What The United States Could Learn From Ghana About Elections

In case you missed it, we had a presidential election in the US last month. After a seemingly endless campaign, President Barack Obama defeated his challenger Mitt Romney in a race that wasn't all that close – Obama won just over 50% of the vote to Romney's 47.3%. Of course this didn't stop the opposition from alleging that Obama “stole” the election: Romney himself claimed that Obama only won by promising lower-income voters undefined “free stuff”. Meanwhile, groups of Americans across the country (but primarily in the South) responded by starting petitions encouraging their respective states to secede from the Union, with the Texas petition gathering more than 100,000 signatures.

Perhaps that's why with piece on the BBC last week about reactions to another hard-fought presidential election, this time in the African nation of Ghana, stuck with me.  In Ghana, incumbent President John Mahama of the NDC party defeated opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP.  Even though Ghana is one of Africa's most stable democracies, the election was marked by technical glitches which caused long delays at some polling places.  This, in turn, led the NPP to allege that the election was “stolen” from them.

That's where the BBC piece comes in.  The BBC interviewed five Ghanaians, including supporters of the NPP. What's noteworthy is that rather than join in their party's call to contest the election, the NPP supporters seemed rather embarrassed by the party's stance, with both saying that the party should just accept the results of the election and one voter questioning whether he made a mistake voting for the NPP if this was the way they were going to react.  Another voter explained that the reason the NPP lost was not due to fraud, but because of the party's inability to realize their message wasn't resonating in several of the country's key swing states (and doesn't that sound like an explanation that could apply to the US Republicans as well?)

It was refreshing to see voters not blame their political party's loss on some poorly-defined notions of fraud, or call for unrest, but to accept the results of the election and to blame the loss on the shortcomings of the losing party.  Perhaps the United States could learn a thing or two from the way that Ghanaians practice democracy.

Why Putin Needs To Arrest Madonna

Following their sentence to two years in prison, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina - the members of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot - have become an international cause célèbre. And one performer eager to take up the mantle for Pussy Riot is Madonna, who appeared on stage at her concert last week in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the words Free Pussy Riot written on her back.

But Madonna did something else during that show. To further show her displeasure at the Pussy Riot verdict (not to mention Russia's tepid support for Gay Rights), Madonna also stomped on a Russian Orthodox cross.

Let's reflect on that for a moment: Tolokonnikova, Samutsevich and Alyokhina each received two-year year sentences for their performance within Moscow's Christ the Savior cathedral on the grounds of “promoting religious hatred”. Yet aside from some loud music, bad dancing and profanity, Pussy Riot did nothing aside from make a purely political statement; they caused no damage to the cathedral, nor did they utter anything against the Orthodox religion, they recited their punk prayer to the Virgin Mary asking: “Holy Mother, Blessed Mother, drive Putin out!” It certainly was not disrespectful to anyone aside from Vladimir Putin.
On the other hand, Madonna decided to step on the symbol of the Russian Orthodox faith, which seems more like an act of “religious hatred”? And before justifying Madonna's actions as an act of free speech/free expression, let us for a moment contemplate what the reaction would be if at a concert in Tel Aviv, Madonna decided to stomp on the Star of David to protest some action by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Putin could actually use Madonna's protest to his advantage. Everyone regards the Pussy Riot trial as an attempt to stifle dissent in Russia by charging these women with crimes far outside of the scope of what they actually did; it is seen as a politically-motivated prosecution pure and simple. Putin could deflect, or attempt to deflect, these charges by calling for the arrest of Madonna on the same grounds of promoting religious hatred thanks to her act of outright religious vandalism.

It would be a fascinating way for Putin to turn the tables on his critics.

Putin's Potemkin Inauguration

I was on vacation last week, so I'm still getting caught up on things that I missed while I was away.  One of those things was the inauguration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, though I don't feel so bad since most Muscovites missed out on that event as well.

Putin's inaugural was carefully crafted to impress.  Gilt-covered doors were opened by uniformed Kremlin guards to allow Putin to stride across a gleaming white marble floor, in front of a gathering of decked-out dignitaries, all under a vaulted golden ceiling to take the oath of office.  But there was something missing: minutes earlier, aerial shots on television showed Putin's limousine, guarded by a phalanx of motorcycle police, speeding through Moscow streets utterly devoid of people.  It had the eerie feeling of one of those post-apocalypse that are all the rage today.  Where were the people? (One Russian satirist even noted there were no birds in the TV shots and asked how did they drive away the birds?)  Crowds turned out for the inaugural of Francois Hollande in economically-depressed France just days later, so where were the Russians to celebrate the biggest political event of the year in Russia?

The truth is that the crowds were kept away from the celebration by design, and that for all of his alpha-male bluster, Putin is, at heart, deeply afraid of the people he pledged to lead for the next six years.  The fear isn't that someone in the crowd will try to assassinate Putin or commit some act of terrorism, but rather that they'll do something far more subversive, like boo, or wear a white ribbon.

The Putin team learned just how troublesome the general public could be last November.  Putin stepped into the ring of a mixed martial arts event being broadcast live across Russia on the NTV network to congratulate the winning fighter Fedor Emelianenko.  For Putin, a martial arts enthusiast, it seemed a quick way to score a few points and burnish his he-man image.  But the crowd of 20,000 started booing once Putin hit the ring, a public scolding broadcast live to the nation that would later become a staple on Russian social network Internet sites.  The Kremlin tried to spin the event as an unruly crowd jeering defeated American fighter Jeff Monson, though Internet-savvy Russians would later flood Monson's Facebook page with messages of support for Monson and to confirm that Putin was the target of their ire.

 It's not a coincidence that just a month later, previously politically-apathetic Russians would take to the streets in the tens and hundreds of thousands to protest allegations of fraud in December's parliamentary elections; protests against the rule of Putin that have continued through to today (the white ribbon has become the de facto symbol of anti-Putin protesters, though the Boss, with typical Putin bravado, said the ribbons looked like used condoms). 

Team Putin has learned the lesson that many other autocrats have: once the people lose their fear of speaking out against the leadership, they tend to keep on speaking.  That is why we had the odd visuals of motorcycle police escorting Putin's motorcade though deserted Moscow streets, there to protect Putin from no one, apparently.  This puts Putin in an odd position.  He has spent the past 12 years carefully crafting an image of himself as not only a Russian superman, but also as a Russian everyman, a true man of the people; yet now he fears the people for their unruliness and their unpleasant demands that he actually make good on the promises he's offered for the past decade about tackling corruption and turning Russia's legal and political systems into something more than vehicles to simply make the oligarch class richer.

In his third term in office, Putin will likely find that actually serving as the leader of a nation is much more difficult than just playing one on TV.

Tymoshenko: From Prime Minister To Political Prisoner

Even though she is out of office, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko continues to dominate the political life of Ukraine.

The past few years have seen a true reversal of fortune for Tymoshenko.  In 2004, she was one of the two heroes of the Orange Revolution, along with the eventual president Viktor Yushchenko; but infighting between her faction and supporters of Yushchenko would paralyze Ukraine's government, helping to stifle the national economy and eventually lead to the re-election of former President Viktor Yanukovich, whose ham-handed attempts at vote-rigging in 2004 sparked the Orange Revolution in the first place.

Tymoshenko was set to lead a opposition faction in Ukraine's parliament, but was jailed first on charges that as Prime Minister she illegally diverted funds from a government greenhouse gas emissions reduction program.  Tymoshenko now also faces charges of tax evasion dating back to the 1990s, when she amassed a personal fortune operating a natural gas pipeline network in Ukraine (a position that earned her the unfortunate nickname of “the gas princess”).  The charges seem eerily similar to those leveled against Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the oil conglomerate Yukos, in 2003.  And just as critics have said that the charges made against  Khodorkovsky were political payback from his rival Vladimir Putin, the charges against Tymoshenko are widely seen as a move by Yanukovich to keep her out of Ukrainian politics.

But the Tymoshenko case is starting to spin wildly out of control.  Tymoshenko began complaining that her jailers were not treating long-standing medical problems she has with her back, a condition that was causing her near-constant pain.  Tymoshenko began a hunger strike to protest both her arrest and the conditions of her imprisonment.  Now, photos have surfaced of Tymoshenko with visible brusies on her arms that she claims are the result of rough treatment by her jailers.  Tymoshenko's daughter Evgenia said at a press conference earlier this week that her mother's condition is worsening due to the back problem, abuse and hunger strike.

The Tymoshenko issue is turning into a major international embarrassment for Ukraine.  Several European leaders have pulled out of a summit meeting planned for later in May in Yalta, Ukraine in protest.  Leaders like Germany's Angela Merkel are also suggesting that they will stay away from UEFA's Euro 2012 soccer tournament this summer if the Tymoshenko situation is not resolved.  Co-hosting the Euro 2012 tournament (along with Poland) is a major accomplishment for Ukraine in their post-Soviet history, a boycott by European heads-of-state would be a stinging rebuke to Yanukovich's government.  To make matters even a little worse, the city of Dnipropetrovsk, which is scheduled to host some of the Euro 2012 games, was rocked by a series of explosions caused by bombs dumped in trash bins around the city.  Thirty people were injured in the blasts.  UEFA has issued a statement of official concern to Ukraine over the blasts, which are being treated as terrorism, though no group has yet stepped forward to claim responsibility.

Meanwhile, the Tymoshenko situation will hang over Ukraine's relations with the rest of Europe.  She may no longer be prime minister, but Yulia Tymoshenko continues to drive Ukrainian politics.

Obama's Not-So-Excellent Latin American Adventure

By now you've probably heard about the Secret Service prostitution scandal that has totally overshadowed President Obama's trip to participate in the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of the nations of Latin America – plus the United States and Canada, this past weekend in Cartagena, Colombia.  After reading this report from Reuters, maybe the Secret Service distraction isn't a bad thing.

While the White House is touting the signing of a free-trade agreement between the United States and Colombia as an accomplishment from the Summit, most of the focus seems to be falling on the United States increasingly diminishing role in Latin American affairs, quite a step back for the US, which since the time of the Monroe Doctrine has considered Latin America to be our backyard.  But that attitude may be part of the reason for the split.  Latin American governments are finding the United States to be increasingly more arrogant and demanding in its bilateral dealings with them, and indications are that they are growing tired of the long-standing status quo.

The most visible sign of this split is the public rebuke suffered by the US and Canada over Cuba.  The two nations pushed a motion to bar inviting Cuba to future Summits unless Cuba engaged in massive political reforms. None of the Summit's other 32 participants signed on to the resolution.  The nations of Latin America meanwhile are charting a course that isn't dependent on the United States.  China is pouring money into investments in a host of Latin American nations, while Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has been promoting the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as a US-free alternative to existing regional bodies like the Organization of American States.

Critics will likely be quick to blame the failure of the United States at the Summit on Pres. Obama, but as one State Dept. official noted to Reuters, many of the wedge issues between the US and Latin America have been brewing for decades.  And a number of Latin American leaders said that they truly appreciated President Obama's attendance at the Summit and his apparent interest in the discussions and decision-making process, even if they disagree with the official positions of the United States.  And a major driver of the US-Latin American split is the growing economic clout of a number of nations in the region, particularly Brazil, which is a member of the BRICS group of the world's top-performing emerging economies.  Brazil's statue will be boosted by their deepwater oil reserves, which could net the country vast amounts of money from crude oil exports, and Brazil's hosting of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.

Is Zimbabwe's Mugabe Dying?

According to a report in Monday's The Australian newspaper, Zimbabwe's controversial President Robert Mugabe may be dying in a hospital in Singapore from an undisclosed illness.  The paper goes on to suggest that the illness may be cancer, which has spread throughout his body.  According to one of the many diplomatic documents unearthed in the WikiLeaks data dump, Mugabe had previously battled prostate cancer in 2008.

The 88-year old leader was allegedly in Singapore to oversee his daughter's enrollment in a post-graduate program.  Again, according to The Australian, members of Mugabe's family have rushed to be at his bedside.

Zimbabwe has not known another leader since gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1980.  That leads analysts to predict that Zimbabwe may likely fall into chaos should Mugabe die, since he has not groomed a successor to take either the presidency or leadership of his ZANU-PF party.  Currently Mugabe's ZANU-PF is locked in an uneasy power-sharing agreement with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which was forged in the wake of the violently-contested 2008 presidential election.  After Mugabe lost the first round of voting to Tsvangirai, Mugabe's supporters launched a campaign of violence against the MDC that drove Tsvangirai out of the run-off election.  International pressure eventually forced the two men to share power.

In a troubling sign of what could happen following the death of Robert Mugabe, there are reports that he has tapped Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa to fill-in for him should he die.  Mnangagwa has been loyal to Mugabe since the struggle to drive out the British.  Over the years Mnangagwa has earned a fearsome reputation and is believed to have been the leader behind the campaign of violence directed against MDC supporters in 2008.

How's That Coup Working Out For You?

That's a question that a group of army officers in the West African nation of Mali have to be asking themselves right about now.  Two weeks ago, a group of mid-level officers overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Amadou Toumani Toure over what they felt was President Toure's incompetent handling of the uprising by Tuareg tribesmen in the northern part of Mali, which began in January. 

But since a group of officers led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo siezed the presidential residence, Mali's army has been in disarray, and the Tuaregs have been taking full advantage, seizing a string of Malian cities, including the historic Timbuktu.  For their part, the Tuaregs say that they launched their uprising in response to continued oppression by the Malian government in Bamako, located in the southern part of the country.  The Tuaregs are fighting for an independent homeland that they would carve out of the northern section of Mali.  They have dubbed their militia the “National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad”; there are reports that the Tuareg numbers have been bolstered by fighters formerly employed by Moammar Gadhafi's regime- since the Libyan leaders is known to have favored Tuareg mercenaries for their loyalty and fearsome reputation across west Africa.  Of course, since Gadhafi's downfall, these men have been mercenaries without a job.

The Malian military was upset by the government's handling of the uprising and by the heavy casualties they were taking in fighting the Tuaregs.  But many international observers are saying that the actions of Capt. Sanogo and his fellow coup plotters were impulsive, and that they seized the presidential residence without any plan as to what to do next.  That their coup seems to be having the exact opposite of its intended effect – rather than improving its effectiveness, the military campaign against the Tuaregs has all but fallen apart – seems to back up this assessment.  To make matters worse, it has been discovered that Capt. Sanogo was actually one of a group of elite Malian soldiers who were selected to receive advanced anti-terroristtraining in the United States, which makes you wonder just what the US was teaching these “elite” soldiers since they seem to have totally screwed up their own anti-insurgency campaign with the coup they impulsively decided to stage against a president who was scheduled to leave office next month anyway.

What happens now is anybody's guess.  Mali's neighbors are taking moves to seal their borders, isolating Mali in response to the coup.  But, at the same time, it is clear that the Tuareg uprising has gotten past the Malian army's ability to handle, so without foreign assistance, it is likely to continue.  Also in question are the whereabouts of President Toure, who hasn't been seen since the coup.  Everyone seems to agree that he is safe, somewhere within the country, though reports then differ, suggesting that he is either trying to seek asylum with the French government, or that he is being protected by a cadre of loyal soldiers, which also suggests the possibility of a counter-coup.   

Senegal's Surprise Election Result

One of the nice things in writing about international affairs is that sometimes you get pleasant surprises.

Count the election results out of Senegal as one of those surprises.  Heading into last Sunday's election, Senegal showed signs of following that all-to-familiar African script: an aging strongman leader trying to hold onto power by any means necessary.  But then 85-year old President Abdoulaye Wade made a surprise move, he conceded defeat to his opponent, former Prime Minister Macky Sall, just hours after the polls closed when early results showed that Wade was heading to a solid defeat in the runoff election.

Given the circumstances in the previous few months, this wasn't the expected outcome of Sunday's vote.  At the start of the year, Senegal's most-famous singer, Youssou N'Dour, made a splash when he announced he'd be setting aside his musical career to take on Wade in the upcoming presidential election.  He and Wade had once been incredibly close, but had a falling out several years ago when Wade tried to persuade N'Dour to quash an embarrassing story about Wade's son Karim that was about to be run by a newspaper N'Dour owned.  N'Dour refused, citing his belief in journalistic freedom; the relationship between the two men soured.

It deteriorated further when Wade decided to run for a third term as president, sidestepping a change to Senegal's constitution that limited the president to two terms in office on the grounds that the amendment had been passed after he first took office. Then, on the eve of the election, several opposition candidates, including N'Dour, were barred from the ballot.  All were signs that Wade was trying to turn Senegal's presidency into a vehicle for his continued grip on power, which made Wade's quick concession to Sall all the more surprising.

Sall won by running on a platform that promised an improved quality of life for Senegal's more than 12 million residents by providing increased employment opportunities and cutting taxes on staples like rice.  Wade had become unpopular in Senegal over the perception that he had become out of touch with the problems faced by average Senegalese.  An ill-conceived plan to electrify Senegal's rural areas had left the country suffering from frequent black-outs, which had a negative effect on the economy; meanwhile, Wade spent more than $27 million on a massive statue called “African Renaissance” that looms above the capital, Dakar, from a hillside on the outskirts of the city.

Many Senegalese are hoping that the quick and peaceful democratic transition will serve as a signal to the international community about the stability of Senegal, which remains the only nation in western Africa never to have suffered from a military coup in its 50 years since independence, and will lead to an increase in foreign aid and investment.

Pussy Riot Arrests

Last month we brought you the story of Pussy Riot – the feminist punk rock band who have been causing a stir in their native Russia over the past few months with their politically-charged lyrics and public protest performances – unfortunately, the band seems to have finally pushed officials a little too far.  The Guardian is reporting that six members of the band were arrested last Saturday, with two members remaining in custody.

The arrests are blatantly political in nature, and stem from a performance given a few weeks earlier; that the arrests happened the day before Vladimir Putin reclaimed the presidency of Russia is not mere coincidence, the two members still in custody, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhin, reportedly were told that the case against them came “from the highest levels.”  The charges faced by Pussy Riot are quite serious, unlike the 15-day detentions often passed out to troublesome critics of the Kremlin.

The charges stem from an impromptu performance in February at Moscow's iconic Christ the Savior cathedral, where members of Pussy Riot rushed to the altar and performed what they call a “punk prayer” imploring the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Vladimir Putin. Russian officials were not amused, and are leveling serious charges at Pussy Riot's members saying in an official statement that they are investigating the case as a crime “involving a gross violation of public order, including inciting religious hatred as part of a planned conspiracy,” punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Interestingly, in the comments section of The Guardian piece there was a note about an article in Russia's Novaya Gazeta written by an Orthodox priest who compared the Pussy Riot performance to the acts of an iurodiviy, or a kind of “holy fool” noted in Russian history who says outrageous things as a way of speaking truth to power. In their official statement about the arrests, Pussy Riot notes that: “our patriarch [head of the Russian Orthodox church] is not ashamed of wearing watches worth $40,000, which is intolerable when so many families in Russia are on the edge of poverty.” 

The arrests of Pussy Riot, along with dozens of other arrests at the small protests that sprang up in Moscow as the results of last Sunday's election were announced, send a signal that the new Putin administration is growing tired of the public protests and is looking to clamp down on displays of opposition to his rule.  We'll keep following the developments here.    

Electile Dysfunction

The outcome of Sunday's presidential election in Russia was never really in doubt, it was a given that, despite the rash of street protests against him that have marked the past few months, Vladimir Putin would once again be the President of Russia.  The only real open questions were what would be his margin of victory and would the vote be fair.

It seems like the answers to those questions are “too much” and “no”.  According to reports this morning, Putin received roughly 65% of the votes cast – the ballot-counting is not yet complete, but this is being taken as the official margin of victory.  If this 65% figure holds, then Putin wildly outperformed the pre-election polls, which at one point had him in the mid-40s, before moving back above the 50% threshold (where he'd avoid the need for a second-round run-off vote) in the weeks just before the election.  This plays into the story coming from Russian groups like GOLOS and election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who are both talking about widespread reports of “carousel voting” - where one group of “voters” are transported from polling station to polling station, casting votes for Putin at each.  OSCE also slammed the Russian election for not being open to opposition parties beyond the small Kremlin-approved group allowed on the ballot.

The reply out of the Kremlin was predictable; the claims of voter fraud were dismissed as fabrications as they always are.  For his part, Putin talked of the “great victory” he had won for Russia against some vaguely defined opposition force, though the implication was that foreign powers were trying to install some sort of puppet government to control Russia.  It's worth noting here that Putin has repeatedly tried to dismiss the large-scale public protests sparked by Russia's last rigged election this past December as being orchestrated by shadowy “foreign powers”.

Meanwhile, Iran also held elections last Friday for their parliament.  By this morning, the votes had largely been counted and were showing a big victory for the faction controlled by Ayatollah Khamenei over the faction controlled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  It is now widely expected that Khamenei will use his expanded base of power to try to effectively sideline the populist Ahmadinejad, or perhaps to simply amend Iran's constitution to eliminate the position of president entirely and get rid of the troublesome Ahmadinejad all-together.

Of course, the Iranian election has its flaws as well.  Opposition parties were largely absent from the ballot, making the vote really a choice between the hardliners and the even-more-hardline hardliners.  It was the widespread belief that there had been voter fraud in Iran's last parliamentary elections in 2009 that sparked the “Green Movement”, which for a brief period of time, looked like it might lead to large-scale reform in Iran.  Not wanting a possible repeat, most opposition/reformist parties were simply banned from the ballot in advance of last Friday's vote.  Opposition groups then called for a boycott of the vote, which set the stage for a Khamenei vs. Ahmadinejad battle at the ballot box.

It is too early yet to tell what impact the result of last Friday's vote might have on the ongoing standoff between Iran and the US/Israel over Iran's nuclear program, nor can we tell yet what will be the fallout from the apparently fixed elections in Russia, two factors that should make the next few weeks very interesting.   

Russia's New Era Of Stagnation

Russians will be going to the polls on Sunday to return Vladimir Putin to the presidency.  Despite the mass public protests that have filled the snowy streets of Russia's major cities, the fact that Putin will once again be elected president isn't in doubt, though two outstanding questions: whether he'll avoid a run-off by getting 50% of the vote and whether or not that vote will be fair in the first place, remain.

Over at PolicyMic today, I take a look at the upcoming election, and how Putin's return could lead to a period of economic and social stagnation in Russia not seen since the 1970s.  Surf on over and give it a read.

Paris vs. Putin

Are wealthy urban elites the latest group to turn against Russia's Vladimir Putin?  That’s the takeaway from a few articles recently discussing an unusual new phenomenon ahead of Russia's March 4 presidential elections.  It seems that well-heeled socialites are among the groups turning out in street protests against the Era of Putin in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  According to this report from Reuters, white ribbons – the symbol of the protest movement – are the hot new fashion accessory, and, in the  right social circles, there is a need to explain why your absence from the most recent public protest.  Among Russia's nouveau riche, there is perhaps no bigger socialite than Ksenia Sobchak – a model, media personality, host of the reality TV show Dom-2 (Russia's answer to Big Brother), now an unlikely addition to the anti-Putin brigade.

Sobchak's appearance at an anti-Putin rally would be like Paris Hilton pitching a tent at an Occupy Wall Street encampment, a point The Guardian hammers home in their lengthy piece on Russia's radical socialite.  But there is an important subtext to Sobchak's new-found political activism: Sobchak's father Anatoly was the mayor of St. Petersburg during the 1990s and started the political career of a young former intelligence officer named Vladimir Putin; Putin and the Sobchaks became and remain close personal friends, making Ksenia’s defection a quasi-family affair.  For her part, Ksenia Sobchak says that Putin is, at heart, a good person.  But like many other Russians, Ksenia seems to have been angered by Putin's decision to run for a third term as president after failing to deliver on promises of reform and to fight Russia's culture of corruption for the past 12 years.

Ksenia Sobchak's career as Russia's most-unlikely political radical began with a televised debate with one of the founders of the rabidly pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (Russian for “Ours”).  Ksenia then traded in her hostessing gig on Dom-2 to become the moderator on a youth-oriented current affairs program on Russia's MTV channel called Gosdep (a Russian abbreviation for “Department of State”).  The first episode, entitled Where is Putin Taking Us? set the tone for the series by featuring a panel of figures from the political opposition typically barred from Russia's Kremlin-friendly television landscape.  That first episode proved to be Gosdep's last, despite good ratings.  Ksenia's decision to feature anti-Putin blogger and one of the de facto leaders of the opposition movement, Alexei Navalny, seems to have also been a factor in the show's cancellation.  Ahead of the March 4 election, the Kremlin is widely being blamed for a shake-up of management at Ekho Moscow the radio station which has been one of the few independent outlets on broadcast TV or radio.

Ksenia Sobchak may have lost her current affairs TV program, but she hasn't lost her fame and public persona, two factors that should make her difficult for the Kremlin to marginalize, while her desire to speak out against the failures of the Putin regime are a sign of just how deeply the anti-Putin sentiment is running in Russia today.

Putin and the Riot Grrrls

One thing is for sure, the developing protest movement in Russia is taking some interesting turns, case in point the all-female punk outfit called Pussy Riot, who have gained a fair bit of notoriety in recent months thanks to a series of impromptu performances and biting lyrics aimed squarely at Vladimir Putin.

The Guardian published this fairly in-depth piece about Pussy Riot, which acts more like a collective rather than a band, and whose members strive for total anonymity – wearing brightly colored balaclavas during performances and interviews to hide their faces.  Their most recent, and boldest, show was two weeks ago on a platform in front of the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral across from the Kremlin where they sang: “revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest / revolt in Russia, Putin's got scared!” – quite a change from just a few years ago when a Russian girl pop band sand about how they wanted “a man like Putin!”  Pussy Riot also sang atop the jail holding blogger and one of the de facto heads of the Russian protest movement, Alexey Navalny, after his arrest during the massive street protests on December 4; their lyrics that night included the lines: “death to prison / freedom to protest!”   

According to The Guardian, the average age of the members of Pussy Riot is 25, they describe themselves as feminists and say that most studied the humanities in college.  What I found really interesting though – beyond the mere idea of a feminist punk protest collective in Russia – is that they seem fairly savvy about the American punk/alternative scene from the 1990s.  Pussy Riot cited the iconic alternative act Sonic Youth as one of their references, along with Bikini Kill, a 90's-era, all-female punk outfit based out of Olympia, Washington who were one of the driving forces of the “riot grrrl” movement.  The lyrics in riot grrrl typically have a feminist bent, while the bands take on an in-your-face attitude.  It seems a good match for Pussy Riot's approach, it’s just surprising when you consider that the main influence on most contemporary female Russian bands are saccharine Europop outfits and that when riot grrrl was having its heyday, Pussy Riot's members were about eight years old and living on the other side of the globe. 

Pussy Riot say they plan to continue protesting, noting the historic role that women have played in Russia's many political upheavals. “There's a deep tradition in Russia of gender and revolution – we've had amazing women revolutionaries,” said a member of Pussy Riot, who in the spirit of anonymity went only by the name of Garazhda. 

It's A Small (Protest) World

There's an amusing story in The Guardian about the absurdist new tack that some political protesters are taking in Russia, and the police's equally-absurd reaction to them.

Activists in the Siberian city of Barnaul tried to get around opposition from local officials to pro-democracy/pro-reform political protests by recreating a political protest in miniature by setting up a collection of toy figurines – Lego men and the like – holding tiny political slogans on a streetside snowbank.  Some passersby were amused by the toy rally, the Barnaul police were not. The city's deputy police chief went so far as to say at a press conference, as reported by local media in Barnaul: “in our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event.” Police also reportedly jotted down the slogans carried by the Lego men and told the rally's human organizers that they would need to “rent” the pile of snow that served as a stage from the city.  A human spokeswoman for the toy rally said that they deliberately decided to stage an absurd protest to illustrate the ridiculousness of the official position against political rallies in Russia, it was nice then of the police in Barnaul to oblige them.

The Guardian reports that in December, the first political protest against the widespread belief that the December 4 parliamentary elections had been rigged in favor of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party drew nearly 2,000 people in Barnaul, a rather large number for a city of only 600,000 located in Siberia in the middle of winter.  Activists are planning another round of political rallies across Russia this Saturday to protest the upcoming presidential elections, which Putin is expected to win.  Officials in Moscow have granted a permit for humans to march this time, with organizers expecting 50,000 people to attend.

Putin's Judo Tumble

When you think about it, it is amazing how the most mundane events can lead to a regime's downfall.  For example, the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not to mention the start of World War I, came about when the car carrying Archduke Ferdinand made a wrong turn.  It's just as possible that one day the end of the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia will be traced to his mundane decision to attend a mixed martial arts event in Moscow last autumn.

That is part of the takeaway from this piece by the website Russiaprofile on Putin's reelection strategy ahead of March's presidential elections.  The article talks about the “Olympiysky Effect,” which refers to the MMA match in question.  Putin, whose love of martial arts is well-known, decided to talk to the winning Russian fighter in the ring following the end of the main event at Moscow's Olympiysky Arena.  Russia's state-run television dutifully covered the Boss speaking from the center of the ring, what no one expected were the cascade of boos that came down from the 20,000 in attendance.  In one fell swoop the mystique of Putin as the beloved alpha-male/man of the people had been shattered.  The Kremlin later tried to spin the boos, which went out live to a national audience, as being directed at the defeated American fighter Jeff Monson, who they said chose Putin's speech as the time to make his off-camera exit from the ring.  Web-savvy Russians responded by flooding Monson's Facebook page with messages of support and saying that no, the boos were in fact directed at Putin.

It is hard to imagine that without this public puncturing of the Putin popularity balloon the massive street protests following the apparently fixed December parliamentary elections would have occurred, or even if they had, that they would have drawn the tens of thousands of protesters from across the demographic spectrum that they did, rather than just the few hundred leftist intellectuals such protests previously drew.  According to Russian polling firm VtiSOM, Putin is now the choice of just 48% of Russians in March's presidential elections.  If these numbers were to hold, that would mean Putin would likely have to face Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Communist Party, and current number two candidate in a runoff election; quite a step down for a man whose popularity regularly measured in the 70%'s not too long ago.  

It is likely that, by hook or by crook, Putin will once again be Russia’s President, it is just as unlikely now, that Putin will spend the next twelve years in office filling out his constitutionally-approved two additional terms in office as was once the plan, and it all started with some booing one night in Moscow.

Ethiopian Land Grab

Human Rights Watch is out with a damning report today accusing the Ethiopian government of forcing its own citizens off of their land so that the plots can then be leased to foreign farming interests.  According to Human Rights Watch, as reported by Reuters, nearly 70,000 Ethiopians have so far been driven from their land, though as many as 1.5 million could eventually be displaced.  The land is being leased to foreign corporations, primarily firms from China and states in the Persian Gulf, who then export the foodstuffs grown in Ethiopia.  So far the Ethiopian government has leased an area approximately the size of the nation of Belgium to foreign companies.

Not surprisingly, Ethiopian officials dispute the HRW report, saying that the relocations are in fact part of a national “villagisation” program aimed at moving people from sparsely-populated regions of marginal farmlands to establish villages in more fertile parts of the nation.  The Ethiopian government also defends the policy of leasing land to foreign farmers, saying that it is meant to be a kind of technology transfer arrangement, where Ethiopia can learn modern, more-efficient farming techniques.  Of course the mass relocation begs the question of why foreign firms would be willing to lease what Ethiopia is describing as “marginal” farmland in the first place.

Such lease agreements aren't unique to Ethiopia though, other African nations have been leasing large swaths of their own lands to foreign farming concerns, chiefly from China, which has been investing heavily in Africa in recent years.  While African nations were originally attracted to China's “no-strings-attached” approach to foreign investment – as opposed to investment from Western nations, which increasingly is tied to political reform and good-governance efforts – a slow change has been taking place.  Some African nations are growing unhappy with the Chinese approach, where they not only underwrite a major infrastructure project, but also import much of the labor from China as well – African governments say that this prevents the type of technology transfer that Ethiopia is touting from occurring.  One sign of this changing attitude came last year when challenger Michael Sata won Zambia's presidential election by running on an anti-China platform.

Trouble In Somaliland

Somaliland, the independent, though internationally-unrecognized, nation that broke away from Somalia in the early 1990s, has long tried to draw a distinction between itself and its much better-known neighbor to the south.  While Somalia seems to be in a perpetual state of conflict and anarchy, Somaliland has remained relatively quiet and prosperous since breaking away from Somalia, Somaliland even completed a rarity for Africa – a relatively peaceful transition of power between rival political groups at the ballot box.

But government actions last week threaten to undermine this carefully crafted image that Somaliland is trying to present to the world.  On Sunday, the government of Somaliland announced that they were shutting down the television network Horn Cable TV for allegedly airing “anti-government propaganda”.  To make matters worse, the government then arrested 13 journalists who were part of a protest in Hargeisa (Somaliland's capital) against the closure of Horn Cable TV, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists, in what they called “a blatant misuse of powers”.  The National Union of Somali Journalists contends that Horn Cable TV was shut down for reporting on a meeting by tribal elders who were pushing for increased autonomy from the Somaliland government.  For their part, the Somaliland government says that the journalists' protest was illegal and that one of the journalists struck a student with the butt of a handgun he was carrying, which prompted his arrest.

Though still internationally considered part of Somalia, several neighboring African nations, like Ethiopia, maintain quasi-official diplomatic relations with the Somaliland government.  Somaliland also issues its own currency and is trying to grow its tourism sector to boost the local economy.

Youssou Throws His Hat Into The Ring

Famed Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour made good on a promise that we reported on two months ago to become more involved in politics in his homeland by announcing that he would run for president of Senegal in elections scheduled for next month.  In November, N'Dour promised to end all “artistic commitments” after January 2 and “enter the political arena”, though the comment made it unclear what N'Dour would actually do in politics.

Now we know that he means to square off against Senegal's sitting president Abdoulaye Wade, who is seeking a third term in office.  The match-up is particularly interesting since Wade and N'Dour were once quite close, but fell out after Pres. Wade tried to pressure N'Dour to order a newspaper he owned to not run an embarrassing story about Wade's son.  N'Dour refused.  Anger in Senegal has been building against Wade for some time now, both over his attempt to change the laws to allow himself a third term in office and because of Senegal's ongoing economic stagnation and chronic shortages of electricity.  Power outages of a day or longer are common in the capital, Dakar; blackouts are so frequent that the national power company, Senelec, has earned the nickname “Darkness, Inc.”

But observers aren't sure that N'Dour's personal popularity will translate to a winning margin over Wade.  Despite a large pool of ill will towards Pres. Wade, he will face over a dozen challengers in February's vote.  It is unclear yet whether the opposition to Wade will coalesce around N'Dour, or whether it will remain fragmented allowing Wade to slip back in for a third term as president.

Russian Protests, Round Two

Call it an unwanted early Christmas present for Vladimir Putin.  Last Saturday, a crowd of perhaps as many as 100,000 people gathered in the streets of Moscow to protest against the Putin regime and parliamentary elections widely viewed as stolen; smaller rallies occurred in other cities across Russia.  It was the second time since the December 4 elections that Russians took to the streets in mass protests, and a sign that anger over the elections directed towards the Kremlin was not subsiding. 

The rallies on the 24^th were the second state-sanctioned protests since the elections earlier in the month.  Officials in the Kremlin tried to downplay the impact of the rallies, and the amount of anger in the public, by apparently under-estimating the size of the crowd gathered on Moscow's Sakharov Avenue.  The size of the crowd was officially put at 25,000, though one reporter from the BBC said that it appeared there were more people gathered than there had been at the previous rally, attendance at that rally was said to be 50,000; the stretch of Sakharov Avenue where the rally was staged is said to hold more than 100,000 people.  Video from the event showed a packed street, as well as some clever signs.  My personal favorite was one oversized placard, written in English, that said “Where's my money Hillary?”, an allusion to a charge made by Putin that the protesters were being paid by “Western” governments, and by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular, in an effort to undermine the Russian state.

It seems though that Putin & Co. will have to come up with some better rhetoric if they hope to diffuse the protest movement in Russia.  That the opposition was able to organize a second, even larger, round of protests mostly through the Internet, is a clear sign of the depth of disapproval directed towards the Kremlin and Putin.  The protesters are promising to stage a third series of rallies sometime in mid-January after Russia recovers from the New Years – Russian Orthodox Christmas holiday season, which typically brings Russia to a halt from the end of December through the first two weeks of January.  According to a poll of those in attendance at the December 24^th rally, nine-out-of-ten say they will attend another protest rally in the future.

But even though the protest movement seems to have legs, for the moment at least, it seems to lack a leader – at least it lacks someone who could pose a serious challenge to Putin in the presidential elections which will take place in March.  While each of Russia's three official opposition parties – The Communists, the Liberal Democrats and A Just Russia – are all expected to field candidates, it is unlikely that the opposition turning out in the streets across Russia will coalesce around any one of them.  Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has announced that he too will be a candidate in the elections, but he is still being regarded with suspicion as a candidate planted by the Kremlin to draw off opposition votes.

And the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, weighed in following Saturday’s rally, urging Putin to follow his lead and retire from political life.

The Billion Year President

The Gambia's Yahya Jammeh is a man who obviously has never heard of term limits.  After winning re-election as president in a vote widely condemned by regional authorities as unfair, Jammeh said that he was ready to rule for “one billion years”, if God wills it, of course.

Jammeh has long been accused of political oppression since taking over as leader of this tiny West African state following a coup in 1994.  On a personal note, I happen to know someone who had to flee The Gambia after his organization ran afoul of the Jammeh government, so the claims of oppression are real.  The media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders notes that journalists who question the government are often arrested, while in their piece, the BBC discusses the case of Deyda Hydara, editor of a private newspaper in The Gambia who was murdered in 2004, a murder blamed on Jammeh's security forces and still officially unsolved.

ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, refused to send observers to monitor the presidential election because they said the opposition had been effectively silenced, making the vote inherently unfair.  For his part, Jammeh says that his critics can “go to hell”, and that he does not fear an Arab Spring-style uprising in his country.

It is hard to imagine what the world would be like at the end of Jammeh's billion-year rule, but thanks to our friends at NASA, we at least have an idea of what things might be like at the 250 million-year mark.  According to computer projections, continental drift will carry West Africa to the northwest, placing The Gambia on a latitude roughly equal to present-day Alaska and pressing it up against northern Canada.  Jammeh might want to start planning for the changes in location and environmental conditions now.