Politics and Government

“How long can this situation continue? I mean in Bosnia, now we have Ban Ki-moon [the UN secretary general] apologising 20 years after. Who will apologise for Syria in 20 years’ time? How can we stay idle?” – Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an Istanbul interview   “The Lebanese people won’t accept, after today, the continuation of the government of assassination.” – Lebanese former prime iminister Fouad Siniora said during a funeral oration Sunday   “Netanyahu felt that the chance that he may lose the reigns of government are greater than ever…This is a move that effectively makes the Likud Lieberman’s party.”  –  Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich on Thursday in response to the news of Likud’s merger with Yisrael Beiteinu   “Give it a rest, Obama…We want to get some sleep.” – a resident of Benghazi in a Twitter post Saturday in response to loud low-flying drones   “Why are you staying divided? There are no peace negotiations, and there is no clear strategy of resistance and liberation. Why shouldn’t brothers sit together and reconcile? Surely you realize that your division is the source of greater harm to your cause and the cause of all Arabs.” – Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said during a speech at Gaza’s Islamic University on Tuesday   “There is no such thing as who is better (as a candidate)…If my cousin is running, I give it (the vote) to my cousin.” – Shafiq Deis, a 70-year-old carpenter in the town of Beit Sahour south of Jerusalem   “It’s good for the public to know that the [Egyptian] current leadership is acting against Hamas in a very tough way …I can tell you that Egypt’s actions against Hamas are much harsher than it was under the previous regime.” – Israeli vice premier Silvan Shalom on Thursday   “Being king, to me, is not a benefit that I seek, it is a responsibility…Governing was never for us about holding a monopoly over authority, nor about power and its tools, but about supporting state institutions run by Jordanians from all segments of society.” – Jordan’s king Abdullah on Tuesday   “It is clear today that the struggle is over Israel’s future image and values. The vote is between an extreme and isolated country and a Zionist and sane country. I was born into the Herut movement and I am aware of the values the Likud was supposed to represent but neglected.” – Former Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni on Thursday in response to the news of Likud’s merger with Yisrael Beiteinu   “It’s a moment of truth…We’re determined to change the status quo.” – Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said in an interview Wednesday about the UN statehood bid

No doubt about it, David Barboza of the New York Times has achieved a journalistic coup. His deep dive into the financial wherewithal of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s family exposed a total net worth of a staggering $2.7 billion. Other journalists, of course, have investigated the family holdings of other Chinese leaders: a team of Bloomberg reporters broke the secrecy barrier with reports on the wealth of Bo Xilai’s family and last June published an in-depth look into the burgeoning financial holdings—almost $400 million—of soon-to-be Chinese president Xi Jinping’s extended family. Frankly, anyone who spends much time in China knows about the oligarchic nature of the Chinese elite, but the extent and distribution of the Wen family wealth is eye-opening. The implications of the NYT article, moreover, go well beyond simply another story about the ability of another Chinese leader’s family to profit from political connections. The piece has the potential to influence significantly the broader near-term Chinese political landscape in a couple of respects. First, the bad news. The political reformers have taken a serious hit. Unless Wen steps forward publicly to declare his family’s financial holdings, open their books to the public, and indicate the willingness of his family to face up to the legal consequences of any financial improprieties, his legacy will be tainted and the opportunity for him to shape future political events severely constrained. This would be a shame since Wen, alone, has been the torchbearer for political reform within the current leadership. Even more devastating, the fall of Wen could harm the political prospects of the up-and-coming reformers such as Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang. Thus far, Wen has reacted like any western politician: hiring a law firm to fight back against the article’s claims; denying that his mother had personal wealth of $120 million; and arguing that his family’s business is its business, not anyone else’s. This strategy may help preserve Wen’s public face, but it won’t prevent the longer term political fallout within top political circles. Now, the good news. Shining a bright light on the intricate relationship between wealth and power in China ratchets up the pressure on the new leadership for real change in the political system. There have now been three significant investigations into the wealth of the families of three of the country’s most senior leaders, and certainly there will be more to come. Compounding the problem for the Chinese leadership, the annual 2011 Hurun report on the wealthiest Chinese reveals that the top seventy members of the National People’s Congress are worth a combined total of $89.8 billion; in contrast, Bloomberg News calculated the net worth of the top 660 U.S. officials as only $7.5 billion. Anti-corruption campaigns cannot address the political rot within the system—that will require far more fundamental political reform. Finally, there may also be some implications for U.S.-China relations. The emerging picture of China as an oligarchy—or worse, a kleptocracy—should help put to rest the notion that the United States needs to learn from the current Chinese political model. In recent years, Chinese officials, as well as some Western scholars, have taken to criticizing Western democracy and touting the advantages of the Chinese political system. In discussing the current U.S. election, for example, the Chinese journalist Ding Gang wrote, “History proves that the more mediocre a political system is, the more it relies on votes.” And when I was in Beijing this past summer, a senior Chinese official explained to me that the Chinese model was superior in part because of the absence of money in the political system. Oops. Certainly, the American system of governance has significant shortcomings, but in its current form “socialism with Chinese characteristics” hardly seems to offer a way forward.

Over the past week, violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State, in the western part of Myanmar, has flared up badly once again. According to reports in local media and the news wires, over the past seven days at least sixty —and as many as one hundred— people have been killed in clashes. The local security forces allegedly have been firing on some crowds, and other reports suggest that the refugee camps set up for Muslims in the area have already become so overcrowded that they can no longer hold new arrivals. The cause of the new violence is very murky, with reports and rumors suggesting that some local activists, or even the security forces, have been triggering the clashes in order to lead to a crackdown on Muslims. Other reports suggest that some local fights between young men sparked the violence. But amidst the murkiness and the chaos, a larger question has arisen: Who in Myanmar’s leadership is going to take a serious, progressive approach to solving this ethnic tension? Though President Thein Sein has passed laudable economic and political reforms, his government has been mostly silent on the violence in Rakhine state, refusing to allow the Organization of the Islamic Conference to open offices to help investigate and potentially resolve the violence. It remains unclear whether the security forces are directly involved in the violence, and whether Thein Sein has tried to restrain local commanders, or even has total control over them. Aung San Suu Kyi has been nearly as quiet, alas. Throughout the violence in Rakhine State, which has gone on for months now, Suu Kyi has said almost nothing, even as other leading members of her party have issued harsh, anti-Muslim statements. During her recent trip to the United States, Suu Kyi mostly dodged questions about the violence, and she has been vilified by some Muslim leaders in Myanmar for her silence. To be sure, Suu Kyi is trying to make the shift from opposition leader and symbol to parliamentary leader and party leader, and backing rights for Muslims in Rakhine State is not popular among the Burman majority, many of whom back the National League for Democracy (NLD). And yet if Suu Kyi and her party were to be in power, running the government, they would need a real plan to reduce violence in Rakhine State, deal with the power of local commanders on the ground, and restrain the security forces. Thus the violence is not only an issue of rights —which Suu Kyi in the past paid great lip service to— but also of making coherent policy for the future, policy that at least calms the situation in Rakhine State and allows for some greater aid to flow in to refugees. Failing to make any real statement on the crisis seems a poor choice morally for Suu Kyi and the NLD leadership but also a sign of their great gap in policy experience.

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. A deadly car bomb exploded in Damascus today just hours after the Eid holiday ceasefire, brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi between Syria’s regime and the Free Syrian Army, took effect. Over sixty people have been killed throughout Syria today despite the ceasefire. The bomb, detonated near a children’s playground, killed five people and wounded over thirty more. Clashes also broke out between regime troops and rebels in Damascus’ suburbs and around the Wadi Deif base in northwestern Syria, while army shelling was reported in Homs. Despite the violence, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights noted that it was still less than usual. Taking advantage of the relative lull in violence, the largest anti-regime protests in months gathered in the streets of several cities. The ceasefire is meant to be in place for the Eid holiday. Iran. Citing intelligence officials from several countries, the New York Times reported today that Iran has nearly completed its underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo. The disclosure of the near-completion of Fordo comes just days after the New York Times reported the United States and Iran had reached an agreement to hold bilateral face-to face negotiations. White House and Iranian officials immediately denied that report. NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor addressed the Fordo reports, saying, “The president is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and continues to believe there is time and space for diplomacy.” Until last month, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had implied that he would not allow the Fordo plant to go into operation, with other Israeli officials arguing that once it did, Iran would enter a “zone of immunity” since Israel does not possess the bunker-buster bombs necessary to destroy the plant. However, in his remarks before the UN General Assembly in September, Netanyahu seemingly backed off of that position, laying down a deadline of next spring before military action must be taken. Israel. With Israel slated to head to the polls on January 22, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a surprise joint ticket Thursday between his Likud Party and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party. The joint list will be proportional to the two party’s current Knesset makeup, in which they jointly hold a total of forty-two seats – twenty-seven for Likud and fifteen for Yisrael Beiteinu. Israel’s Channel Two television reported last night that the two men had also agreed to rotate the position of prime minister, with Lieberman set to take over for the fourth year. However, both Lieberman and Netanyahu have denied the report. Jordan. Jordanian officials announced Sunday that they had thwarted a major terrorist plot to attack multiple civilian and diplomatic targets. The Jordanian government said it had apprehended eleven Jordanian nationals with links to Al Qaeda in Iraq, who were gathering weapons and explosives in Syria for use in Jordan. The plot has been described as the most serious in Jordan since 2005, when terrorists bombed a series of hotels, killing sixty people. West Bank. Palestinians in the West Bank went to the polls for municipal elections Saturday for the first municipal elections since 2005 and the first election of any kind since 2006. Abbas’ Fatah party was out-polled in five of the eleven main municipalities by lists composed of either former Fatah members now running independently, or other factions. Hamas boycotted the election. According to exit polling, more than one-third of voters listed jobs and economic conditions as their first concern. Post-election reactions have been mixed, with many Palestinians now calling for national elections. Nasser Lanham, editor-in-chief of the Maan News Agency said that “If there is no elections for the Parliament and the president, there will be a third intifada…We are talking about angry people, poor people. If they are not going to the elections, they have bad alternatives.” Lebanon. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea yesterday accused Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah yesterday of exploding a powerful car bomb last Friday in a mostly Christian neighborhood in Beirut killing at least eight people including Major General Wissam al-Hassan, Lebanon’s top intelligence officer. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah responded to Geagea’s comments, saying, “Any wise and patriotic [individual] would reject such comments that can only be welcomed by those who are willing to do a service to the Israeli enemy and its criminal plans.” Meanwhile, a U.S. FBI team arrived in Beirut yesterday to assist in the investigation at the Lebanese government’s request. The Lebanese army had deployed Monday to quell tensions following weekend protests which included gun battles in Beirut and Tripoli. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Gaza Strip. The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, visited Gaza Tuesday in the first visit by a head of state since Hamas violently took control of the territory in 2007. Entering Gaza from Egypt, Sheikh Hamad pledged four hundred million dollars in assistance to finance reconstruction projects. Yigat Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said that the emir had “thrown peace under the bus” since his visit came just hours after a bombing from Gaza that wounded an Israeli soldier. Following the emir’s visit, Palestinian militants launched dozens of missiles into Israel that prompted Israeli retaliatory air strikes. Late Wednesday evening, Egypt managed to broker an informal truce between Hamas and Israel. Egypt. Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi met with various political factions Wednesday in an effort to forge unity around the draft constitution released last week. The meeting was boycotted by seventeen political parties and movements, including Mohammed el-Baradei and former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi. The consultations did not produce a compromise, and Morsi has said that he will resume working with groups to reach one after the Eid holiday. The Cairo Administrative Court announced on Tuesday that it was referring lawsuits challenging the composition of the Constituent Assembly to the Supreme Constitutional Court. The plaintiffs are challenging how the members of the Assembly, the panel responsible for drafting Egypt’s new constitution, were chosen. Yemen. Two senior Yemeni security officers were assassinated yesterday in a drive-by shooting in the city Damar, south of the capital Sana’a. Yemeni president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi blamed Al Qaeda in a televised address late last night. This Week in History This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Enrico Mattei, the founder of the Italian energy company Eni. On October 27, 1962, Mattei died in an airplane crash, the cause of which remains unclear to this day, and was the subject of the 1972 Francesco Rosi film, The Mattei Affair. A partisan leader in the Italian resistance movement, Mattei helped create Eni after World War II to lead Italy’s energy sector. He was elected to represent the Christian Democrats in the first government formed by De Gasperi, only to resign in 1953 to become Eni’s president. Under Mattei, Eni developed the Po Valley in the late 1940s, and transformed it into the vast energy resource that fueled Italy’s post-war economic recovery. Internationally, Mattei helped break the oligopoly of the so-called “Seven-Sisters” that dominated the oil-industry, and took Eni into the Middle East, forging agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Iran, and Egypt on favorable concessionary terms unheard of at the time. “The oil is theirs,” was Mattei’s famous motto, one that earned him disfavor with the other oil companies and Western countries at the time. Today, Eni is the world’s sixth largest oil company in the world with employees in 85 countries. In 2010, it endowed the Enrico Mattei Chair at CFR. It is my honor to be the first holder of the Enrico Mattei Chair. Today, Middle East Matters commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of its namesakes’ death.

There is much talk of China’s escalating economic influence in Latin America. But it’s worth looking at what has (and hasn’t) actually happened in the three main ways that China interacts with the region’s economies: trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and loans (from state-owned banks). Trade is the most visible and important connection. Over the last several years, goods flowing back and forth have increased some 30 percent per year, bringing today’s total to roughly US$250 billion. This trade leans in China’s favor, with a deficit (nearly all with Mexico) of nearly US$100 billion. While sizable numbers, this is still just a quarter of Latin America’s trade with the United States. And it appears to be leveling off, suggesting that China won’t overtake the United States as the region’s primary trading partner anytime soon. This trade is also quite concentrated. Exports to China come primarily from Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina, and are mainly raw materials (copper, iron ore, lead, tin, soya, and sugar). Of the goods China sends east nearly half go to Mexico—a mix of consumer goods and capital goods (equipment for production). Trade with China has expanded dramatically over the past decade. But it is worth remembering that it both started from a low base and is unevenly distributed—affecting a few countries significantly and others very little. Chinese foreign direct investment has been the focus of numerous high-level state visits and has been much touted in the press. Money flowing from China to Latin America has increased—totaling some $10 billion in 2010. Still, this continues to be less than the US$25 billion coming  from the United States or the US$60 billion from European countries, and is roughly equal to US$10 billion heading from Latin American countries into their neighbors. The vast majority of Chinese funds head to the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands—suggesting tax considerations instead of productive investments. The money that is invested remains heavily concentrated on raw materials and energy—mostly in Brazil, and some in Peru. Though promises continue, so far Chinese FDI has yet to make a serious regional mark. Finally loans are a means of engaging Latin American nations. These have increased to countries such as Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador, nearly all in exchange for oil. These tens of billions of dollars comprise a decent portion of China’s development loans abroad, and outpace Latin American resources from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the United States Export-Import Bank. Still, since most countries have easy access to world financial markets, most financing comes through non-governmental sources. Overall economic ties are indeed increasing. But these trade, FDI, and loan numbers suggest the rise is slower than either the cheerleaders or naysayers might suggest. The next question is whether these links are good or bad for the region. On the good side, trade with China has helped spur Latin America’s economic growth. Increased ties with China have played a big part of the strong (by Latin American standards) GDP growth of last decade. Especially for Brazil, Argentina, and Peru, connections to the world’s economic engine were important in wake of the world financial crisis. Comparing Brazil’s and Mexico’s growth rates in 2010 tells that story—and the positive role that China can and does play. China’s trade has also benefited Latin America’s consumers. The big story of the last two decades is the rise of a middle class in many Latin American countries. Achieving a middle class lifestyle relies in part on higher incomes, but also on greater purchasing power. Access to more goods of better quality and at lower prices, has changed the lives of many. China’s sales of clothing, electronics, and even cars have benefited those in the middle and lower middle ranks. The downsides also exist. These same imports that make consumers happy hit the economy at large. They directly compete with Latin American producers, both in home markets as well as abroad in the United States and the European Union. Anecdotal evidence points to factories closing, and aggregate trade data shows Latin American producers losing world market share to China. Still, estimates suggest this head to head competition occurs in roughly 12 percent of exports from Latin America’s biggest economies—significant, but not everywhere. The indirect effects of China’s rise have also caused problems—especially through the “Dutch disease.” This occurs when the success of commodity exports raises the currency, making it harder for manufacturing companies to compete internationally. Many argue that this has occurred in Brazil (and helps account for the decline in manufacturing production as a percent of exports) it may also be happening in Venezuela, Argentina, and Peru. The bigger worry for Latin American countries is that they are losing their hard fought gains. Over the last few decades many both successfully opened their economies and diversified their production. Looking at the breakdown of exports, one can see a manufacturing surge in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia since the 1980s. But China’s pressure on its trading partners threatens to undo these gains. Whether or not Latin America can continue to climb the economic value-added chain matters for the long term. Commodity dependency leaves countries more vulnerable to global commodity price swings, and makes it harder to plan and implement long-term policies as a result.  It also limits the job opportunities for the growing number of educated, urban, and ambitious people—the new middle class. China’s presence in Latin America, as in many places, holds both promises and perils. But it is a reality. The challenge for Latin American countries will be to harness these ties for bigger gains for their own economies and people.

Yesterday on my blog, I discussed the current outlook for food security in the Sahel. While a large humanitarian response and welcome rainfall have averted an immediate crisis, the region continues to face underlying problems ranging from unreliable weather to the conflict in Mali. As I conclude: Possible elements of a patchwork of solutions include more attention to the unique needs of small-scale farmers and pastoralists, plus interventions adapted to local contexts, like irrigation and better access to drought-resistant seeds and other agricultural inputs. Further experimentation with cash vouchers is also important. But ultimately, the Sahel’s food insecurity issues cannot be addressed without improvements in regional security and local governance. You can read the full post here.

It baffles me that the Western media is paying so little attention to the flooding in Nigeria. There are dramatic aerial photographs of the flooding in the Delta, and affected areas spread as far afield as Kano and Kogi states in northern and central Nigeria. Over a million people have been displaced. In the Delta alone, tens of thousands have been moved into camps that are ill-equipped to receive them.  Crop fields and fisheries in their thousands of hectares are completely flooded and destroyed. Local food shortages seem inevitable; though President Goodluck Jonathan is confident existing grain stores will be sufficient. In over-crowded camps with poor sanitation, the spread of infectious disease also seems inevitable. Deaths–direct and indirect–from flooding in Nigeria this season, may exceed the total associated with Boko Haram. UN humanitarian agencies often sound the alarm about impending humanitarian crises, as they have done in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. For example, the World Health Organization’s Africa Regional Director, Dr. Luis Gomes Sambo, on October 25, called attention to the Sahel’s need for international help to combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) that have spread because of flooding in that region. But these UN agencies are, by and large, not present in the Niger Delta. Other international NGOs, including Oxfam and the Red Cross and Red Crescent, are present however. Their relative quiet is hard to understand. The Nigerian federal government in Abuja does not seem to be asking for the international assistance it clearly needs. Meanwhile, the Western media is, almost universally, giving the flooding stories a pass. Is it a case of seeing the floods as yet another dreary story out of Africa, and Nigeria in particular, that allows news agencies to draw the  conclusion that their readership would have only a limited interest?

For more than two decades beginning in 1956, CBS and then NBC aired a television show “To Tell the Truth,” in which a panel of celebrities attempted to identify which one of three contestants was telling the truth about who he/she was. I always found the show rather painfully gripping as I waited for the final reveal, when the host would ask, “Would the real [so and so] please stand up?”  That pretty much sums up how I feel about the Chinese leadership succession process. I am more than ready for the host of the Chinese Communist Party to ask, “Will the real Chinese leadership please stand up?” It has been an exhausting process, trying the patience of even the most dedicated Pekinologists. As China watcher Francesco Sisci has noted, there are still “so many elements up in the air,” including: how many people will be in the standing committee? Will there be a woman? Will Hu Jintao stay as chairman of the Central Military Commission? I will confess that for me, the greatest source of frustration—dare I say upset—stems from the most recent set of names being bandied about for the next Politburo Standing Committee. The list includes the expected Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, and Wang Qishan, along with Zhang Gaoli and Yu Zhengsheng. However, instead of Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang, there is Liu Yunshan and Zhang Dejiang. If you have not been following the succession process closely, who sits where may not sound that significant, but actually, the future of the country could well hinge on the differences between the two sets of men. Zhang Dejiang and Liu Yunshan have made their careers by serving as the protectorates of Party orthodoxy. Zhang, who was trained in economics in North Korea, is most well-known for suppressing the flow of information during the SARS outbreak while serving as Guangdong Party Secretary and holding oversight responsibility for the corruption-plagued, money-losing high speed rail program. Central Committee Propaganda chief Liu, in turn, has been partly responsible for the Party’s multi-billion dollar outreach effort to spread the Chinese media’s version of truth to the rest of the world. In the face of democratic uprisings throughout the Middle East, Liu claimed, “The hostile forces in the world have intensified their infiltration into our ideology by constantly changing their tactics.” In contrast, Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao line up as the Energizer bunnies of reform. As Guangdong Party Secretary, Wang has made it easier for non-governmental organizations to be legally registered, pushed reforms that have made the bureaucracy more transparent, and advocated strengthening intellectual property rights. He also won widespread kudos for managing social unrest in his province with a light hand, arguing in the process that officials need to “balance maintaining stability and basic rights while helping people to express their needs.” Li Yuanchao, now head of the Party’s Organization Department, used his previous position as Jiangsu Party secretary to push through a different set of important social and political reforms. He sought the public’s opinion when hiring and firing government leaders, ensured that Jiangsu provided education for the children of migrant workers, and closed thousands of polluting factories in a bid to improve the local environment. China’s next leaders face a set of stark challenges: what to do about vested interests and the future of economic reform; what to do about a foreign policy that is repelling rather than attracting other countries; what to do about 500 million Weibo users who want a say in the future of their country; and perhaps most important, what to do to shore up the legitimacy of the Communist Party in the face of ongoing scandals and corruption? There can be little doubt that the solutions proposed by Zhang and Liu will differ fundamentally from those advocated by Li and Wang. Of course, as many of China’s neighbors have proved over the years, significant reform can arise from the most unlikely sources. I’ll hold on to that thought on November 8, if Zhang and Liu rather than Li and Wang are the ones marching into the Great Hall of the People behind Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, and the others.

Politics within South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) is focused on the upcoming December party convention for the party presidency. The political maneuvering is focused on nominees for party positions, but also looks over its shoulder at the national presidency and vice presidency nominations for the 2015 elections. Voting in South African national elections largely remains a racial census. The ANC candidates for presidency and vice presidency can count on support from most of the country’s black population, making victory for its nominees in national elections almost a foregone conclusion. Africa Confidential has published an excellent primer on the current state of play inside the ANC. Zuma faces a serious challenge for the party leadership from the vice president, Kgalema Motlanthe, and, possibly, billionaire businessman Cyril Ramaphosa. But neither Motlanthe nor Ramaphosa have yet declared themselves candidates for the party presidency. A possible deal between the Zuma and Motlanthe campaigns might have Motlanthe not run against Zuma for the party presidency in December in return for a promise of the ANC nomination to be president of the country in 2015. Many of Zuma’s supporters, however, think they can deliver the party presidency in December without compromising Zuma’s prospective 2015 nomination as the party’s national presidential candidate. This is based on a consideration of how ANC delegates are likely to vote at the December convention. Under present circumstances, Africa Confidential thinks Zuma will prevail in December. I share that view. The struggle between Zuma, Motlanthe, Ramaphosa, and a number of other ANC political figures for other top party positions appears to be an inside-the-party fight for power without much reference to principle, vision, or to South Africa’s immediate challenges, such as unrest in the mining industry, the decline in the value of the rand, and the lowering of the country’s credit rating. Party politics seem symbolic of the unfortunately increasing detachment of the ANC from the everyday concerns of most South Africans.

Sunday’s New York Times carried an Agence France Presse piece reporting on the alleged Boko Haram killing of at least thirty people over a three day period in Potiskum, Yobe state.  The piece also notes that it was “not clear whether soldiers were responsible for any of the destruction.” The Nigerian army has been widely accused of indiscriminate killings in northern Nigeria as part of its campaign against Boko Haram.  Some political leaders have urged the Jonathan government to withdraw the military, especially from Maiduguri, arguing that it feeds popular support for Boko Haram.  I have blogged on a Human Rights Watch report that raises the question of whether the International criminal Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed both by Boko Haram and the military. But it is too easy to lay responsibility for alleged security service atrocities solely at the feet of the Nigerian military.  As in many countries, the army in Nigeria is not responsible for maintaining domestic order.  That is the function of the police, which, like the army, is a national–not local or state–institution. The army is not trained for domestic policing.  Nonetheless the army has moved to the forefront in the struggle against Boko Haram because of the inadequacies of the police.  The latter are so poorly paid they often support their families by shaking down travelers at the ubiquitous check points and indulge in other forms of petty corruption.  The upper reaches of the police also appear riddled with corruption, sometimes of spectacular magnitude.  And they are very badly trained.  Anecdotes abound of indiscriminate police killings. A consequence of these shortcomings is that the police are widely (if not universally) despised.  Popular regard for the military is marginally better, if seemingly in decline because of recent abuse allegations. There is legal provision for the military to assist the police.  But that is supposed to be governed by strict protocols.  If the army sweeps an area, it is required to hand over its detainees to the police, as occurred when the army captured Boko Haram chief Mohammed Yusuf in 2009.  As is well known, the police then murdered him. There is another dimension.  Individuals in the army can be just as affected by the religious and ethnic conflicts that have become widespread in northern Nigeria in the aftermath of the elections of 2011, as the population they are charged to protect. It is likely that many individual soldiers have a strong–even murderous–bias against the local people. It goes without saying that individuals are responsible for their crimes.  Soldiers, especially, must be held to the highest personal standards.  Nevertheless, there is also an institutional mess, responsibility for which rests with successive governments in Abuja as well as with the individuals who commit the crimes.  Over the past decade Abuja has not developed, trained, or supported the police adequately for it to do its job.  And it is misusing the army to do what it is not trained to do.  Alas, at this stage, it is too late to do much about it.  Precipitous withdrawal of the army from Maiduguri could leave the city altogether open to Boko Haram.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney meet tonight in Boca Raton, Florida to debate foreign policy. Both campaigns see the third and final debate as their best opportunity to reach the public before Election Day. The two candidates will be speaking to voters who expect to hear affirmations of U.S. leadership but who are also skeptical of foreign entanglements in the midst of tough economic times and after more than a decade of war. Although the harsh rhetoric on the campaign trail sometimes suggests otherwise, Monday night’s debate won’t pit fundamentally different visions of American foreign policy against each other. Obama’s and Romney’s views are broadly similar. Both men are internationalists with a strong pragmatic streak; they largely agree on the chief threats the United States faces overseas. The imperatives of the debate, however, will push the two candidates to stress their differences far more than their similarities. The six topics that moderator Bob Scheiffer has selected for discussion—one for each of the debate’s six fifteen-minute sections—focus primarily on the Greater Middle East. Obama and Romney largely agree on U.S. objectives in the region: stopping Iran from going nuclear, supporting Israel, turning security responsibilities over to the Afghans by 2014, encouraging the ouster of the al-Assad government in Syria, and dismantling al Qaeda and its affiliates. Their differences are primarily over details, tactics, and tone. One potentially significant difference is whether the United States should seek to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, as Obama has argued, or even a nuclear capability, as Romney has contended. The one country outside the Greater Middle East that the candidates will discuss is China. Romney has accused Obama of failing to vigorously challenge predatory Chinese trade practices and has pledged to label China a “currency manipulator” once in office. A scrap over currency practices might not leave time to discuss an equally important issue, China’s growing military power in Asia. Several critical foreign policy issues didn’t make the cut for the debate. Mexico isn’t on the agenda, even though growing drug-related violence there could have a substantial consequences for the United States. Neither is defense spending nor U.S.-Russian relations, despite the fact that Romney pledges to increase the defense budget substantially and argues that Russia constitutes America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Other topics not slated for discussion include climate change, the Eurozone crisis, foreign aid, Africa, Venezuela, and global health. Will Monday night’s debate determine the election? Probably not. Presidential debates seldom move public opinion much or for very long. This tendency is especially likely to hold now because voters are far more worried about jobs and the economy than about foreign policy. Finally, a historical irony: tonight’s debate comes on the fiftieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s televised address to the nation that the Soviets had begun installing nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. That crisis took the world to the brink of nuclear war. Its anniversary is a solemn reminder of the stakes in foreign policy. This article is also posted at PBS Newshour.

Last week I introduced the SERF Index, a new measurement tool my colleagues Susan Randolph, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, and I have built to evaluate social and economic rights fulfillment. The new index sheds important light on the issues facing the Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council, where Argentina, Gabon, Ghana, Peru, Guatemala, Benin, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Pakistan, Zambia, Japan, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka will be evaluated on their human rights practices under applicable international human rights conventions from October 22 to November 5. This year’s session will be the fourteenth meeting of the Universal Periodic Review since its first session in March 2006. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has underlined the importance of the upcoming session, noting that the Universal Periodic Review “has great potential to promote and protect human rights in the darkest corners of the world.” Yet the review process faces trying challenges, and wide scrutiny, in effecting real change in human rights situations on the ground. The SERF Index can help us analyze performance in the countries up for review. Some highlights: Overall, Argentina performs well, ranking thirteenth out of 98 countries on the SERF Index. Argentina consistently meets 80 percent or more of its obligations on the right to food, education, work, and health, which is surprising given the challenges the country faced during its economic crisis almost a decade ago. Nonetheless, Argentina could do better by focusing resources on its weakest area: the right to housing, for which the government meets only 78 percent of its potential. Data on Gabon reveals that even when limited state capacity is taken into account, the government is still underperforming in meeting its obligations to fulfill social and economic rights. Gabon achieves only 52 percent of its potential in providing citizens with the right to food—with 26 percent of its population stunted or not receiving adequate nutrition. Gabon’s fulfillment of the right to education is also quite low. Gabon’s performance in the right to housing is particularly bad, scoring a 20 percent fulfillment rate—ranking second to last on the SERF Index. Instead of dismissing Ghana as a middle-of-the-road development country, it should be commended for its efforts in some areas and supported in refocusing attention to others. Ghana is an example of a country that is, in general, meeting the rights of its citizens even with very little. Ghana reaches 80 percent or more of its obligations in the rights to work, food, and education, despite its median ranking on human development indicators. However, the SERF Index parses out the country’s weaknesses as well as its strengths. The Ghanaian government fulfills the right to health at only 60 percent and the right to housing at an unimpressive 52 percent, showing that although the government is successful in providing certain rights, it could perform much better in others. Benin struggles to meet its capacity for fulfilling the social and economic rights of its populace—ranking in the bottom fifteen of all the countries analyzed on the SERF Index—with a fulfillment of 52.5 percent. Benin’s categorization is also similar on the HDI, which ranks Benin as a “low human development” country. However, a closer examination of Benin’s fulfillment of specific rights shows that, in comparison to other indicators, the country is most successful in providing the right to education, at roughly 68 percent, versus the right to work (at 41 percent) or the right to food (at 46 percent). Peru seems like a a middle-of-the pack country at first glance, but SERF indicators offer a more nuanced perspective that can be useful for UN human rights evaluators to determine how the Peruvian government can close the gaps in human rights fulfillment. Peru performs especially well on the right to education at a high rate of 97 percent fulfillment, but struggles in the area of housing rights, meeting only 58 percent of its obligations. Guatemala, in most regards, scores at an above average rate when compared to other countries in the SERF Index. But while HDI characterizes Guatemala as a medium human development country, SERF reveals that the country is failing to address its food crisis. Although Guatemala fulfills the right to education (at 72 percent) and work (at 76 percent), the country scores above only two countries—Yemen and Afghanistan—on the right to food, meeting a mere 17 percent of its obligations. Switzerland is not currently ranked by the SERF Index. Overall Pakistan appears to be doing poorly. The government fails to meet even half of its obligations for fulfillment on the rights to education, food, and work. However, the SERF Index shows that Pakistan is not a hopeless case. Despite its limited resources, the country does relatively well in meeting its obligations for the right to housing (at 74 percent) and is about average in its fulfillment for healthcare, at 66 percent. Zambia barely meets 57 percent of its rights fulfillment capacity. But when we look in detail at the right to education, the country does remarkably well. It meets almost 92 percent of its capacity, given available resources. This presents a different picture that the one seen when only looking at HDI measurements, which neglect the great resource constraints Zambia faces and fail to take into account the country’s efforts on the right to education. However, the government could do better on other SERF indicators, particularly the right to food and work, where it meets only 44 and 39 percent of its capabilities, respectively. Japan is not currently ranked on the SERF Index. Ukraine ranks seventh overall on the SERF Index, with approximately a 91 percent fulfillment rate. The country also ranks highly among those assessed by the HDI, but an analysis of individual SERF indicators shows that while Ukraine performs well on the rights to work and education, efforts should be concentrated on improving the right to food, for which the country’s fulfillment currently stands at roughly 77 percent. Sri Lanka is another example of a country performing well in spite of limited resources. Ranking in the top thirty on the SERF Index, Sri Lanka meets 84 percent of its capacity overall. Specifically, the country reaches 85 percent of its capabilities or higher on the rights to housing, health, education, and food. However, the country falls short on the right to work, meeting only 63 percent of its capabilities—a nuance that is missed when looking at the country’s medium human development ranking on the HDI. While the SERF Index can help provide a fuller picture, it is by no means a complete one. No one index can perfectly capture the realities on the ground, and multiple sources of information should be used simultaneously to provide a complete picture. Nevertheless, the SERF Index can help global governance institutions and civil society organizations hold states accountable for meeting the social and economic rights of their people.