Elections
India Blocked a BBC Documentary About Modi. The Argument Is Now About More Than the Documentary.
The BBC’s two-part documentary India: The Modi Question examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political career, particularly his tenure as chief minister of Gujarat during the communal violence of 2002, when more than a thousand people…
Jacinda Ardern Is Resigning. Perhaps Knowing When to Leave Is Part of Governing Well.
Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday that she will resign as prime minister of New Zealand after more than five years in office. Her explanation was unusually personal. She said that leading a country requires having…
Netanyahu Won an Election. How Much Power Should Winning Actually Give Him?
Israel held its fifth election in less than four years last November. Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded where several previous governments had failed: he assembled a parliamentary majority. His coalition controls 64 of the Knesset’s 120 seats,…
One Week After Lula Took Office, Bolsonaro Supporters Stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and Presidential Palace.
Exactly one week ago, I wrote that Brazil’s institutions had successfully transferred power from Jair Bolsonaro to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva without requiring Bolsonaro’s personal approval. Lula had won the election, the result had…
Lula Is President Again. Brazil’s Institutions Did Not Need Bolsonaro’s Permission.
Twenty years after first entering the presidency, twelve years after leaving it, and after a political journey that included corruption investigations, imprisonment, the annulment of his convictions and an extraordinary return to electoral politics, Lula…
Peru Stopped Castillo’s Attempt to Break the Constitution. That Does Not Give the New Government Unlimited Power to Defend It.
Last week, I argued that Peru’s institutions were right to stop Pedro Castillo when he attempted to dissolve Congress and govern by decree. A democratically elected president does not acquire the right to destroy constitutional…
Pedro Castillo Was Democratically Elected. That Did Not Give Him the Right to Dissolve Democracy.
Peru had a president on Wednesday morning. By Wednesday evening, that president had attempted to dissolve Congress, been impeached, arrested and replaced by his vice-president. The speed of the collapse makes the sequence almost difficult…
Anwar Ibrahim Finally Became Malaysia’s Prime Minister. His Hardest Compromise Came After He Won.
Anwar Ibrahim has spent almost a quarter of a century moving between the centre of Malaysian power and its political margins. He served as deputy prime minister during the 1990s, appeared positioned to succeed Mahathir…
Inflation Was Supposed to Decide the Midterms. American Voters Had Other Things on Their Minds.
American voters went to the polls on Tuesday in an election that was widely expected to punish President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. Inflation remains unusually high, petrol and food prices have placed substantial…
Lula Won Brazil by 1.8 Percentage Points. Winning the Country Will Be Harder.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will return to the Brazilian presidency twelve years after leaving office. In last Sunday’s runoff, Lula received 60,345,999 votes, or 50.90% of valid ballots, against Jair Bolsonaro’s 58,206,354 votes, or…
Liz Truss Lasted 44 Days. Britain May Be Politically Chaotic Without Being Institutionally Unstable.
Her premiership lasted 44 days, making it the shortest in British history. She entered office promising a fundamental change in economic policy based around lower taxation and faster growth. Her government’s mini-budget then triggered severe…
Iraq Finally Has a President. It Took an Entire Year After the Election.
Abdul Latif Rashid defeated incumbent President Barham Salih in a parliamentary vote and was sworn into office. He then nominated Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister-designate, giving Sudani the task of assembling a cabinet capable…
