What follows is a round-up of important and/or interesting political news from around the world. I led with the near collapse of U.S. anti-terrorism policy in West Africa because I think it’s the most important “news” of the week. That it does not get more coverage is a mystery. It’s like watching Al Qaeda recreate itself in real time.
1. Terrorism in West Africa:
In the shadow of the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States rushed troops and military aid to a swath of West Africa to help French forces stop the spread of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
More than a decade later, and with hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance spent, that regional counterterrorism effort has largely failed.
Groups that have declared allegiance to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are on the march. Military coups have toppled civilian-led governments in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger. The new leaders have ordered American and French troops out, and in some cases invited Russian mercenaries in to take their place.
As the United States withdraws 1,000 military personnel from Niger and shutters a $110 million air base there by September, American officials are scrambling to work with a new set of countries in coastal West Africa to battle a violent extremist insurgency that they perceive is steadily seeping south.
“Of course, it’s frustrating,” Christopher P. Maier, the Pentagon’s top official for special operations policy, said in an interview. “Our general desire to promote democratic governments and having healthy governance there has not gone particularly well.” (Source: nytimes.com, italics mine)
2. Such was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s confidence in the build-up to this year’s general election that he set an even bigger target for the BJP and its allies this time, pledging to win 400 seats. As the voting was under way, he outlined a 1,000-year vision for India. And in late May he told a television interviewer, “God has sent me for a purpose.” That purpose, it seems, was to provide a cautionary tale about overconfidence. (Source: economist.com)
3. The Distribution of the Vote:
It is not that the BJP’s popularity has fallen across the board. Its overall share of the national vote declined only fractionally, from 37.3% to 36.5% (see chart 1). In the south, in the past a weak spot for the BJP where it was hoping to make headway this time, its vote share did in fact rise markedly. But in its heartland, the Hindi-speaking states of the north, its vote share fell. And whereas its increased support in the south was not enough to win it any extra seats there, its decline in the north cost it dearly (see chart 2). In effect, the BJP’s vote was unchanged, but much less efficiently distributed. In 2019 its 37% share of the vote won it 56% of the seats; this time a similar showing yielded only 44% of seats.
The north accounts for the vast majority of the BJP’s underperformance. The party won 55 fewer seats in the region than in 2019. Its steepest decline was in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s biggest and most politically important state. In 2019 the BJP swept 62 of the state’s 80 seats with 50% of the vote; this time those figures fell to 33 and 41% respectively.
The increase in the BJP’s share of the vote in the south was substantial: it jumped from 18% to 24%. This was the reflection of a determined push to make the BJP a truly national party, with lots of spending and visits from grandees devoted to the region. But under India’s first-past-the-post electoral system, the BJP’s improved standing did not translate into a single extra seat. (Source: economist.com)
4. Mihir Sharma:
I wonder what enforced humility will do to his political appeal, much of which had been based on him being a consistent winner. His party’s losses in this election were not, objectively, overwhelming. But they were shattering, nonetheless, because so many tacitly accepted the prime minister’s oft-repeated message that he was anointed by God as a personification of India and its aspirations. (Source: bloomberg.com)
5. Rana Ayyub:
This election campaign, Modi called Muslim infiltrators and plunderers. All pretenses dropped. He used the word Muslims at least 200 times at 145 election rallies. It was indication that he was losing grip over the voters; the cult of Modi had begun to disintegrate. He fought the election as a divine incarnate of Lord Ram, a leader who was invincible, he went on to claim he believed he was not a biological born.
I disagree with those analysts who believe that Modi’s vote base has somehow turned secular and is no longer impressed with his authoritarian streak. We saw the country revel in saffron during the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January. Let us not forget that Modi was voted to power in 2014 not despite his role in the pogrom of Muslims, but because he showed Muslims their place.
But even the most ardent Modi fan needed food on his plate and employment for his child. This was Modi’s blunder, his hubris blinded him from seeing the resentment on the ground. In fact, such was the rural distress and anger that if the BJP had fielded any other candidate as prime minister, it would have been reduced to double digits. (Source: Rana Ayyub, in “Swamp Notes” via ft.com)
6. Mexico:
President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and Morena’s victory last Sunday was not a surprise, but the scale of their triumph was. Sheinbaum vaulted 31 points clear of her nearest challenger, centre-right entrepreneur Xóchitl Gálvez, and Morena is now poised to push through radical changes to the constitution after greatly increasing its majority in congress.
Exit polls show Sheinbaum won more votes than Gálvez across genders, age groups and in every state but one. But business owners and employers favored Gálvez. In the wealthiest enclaves, support for the opposition coalition, and a loathing for outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is the norm.
After the result, some wealthy Mexicans struggled to understand how so many fellow citizens could vote for a political movement they view as responsible for scaring off investment, attacking pillars of democracy such as the supreme court and allowing organized crime to mushroom. (Source: ft.com)
7. The Cartels:
López Obrador’s five and a half years in power have been the bloodiest in modern Mexican history, with more than 175,000 murdered and another 43,000 missing, according to official figures that independent groups say underplay the true scale of the problem.
Drug traffickers have diversified into lucrative new side businesses such as protection rackets and migrant trafficking and extended their reach across the country. The president’s policy of avoiding head-on confrontation with powerful cocaine and fentanyl traffickers has been sharply criticized by the opposition, who say it amounts to appeasement.
Sheinbaum says she also wants to avoid head-on confrontation with the cartels. But she is planning to cut crime by deploying some of the same policies she says worked in Mexico City while she was mayor: beefed-up detective capabilities, plus social programs to keep young people off the streets.
The president-elect has also signalled she wants to strengthen the National Guard, a military-run federal police force created by López Obrador. But polls show reducing the violence quickly is the public’s top priority, and security experts doubt whether Sheinbaum’s proposals will make a big difference. (Source: ft.com)
8. Following AMLO:
Sheinbaum’s most difficult challenge will be navigating the end of a political era dominated by her predecessor. The charismatic populist set the daily news agenda with an hours-long morning news conference watched by millions.
On Monday López Obrador, widely known by his initials Amlo, mused about a small town known for its cheese and played a popular folk song — a sharp contrast to Sheinbaum’s earnest victory speeches and policy announcements.
How the new president tackles the challenges will define whether Mexico makes the most of its once-in-a-generation nearshoring opportunity or sinks into a period of relative decline.
“Sheinbaum is at the crossroads between a fantastic opportunity for Mexico on one side of the road, but a turning point for the Mexican peso and the eventual loss of investment grade in the other,” said an analyst note from Citi, the investment bank. (Source: ft.com)
9. South Africa:
Final results from last week’s seismic South Africa elections have confirmed that the African National Congress (ANC) party has lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of full democracy, firing the starting gun on unprecedented coalition talks.
The ANC, which led the fight to free South Africa from apartheid, won just 159 seats in the 400-member national assembly on a vote share of just over 40%. High unemployment, power cuts, violent crime and crumbling infrastructure have contributed to a hemorrhaging of support for the former liberation movement.
The pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) won 87 seats, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) – a new party led by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bitter rival, the former president Jacob Zuma – took 58, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a Marxist-Leninist party led by the ousted ANC youth leader Julius Malema, took 39.
The ANC also lost its majority in three provinces: Northern Cape; Gauteng, which is home to the commercial centre Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria; and KwaZulu-Natal, where MK was the largest party. (Source: theguardian.com)
10. Universal Basic Income:
South Africa is facing the most dramatic political shift since the end of apartheid after the African National Congress lost its majority in the general election of 29 May. Weeks of difficult negotiations between the ANC and its rivals on how best to form a governing coalition are expected.
One commitment that unites most parties – including the incumbent ANC and its biggest rival, the Democratic Alliance – is to maintain or increase income support for adults, which includes monthly Covid payments to the poorest households.
But the ANC has gone one step further. A week before the election, it released a statement deepening its commitment to finalizing a policy to transform the state’s Covid grant into a universal basic income (UBI) within two years of forming a new administration. If implemented, this would make South Africa the first country in the world to work towards a policy of paying all people between the ages of 18 and 59 a regular grant, with no condition to be seeking work.
At the moment, South Africa’s Social Relief of Distress grant (SRD) is paid to people who have less money entering their account each month than the individual food poverty line – or the minimum needed to afford food with enough calories to survive. (Source: theguardian.com)
11. Politico.eu:
On the brink of Continent-wide elections for the European Parliament, populist right-wing movements appear to be surging in ways that could have a loud global echo.
In recent days, far-right parties have been showing startling strength in polls in countries across the European Union. If this translates to major electoral gains, as now appears likely, it would deliver an embarrassing rebuke to the two most prominent leaders on the continent: French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both struggling with lackluster poll numbers.
Across the Atlantic, where U.S. President Joe Biden is facing his version of the same struggle, people who would normally be too confused or indifferent to follow EU elections may wish to take note.
Nearly a decade ago, the Brexit earthquake in the spring of 2016, in which voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, was an early sign of a global trend toward conservative nationalism. In retrospect, it seems clear this movement was part of what powered Donald Trump to a surprise upset over Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. presidential election of the same year.
If the right performs well in Europe this week, it will suggest this same movement — once regarded as a momentary spasm — has enduring power. (Source: politico.eu)
12. Eurointelligence:
When the numbers come in on Sunday night, our advice would be to take a deep breath, and forget anything that measures the result relative to what was expected. We get a whiff of that with yesterday's publication of the Dutch exit polls. The Dutch Labour Party came first. But Geert Wilders appeared to have raised the number of his MEPs from one to seven.
There will be a similar story in Germany on Sunday. The AfD once polled 23%, and is now at 15%. It has a rival in Sarah Wagenknecht's new party. And it had a terrible election campaign during which the party managed to get itself excluded from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament. The political adviser of the lead candidate has been arrested on charges of espionage for China. Another MEP has received money from Vladimir Putin. And yet at 15%, the AfD would still be stronger than last time. Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni will be much stronger. Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán will still be strong, and so will assorted nationalists in the Nordic countries. The far-right, even after a merger between the two rival groups, will not have a majority. The smartest thing for them would be to become the main opposition group against a centre locked into an uneasy coalition.
That would be the happiest outcome for everybody. But it's not clear that we will get it. The centre-right and the centre-left used to be the parties of government and opposition, switching positions from time to time. Now they are always the government together, and the far-right is in opposition. We will see on Sunday whether that is still a stable equilibrium.
The more fractured the parliament, the more difficult it will become to govern. Last time, the centre did hold. Ursula von der Leyen secured a majority for herself and her agenda. The Green deal has been a massive block of legislation. Under her leadership, trade policy became more geopolitical. The EU has introduced important new regulations on digital content, AI and crypto-currencies. Agree with them or not - we mostly don't - this has been a very busy Commission.
So far, the big question is whether the next Commission will also have an agenda backed by a political majority, whether the EU will resort to an Italian-style technical administration with a minimal agenda, or whether the EU will descend into legislative gridlock. The polls would suggest that we are at the knife-edge between those various scenarios. What to look out for on Sunday night is not whether the right gains more votes, but whether there will be a majority at all. (Source: eurointelligence.com, theguardian.com)
13. Denmark:
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was attacked in a busy square in Copenhagen last night in an assault that left her “shaken,” her office said, though she was able to walk away. Police said they had made an arrest.
“We have a suspect in custody, and we are now investigating the matter,” the Copenhagen Police said, without commenting further. The motive for the attack is unclear.
The prime minister’s office released a statement saying she had been “beaten,” several media outlets reported, but it was unclear what injuries she had sustained.Ms. Frederiksen, 46, has been prime minister since 2019. She leads the center-left Social Democrats.
The attack came just days before Danes will vote in the European Union elections.
The assault also resonated beyond Denmark’s borders, with the prime ministers of Finland and Sweden sending their support. It happened not even a month after Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia was shot and badly wounded in an assassination attempt he survived. (Source: nytimes.com)
14: Virginia:
Virginia is not widely considered a battleground state this election cycle -- or perhaps just not yet. After winning the state by more than 10 points four years ago, President Biden finds himself in a tie with former President Donald Trump, according to a new Fox News survey of Virginia registered voters.
The poll, released Thursday, shows Biden and Trump with 48% each in a head-to-head matchup in the Old Dominion State.
Biden gets strong backing from Black voters (73%), suburban women (58%), and college-educated voters (56%). While Biden leads among Black voters, it is nowhere near where he was in 2020 – according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. In 2020, Biden won Blacks by 81 points, compared to 48 points in the new survey. Trump nearly triples his share among Black voters: 9% in 2020 to 25% today.
Trump’s support comes from White evangelical Christians (80%), rural voters (63%), voters without a college degree (56%), and White voters (54%).
There is no age gap, as voters under 30 (48% each) and those 65 and over (48% each) split their support.
Independents are also torn (45% Biden, 43% Trump).
The gender divide is small but still evident, as men are more likely to go for Trump (+5), while the opposite is true among women (Biden +6).
A potential five-way race is tight in Virginia as well, with Biden edging out Trump by just 1 point, 42%-41%, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 9%, Cornel West 2%, and Jill Stein 2%. (Source: foxnews.com)
15. Background on the Fox News poll itself:
Conducted June 1-4 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with a sample of 1,107 Virginia registered voters randomly selected from a statewide voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (180) and cellphones (665) or completed the survey online after receiving a text (262). Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics of respondents are representative of the registered voter population.