WPR Daily Review

"The year of elections has been bad for incumbents."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 15 November 2024, 2004 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).

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November 15, 2024

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Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering the anti-incumbent trend in elections this year and the crackdown on opposition activists in Uganda.

But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:

Then-presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in the red shirt, attends a protest rally in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Feb. 26, 2023 (AP photo by Eranga Jayawardena).

Sri Lanka: President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s coalition won yesterday’s parliamentary elections in a landslide, with the National People’s Power alliance winning 159 of 225 seats in the legislature, a two-thirds majority. Dissanyake called the snap elections after winning the country’s presidential election and taking office in September. (New York Times)

Our Take: The presidential and parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka in many ways represent the culmination of the revolution that began with the popular uprising known as the Aragalaya in July 2022. Coming in the depths of a severe economic crisis that saw Sri Lanka default on its sovereign debt, the Aragalaya drove then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power. But at the time, it did not lead to substantive political change: Rajapaksa was replaced by another establishment figure, and Sri Lanka’s political elites were then put in charge of fixing the crisis they had created.

In fairness, Sri Lanka’s government...

	Subscribe to WPR to read our take on today’s top story.

When analyzing political developments within states, it is common to see them framed as the outcome of internal dynamics alone. By this lens, election results and domestic policy choices are seen as the product of interest group lobbying, local economic conditions and insular cultural debates with little connection to the outside world.

But in focusing on the domestic determinants of world events, it is often easy to miss the reverse: when international developments influence domestic politics. And it turns out that 2024 is a clear example of international events affecting domestic political outcomes, columnist Paul Poast writes.

Global Trends Dictate Domestic Elections More Than We Realize

By Paul Poast What was billed as the “year of election” ended up being a clear example of how international events affect domestic political outcomes.

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KAMPALA, Uganda—Cheeks glazed with tears and her face a map of worry, Ugandan political dissident Olivia Lutaaya pled guilty to charges of “treachery,” or plotting against the government, along with 15 other co-defendants in a court hearing in October 2024.

Since her arrest in May 2021, Lutaaya had become a national figure—an emblem for opposition leader Bobi Wine’s National Unity Platform, or NUP, and its jailed supporters. But Lutaaya’s long detention and ultimate guilty plea are also symbolic of the challenges faced by the Ugandan opposition and its precarious hopes ahead of the country’s next general elections in 2026, Sophie Neiman writes.

Museveni Is Trying to Break Uganda’s Opposition Through the Courts

By Sophie Neiman In the face of youth mobilization, Uganda’s longtime ruler is increasingly turning to trumped-up charges against opposition activists.

The U.S. is continuing to push to transition an international security mission that is currently fighting gang violence in Haiti to a U.N. peacekeeping mission, which would be more robust and better-funded. The transition is also supported by Kenya, which is leading the current mission, but has been blocked by Russia and China.

This week, we asked: Should the U.N. send a peacekeeping mission to Haiti?

The results? 85% of respondents said “Yes,” compared to 15% who said “No.”

Nicaragua has expelled Bishop Carlos Herrera, the head of the country’s episcopal conference, after what a lawyer with ties to the Catholic Church described as a campaign of persecution by the regime of President Daniel Ortega.

Ortega has cracked down on the Catholic Church, which is enormously influential in Nicaragua, since 2018, when clerics across the country—including Herrera—aided protesters who were part of a mass anti-government uprising. As Frida Ghitis wrote last year, since then, Ortega’s regime has effectively gone to war with the church, causing even Pope Francis to get involved.

In Nicaragua, Ortega’s Crackdown on the Catholic Church Takes a New Turn

By Frida Ghitis April 13, 2023 | Tensions between the dictatorial Daniel Ortega and the Catholic Church reached a boiling point over Easter weekend in Nicaragua.

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U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with Japanese PM Ishiba Shigeru and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru today. The three are expected to discuss security issues, including North Korea’s deployment of troops to aid Russia in the war in Ukraine.

In an effort to respond to growing threats from North Korea and China, one of Biden’s foreign policy objectives was to improve trilateral ties between the U.S., Japan and South Korea, a goal in part realized through the Camp David Principles signed last year. Still, as Paul Nadeau wrote in March, while that framework is significant, it is far from ironclad, especially with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s looming return to the White House.

The U.S.-Japan-South Korea Partnership Is Still Light on Substance

By Paul Nadeau March 6, 2024 | In August 2023, the U.S., Japan and South Korea agreed on a framework for trilateral cooperation. So far, it’s light on substance.

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Argentine President Javier Milei is reportedly considering withdrawing the country from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The decision would come just before the U.S. is expected to pull out of the agreement for a second time once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. As James Bosworth wrote recently, as an ideological ally of Trump, Milei is one of the few Latin American leaders likely to gain influence with Trump’s return.

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Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. on Monday in New York to discuss how to defuse tensions between the U.S. and Iran once President-elect Donald Trump, to whom Musk is a close adviser, takes office. Read more about what Trump’s return could mean for Iran, and specifically its nuclear program, in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Review.

Upcoming Elections

Gabon votes in a referendum tomorrow on whether to pass a new constitution. The draft text is backed by the country’s ruling military junta, which took power in a coup in August 2023.

Senegal votes in legislative elections Sunday. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who took office in April, dissolved the National Assembly in September in hopes of gaining a majority to pass his reform agenda. Read more about that agenda in this briefing by Samba Dialimpa Badji.

More from WPR

Yair Wallach on Israel’s domestic fault lines. Frida Ghitis on Mexico’s leverage over Trump. Alexander Clarkson on the damage Trump’s chaos could do. Mary Gallagher on Elon Musk, Tesla and Trump’s tariff plans.

Read all of our latest coverage here.

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