win by a margin greater than in the past.” The opposition party is challenging the election’s legitimacy. Warning of an impending “people’s revolt,” Dhaklama held a session on Thursday to discuss the party’s future and argued that the meeting must decide “whether Renamo will manage to survive as a political force in [Mozambique]; whether democracy will survive, or has ended with the October elections; or whether Renamo, as the force which brought about this democracy will have to launch a demonstration in protest against all that happened on 28 October.”

The history of rivalry between these competing political parties is decades long and marked by brutal violence. From 1975 to 1992, Frelimo and Renamo were the primary two warring armies in one of Africa’s most bloody civil wars (the country’s main north-south road is still adorned with ruined schools and burnt-out health clinics) and they became parties only after 1992. Today, however, what really raises eyebrows in not the competition between the two factions, but the lack thereof. With each additional Frelimo victory, Renamo sinks further; with no viable threat from a third party, only Frelimo is left to fill the vacuum. 

This year’s elections were marred long before Mozambicans went to the polls. In September, the country’s Frelimo-dominated National Election Commission (NEC) announced that because of inadequate paperwork, the newly formed Mozambique Democratic Movement could not compete in most of the country’s voting constituencies. Its creator, Daviz Simango, the mayor of Beira (and the only non-Frelimo mayor in Mozambique), was able to compete as one of three presidential candidates, but the NEC’s decision left MDM only able to win, at most, around a dozen of the 250 seats in parliament. 

While international observers reported no electoral irregularities that would have a significant effect on the results, some flaws were reported. The EU Election Observation Mission noted that officers refused to accept complaints from monitors of the political parties. Renamo is rejecting the results of the elections, accusing Frelimo of stuffing ballots and other acts of electoral fraud. The electoral commission acknowledged that workers at polling stations intentionally marked ballots with ink to invalidate them. And the Mozambican Public Integrity Center and the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa revealed in their analysis that the commission also excluded more than 100,000 ballots. That said, considering the 58.5 percent margin, the irregularities were not nearly enough to change the outcome of the election. Similar observations were made in the country’s 2004 contest, with observers noting ballot-box stuffing, politicization of the NEC, and lack of transparency. Though highly critical of the country’s electoral conduct, the Mozambique Constitutional Council still accepted the election results.

Mozambique is not the only Countries at the Crossroads state in Africa where the prospect of single party rule seems to be looming ever closer. As discussed in an earlier post on this blog, the African National Congress’s overwhelming control of South Africa’s executive and legislative branches lends itself to the cultivation of corruption, as accountability mechanisms are rendered ineffective. Growing single party rule also affects Tanzania, where state officials favor the ruling party. While all political parties must gain permission from the police to hold rallies, for example, the ruling CCM party appears to hold rallies where and when it pleases, even as opposition parties have trouble securing permission. Moreover, Angola, perhaps the country with a history most similar to that of Mozambique, is a premier exemplar of the perils of single party dominance.

Growing single party rule is not just a threat to democracy on its own terms; rather, it has far reaching consequences for other governance spheres, often exacerbating both grand and petty corruption, unfair campaign finance practices, and inequitable rules on freedom of assembly. Although Frelimo’s victory at the polls is unlikely to be seriously challenged or reversed, the election flaws are not without consequence. Mozambique is the world’s ninth poorest country, with a per capita income of US$770 in 2008, and is highly dependent on foreign aid. The country has drawn in investment and donations as a result of its market-oriented policies and rich mineral resources, and has been seen as a “darling of foreign donors.” But those very donors have expressed disappointment in Frelimo’s electoral behavior.

With Parliament almost entirely under the control of Frelimo, and an entrenched culture of political influence in the judiciary, Guebuza’s actions are likely to be left unchecked by the country’s other political institutions. In the absence of such checks and without any viable challenge at the ballot box, democracy and the foreign aid upon which Mozambique is highly dependent are at risk.

Corruption-Fighters in Indonesia Feel Pushback

Photo credit: Flickr user London Summit

Indonesian President began his second five-year term on Tuesday, following a resounding electoral victory in July. His success at the polls has been attributed in part to his tough stance on corruption—not an easy challenge to confront in a country rife with graft. However, in recent weeks efforts to provide greater transparency, which are considered indispensable to provide more tools to corruption-fighters, have faced significant resistance from the country’s parliament.

At the end of September, Indonesia’s parliament diluted the powers of the country’s special Corrupt Crimes Court and the independent Corruption Eradication Commission (known as the KPK), arguing that their powers were too far-reaching. The KPK can conduct wiretaps without a warrant, while the Court is known to hand down harsher sentences than Indonesia’s regular judiciary. But advocates of the institutions claimed that the impact of the highly-effective Court and KPK will decline if constraints are imposed and that any backtracking will raise red flags among investors.

In the end, much to the dismay and resistance of President Yudhoyono, parliament managed to weaken both institutions. Although intervention by the president prevented the dissolution of the KPK’s right to prosecute and tap telephones, the bill passed by parliament allows for the Court to staff a majority of its judges from the regular justice system. Previously, a majority of the judges had to come from outside of the government—including practicing lawyers, academics, and retired prosecutors, among others. As career judges do not tend to have impeccable reputations in corruption cases in Indonesia, such a requirement was seen to allow the court more independence.

The weakening of the KPK and the Corrupt Crimes Court was not the only blow to Indonesia’s anticorruption efforts last month. On September 15, Indonesian police named two of the four deputy chairmen of the KPK as suspects in a bribery case. The facts of the crime are a bit dubious (according to the Economist, one of the suspects was in Peru when he allegedly took a bribe in Jakarta), but nevertheless the two have been formally accused of abuse of power and taking bribes. To top off the anticorruption campaign’s woes, the well-respected head of the KPK went on trial in early October for allegedly masterminding the drive-by shooting of Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, the state-owned pharmaceuticals company director, in what appears to be a love triangle-turned-deadly.   

Finally, the president’s new cabinet—expected to lack experience to carry out substantial economic overhaul—raises doubts among analysts that necessary institutional reforms to combat corruption will take place in the near future.

Combating graft is always a frustrating endeavor, let alone in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and resistance to such efforts is nothing new.  Corruption is endemic to the expansive web of Indonesian bureaucracy as a result of Suharto’s 32-year-long presidency, a kleptocracy marked by brutality and cronyism. Following his death in 1998, corruption was so entrenched in the Indonesian bureaucratic apparatus that bribes were an expected part of nearly all citizen interactions with the state. Despite efforts to reduce opportunities for corruption, such practices have not been sufficiently abated. Note that petty corruption can be combated much more effectively through technocratic reforms than grand corruption, which inevitably hinges on political will.The KPK was created in 2003 to investigate large-scale corruption, defined as official misconduct that cost the state more than US$85,000. Its success at first was highly mixed and it was criticized for failing to convict prosecutors and police. According to Freedom in the World, a 2008 survey revealed that while the KPK is considered highly credible relative to other Indonesian government institutions, almost three-fourths of those polled thought the Commission had not created enough of a “culture of shame” to prevent state officials from engaging in corruption.

However, in more recent years, the Commission has been lauded for its progress, albeit modest, in rooting out corruption and improving Indonesia’s image. According to the New York Times, since 2003 the commission has achieved a 100 percent conviction rate in 86 cases of bribery and graft brought to trial. In 2008, specifically, a string of high-level prosecutions helped solidify the legitimacy of the Commission and fostered an increased fear of prosecution within Indonesia’s political institutions. That October, the former governor of the Bank of Indonesia was slapped with a five-year sentence for embezzling US$10.3 million in central bank funds. Though critics claimed that such a sentence was not harsh enough to serve as an effective deterrent, generally speaking it was seen as a step in the right direction.

Efforts to combat corruption have been made on a more macro level as well. Direct elections at the local level, held since 2005, have helped to reduce patronage. A number of local initiatives, for example, have reduced the likelihood of bribery by simplifying the process of obtaining business permits and making secondary school applications an online process. Such efforts bumped up Indonesia’s rating in Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index; in 2007, Indonesia was ranked 143rd of 180 countries (with 180 being Somalia, the most corrupt), while in 2008, it moved up to 126th place.

That said, 126th place is still not an enviable place to be. Corruption is still rampant in all branches of government on both the local and national level and impunity is pervasive. Moreover, with the recent pushback by Parliament, it appears that the reform project is at risk of backsliding.

Few countries have managed to successfully wage the battle against corruption without setbacks. However, given the fight’s centrality to the future of Indonesia’s institutions and the country’s ability to sustain economic growth, President Yudhoyono should certainly consider spending some of his hard-earned political capital to ensure that Indonesia’s reputation as a country on the right trajectory remains intact.           

Seemingly Smooth Sailing for Morales in Bolivian Elections

Photo Credit: Flickr user vocesbolivianas

The official campaign season began this week in Bolivia, where, barring unforeseen developments – which aren’t out of the question given the country’s tumultuous recent history – President Evo Morales, who was first elected president in 2005, will be reelected to an unprecedented second term on December 6. The reelection bid became possible following a January 2009 referendum in which Bolivians approved a new constitution that granted Morales the right to seek a second term in office. All polls show the president, the leftist Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) candidate, with a commanding lead over his fellow contenders. A September 2009 Ipsos Apoyo poll shows Morales receiving 54 percent of the vote, with Manfred Reyes Villa, the former governor of Cochabamba and the Progress Plan Bolivia party candidate, coming in a distant second, with 20 percent. Another recent poll conducted by Equipos Mori shows Morales receiving between 47 and 59 percent of the vote and Reyes Villa garnering between 16 and 19 percent. Other notable opposition candidates include businessman Samuel Doria Medina of the National Unity party and indigenous Potosi Mayor Rene Joaquino of the Social Alliance, but both are far behind.  Former president Jorge Quiroga and former vice-president Victor Hugo Cardenas once numbered amongst the contenders, but both dropped out of the race due to their poor chances of victory and stated desire to diminish opposition fragmentation. Morales can avoid a run-off either by garnering 50 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a 10 percent lead over the nearest contender. With Morales’ support among the population increasing, victory appears all but assured.

Considering the turmoil that rocked Bolivia last year, the country’s relatively tranquil pre-campaign election season has been a relief. Throughout 2008, Bolivia’s centuries-old socioeconomic tensions, which to a large extent pose the European-descended and mestizo lowlands dwellers against Bolivia’s highlands-based indigenous majority, erupted into violent confrontation. Throughout August and September, the country was rocked by anti-government protests in the eastern provinces, where demands for greater autonomy spiked following Morales’ plans to redistribute lands and hydrocarbons wealth away from the lowlands. Anti-Morales demonstrators occupied government buildings and even caused an explosion of a natural gas pipeline. The unrest culminated in the “Pando massacre,” a clash between pro-Morales supporters and Pando officials that left at least 13 campesinos dead.  With the approval of the constitution, however, the opposition seemed traumatized and disarticulated, and has struggled to come up with a positive message.

Although the opposition’s strategy, tactics, and vision have often ranged from questionable to condemnable, the Morales administration is not above criticism. Morales’ first term was marred by several unsettling governance practices. As the 2009 Freedom in the World report notes, media freedom has declined as violent attacks against journalists – abetted to some degree by aggressive government rhetoric – have increased, corruption has remained pervasive, and judicial independence and efficiency have been treated as relics as a past era. Furthermore, Morales’ response to opposition criticism has often seemed thin-skinned in the face of criticism.  As a previous blog post notes, Morales has consistently confronted and harassed the opposition instead of adopting a more magnanimous approach. Such tactics as ordering the social bases of the MAS to surround the Congress in order to forcefully bring about favorable decisions have at times in the last two years seemed to cost Morales some of the middle-class support he garnered in 2005.

The opposition has certainly attempted to parlay these and other issues into an anti-MAS message. However, it has been far less successful in presenting a positive reform agenda that demonstrates that it has learned any lessons over the last three years, a deficit that has been costly. Attempts to capitalize on anti-government sentiments have generally backfired, most notably in the August 2008 recall referendum, in which 67 percent of voters affirmed their support for the president even as Cochabamba voters threw Reyes Villa out of office.  As the New York Times notes, despite the strong anti-Morales sentiment in the East, Morales has maintained power and support among the population and within government institutions that matter the most. As the Democracy Center explains, Morales’ success, along with his likely reelection, can largely be explained by the fact that he can still count on overwhelming support amongst the indigenous majority, who continue to consider Morales the embodiment of their movement. Most notably, among the urban Aymara residents of El Alto (Bolivia’s third-largest city), Morales’ approval rating is over 90 percent, and the president can count on an over 80 percent approval rating in La Paz and the altiplano.

In turn, the failure of the opposition to challenge the president is mainly the result of its own internal lack of cohesion and strategy.  After the 2005 election entirely upended Bolivia’s traditional political scene, the opposition was left the task of picking up the pieces and reformulating themselves.  As opposed to the past, the opposition movement is now centered on regional governors rather than the Congress, and more importantly, remains divided. These governors have worked to fuel anti-government protests within their provinces, but have been unable to come together to build a strong national political force with the ability to challenge Morales on Election Day.  As academic Miguel Centellas argues, “The opposition is currently fractionalized. The strategy of a united front is there, but egos  (who gets top billing on the ticket?) get in the way. Evo’s dominance is, in large part, a product of a complete realignment of Bolivia’s political axis.” For his part, presidential candidate Rene Joaquino has called the opposition movement a “bag of cats in which all candidates scratch each other to win presidential candidacy, without there being any ideological consensus.” While Reyes Villa, the current opposition frontrunner who has the greatest likelihood of bringing about opposition unity in the long run if not today, can count on the backing of the Cochabamba political machine, he is not supported countrywide, and is seen by many as all too representative of a pre-Evo mentality. His controversial choice of Pando ex- prefect Leopoldo Fernandez (who is currently in jail awaiting charges related to his involvement in the Pando massacre) as his running mate may serve him quite well, as it could secure the support of both the strategically important Pando and the virulently anti-Morales eastern elites who consider Fernandez to be a political prisoner.  While this will probably not be enough to win the election, Reyes Villa may win the ability to galvanize and a national opposition in the post-election period.

Despite the seeming lack of suspense in the presidential race, Bolivia’s medium-term political outlook remains murky. Whether Reyes Villa successfully holds together the opposition in the post-election period or not, the question of how to articulate a platform other than “no MAS” will likely continue to hamstring the opposition. Latin America’s new wave of populist leaders has a way of creating this situation: opposition movements in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia have all struggled to paper over significant ideological differences through the unifying theme of anti-incumbency. The MAS, for its part, has no natural successor to Morales, who has pledged not to run again in 2014. Moreover, many basic questions about institutions and social structures in the new Bolivia remain unanswered. So while 2009 has been blessedly calm compared to 2008, storms are likely not far from roiling Bolivia’s turbid waters.

Uganda Riots: Aberration or Prologue?

Photo Credit: Flickr user daveblume

On September 10-12th, riots broke out throughout Uganda’s capital city of Kampala between supporters of the King of Buganda (the largest tribal monarchy in Uganda) and police, killing at least 20 and injuring 50. Aside from the long-running, well-chronicled conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda, domestic politics have been comparatively peaceful in the twenty-three years of rule by President Yoweri Museveni. Consequently, the death of 20 protesters represents a potentially ominous deviation from recent norms.

Uganda is a multi-ethnic society comprising five ancient kingdoms: Bunyoro, Busoga, Tooro, Ankole, and Buganda. The kingdoms were banned in 1969 under Idi Amin and then restored by Museveni in 1993. The Baganda, residing largely within the Kingdom of Buganda, are the largest ethnic minority within the country at 16.9% of the population. The group is led by a king who, under the present Ugandan constitution, is designated as a cultural leader and prohibited from engaging in state politics. Despite this ban, the current king, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, is a strong political force within the country, especially where the protection of his kingdom and his perks are concerned.

The September riots can be seen as the escalation of the ongoing conflict between Museveni and Buganda over land and sovereignty. The king had planned to attend a youth ceremony on September 12th in Kayunga, a district that has been at the center of Museveni and Mutebi’s quarrels. According to the Baganda, Kayunga is a historical part of their Kingdom; however, the Banyala, an ethnic group within Kayunga, have long sought independence and in the last five years have received strong backing from Museveni. In December 2004, Museveni was invited to the installation of the new Banyala cultural leader. He told the assembled crowd, “I am your President and nobody can oppress you,” referring to Banyala complaints of cultural imposition by Buganda. Museveni has also advocated the creation of smaller chiefdoms within Buganda, which, the king argues, effectively undermines the kingdom’s sovereignty. Museveni has further aggravated Buganda with his aggressively pushed for a controversial land reform law containing amendments which, according to the king, will take decrease the kingdom’s landholdings and revenue.

This underlying tension played a major role in sparking the riots. On September 10th, two days before the king’s scheduled visit, military and police intercepted Bugandan Prime Minister John Baptist Walusimbi, The atmosphere was already politically charged and moreover, the incident was reminiscent of a similar one in July 2008, when three Bugandan officials were arrested and held without charges for five days, in direct violation to their constitutional right to be charged within 48 hours of arrest. Consequently, many Baganda flocked into the street to protest what they perceived as yet another infraction against Buganda by Museveni. As the protest escalated into rioting and looting, police responded with tear gas and rounds of live ammunition. During the rioting, Museveni told members of parliament from Buganda that he had intelligence indicating that Buganda had received funds from Libya to fight against him. Since the riots, the government is increasingly arguing that they were strategically planned, perhaps by outside forces, and that the rioters themselves may have received payment. The government has brought charges of terrorism against at least 29 of the rioters. If convicted they could face the death penalty.

Uganda is set to hold multiparty elections in 2011 for which the opposition parties have already mounted a strong national campaign. Museveni appears intent on running yet again, and appears to be positioning himself for the contest, with marginalization and fragmentation of the opposition a potential part of the strategy. It is a delicate balance for the president: In the 2006 elections, a quarter of Museveni’s votes came from the Baganda. Yet as the post-riots anger demonstrates, Buganda appears poised to shift toward the opposition in 2011, which could hurt the incumbent absent a new source of votes.

Uganda is not a dictatorship, and Museveni faces scrutiny and challenges from the media, judiciary, and legislature. However, only in 2006 did Museveni lift the ban on multiparty politics, and the resulting parties are still in their infancy, which contrasts sharply to the president’s deeply-rooted NRM grouping. Prior to the ban, Ugandan parties were based on religious affiliation and there is a fear that party politics may now be similarly turning to tribal affiliations. Already within the Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC) there is tension between the Acholi and Langi over the upcoming election of new leadership in October. Similarly, in August 2008, the other major opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change, experienced strife surrounding the election of a new secretary. The party leadership split on how to handle regional differences when executive officers rejected the newly elected secretary general because he hailed from Buganda, which would have meant that all key party positions would be occupied by Baganda. 

These rifts could have a destabilizing effect on the fragile opposition alliance known as Interparty Cooperation (IPC), which plans to run in the 2011 election. Moreover, the IPC faces the challenge of recruiting Buganda into their united platform which will prove difficult given the historical bad blood between the UPC and the king. The UPC and the king governed post-colonial Uganda together from 1962 to 1966. In 1966, however, Milton Obote, leader of the UPC, turned on the king and ordered a military attack on his palace, which began the exile of the Bugandan Kingdom. It will take a considerable amount of diplomacy to rectify this divide.

Much hangs in the balance as to whether the opposition can effectively mount a united campaign against Museveni. One of his potential strategies to assure their failure is the creation of a sharply divided ethnic terrain in which party compromise is difficult. By shifting the political space along ethnic lines he may be able to break the coalition of political parties and their ability to tap into the political power of Buganda. The incentive for Museveni to broaden his ethno-geographic base is clear, but the method he chooses is important. As his neighbors in Kenya can attest, ethnic politics is a dangerous game. For that reason, the government’s reaction to the recent unrest will be closely watched both within the country and abroad.

Heavy Hitters Face Hardcore Challenges in Haiti

 Photo Credit: Flickr users World Economic Forum and M-J Milloy

On August 11, Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy for Haiti, named Dr. Paul Farmer as his deputy. These posts were recently created by the UN in an effort to more effectively promote economic development in the turmoil-racked country. In recent years, both Clinton and Farmer have demonstrated their dedication to aiding Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. As president, Clinton sent the U.S. military into Haiti in 1994 in order to return democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to his post, subsequently turning the operation over to a UN force. While this effort was not successful in the long-run, Clinton remained committed to assisting the nation through other means, in large part through his foundation’s work to combat HIV/AIDS and support recovery efforts after 2008’s destructive hurricanes. Paul Farmer, the co-founder of Partners in Health, an international nonprofit that provides health care services to the Haitian poor and carries out research and advocacy work, has received international acclaim for the work he has done to provide free medical treatment and promote social justice in Haiti throughout the past 3 decades.

With these two heavyweights now serving at the forefront of Haiti’s international advisory team, it is possible that the country might have a greater chance at combating its monumental economic, political, and environmental troubles. Both Clinton and Farmer bring impressive skills and a strong sense of optimism to the table. In fact, Clinton has stated, “I think Haiti, notwithstanding the total destruction of four storms last year, has the best chance to escape its dark history in the 35 years I've been going there …What I want to do is help the Haitian people take control of their own destiny." Nevertheless, Clinton and Farmer have their work cut out for them. The most dire and pressing issue facing Haiti is the nation’s soaring poverty level, which is complicated by a severe food shortage and deteriorating health conditions, along with the destruction left in the wake of last year’s storms. Over 80% of Haitians live in poverty, with the unemployment rate hovering around a shocking 90%. As the island is highly dependent on imports, the 2008 global food crisis hit it especially hard and sparked intense protests. The health of Haiti’s poor is deplorable; the country’s child mortality rates are sky-high, and 6% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS. These problems are exacerbated and complicated by the government’s poor governance record. Haiti suffers from an extreme lack of services, unsurprising given the country’s political instability, ailing rule of law, and rampant corruption. While the country has recently made some governance improvements that will facilitate Clinton’s and Farmer’s efforts to drive development, colossal challenges remain.

In a March 2009 report, the International Crisis Group stressed that a major focal point of the Haitian government must be electoral and institutional reform efforts. Since its independence, Haiti’s political history has been dominated by instability including foreign intervention, military coups, flawed elections, and multiple authoritarian interludes. Most recently, the 2004 re-ouster of President Aristide split Haiti and left it with no functioning political institutions. Nevertheless, the country has made some strides toward institutional rebuilding in the past few years. In 2006, Haiti elected Rene Preval, who has received international acclaim for his attempts to address unemployment and poverty during a previous term, to the presidency in a free and fair contest that was lauded as “a step toward political stability” and subsequently restored an elected parliament. However, yet another political crisis shook Haiti when Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was ousted from his post by a Senate vote in the midst of last April’s deadly food protests; the post remained vacant until September, when Michele Pierre-Louis was approved. Furthermore, congressional elections originally scheduled for December 2007 were postponed until this year, which resulted in Senate inactivity as the body was frequently inquorate. The country’s persistent state of institutional instability has effectively stymied any progress on the development of anti-poverty and healthcare programs, along with the effective use of foreign assistance. In fact, it has led most international donors to filter money through NGOs rather than the government – the lack of accountability within the country’s civil society sector notwithstanding.

The absence of effective rule of law in the country is equally troubling. As an ICG report explains, “The state is able to guarantee neither the security of its citizens nor the rights of defendants.” More specifically, lawlessness and crime have reigned supreme since the collapse of the police force following the events of 2004. Gangs have gained control of large areas and committed kidnappings, murders, and other violent crimes against helpless citizens. Unfortunately, these crimes are largely met with impunity due to the dysfunctional state of the country’s judicial system.  Nevertheless, according to the UN, the security situation has been moderately ameliorated. Crime rates are down following efforts by the Haitian police, with the assistance of UN forces, to dismantle the gangs and reinstate control over gang territories. In addition, the UN forces have succeeded in increasing the number of police from 5,000 in 2005 to 9,000 today. Nevertheless, as another ICG report argues, much remains to be done in order to consolidate effective security sector reform.  The report claims that the police force requires further professionalization and that the vetting and training process must become more transparent in order to address concerns regarding personnel guilty of human rights violations and corruption. Human Rights Watch corroborated this, arguing that kidnappings and other crimes persist at an alarming rate while both police lawlessness and a lack of justice continue unchecked. As such, the internal security crisis continues to undermine domestic and international efforts to implement anti-poverty and hurricane recovery efforts and attract foreign direct investment.

Finally, endemic corruption continues to be an especially pernicious problem. In its 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International ranked Haiti 177 out of 180 countries, with only Iraq, Myanmar, and Somalia in worse condition. Preval has made some efforts to eradicate corruption by requiring the disclosure of top government officials’ assets and purging corrupt police officers from the force, but the entrenched, pervasive nature of the problem will require a more systematic approach.

There is no denying the fact that Haiti and its new UN envoys have a long road ahead of them. The country continues to face substantial challenges in all realms of governance and as a result, sustainable progress on economic development issues will be slow. That said, Haiti’s institutions have been rebuilt since the post-2004 nadir and political stability and internal security have improved mildly. In addition, as the new UN appointments, recent U.S. trade legislation offering Haiti duty-free, quota-free access to U.S. markets, and international pledges of additional aid demonstrate, the international community, especially the United States, may have finally become more committed to encouraging development in the country. While UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s statement that “Haiti stands a better chance than almost any emerging economy…to prosper” may be somewhat hyperbolic, that he said it all symbolizes an important change in expectations for the country.

Updates Post: Jordan, Tunisia, Mauritania, Honduras, Venezuela

Photo Credit: Flickr user a d a m

On July 15, Jordan’s Upper House of Parliament passed several amendments to the controversial civil society law signed by King Abdullah II in December 2008. While civil society groups had hoped that Jordan would take advantage of this opportunity to address the widespread international and national criticism of the restrictive 2008 laws and adopt some of the revisions recommended by civil society groups, this did not come to pass. The approved amendments fail to revoke the 2008 law’s provisions that grant the executive branch extensive control over the registration and activities of the country’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  NGO registration will continue to depend on an opaque approval process rather than an administrative notification procedure. In addition, executive authorities will retain their ability to monitor NGO activities by directly appointing NGO delegates to General Assembly meetings, controlling some personnel appointments, and reviewing annual activity plans. Furthermore, the new version of the law strictly regulates financing by prohibiting NGOs from receiving foreign funds without approval by the Council of Ministers. Finally, as was the case in the 2008 law, NGOs will be prohibited from pursuing political objectives and carrying out activities that threaten social order.  In response to the House’s decision, civil society groups lamented Jordan’s failure to eliminate excessive government interference in the NGO sector, which is considered by some to be one of the country’s major obstacles to democratic reform. Last July, we blogged on freedom of association in Jordan following the initial introduction of the two draft NGO laws to the Jordanian parliament.  Both the passage of the law last year and the recent failure of the government to ease its clampdown on the sector are unfortunate, considering the country’s continued rhetorical commitment to deepening liberalization.

Tunisia has also witnessed discouraging recent developments. Specifically, the run-up to the October presidential and parliamentary elections has been fraught with violence. In the past few months, opposition members, journalists, and human rights defenders alike have been the victims of physical attacks. Criticism of the government of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who is seeking a fifth term in office, has been met with increased repression by state security officials. Furthermore, the campaign activities of the opposition have been severely restricted. Opposition papers including Al Mawkif, Mouatinoun, and Attarik El Jedid have been repeatedly harassed, which has caused their distribution to be disrupted. This aggressive assault against the opposition is being carried out despite the fact that President Ben Ali‘s victory in the election, along with the dominance of the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally Party (RCD) in the parliamentary elections, is basically predetermined. As the 2007 Countries at the Crossroads report notes, there is no real opportunity for rotation of power in the country. This is largely the result of the country’s winner-take-all system, which provides the RCD with strong advantages given the country’s past experience of single-party rule. Last November, we blogged on Tunisia’s poor prospects for reform, especially in the realm of electoral politics, calling attention to the gap between the government’s rhetoric, which supports democracy and human rights, and the reality of Tunisia’s political and social situation, which is characterized by oppressive laws and practices that restrict free expression and generally thwart democratic advancement. Although Ben Ali has continued to employ democratic rhetoric by making promises that the run-up to the election will be open and competitive and followed his words with deeds by working with the National Observatory of Presidential and Legislative Elections to ensure that “neutrality, transparency, and independence” is observed, the credibility of the process remains tenuous at best when observed alongside its offensive against the opposition.

In the nearby nation of Mauritania, the latest developments are more complicated. On July 18, General Muhammad Ould Abdel Aziz, head of the junta that gained power in Mauritania following a military coup in August 2008, won the country’s presidential election. General Abdel Aziz defeated his main opponent, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the former speaker of the parliament who had vehemently opposed the coup, with 53% of the vote. While the holding of elections would normally be considered a positive development, especially in light of Mauritania’s recent history of military rule and political uncertainty, the circumstances surrounding these elections cast doubt upon the degree of democratic advancement they represent. The fact that General Abdel Aziz, who ousted the country’s first-ever democratically elected president from power last year after already being involved in two prior coups, included his name on the election ballot, raised eyebrows. In addition, several of Abdel Aziz’s opponents have called the election a charade. They have specifically claimed that there were too few observers, although international actors such as the African Union, along with several diplomats, have disagreed.  Following last year’s coup, we blogged on the country’s major democratic setback, along with its history of coups and excessive military involvement in the country’s political affairs. At that time, we noted that the Mauritanian military had yet again shown its unwillingness to relinquish its dominant role in the country’s politics, reflecting a longstanding tradition of weak civilian control over the military. General Abdel Aziz’s refusal to bar junta members from competing in the recent elections, and his successful attempt to fill the presidential shoes himself, are yet another example. Also troubling is Abdel Aziz’s governance record over the past year. As the 2009 Freedom in the World report on Mauritania notes, the Abdel Aziz-led junta imposed restrictions on press freedom along with other basic civil rights. Thus, if past record is a good indication of his future performance Mauritania’s prospects for democratic progress will remain questionable.

Finally, in several Latin American countries, press freedom has taken a major hit. The press environment in Honduras and Venezuela has become especially restrictive. In Honduras, television and radio stations were completely shut down immediately following the June 28 military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. Since this time, a selective news blackout has been continuously imposed, with media regarded as critical of de-facto President Roberto Micheletti’s government being obstructed and censored. Reporters without Borders has reported that the broadcasts of eight radio and TV stations have been periodically interrupted during the past month, oftentimes following coverage of pro-Zelaya material. On the contrary, media outlets supportive of the de-facto government have escaped persecution. Furthermore, local broadcasting of international TV stations including Telesur and CNN has been stopped. In early April, we blogged on Honduran media freedom as part of a post on Central-American government-media relations. At the time, we noted that the Honduran media tended to be quite critical of President Zelaya, which was unusual considering the fact that the country’s political and media elite were historically one and the same. This reflected a more ominous situation than most observers realized at the time. The powerful anti-Zelaya media sector has undoubtedly facilitated the coup-leaders’ agenda, especially in the beginning, when several outlets immediately echoed their statements that a coup had not occurred. In the current political environment, these outlets have come to largely dominate the Honduran media landscape, while the few pro-Zelaya outlets have been forced into silence. This is yet another reason that the government installed by the coup, which has been widely denounced by international bodies including the UN and the OAS, deserves not a sliver of legitimacy when compared to the democratically elected Zelaya government.

In June, we blogged on President Hugo Chavez’s assault on the media, and especially his battle with the rabidly anti-government channel Globovision.  Throughout July, the Venezuelan government continued its campaign against opposition media by shutting down 34 radio stations due to alleged violations, while also opening an additional procedure against Globovision, this time for airing an advertising campaign that used the image of an unclothed, pregnant woman in the name of defending private property. In addition, on August 3, 30 pro-government militants reinforced the offensive against Globovision by storming the organization’s headquarters. This act was apparently a bridge too far: the leader of the militants, well-known activist Lina Ron, was arrested and charged with a number of crimes. However condemnable Ms. Ron’s acts, it bears noting that she has a good reason to feel cognitive dissonance: the fever pitch of anti-Globovision rhetoric expressed by President Chavez and his top allies undoubtedly encouraged supporters like herself, who consider themselves the vanguard of the Bolivarian movement, to carry out such actions. This all comes in the context of the ill-fated draft “media crimes bill” that would have imposed jail sentences for a variety of ambiguous “media offenses.” Much like 2008’s notorious intelligence bill, however, the swift and fierce international outcry by everyone from the UN press rapporteur to pro-Chavez websites caused legislators to bury the legislation. Nonetheless, relations between Chavez and against critical media show no signs of achieving equilibrium anytime soon, and many outlets continue to wait for the next step in what seems to be a permanent offensive. 

Evolution of Lebanon's Hizbullah Remains Uncertain

Photo Credit: Flickr user hazy jenius

As the results of the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections came in, outsiders were surprised to find that Hizbullah, the Shiite Islamist group, and its allies – the favourites to win – had been beaten and had seemingly accepted their continued fate in opposition. Regardless of the results, the relatively smooth voting process was a victory for Lebanese democracy and human rights; however, the internal situation in Lebanon remains precarious and a continued parliamentary majority for the Western-oriented, Sunni-led March 14th alliance will not likely challenge Hizbullah’s continuing reign over large portions of Lebanese territory.

For the last half a century Lebanon has been the Middle East’s battleground, where various factions from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to the Syrian and Israeli intelligence services have fought proxy wars in order to weaken real and perceived threats from their foes. Even before the civil war began in 1975, there had been severe clashes between Lebanon’s three dominant ethno-religious groups, Maronite Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Sunni Muslims, which resulted in the creations of militias outside of the state military for the protection of each sect as well as the subjugation of their opponents – a zero-sum game that has continued to some degree ever since. The PLO took up residence in Lebanon after being expelled from Jordan in 1970, upsetting the delicate Christian-Shiite-Sunni balance, and began attacking Israel, prompting a number of military retributions and an occupation that ended only in 2000. Hizbullah’s history runs in parallel with Lebanon’s violent past. Founded in 1982 as a group for the protection of the Shiite community in southern Lebanon that had been abandoned by the state to face Israeli retribution alone, Hizbullah quickly emerged as a formidable anti-Israeli force, an efficient provider of services for Shiites living in the south and east of the country, and an effective defender of Shiite interests within Lebanon.

Understanding the rise of Hizbullah requires navigating the complex history of Shiism in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular. Shiites, which comprise 10% of the Muslim population worldwide, have historically been discriminated against by the Sunni majority in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Bahrain. Though Shiites were given political space in post-independence Lebanon, Shiite political leaders tended to be unrepresentative political bosses who ran large patronage networks and oversaw the increased impoverishment of their respective population.   

With the increasing politicisation of Palestinians in the south of Lebanon (where most Shiites live) in the late 1960s, the reassertion of Shiism in Iran after 1979, and the rise of Islamism after the hopes of pan-Arabism faded with the death of Nasser,  Shiite politics in Lebanon underwent massive changes. The rise of the Amal movement witnessed the assertion of popular Shiite political power into Lebanese politics for the first time. Yet as the Iranian revolution gained strength and extended its reach, Amal’s secular oriented leadership was challenged by its religious offshoot which would eventually come to be known as Hizbullah (or, “the Party of God”).  Though Hizbullah’s stated goal was the expulsion of Israel from Lebanese territory, it quickly became a provider of social services to Shiites who would witness the organization’s commitment to their security firsthand during the civil war.

Hizbullah’s defining moment - and ironically, the first stage of its forced transformation – came in 1992 , when, after 15 years of civil war, parliamentary elections were held in Lebanon. An internal debate within the organization as to whether or not stand for elections ensued. Several of the organization’s ruling clerics were opposed to running for elections on the basis of it being “un-Islamic,” yet important leaders such as the current Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, opted for running. Hizbullah representatives trounced their Shiite counterparts in the south and the Bekaa valley to the east in a deeply flawed election that was largely stage managed by Syria. Beyond their immediate relevance, the 1992 elections effectively brought Hizbullah into the Lebanese political fold, splitting the organization into two parts and ensuring broader Shiite representation in the Serail. Indeed, Hizbullah’s decision was also a signal that it would, at least for the time being, abandon attempts to forcefully impose an Islamic government on the country.

Hizbullah’s second transformative moment came in 2000 when, after a nearly two decades long war of attrition, Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon. However, with Israel’s departure from Lebanon, Hizbullah lost its original raison d’être. Although the group disputed the withdrawal as complete, arguing over a piece of land called the Shebaa Farms, some soul-searching began within the organisation and in Lebanese society as a whole. Although Hizbullah’s overall existence was never brought into question given that it operates on a number of non-military levels, issues concerning its maintenance of a significant arsenal in peacetime were raised, and proved to be a serious source of contention in Hizbullah’s relationship with the state and with the international community Indeed, after a spate of political assassinations of Syrian opponents in Lebanon, possibly carried out with implicit or explicit help from Hizbullah, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1559, whose third operating paragraph calls for the disbanding of all militias operating in Lebanon. Given Hizbullah’s quasi-monopoly on force in Lebanon, the resolution was never carried out.

The tense relationship between the state and Hizbullah was exacerbated with the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. Hitherto Hizbullah had been politically protected by its Syrian patrons, who had occupied Lebanon at the international community and Lebanese state’s behest in 1976. Over the next two decades, Hizbullah had little concern for domestic politics as Damascus ensured that the Lebanese state and military were weak. Furthermore, it was largely due to Syrian influence that Hizbullah was not required to disarm along with the other sectarian militias in 1989 under the Taif Agreement, allowing it to become the strongest military actor in Lebanon. With Sunni leader Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005 and the mass anti-Syrian protests known as the Cedar Revolution that paralysed the country and prompted the Syrian departure, Hizbullah was forced to  openly declare its support for Syria  and lead an opposition movement (March 8^th) against the pro-Western ruling alliance (March 14^th).

The fissure has had serious consequences for Lebanese politics and society. First, it has divided Lebanese society into two camps creating unlikely divisions and even more unlikely allies. Second, it has exacerbated religious tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, who are clearly divided into their respective alliances, with the Christian population spanning both. Third, it has worked to pit Iran against the Sunni Muslim world, particularly Saudi Arabia, as well as the United States and France in a bid to define the future of the Lebanese state.

This split has also had unintended consequences for Hizbullah. In the past it had avoided involvement in the sectarian bloodletting, but as various groups sought to fill the security vacuum caused by Syria’s departure and Hizbullah looked to assert the demographic weight of the Shiite population, it began using its militia domestically. The situation exploded in May 2008, when the March 14 government attempted to fire the Hizbullah aligned head of security at Beirut’s international airport. Furthermore, the government sought to investigate Hizbullah’s private telecom network that it had created to wage war against Israel. After repeated assurances that it would never turns its arms on Lebanese citizens, Hezbollah and its allies took to the streets conquering large swathes of Beirut and Mount Lebanon while the Lebanese army looked on helplessly, fearing internal divisions would plunge the country into a larger crisis. The government was quick to back down in the face of a coup, but the political damage had already been done. In the end, the Doha Agreement ended the fighting and gave Hizbullah and its allies a veto in the cabinet, a position Hizbullah had long sought.

Though Hezbollah’s acceptance of its electoral defeat in June was comfort to some observers, it represented a temporary maintenance of the status quo. Yet the Lebanese political arena under the current dual alliance system continues to evolve.  With the return of General Michel Aoun, the Maronite Christians are abdicating their traditional support of the state for vague promises from Hizbullah. General Aoun, like a good many Christians who came to prominence as a military leader, seeks to be president – the constitution requires the office holder to be thus. However, unlike his predecessors, Aoun has allied with Hizbullah, formally signing a memorandum of understanding in February 2006, whereas previously the Christians had always supported the sovereign state. With this move he risks trading long-term influence for short-term safety. Likewise, the fourth main ethno-religious group in Lebanon, the Druze, have attempted to hedge their bets by improving relations with Shiites, although it is unlikely that this fiercely independent faction will formally align itself to one side anytime soon.

Though Hezbollah has certainly proven that it is willing to respect Lebanese democracy in some ways, it is clear that the central government’s lack of a monopoly on force is a constant threat to Lebanese democracy and stability. This should certainly be a cause for concern for governance-watchers. Some observers take concern even further. For instance, Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a fellow at Chatham House, declares that “the (Lebanese) state is not the state, the actual state is the state of Hizbullah. That’s the functioning state, it has an army which is efficient, well funded and well trained... it is the de facto power.” Furthermore, Mr. Hussain suggests that the eventual goal of Hizbullah is a state in which which Shiites reign supreme.

Whatever the true intentions, the concept of a ‘resistance movement’ coexisting alongside the Lebanese state is problematic at best.  Given Hezbollah’s overwhelming force and superior arsenal, there is little chance that the militia will be defeated on the battlefield. And although the strategy of trying to bring Hezbollah further and further into the Lebanese political fold appears to be working on the surface, it is a task fraught with danger and will not likely result in the group surrendering its arms.

Though it is still unclear if Hezbollah will be given formal veto power in the next cabinet, it remains that by force of arms, Hezbollah maintains a de facto veto power unknown in liberal democracies – a veto power which it did not hesitate to use in May 2008 and may not hesitate to use in the future.

In the end, Hezbollah will need to have a third transformative moment in which it finally decides whether to be a party for Lebanon or a party that is beholden to its financial and ideological masters Iran and Syria. It will also need to decide if it will remain a party of grievance or a party of broad appeal. Other actors, both within Lebanon and without, will be influential in this decision, but Hizbullah largely has the power to choose its path. Military strength, after all, brings with it the responsibility to make historic decisions.

Nigeria's Stumbling Electoral Reform

Nigeria is the definition of a struggling democracy. While all of the country’s institutions are in need of extensive reform, the state of the country’s electoral process – the sine qua non in a democracy – is particularly deplorable. The necessity of election reform first became a high-priority issue in Nigeria following the country’s 2007 elections. According to the Freedom in the World report on Nigeria, these elections were the worst of the few free contests Nigeria has conducted since the end of military rule. The 2007 presidential, state, and legislative elections were characterized by both widespread violence and irregularities including fraud, vote buying, vote-rigging, and ballot-stuffing. Following the balloting, the winner, Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP, acknowledged in his inaugural address that the elections that brought him to power were deeply flawed. He then pledged to reform the ailing electoral process during his tenure as president.

Nevertheless, recent events have cast light on the persistence of Nigeria’s electoral woes. On April 25, re-run elections in the Ido-Osi local government of Ekiti State were closely followed by local and international observers who hoped to see that progress had been made since 2007. The controversy and intrigue surrounding these elections, however, illustrates that Nigeria’s electoral process is still in dire straits. This week, 31 Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) officials faced interrogation regarding their involvement in the N250 million (US$1.7 million) bribery scandal. These officials, who presided over the re-run election, have been accused of receiving 250 million Nairas from one of Nigeria’s political parties. John Onaji, the presiding officer at the elections, blew the whistle on the scandal after another INEC official involved allegedly failed to share the money. This newest twist in the saga of Nigeria’s electoral mishaps occurred after the INEC had been forced to delay the Ekiti elections due to security concerns over gang-related violence that had probable connections to Nigeria’s political parties. An additional difficulty was created when Ayoka Adebayo, Ekiti’s Residential Electoral Commissioner, resigned due to an unwillingness to participate in a process that went “against her conscience,” but then returned to her seat after conferring with the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). After the election, the INEC delayed its release of the results for several days before declaring the PDP candidate the winner. Nigeria’s Action Congress (AC) party has, however, disputed the results.

While these most recent events provide substantive evidence that little headway has been made, this does not mean that the president has turned a deaf ear to the issue. After his election, Yar’Adua succumbed to popular pressure and convened an Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) under the leadership of Justice Muhammad Uwais. Chief among the recommendations was that the INEC be made actually independent – currently, the president appoints all members of the commission. The ERC urged the government to establish three new bodies: an Electoral Offences Commission, a Constituency Delimitation Commission, and a Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission, to relieve the INEC of some of its duties.

In response, the government has followed some of the ERC’s recommendations. On March 11, the federal government released a white paper stating that it would implement some of the report’s recommendations. It agreed that funding for the INEC should be guaranteed and independent of the executive. In addition, the INEC was given responsibility for state elections, replacing the troubled state election committees. Most importantly, it instituted a secret ballot system. INEC’s Chairman, Maurice Iwu, praised these reforms but, in an eyebrow-raising statement, also stated his support for “the power of the president to appoint the chairman of INEC.” Of course, this is hardly surprising, considering that he was appointed by the party in power. Nonetheless, on April 30, the president submitted 7 bills addressing election reform issues to the National Assembly. In these bills, the president proposed the removal of both the INEC’s control over the party registration process and its supervisory powers over parties. He has also proposed the creation of a Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission (PPRRC) to assume these duties in place of the INEC, along with an Electoral Offences Commission. As of today, the government has accepted 73 out of 83 recommendations made by the ERC.

While the president’s reform efforts seem quite extensive, however, he has unfortunately remained intransigent on one of the most crucial reform issues. On May 12, the president reiterated his strong belief that the power to appoint the chairman of the INEC belongs to the president. He argued that transferring this power to the judicial branch would violate the separation of powers. The president’s continued control over the INEC, however, means that the president will retain his power to unfairly influence elections in favor of his party. The widespread victories achieved by the PDP both during and after the 2007 elections have been attributed, at least in part, to the use of the state machinery to manipulate the electoral process. With the newly proposed electoral reforms reducing the powers and responsibilities of the INEC, this phenomenon may become slightly less problematic in the future. Nevertheless, the bills contain provisions which would protect the president’s control over the new electoral bodies. For example, one of the bills states that the governing board of the new PPRRC is to be appointed and directed by the president. As such, not much stands to change.

Not surprisingly, the government’s tentative steps towards reform have not been widely embraced by Nigerians. Following the president’s initial drafting of an electoral reform bill in March, a coalition of opposition parties cried foul and urged the people to take to the streets and defend their voting rights by force. Alhaji Bashir Tofa, a former candidate, used some of the most inflammatory language, saying: “Civil society and labour must mobilise and organise to resist the insult and affront.” Sam Aluko, a famed economist, has “called on Nigerians to defend their votes with guns.” Since the president sent the new bills to the Legislative Assembly, opposition has been slightly less fierce. However, the events of the Ekiti re-run election reinvigorated the movement. On May 14, civil society groups began to plan a nationwide rally in support of a bill requiring the implementation of all of the reforms recommended by the ERC, rather than just the set approved by Yar’Adua.

Yar’Adua’s recent efforts to reform Nigeria’s electoral process could be a small step in the right direction. In addition, the interrogation of the INEC officials involved in the recent scandal may serve as evidence that the culture of impunity surrounding electoral fraud is being slowly ameliorated. However, these changes will not be enough to expunge Nigeria’s undemocratic political culture and revamp Nigeria’s electoral process. Events such as the botched Ekiti re-run elections have made Nigerians increasingly suspicious and skeptical of their country’s political process in general and the INEC in particular. Nigerians have come to believe that the outcomes of elections are determined by political thugs rather than the will of the people. In order to bring credibility to the most critical element in any democracy, far-reaching reform is necessary. The perception wrought by the 2007 elections means that partial reform will not suffice. Without change from the ground up, civilian apathy (at best) and violent political unrest at worst will continue to cast a shadow over the Nigerial electoral landscape.

Photo Credit: Flickr user usnico