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Members of the old regime are still calling the shots

BEIRUT

THE MOST popular candidate in Algerias presidential election might be a rubbish bag. On December 12th Algerians will choose a successor to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who stepped down in April after 20 years of dictatorial rule. Or, rather, a small minority of Algerias 41m people will choose one. Much of the country seems unenthused by the vote. In the capital, Algiers, protesters hang rubbish bags over campaign posters or replace them with pictures of jailed activists. One candidates headquarters was pelted with eggs and tomatoes. Another was forced to cancel his first campaign rally because almost no one turned up.

To hear the government tell it, the election is an important step towards democracy. It will probably be the most tightly contested presidential vote since 1995. Yet for the millions of Algerians who demanded the ousting of Mr Bouteflikaand who continue to protestit is nothing to celebrate. Instead the election demonstrates the difficulty of removing the structures that sustained the strongman.

First scheduled for July, the election was postponed amid calls for a boycott. Only two people, a veterinarian and a mechanic, registered to run. This time 23 candidates tried to make the ballot. Most failed to meet the requirements, such as collecting signatures from supporters in at least 25 provinces. The five who made it all served under Mr Bouteflikatwo as prime minister, two as cabinet members and the fifth as an MP who led a small loyalist party.

It may seem paradoxical to shun an election to support democracy. But activists say they have learned from the failed uprisings in countries like Egypt, where protesters toppled a ruler but not his regime. By the end of his long reign, the ailing Mr Bouteflika was no longer up to the task of running the country. Though he remained the figurehead, a group of men known as le pouvoir wielded power behind the scenes. They are loth to surrender it.

For the armed forces, which saw their own pouvoir curtailed in favour of businessmen close to Mr Bouteflika, the current vacuum is a chance to regain control. One of the candidates, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former prime minister, is thought to be close to the army chief, Gaid Salah.

The regime had hoped to simply outlast the protesters, who call themselves Hirak (movement in Arabic). That strategy has not yet worked: Algerians have demonstrated every week since February. As the election approaches the regime has turned to coercion, detaining scores of activists and journalists. Having been embarrassed in July, the authorities are determined to hold the vote. General Salah warns of foreign plots against Algeria, while the interior minister labels critics of the election as traitors, mercenaries, homosexuals.

The bigger question is what happens after December 12th. Algeria will have a new president widely seen as illegitimate. But he will still be president, with all the power that entails. Compared with other Arab countries, the repression in Algeria has been mild. The incoming president, keen to cement his grip on power, may not show such forbearance.

He will also inherit a stagnant economy. Despite its vast oil and gas wealth, Algerias per-capita income is below that of some resource-poor Arab states, such as Lebanon. Unemployment is 12% overall and much higher for young people. The finance minister recently warned that foreign reserves, which amounted to $200bn in 2014, may drop to $50bn by the end of next year. The value of oil and gas exports, which supply 60% of government revenue, fell by 13% in the first nine months of 2019. A new hydrocarbons law, meant to draw foreign investment, has been criticised by protesters and energy experts alike.

Algerians are not alone. In Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq this year angry citizens toppled their rulers but have struggled to force deeper changes. The protests cannot continue for ever. Algerias election might be a stunt to keep the ancien rgime in powerbut that does not mean it will fail.

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Algerians fear their election will be a blow to democracy"

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Algerians fear their election will be a blow to democracy - The Economist

A distant goal on the barely visible other side of a treacherous climb along a path filled with potholes, snakes and rusted spikes. Indian democracy looks a bit like that, after the recent killings in Hyderabad.

The rape and murder of a young woman in Hyderabad was gruesome enough. The response of the state, of rounding up four presumed culprits and bumping them off in a so-called encounter, was no less appalling. The response of many, particularly those in public life, who gleefully cheered the police action, is indeed horrific. Indians have to be careful while washing their skin with deep-cleansing lotions: these might peel off the entirety of the democratic sensibility they have managed to accumulate since Independence and all the markers of civilisation that set modern humans apart from savages.

Democracy is the rule of the people, by the people and for the people. That is a glib definition, sufficient for a summary that also serves as a rhetorical flourish. When the people in question are not homogeneous, but differentiated, in terms of income and education, social status and stratification, faith and ritual, and language, region and ethnicity, that definition is a mere starting point for a journey across uncharted terrain.

Democracy differentiates itself from majoritarianism by virtue of certain individual and group rights it commits itself to. The will of a temporary majority cannot breach those rights. To secure those rights, certain institutions and institutional mechanisms are integral to democracy. Due process is what we call setting those institutions and mechanisms in motion.

In Hyderabad, the four accused were killed without the benefit of due process. No person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence, nor be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence, says Article 20 of the Constitution.

No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law, says Article 21. Two fundamental rights were blatantly violated by the state in Hyderabad.

When a member of Parliament, having sworn allegiance to the Constitution, calls for rapists to be lynched, she commits perjury, admits to lack of faith in the legal system and in democracy.

But what of the victim, why dont you talk about the rights of the poor girl who was so brutally killed, ask some people. Of course, those who committed the crime against the young woman deserve all the punishment that could be inflicted under the law. But first, it must be established that these four were, indeed, the ones who committed the crime.

The police have a habit of making quick arrests when the public outcry is loud against a heinous crime. Often, the accused stay in jail for a decade or so and get acquitted. The police get some relief from public anger, so what if some young men lose their youth behind bars for no reason other than that they were convenient for the police to arrest.

People hail extra-judicial reprisals when the law proves dysfunctional so goes another line of justification. Two separate rape victims from Unnao being fatally attacked by their rapists or their agents while on their way to proceedings against the rapists is clear evidence of such legal dysfunction. But is the solution to give up the law and hope for redemption either from caped crusaders who deliver vigilante justice or from law enforcers who breach the law at will?

The right to equality is yet another fundamental right. Equality can be uplifting, decidedly. But do you want equality with those unfortunate souls who are picked up by the police and locked up for crimes the police are under pressure to solve but lack the needed competence to? Clearly not. If you still want to celebrate the working of death squads, you believe not in equality but in social hierarchy: of different groups with differential rights, mentally ensconcing yourself within the elite lot immune to such arbitrary violence at the hands of the state.

When the rule of law matters no more, who takes the hit can be entirely arbitrary. Who is in power changes, so does who is in the line of fire.

India has a democratic Constitution, thanks to the political leadership at the time of Independence. Indian society lags far behind the Constitution, with a sensibility tempered by the segmented solidarity of religion, caste and region. To transcend primordial urges that valorise vengeance over justice and immediate gratification over the slow but sure working of institutional mechanisms, people must identify themselves with the larger collective that has agency in democracy, that is, the people of India. But when politics turns sectarian, such identification crumbles.

Lynch mobs and those baying for the blood of those accused of crimes but with unproven culpability, are signs of the strains on Indias as yet fledgling democratic project.

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View: What the Hyderabad encounter tells us about the state of India's democracy - Economic Times

In the past we've been able to focus our attention on adversaries and not had to spend a lot of time shoring up the democracies, including our own, said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). We don't have that luxury anymore. We've got to spend some of our time shoring up our own democracies."

For Kaine, a fierce critic of the president who ran in 2016 to defeat him, the subtext of that comment is obvious.

But Donald Trump is far from the only concern among Western officials, who are anxious not just about the short-term threat Russian machinations pose to their own increasingly polarized societies, but also the more insidious danger posed by an emerging Chinese superpower whose true intentions are under suspicion everywhere from cowering nearby countries to corporate supply chains to far-flung Arctic outposts.

As one Western official put it, Russia is like a series of hurricanes. China is climate change.

Sen. Tim Kaine. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

The very opening of the forum betrayed the sense of urgency that permeated the entire weekend, from private breakfasts and dinners to ad hoc huddles over coffee and lobster rolls.

Freedom and democracy cannot be taken for granted in any country at any time, Peter Van Praagh, president of the forum, said in his welcoming remarks.

We all need to double down on figuring out how to breathe back meaning into our values and institutions, Nancy Lindborg, president of the United States Institute of Peace, urged those gathered.

Democracy advocates can point to few success stories in recent years, and in fact most broad trends run the opposite way: freedom around the world has declined every year for the past 13 years, according to the NGO Freedom House, and academic researchers now fret about a third wave of autocratization sweeping the globe.

Within the major democracies, populist rabble-rousers are on the march, powered by social media and puffed up by economic discontent, dislocation and voters disillusionment with leaders who havent delivered on their promises. For every inspiring example of people power in places like Hong Kong, Iran and Sudan, there are equally alarming cases of countries sliding back into illiberal democracy, as in Hungary, or simply dysfunction and paralysis, as in the United Kingdom.

Yascha Mounk, a researcher who has done seminal work on democratic decline, said that even seemingly robust democracies like Chile and France that have seen at times violent popular demonstrations are much more brittle than we realize.

Mounk noted that it usually takes populations a decade or more to wake up to the danger of authoritarian leaders like Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in the meantime can tighten their grip on the state and make it nearly impossible for voters to dislodge them.

The impending British exit from the European Union is more subtly but unmistakably destabilizing the power dynamics among European countries, tempting French President Emmanuel Macron to seize a leading role in Britains absence.

A recent interview Macron gave to The Economist, in which he declared the brain death of NATO and questioned its once-sacred doctrine of collective defense essentially rolling a grenade into next months summit was still reverberating in hallway exchanges and off-the-record discussions in Halifax.

On the second day of the conference, The New York Times published a bombshell report on a private blowup between Macron and Angela Merkel, in which the German chancellor furiously scolded her French counterpart.

I understand your desire for disruptive politics, the Times quoted Merkel as saying. But Im tired of picking up the pieces. Over and over, I have to glue together the cups you have broken so that we can then sit down and have a cup of tea together.

"Im tired of picking up the pieces. Over and over, I have to glue together the cups you have broken so that we can then sit down and have a cup of tea together.

- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to the New York Times

The EU, evolving from the ashes of World War II, was explicitly created to forestall future conflict between France and Germany. The prospect of open dissension among its two leading powers threatens to mire the 28-member pact in internal rancorall while it is having trouble enough confronting external threats like Russia or managing a surge of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.

And the impeachment inquiry in Washington is only helping Russia sow mischief and division in the United States and Europe, according to former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who sought to steer clear of the sharply partisan wrangling over Burisma and the Bidens.

Poroshenko said nobody had ever asked him about those topics while he was president any of it and warned Westerners against allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to pit them against each other.

Who benefits from this? Poroshenko asked. Theres only one person: Putin.

The Halifax Forum was co-founded by the late John McCain, and his spirit hung over the three-day conference. It was at this conference, in 2016, that McCain received a copy of the infamous Steele dossier from a retired British diplomat setting off a frenzy of reporting on Trump and his campaigns dealings with Russia that clouded his presidency from its inception.

McCains proteges, many of whom were in attendance, differed on what the Arizona senator would have made of the present moment. One guessed that McCain would have built coalitions across the aisle on the issues he cared about, including confronting China and Russia and shoring up NATO; another said he would have warned his colleagues against thinking they could manage Trump.

The senators absence was perhaps most keenly felt as news broke that Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the Navy, was contemplating resigning over a dispute with the president over the fate of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes. On stage at the conference, Spencer categorically denied the story only to be summarily fired by Defense Secretary Mark Esper while many attendees were on the charter flight back to Washington.

There can be little question that McCain, a Navy pilot who never lost his fighter-jock instincts or his deep respect for military traditions, would have used all of his rhetorical and political firepower to bolster the brass in its showdown with the White House.

The emotional climax of the event came when McCains widow, Cindy, awarded a prize in his honor to the people of Hong Kong, whose struggle was introduced with a video interspersing footage of the young fighter pilots captivity in Hanoi with clips of street battles with police in Hong Kong.

Late Sen. John McCain. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

In an impassioned speech accepting the award, Hong Kong lawmaker Emily Lau said she hoped the president would sign the Hong Kong bill and urged attendees to do your best to ensure that there will be no rivers of blood in Hong Kong.

Conference organizers made China and its seemingly inexorable rise the theme of the public sessions, from Huaweis alleged efforts to penetrate Western societies through consumer technology to Beijings suspected ambitions in the Arctic, where China is building research stations the Pentagon suspects may be future military bases in disguise, and throwing around money in places like Iceland and Greenland.

If there is a Cold War with China, though, nobody here is willing to admit it.

I think we refer to them as a peer competitor, U.S. national security adviser Robert OBrien said during a 45-minute news conference with journalists, even as he warned about the concerted threat posed by state-linked Chinese technology companies, notably Huawei, and blasted the Beijing government for running concentration camps in western China.

A call for a show of hands during one panel found just two or three participants willing to support a policy of containment of China, and the general consensus was that while the West needed to do something to stand up to Beijing, everyone disagreed on what.

And that, aside from the worry, was another theme of the confab: Western countries are in deep trouble, but few could agree on what needed to be done or just who, exactly, should lead the way.

Martin Luther King said the long arc of history bends towards justice, said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). I think that there is a real question as to whether were coming to a fork in the road. I dont think anyone feels that they figured this out completely.

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Democracies on the verge of a nervous breakdown - POLITICO

Representatives of Democracy Without Borders (DWB) recently participated in two events in London and used the opportunity to advocate democratic global governance.

On 2 November 2019 Andreas Bummel, DWBs Executive Director, spoke at the Battle of Ideas which, in their words, provides a unique forum to discuss the big issues of our time. The topic, Does the world need a government?, was originally proposed by Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck College. Andreas shared the platform with Ian Crawford, Mary Kaldor, an emeritus professor of global governance at London School of Economics, and Tara McCormack, a lecturer on international politics at University of Leicester. The panel was moderated by Rob Lyons, Academy of Ideas.

Andreas argued that the world does indeed need a government to tackle global threats and challenges. He pointed out that in his view this means a system of multilevel government from the local to the global level that is based on the principles of subsidiarity and federalism. At all levels democratic participation and representation of citizens as well as the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances and the protection of minority rights would have to be implemented, he went on to explain. In terms of the global level this would imply a world parliament. As a first step he introduced the proposal of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, DWBs main program.

With the exception of Tara McCormack, the other panelists expressed support for a federal system of global governance as well. Ian Crawford argued for a world government from the perspective of a cosmic world view and big history. Mary Kaldor emphasised the requirement for global governance to reinvigorate substantive local democracy as well as the rule of law and human rights. Tara instead argued that democracy was under pressure in nation-states and that this should be the focus instead of global institutions.

Many comments and questions in the discussion indicated a fear that nation-states would cease to exist in a system of global government. However, the panelists made it clear that nobody advocates a unified global state.

At The Fourth Groups Politics Summit 2019 on 19 November 2019 John Vlasto, DWBs representative in the United Kingdom, debated whether Globalism is outdated for the 21st century with Ben Habib, Member of the European Parliament for the Brexit Party. John was joined by James Sancto, CEO of We Make Change; Ella Whelan, a Co-Convenor of the Battle of Ideas; and the debate was moderated by Lewis Iwu, a former world debating champion.

Ben opened the debate by describing a spectrum from extreme globalism at one end, with no nation states, to extreme nationalism at the other, with no global governance, and argued that we should aim for somewhere in between. He then gave a reasoned criticism of the European Union from a financial perspective, including its protectionist tendencies, and the way in which the euro has been introduced and managed, and concluded that Brexit would be good for Britain.

Apart from the conclusion, which ignores the benefits of the European Union, John had little to disagree with. John argued, as Andreas had at the Battle of Ideas, that more effective and accountable global governance is needed to tackle global challenges, such as the sustainability crisis, the urgency of which is beginning to make such political change possible. Ella argued that globalism is inherently undemocratic as democracy operates at the national level. John countered that this surely calls for expanding democracy to the global level to manage our globalised economy. He introduced DWBs core proposal of a UN Parliamentary Assembly as a realistic first step towards this. James pointed out that nationalism and globalism do not have to be seen as being in tension, since effective global governance rests on effective national governance we need both.

Votes were taken at the beginning and end of the debate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vast majority at this progressive event started in favour of globalism, and remained in favour of globalism.

At both events the core argument against democratising global governance was that national democracy needs reinvigorating first. But this is back to front. Many decisions that affect people are now made at the global level, beyond the reach of national democracy, which disenfranchises national electorates and leads to a feeling of powerlessness and being out of control. This cannot be addressed at the national level. The only solution is to democratise global governance, putting the people back in control of the global decisions that affect them. Once we have global democracy, national democracy will be reinvigorated, as it will be able to focus on the national issues within its control. To reinvigorate national democracy, first we must democratise global governance.

Link:
Democratic global governance advocated at events in London - Democracy Without Borders

It probably shouldnt surprise us that, after hearing from witnesses who testified consistently that the president attempted to bribe a foreign head of state in order to get dirt on a political opponent, the needle hasnt moved on those who oppose impeachment. Weve been here before. On several occasions, hopes have been raised that this is the moment Trumps enablers will finally abandon him. But it has never happened.

Given that the presidents base of support comes primarily from white evangelicals, it is important to understand Christian nationalism in order to explain their loyalty. One of the court evangelicals, Franklin Graham, recentlygave us a window into that world.

During his November 21 interview with Graham, Metaxas, a Salem Radio Network talk-show host, asked the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, What do you think of what is happening now? I mean, its a very bizarre situation to be living in a country where some people seem to exist to undermine the president of the United States. Its just a bizarre time for most Americans.

Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, responded, Well, I believe its almost a demonic power that is trying

At which point Metaxas interjected, I would disagree. Its not almost demonic. You know and I know, at the heart, its a spiritual battle.

Graham agreed

As Peter Wehner summarized, the message is that, in this spiritual battle, we all have to chose sides.

For Graham and Metaxas, it appears that agreeing with them equates to agreeing with Godand disagreeing with them, at least when it comes to Donald Trump, means doing the work of the evil one.

For these Christian nationalists, its not enough to say, God is on our side. If you dont agree with them, you are engaged with a demonic power. There is no authoritarian tool more controlling than the one that wields the power to define the playing field like that. It is a pronouncement that leaves no room for debate or nuance. Youre either all in or all out. Anyone who buys into what theyre saying has no choice but to defend Trump. To do otherwise is a pathway to eternal doom with the devil.

To further the argument that God is on Trumps side, Rick Perry recently opined about how the president is the chosen one.

Apparently, Perry also said that Obama was chosen by God. Its funny how we never heard that when Obama was actually president. But what Perry was articulating is a theological argument for the omnipotence of God, who has unlimited power to control everything. Leaving that one aside for the moment, it is worth examining the rhetoric Perry used.

I actually gave the president a little one-pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago, and I shared it with him, he continued. I said, Mr. President, I know there are people that say you said you were the chosen one, and I said, You were.

I said, If youre a believing Christian, you understand Gods plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government, he added.

He was comparing Trump to kings in the Old Testament and referred to Gods plan for those who rule over us. That goes to the heart of something Katherine Stewart wrote about Christian nationalists.

The great thing about kings like Cyrus, as far as todays Christian nationalists are concerned, is that they dont have to follow rules. They are the law. This makes them ideal leaders in paranoid times

I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years. And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trumps character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.

This isnt the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They arent fighting a culture war. Theyre making a direct attack on democracy itself.

As you can see, Graham wasnt the first one to claim that resistance to Trump is tantamount to resistance to God. Stewart has been hearing that one for a few years.

We have to grapple with the fact that Christian nationalists are launching a direct attack on democracy itself. That is because real democracy poses a threat to the kind of authoritarianism they embrace. The roots of that were explained by William Barr during his speech to the law school at Notre Dame. He began by articulating his own view of human nature.

Men are subject to powerful passions and appetites, and, if unrestrained, are capable of ruthlessly riding roughshod over their neighbors and the community at large.

No society can exist without some means for restraining individual rapacity.

Barr goes on to suggest that, when the founders talked about self government, they didnt mean what we think they did.

In the words of Madison, We have staked our future on the ability of each of us to govern ourselves

This is really what was meant by self-government. It did not mean primarily the mechanics by which we select a representative legislative body. It referred to the capacity of each individual to restrain and govern themselves.

But if individual rapacity is the problem, what is the source of those restraints?

[T]o control willful human beings, with an infinite capacity to rationalize, those moral values must rest on authority independent of mens will they must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.

In short, in the Framers view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order antecedent to both the state and man-made law and who had the discipline to control themselves according to those enduring principles.

When you combine that with the belief among Christian nationalists that the only true religion is Christianity, you have the antithesis of democratic pluralism. Instead, you have authoritarian theocracy. That loops us back to Franklin Graham and the rest of the court evangelicals, who take it upon themselves to define who is on Gods side and who is doing the work of the devil.

Years ago, Sara Robinson captured what it takes to leave that kind of authoritarian mindset.

We must never, ever underestimate what it costs these people to let go of the beliefs that have sustained themExternally, it always means the loss of your community; and often the loss of jobs, homes, marriages, and blood relatives as well. Internally, it requires sifting through every assumption youve ever made about how the world works, and your place within it; and demands that you finally take the very emotional and intellectual risks that the entire edifice was designed to protect you from. You have to learn, maybe for the first time, to face down fear and live with ambiguity.

While the loss of community can be traumatic, the prospect of sifting through every assumption youve ever made about how the world works is overwhelming. As she points out, the entire edifice is designed to protect you from fear and the threat of ambiguity. For most people, scaling that one is too much to ask.

Im not going to suggest that it is impossible for Trumps supporters to change their minds. But when we watch them reject one rational case after another, it is important to understand the depths of what binds them, as well as the threat that poses to our democracy.

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Why Christian Nationalism Is a Threat to Democracy - Washington Monthly