Soriek
2yr ago
Argentina
Argentina held their first round of elections this Sunday with peronist candidate Sergio Massa pulling first place at 36.6%, trailed by now-notorious libertarian Javier Milei at 29.9%. Milei’s share was about the same as he got in the primary, but Massa’s gains were a slight surprise as the center right party JxC was polling a little better and had recently performed well in local elections. Also, like, because inflation is at 140% and Massa is literally the Economy Minister presiding over this.
Not many politicians would stand a chance in an election after overseeing an inflation rate of almost 140%. Yet Massa, who doubles up as economy minister, has used all the tricks in the book to give support to voters who are fearful of losing a cradle of subsidies and social-welfare handouts regardless of Argentina’s unsustainable finances.
Days before the vote, Massa’s campaign posted signs in subway stations and train stops showing the difference in fare prices Argentines would pay under him versus Milei: the present 59 pesos, or 6 cents, compared to 700 pesos without the subsidies the current Peronist administration gives.
These kind of stunts paid off. Massa gained 3 million votes on Sunday compared to his coalition’s third-place finish in the August primary. Meanwhile, frontrunner Milei lost votes.
Massa carved a clear path to the presidency by tapping into the entrenched Peronist network of governors, labor unions and social movements.
“Massa’s results demonstrate that the Peronist political machinery is alive and well and can effectively mobilize voters in key traditional bastions in the north of the country and, crucially, the province of Buenos Aires — even amid apathy,” said Jimena Blanco, head of the Americas research at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.
There will be a follow up election on November 19th. It’s hard to predict exactly how things will go. JxC normally has a more free market voter base who you would think might lean more towards, Milei, but he absolutely tore into their candidate Bullrich during the campaign so may have squandered quite a bit of good will. He’s now said he wants to go blank slate and work hand in hand with JxC, which seems to be highly fractured at the moment and maybe will siphon voters to the right (former President Macri, technically still the leader of JxC, seems like he will go for Milei). He’s even supposedly making appeals to ¡los zurdos de mierda! left wing voters so he must be kinda desperate.
I’m not really sure which outcome is weirder, the west’s most chronically populist country empowering a meme libertarian, or re-electing a party that’s demonstrated itself incapable of addressing voters’ most important issue.
Azerbaijan
Time Magazine ran an article Tuesday warning that Azerbaijan may continue with their conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh and actually mount a joint invasion of Armenia, supposedly with the goal of connecting their country fully to their close ally Turkey.
The most evident signs of an impending invasion are the joint Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises taking place on October 23-25 in Nagorno-Karabakh, to Armenia’s east, and Nakhichevan, another formerly Armenian-populated region to Armenia’s west, with the conspicuous arrival of Turkish F-16 fighter jets in Azerbaijan. Last time such a massive exercise took place, in 2020, it preceded the 44-day war against Armenia-backed Nagorno-Karabakh, preparing ground for last month’s “final solution.”
Another sign of an impending invasion is the reported appearance of “!” on Azerbaijan’s military trucks headed toward Armenia. The symbol roughly resembles a severed Armenia and ostensibly serves as the conclusion of the 2020-2023 “Karabakh is Azerbaijan!” war slogan…
Armenia is the lowest hanging fruit for Turkey's leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is desperate for a show of power. Oct. 29 marks an important milestone for the country—the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic—with no significant planned celebrations…A successful invasion of Armenia would realize the Armenian Genocide-era goal of connecting Azerbaijan and Turkey continuously—something that even Atatürk couldn’t accomplish.
Breathless speculation? It seems a little excessive and reading too much into things to me, but they did just conduct an expansionist invasion a couple weeks ago so it’s not that outlandish I suppose. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has also warned of an invasion into Armenia.
On the other hand, while the world already recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and, I guess, just didn’t give enough of a shit about the situation to care that the entire place got ethnically cleansed, invading a sovereign nation would be quite an escalation. Also worth noting this is a sovereign nation that has been balancing more towards the United States and has even been conducting joint military drills together. On the other, other hand, America didn’t do anything about Artsakh and is too dysfunctional right now to approve aid for their actual priority countries in Ukraine and Israel, so (if the speculation is true) maybe they’re wagering America is too tied up to care or do much at the moment.
Venezuela
Last week I reported on America lifting sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for them holding free and fair elections. It hasn’t gotten off to a great start. Venezuela hasn’t yet reversed their decision to [edit: not] allow the popular opposition figure María Corina Machado to run in the election (formally they have until November to do this), and the opposition primary was filled with stories of government obstruction, including voting centers having to be physically relocated due to intimidation:
The election in this South American nation of roughly 28 million people took place with no official government support. Instead, the vote was organized by civil society, with polling stations in homes, parks and the offices of opposition parties.
About 2.3 million Venezuelans turned out to vote, the election commission said, a fairly high number that could indicate how engaged voters could be in a general election in 2024. The government’s telecommunications agency shut down an online guide that showed Venezuelans the location of their nearest polling station, and prohibited radio and television stations from covering the vote — a move that was denounced by the country’s journalists union.
However, the primary did go through and with the ballots counted up Machado won overwhelmingly against the nine other candidates. This follows a trend of her rising popularity and other main competitors bowing out and endorsing her, including the former opposition leader Henrique Capriles. Formal elections will be held sometime in late 2024 that has yet to be agreed upon. Keep in mind she got roughly 2 million votes out of a country of 28 million, and in the last (in many ways unfair) election Maduro got about 6 million, although it’s hard to compare a primary to a general election.
Switzerland
Switzerland held elections this Sunday as well:
Polls suggest the Swiss have three main preoccupations in mind: rising fees for the obligatory, free market-based health insurance system; climate change, which has eroded Switzerland’s numerous glaciers - and worries about migrants and immigration.
The last of these apparently loomed large, with right wing populists as the largest winners in the Assembly, though still nowhere near a majority:
The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), Switzerland's biggest political party, increased its share of the vote to 29%, 3.4 percentage points higher than the last election in 2019, according to the final projection by Swiss broadcaster SRF…
"We have problems with immigration, illegal immigrants, and problems with the security of energy supply," said SVP leader Marco Chiesa. "We already have asylum chaos ... A population of 10 million people in Switzerland is a topic we really have to solve."...
Rising health costs also looked set to benefit the left-wing Social Democrats (SP). Switzerland's second-biggest party was poised to increase its share by 0.7 percentage points of the vote to 17.4%, increasing its representation by one to 40 seats.
In contrast, the Greens were expected to see their share of the votes fall by 4 percentage points to 9%, and lose six seats.
The SPP already held two of the seven seats on the Federal Council and there impressive showing in this election will probably not change that. However, that doesn’t mean the Council won’t change: things in the Senate were too close to call between two other parties, the Centre Party and the Radical Liberals, and they will have to hold another runoff election:
a seat in Switzerland’s seven-member consensus government could at least mathematically be called into question: currently, the “magic formula” of seat allocation gives the Radical-Liberals two ministers and the Centre just one. According to final results, the Centre Party came third with 14.6% of the vote, pipping the Radical-Liberals on 14.4%.
Check out @MartianNight’s more detailed writeup on the election here for more detail!
Soriek
2yr ago
Spain
The Spanish election continues in both tragedy and farce. After the conservative government failed to form a majority coalition, Pedro Sanchez and the left wing PSOE have until November 27. They’ve now formalized an alliance with the far left Sumar, which was expected to happen, and will result in a few standard left wing policy commitments:
This agreement includes measures such as reducing the working day, regulating dismissals, raising the SMI [minimum wage], increasing the public housing stock and expanding birth permits.
But all of this doesn’t necessarily mean anything, because it doesn’t address the alliance PSOE actually needs to be making with the Catalan Independence Party Junts. Junts has not budged on their demand for amnesty for their leader Puigdemont. Without their support the conclusion of this months long saga will just be another election.
Soriek
2yr ago
Slovakia
Resurgent populist Robert Fico has now successfully completed an agreement to form a government:
Fico's leftist, populist SMER-SSD (Direction-Slovak Social Democracy) struck a deal last week with the centre-left HLAS (Voice) and nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS) to form a coalition that will have 79 out of 150 seats in parliament.
Monday's pact, which can allow the president to appoint the new government, agreed the breakdown of cabinet positions, giving SMER the defence, finance, foreign and justice ministries….
HLAS, whose presence could blunt any hard policy shifts in the proposed government, will get parliament's speaker role.
Slovakia, a European Union and NATO member, is on course for the highest deficit in the euro zone this year as a result of slower economic growth, higher spending needs and rising costs, with the shortfall seen at more than twice the bloc's ceiling of 3% of gross domestic product.
Fico said he wanted to prevent budget tightening from hurting social standards and to allow space for investments, signalling slower pace of fiscal consolidation than what the outgoing caretaker government has recommended…
Fico said his priorities would include boosting living standards and a foreign policy consistent with Slovakia's EU and NATO membership - but focused on protecting national interests.
He told reporters that what he called the era of non-governmental groups running the country was over.
The largest change for Slovakia’s allies will be reduced support for the Ukrainian War. Slovakia was never a major contributor but does mark the first of the western alliance wearying of support and also comes at a time when America’s own aid to Ukraine looks up in the air.
Soriek
2yr ago
Nigeria
The Nigerian Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear opposition party complaints about the validity of the last election. The runner ups in the election, the People's Democratic Party & Labour Party, have accused the election of being fraudulent and have demanded that current President Bola Tinubu must step down:
Nearly 25 million Nigerians voted in the February polls in an election that was generally calm, but was marked by delays in counting and failures in the electronic transfer of results.
The final results were widely accepted by the international community, which saw Tinubu declared the winner with 37 per cent of the vote.
No legal challenge to the outcome of a presidential elections has ever succeeded in Nigeria which returned to democracy in 1999.
Worth noting Bola also received the least votes of any winning candidate since 1999. It’s pretty unlikely the election will be overturned but remarkable that it’s even being heard. Legal challenge aside, Tinubu’s tenure has been pretty rocky thus far. It started with cutting off a subsidy for gasoline to better fund other progressive initiatives, but sent gas prices soaring and caused large scale unrest.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s push to reshape Africa’s biggest economy appears to be a case of too far, too fast.
Four months after he took office, inflation is surging and the naira’s street value has slipped to the psychologically important level of 1,000 to the dollar. The national power grid collapsed twice in September and a surge in business confidence that accompanied his announcement of a spate of reforms has dissipated.
The government appeared ill-prepared for the price surge that followed the scrapping of a fuel subsidy, $6.8 billion of forward payments in the foreign exchange market are overdue and a crucial interest-rate decision was postponed after the acting head of the central bank resigned. The new governor’s appointment is awaiting confirmation from the Senate…
There’s no doubt that the measures Tinubu is undertaking are necessary and that Nigeria’s economy will ultimately be healthier when the budget is no longer burdened by an unsustainable fuel subsidy and an unrealistic official exchange rate.
What is in question are his methods, the pace of change and whether he can see them through.
Soriek
2yr ago
China
China has been criticized by various talking heads and analysts for letting its impending economic problems carry out without trying ordinary fiscal stimulus. Well, it seems like they are pursuing stimulus now:
China is set to unleash fresh fiscal stimulus to shore up its economic recovery, drawing on a well-used playbook that relies heavily on debt and state spending but falls short on the deeper reforms called for by a growing number of analysts.
Some government advisers are recommending China lifts its 2024 budget deficit target beyond the 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) set for this year, which would allow Beijing to issue more bonds to revive the economy, policy insiders and economists have told Reuters.
The world's second-largest economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, improving the chances Beijing can meet its growth target of around 5% for 2023…
China's parliament is set to approve just over 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) in additional sovereign debt issuance when it concludes a five-day meeting that began on Oct. 20, sources told Reuters.
Such bonds will likely be used to fund water conservancy and flood prevention projects and come on top of an expected front-loading of 2024 local bond quotas…
For those [government economists] looking for structural reforms, the focus is on policies that spur urbanisation and household spending power, reduce the reliance on investment and level the playing field between state-owned enterprises and private firms.
Without such changes, economists warn China could be headed for a long-period of deflation and stagnant growth that fails to lift living standards for the country's 1.4 billion people.
Speaking of intergovernmental debates, another senior CCP leader has been removed; unclear if these are isolated incidents or the beginnings of another shakeup:
China removed its defence minister on Tuesday, the second ousting of a senior leader in three months, raising questions about the stability of the leadership team around Chinese President Xi Jinping.
General Li Shangfu, who has been absent from public view for two months, was dismissed as defence minister and state councillor, according to state media.
China also announced that Qin Gang, who was removed as foreign minister in July, was stripped of his state councillor position.
Li at least seems to have been caught in an affair and just not doing a great job at his diplomatic duties, so maybe reasonable to can him. If there is a common thread here, it’s of course national security:
Both Li and Qin serve among China’s five state councillors, a senior position in the cabinet that outranks a regular minister. Li also sits on the Central Military Commission, a powerful body headed by Xi that commands the armed forces.
Meanwhile, the surprise removal of two top generals has rocked the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, an elite unit set up by Xi to modernize China’s conventional and nuclear missile capabilities, sparking concerns of a broader purge in the military.
Japan
Despite a resurgent quarter, the economy remains stubborn and the IMF projects that Germany will overtake Japan as number 3 in global nominal GDP rankings. Prime Minister Kishida has now released a fiscal stimulus plan involving:
cutting income tax burdens by ¥40,000 ($268) a year while giving ¥70,000 to low-income and elderly households as part of inflation-relief measures.
Japan’s largest opposition party, the center left Constitutional Democratic Party, has been the main source of criticism:
“The ruling parties have been calling for the return of increased tax revenues of ¥15 trillion, preferably ¥20 trillion, in scale. Would this (cut) be for one year only? Is it a permanent measure, and are the wealthy also eligible for an (income) tax cut?” Izumi [leader of the CDP] asked…
Kishida and Izumi also clashed over the issue of a consumption tax refund. The CDP is calling for legislation that will return a portion of the consumption tax bill to those in middle- and lower-income brackets. However, Kishida said the current system directly reduces the consumption tax burden on consumers of a wide variety of daily products, and that the CDP plan wouldn't make consumers feel that the consumption tax burden has been eased…
Izumi also pushed the government to speed up plans to boost the minimum wage in order to compete with labor markets elsewhere, such as in the U.K., France and Australia, for example. Otherwise, he said, Japan’s workers may leave the country in search of higher wages. The government’s current plan calls for increasing the minimum wage to ¥1,500 per hour by the mid-2030s.
Kishida replied by saying he was worried about wage increases not keeping pace with rising prices and how, if left unchecked, deflation would return. He said only that the government would work on closing the wage-price gap as quickly as possible. He promised to return the benefits to the public, but did not offer a timetable for doing so.
Taxes changes are a little sensitive for the ruling party; the LDP spent years under Abe agonizing over raising the sales tax, and they’re torn, then as now, between fretting about not funding their colossal debt on the one hand and wanting to stimulate their stagnant economy on the other. Even some members of Kishida’s coalition have balked at the cuts, so we’ll see if anything comes of it.
Soriek
2yr ago
I was a little surprised the moderates all fell in line behind him, even despite his higher stature in the party, especially his skepticism of Ukraine funding.
Thanks for keeping the regular coverage of these going.
Soriek
2yr ago
The reasons that Matt Gaetz etc. ousted McCarthy was because some of the terms he agreed to to get their votes he ended up violating. The main one was that they wanted to split "omnibus" bills into specific limited scope spending bills.
The Approps committee passed all 12 of the spending bills like they were supposed and McCarthy was trying to hold votes on them like he was supposed to, the Freedom Caucus were the ones stopping him.
Soriek
2yr ago
I’m terribly sorry to hear everything you’ve been through and I hope very much your luck turns around.
Soriek
2yr ago
Only parties with >5% of the party vote, or who win an electorate seat win representation in parliament...Thus, post-election, we find that the proportion of party votes cast on the day needed to form the government might be anywhere from ~45% to 50%.
Ah, that makes perfect sense.
It's interesting to hear that aside from Jacinda's 2019 economic plan being centrist enough that it bears resamblance to the current National agenda, that the civil service was also basically functional under her and mostly only spiraled under Hipkins. From a distance she's portrayed as the more radical one and he's an uncharismatic guy who inherited a host of problems from her. I guess that's to some degree compatible with a lot of her structural changes to the size of the civil service only manifesting later under less competent / less aligned leadership.
Pretty unfortunate the National Party doesn't seem to be focused on the issue of the civil service if it was a problem even for the party that elevated it to its current status. If the fiscal situation enjoys a national consensus that some fat needs to be trimmed then hopefully their fiscal reforms won't have too much difficulty being implemented?
You're not the problem Gatt, you're a quality and civil contributor. But neither is this isolated - just the previous week I saw you call out someone for being the lone poster to defend Ibram Kendi's book. I genuinely don't think this kind of pubic shaming of people who dared to buck the majority even years ago is conducive to having non-echo chamber debates here.
But like I said to FC, my parent comment to yours was lighthearted, not a declaration of conflict. I don't care all that much or I would have left.
Soriek
2yr ago
We had a big presence in Japan for a while after they opened up to us:
Horace Wilson, an American English teacher at the Kaisei Academy in Tokyo, first introduced baseball to Japan in 1872, and other American teachers and missionaries popularized the game throughout Japan in the 1870s and 1880s. Popularity among Japanese grew slowly and led to the establishment of Japan’s first organized baseball team, the Shimbashi Athletic Club, in 1878. The convincing victory of a team from Tokyo’s Ichikō High School in 1896 over a team of select foreigners from the Yokohama Country & Athletic Club drew wide coverage in the Japanese press and contributed greatly to the popularity of baseball as a school sport. The rapidly growing popularity of baseball led to the development of high school, college, and university teams throughout Japan in the early 1900s.
Ironically, while we already had pro teams, it sounds like the American org that became the MLB was only established in 1871, so our love of the sport really doesn't predate theirs by all that much.
Soriek
2yr ago
Ah thanks for the clarity on the vote counts, I know pretty much nothing about New Zealand; i got the 48% from the embedded CNN article as the percentage of the popular vote that equates to 61 seats in parliament, I miswrote it above. Interesting to hear both parties have roughly similar positions on most major issues. You have any opinion on how effective the National agenda will be?
Soriek
2yr ago
What do you think is the likelihood of an AfD victory in the 2024 elections? In the polls I've seen they're still only hitting around 20%, are there clear other parties that would coalition with them? If there are enough common supporters between Die Linke and AfD that a Wagenknecht's new party could draw voters from both, is there some kind of weird horseshoe theory possible alliance between the parties or are there differences just too huge?
Soriek
2yr ago
Interesting, I actually hadn't heard this at all, thanks. Kind of mirrors a similar rightward turn in the other notable socialist experiment in the area under Ortega in Nicaragua.
Soriek
2yr ago
That's interesting to see Sinn Fein tacking a little more moderate. I know they've been pretty immigration maximalist; what with the protests against asylum seekers is they're any chance they'll adjust there as well? Is the Israel-Palestine division as inflamed in the Republic as it is in Northern Ireland, or is that mostly a reflection of the catholic-protestant divide up there? When I look at the Northern Irish subreddit you would swear they were getting bombed themselves.
Separately, is there any particular reason there's so much Brazilian immigration?
Soriek
2yr ago
What do you think are the big policies there will have to be compromise over?
Soriek
2yr ago
The latest from their closed door session today seems to be a complete lack of clear backing for anything at all, supporting Jordan, supporting anyone else, or even temporarily empowering McHenry.
Thank you for the comprehensive comment and I'll try to reply in more detail when I get a chance, but wanted to point out there's a newer thread that might get this more visibility!
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