Politics
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…
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…
Liz Truss Can Change Britain’s Tax Rates. She Cannot Order Anyone to Trust Her.
Liz Truss has been prime minister for less than a month, and her government’s economic programme has already produced one of the most dramatic confrontations between politics and financial markets Britain has experienced in years.
Britain Buried Its Queen. It Is Also Deciding What Her Seventy Years Meant.
On Monday, Britain held the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey. Around two thousand people attended the service, including presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and representatives from countries across the world. Archbishop of…
One in Five Swedish Voters Chose a Party the Political Establishment Once Refused to Work With.
Sweden’s election has produced a change of government, but the politician most responsible for changing Swedish politics may not become prime minister. After an extraordinarily close count, the bloc of right-wing parties finished with 176…
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…
Chile Wanted a New Constitution. It Just Rejected the One It Was Given.
Two years ago, Chileans voted overwhelmingly to replace their constitution. Tonight, they have overwhelmingly rejected the constitution written to replace it. The margin is not close. With almost all polling stations counted, 61.86% have voted…
Pakistan Is Under Water. Who Is Responsible for a Disaster No One Government Caused?
Pakistan declared a national emergency this week as extraordinary monsoon rains and flooding continued across large parts of the country. More than a thousand people have reportedly died since the monsoon began, including hundreds of…
