Leadership
Sudan’s Democratic Transition Was Supposed to Transfer Power to Civilians. The Men With the Guns Never Really Transferred Theirs.
Heavy fighting erupted across Sudan yesterday between the country’s regular armed forces and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Gunfire and explosions have been reported across Khartoum, while fighting has occurred around airports, military installations…
Tsai Met McCarthy in California Instead of Taipei. China Still Surrounded Taiwan With Military Exercises.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California on Wednesday. Three days later, China’s People’s Liberation Army began major military exercises around Taiwan involving aircraft, warships and simulated operations against the…
Sanna Marin Became One of Europe’s Most Recognisable Leaders. Finnish Voters Still Judged Her Government on Finland.
Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats have lost Finland’s parliamentary election tonight, although describing the result simply as a rejection of Marin would be misleading. The Social Democrats actually increased their share of the vote compared with…
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…
Britain Has Its First British Asian Prime Minister. Representation Matters, but It Is Not the Same Thing as Equality.
Rishi Sunak became prime minister of the United Kingdom on Tuesday. The immediate political explanation is remarkably simple. Boris Johnson withdrew from the Conservative leadership contest, Penny Mordaunt failed to secure sufficient nominations from Conservative…
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…
Iran Looked Stable Until Thousands of People Discovered They Were Not Alone.
For more than three weeks, protests have continued across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who had been detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating rules requiring…
Britain Changed Its Prime Minister on Tuesday and Its Monarch on Thursday. The State Barely Stopped Moving.
On Tuesday, Liz Truss travelled to Balmoral and was formally appointed prime minister after winning the Conservative Party leadership contest against Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson’s premiership, which began with an enormous parliamentary majority in 2019…
Sri Lanka’s Economy Collapsed. Yesterday, Its Government Nearly Did Too.
Videos showed people walking through the presidential complex, sitting inside rooms, gathering around the grounds and swimming in the president’s pool. Elsewhere in Colombo, protesters entered other government buildings. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced that…
The G7 Still Has Enormous Power. It No Longer Represents Most of the World.
Seven of the world’s wealthiest democracies met in the Bavarian Alps this week trying to demonstrate that the Western coalition assembled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains capable of shaping international politics. The leaders of…
Germany Has Voted. For the First Time in Sixteen Years, Merkel Wasn’t Really on the Ballot.
That feels significant beyond Germany. Merkel became chancellor in 2005, which means an entire generation of Europeans has grown up knowing only one German leader. She governed through the global financial crisis, the eurozone crisis,…
