This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Netherlands
Our users @Nantafiria and @MartianNight have covered the results of the Dutch election in detail in last week’s roundup. Among the possible coalitions @Nantafiria floated included an alliance between the ruling VVD (24 seats), the NSC (a splinter of the former Christian Democrat opposition party, 20 seats), and the far right PVV (37 seats). Nanta also mentioned that the former two have expressed skepticism in the latter, and this week that seems to have materialized, with VVD announcing they will not join a government with PVV. The other big winner of the election, GL/Pvda (Green Left-Labor) will not be lending their 25 votes to the PVV either. It remains unclear for now which way NSC will swing, it seems contingent on PVV toning things down a bit, which they’ve signaled some willingness to do:
A coalition between PVV and NSC would still leave them with 57 votes, several shy of the 76 needed for a majority. The farmer party BBB might also throw their 7 seats on board. Also contentious are PVV’s stance against sending aid to Ukraine; it’ll be interesting if they moderate on this as well to attract smaller parties. Hopefully our locals can provide more detail!
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Poland
A month and a half after the election Poland has finally kinda sorta formed a government, or as Politico rather impolitely puts it:
“Poland’s zombie government shuffles into being: One former PM joked that the new Cabinet led by Mateusz Morawiecki would have a lifespan shorter than that of a house fly.”
Why so short? Well, because they lost, of course. PiS was still the biggest winner in terms of overall votes so they get the first chance to form a government, but they wouldn’t have a majority even with the far right Confederation, who has refused to work with them anyway. It seems weird, but I guess Morawiecki has two weeks to appoint ministers and run a normal government before a vote of confidence happens, which he will lose.
After that two weeks then Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition gets its chance to form a coalition, which for now is hammered out:
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Spain
I’ve covered the seemingly stillwater results of the Spanish election that happened all the way back in July. With both the left and right deadlocked and competing for third parties, things looked dangerously close to going to yet another election. However, incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has finally managed to secure another term. He did it by finally relenting to the demands of the Catalan separatist party Junts to grant amnesty for people who participated in the referendum, including the Junts leader in exile, Carles Puigdemont. This is a significantly unpopular move, even within Sanchez’ own party. Reportedly about 70% of Spanish citizens oppose amnesty and if another election was held the left would likely do much worse. However, it was the only way Sanchez stood a chance at staying in power. Jacobin adds more detail on what to expect:
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Peru
You probably remember the recent political crisis in Peru, but to recap:
In 2021 Peru had an election between two deeply unsavory individuals: the left wing Pedro Castillo and the right wing Keiko Fujimori (daughter of the more famous Alberto Fujimori, now in prison for human rights abuses). Castillo won with less than a percentage point and a minority in the legislature. Fujimori’s Popular Forces claimed the election was rigged and started trying to impeach him pretty much immediately (you don’t actually need a crime or anything to impeach a President in Peru, you can just say they’re unfit to rule). After several attempts of this he decided to launch a “self-coup,” dissolve Congress, and create a new government. Needless to say this did not work, he was finally actually impeached, arrested, and his Vice President Dina Boularte came to power.
The year following was a weird one. Castillo’s most ardent supporters took to the streets in mass protest against what they saw as a concerted attempt to violate the democratic results of the election at all costs (which to be fair is basically accurate). The institutionalists on the left, however, saw Castillo’s self-coup as simply going too far. While a member of the Peruvian Marxist left herself, current President Boularte found herself working with the center left and the conservatives against some members of her own party and the popular uprising. In the months that followed she deployed the security state against the protestors pretty brutally, which seemingly only encouraged them to fight harder. Things have calmed down now but the scars are there to stay. Boularte remains in power but her hold is fragile; her most recent opinion poll put her popularity at an abysmal 8%.
And apparently it’s not over yet. Attorney General Patricia Benavides (who spent a fair amount of time trying to get Castillo impeached) launched an eleven month investigation into police brutality and has now announced she is officially blaming President Boularte for the deaths of protestors. This is a pretty plausible outcome for the investigation, though it should be say there are some complications:
What happens now? Congress will review the allegations, and since they backed putting down the protests, it is unlikely they will attempt to impeach her (unless the right wing is feeling particularly opportunistic, which they may be). A criminal trial wouldn’t happen until after Boularte leaves office, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a former President has been charged for crimes that Congress supported after they left office (see: Fujimori). Given the weak institutions in Peru, hopefully this doesn’t encourage Boularte to stay in power specifically to avoid prosecution.
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India & the West
Reportedly the United States apparently stopped India from assassinating another Sikh separatist in June, this time not in Canada but actually on US soil.
I remain wildly uncertain of how to think about all this. It seems so out of character for the Modi government to be placing hits in allied countries, but I can’t think of much reason why the US would lie here. In every other sense the US has bent over backwards to pull India into its orbit, giving them no strings attached weapons, GE engines, and so on, without even a promise to shift position towards Russia at all. Why jettison all that now? (a question for both sides).
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Philippines
During the Japanese occupation of the Philipines, communist rebels called the Hukbalahaps played a large role in fighting off the occupiers. When the conflict ended they expected to have a large say in the newly decolonized country, which was naive of them considering independence was being granted by not just any colonial master, but the United States of America. Instead, the US empowered Manuel Quezon on a deal that partially included him completely marginalized the Hukbalahap. Well communist insurgency didn’t stop there, it came back in the 68 (on Mao’s 75th Birthday) and spread until the 72 when Fernando Marcos, at America’s encouragement, put the country under martial law for fourteen years. There have been various attempts at reconciliation in the successive administrations but nothing concrete.
Marcos’ son Bongbong (no, seriously) is in power now. So it is some irony that his government is finally meeting with the Communists to sit down in Norway and try to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. If successful, this would end one of the longest insurgencies in the world (I believe the Naxalites in India are longer, but probably not much else), one that has cost over 150,000 lives.
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Sierra Leone
A confusing series of events took place this past Sunday. A group of soldiers seemingly went rogue and attacked an armory. They were driven off but headed to a nearby prison and let out all the prisoners (including, reportedly, a famous rapper LAJ who was booted from the US for various crimes). After a shootout that left over 20 people dead, the government seemingly has control of the situation. Still, dozens of the assailants are at large and the government has imposed mandatory national curfew still.
It’s still quite unclear what happened but everyone has been using the dreaded word “coup”. There have of course been a series of coups across West Africa recently and Sierra Leone itself is no stranger to coups - actually the current President even led two coups himself and has signaled willingness to do it again in the future. He won a second term recently in what was most certainly an illegitimate election, so there are plenty of people upset with the status quo, but details on the motivations of the participants and whether this was even a real coup attempt are still to be forthcoming.
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Azerbaijan
Last week the US Senate unanimously passed the Armenian Protection Act blocking military assistance from Azerbaijan. It will now need to go through the fractuous House, which can hopefully at least agree on giving less funding.
The UN International Court of Justice has also now ruled that Azerbaijan must allow ethnic Armenians to return to Nagorno-Karabakh. This leaves things in a kind of weird place. Azerbaijan didn’t actually kick ethnic Armenians out, they self-evacuated because of credible fears of violence. Just because they’re allowed back will they feel safe?
No new word on the details of the ongoing negotiations between the two countries, except Armenian PM Pashinyan saying that two countries “are speaking ‘different diplomatic languages’ even though they were able to agree on the basic principles for a peace treaty.”
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