Zimbabwe’s Problems Go Beyond Mugabe

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

 

Are there some countries where elections cause more damage than good? Zimbabwe comes to mind.

Autocrat Robert Mugabe may be gone, but the recent Zimbabwe election was, perhaps predictably, marred by violence – and the outcome is dubious, at best, and rejected by the opposition.

On July 30, candidates competed for the presidency and seats in parliament. Turnout was high, estimated at 75 per cent.

The results showed a victory for former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who became head of state when Mugabe was forced from office last November, ousted by the military after 37 years in office.

Both have been major figures in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which has been in power since independence in 1980.

Mnangagwa won 50.8 per cent of the vote to 44.3 per cent for Nelson Chamisa, the presidential candidate of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance. The 21 other candidates took the remainder.

Chamisa carried the cities of Harare and Bulawayo.

By crossing the 50 per cent threshold, Mnangagwa also conveniently avoided a second-round runoff.

ZANU-PF also was said to have won 145 seats in the House of Assembly to 63 for the MDC Alliance. 

Chamisa accused officials of vote-rigging and insisted he was the victor. He called it a “coup.”

According to his own observers, the MDC Alliance had won as much as 56 per cent of the vote.

Violence and chaos ensued, and the army was deployed in Harare, the capital.

Human rights groups reported dozens of abductions, beatings and rapes; thousands of MDC Alliance members went into hiding.

A senior Zimbabwean opposition figure, Tendai Bit,i was arrested as he tried to flee to neighbouring Zambia.

Nkululeko Sibanda, an MDC Alliance spokesperson, called the repression “worse than under Mugabe.”

The 40-year-old Chamisa, whose skull was fractured when beaten up by state security agents in 2007, succeeded Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader who died last February. 

Mnangagwa, known as “the crocodile” because of his political shrewdness, is 75.

Tsvangirai had lost to Mugabe in a rigged election in 2002 and withdrew from the 2008 contest, describing it as a “violent sham.”

“In African elections, often stakes are very high and nobody has a backup plan for losing,” explained John Dramani Mahama, former president of Ghana and head of the observer mission from the Commonwealth.

Zimbabwe, a country that once had one of Africa's most promising economies, suffered crippling hyperinflation under Mugabe.

It desperately needs the International Monetary Fund to start giving it loans again. It also needs the United States, European Union and others to lift sanctions.

But the European Union and United States have condemned the post-election violence.

The task of putting Zimbabwe back on track after 37 years that were tainted by corruption, mismanagement and diplomatic isolation was never going to be easy. Of course, a fraudulent election won’t make matters any better for the embattled nation in southern Africa.

Will France Lose a South Pacific Possession?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
 

Unlike the other major European imperial powers, France has retained bits and pieces of its once large colonies, most of them small islands, like Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

They have been incorporated directly within the French Republic as overseas departments and appear satisfied to be part of France.

France has not given up any overseas territory since 1977, when Djibouti in Africa gained its independence. But by 2019 another piece of the empire may attain sovereignty.

In the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia, a referendum on independence will be held in November. Its 268,000 inhabitants, living in an area of 18,576 square kilometres, may become the world’s newest state.

But according to the 2014 census, the indigenous Melanesian Kanaks make up only 44 per cent of the total population. The rest are people of French origin or other parts of the Pacific region.

The island territories comprising New Caledonia were acquired by France between 1853 and 1865, during the age of imperialism. The remote islands were used as a penal colony from 1854 to 1922. 

Once the prisoners had completed their sentences, they were given land to settle. These people, originally from metropolitan France, are often known as Caldoches. More recent French arrivals are referred to as Métros.

French colonial policy in New Caledonia marginalized the Kanaks from the economy and political system and sought to assimilate them into the French Empire through an influx of French settlers. In response, Kanak resistance to these policies has been strong. 

After an 1878 rebellion, the early plantation economy collapsed and the nickel mining era began. The economy was dominated by French colonist businessmen in Nouméa, the capital. Indeed, by 1903, nearly all Kanaks on Grande Terre, the principal island, were confined to reservations. 

In 1917, resistance to this state of affairs resulted in another revolt.

In 1946, the colonial status of New Caledonia was changed to an overseas territory, and for the first time, Kanaks were given French citizenship.

With the nickel boom of the 1970s another major migration wave began with many economic migrants arriving in New Caledonia from other French possessions, such as Wallis and Futuna, as well as French settlers who had left Algeria after North Africa was lost to France.

Indigenous nationalistic movements elsewhere in Melanesia, such as Fiji, had a profound effect on Kanaks, who now became the only large Melanesian population still subject to colonialism.

A movement for total independence began in 1975, led by the Union Multiraciale de Nouvelle-Calédonie. In 1984, pro-independence parties in New Caledonia came together in the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS).

There followed intense political animosity between pro-independence Kanaks and  anti-independence Europeans with their assimilated allies.

A referendum held in 1987 was boycotted by Kanaks, as they felt it didn’t promise full independence. A period of violence ensued. 

In April 1988, militants attacked a police station on Ouvéa, one of the Loyalty Islands. 

Four gendarmes were killed and others held hostage in a cave. When the French military counterattacked, nineteen Kanaks perished.

In May 1998 the Accord de Nouméa, an agreement between FLNKS and other groups with the territorial and French national governments, was signed.  

The agreement recognized the trauma caused by colonization on the Kanak people. It turned New Caledonia into a “special territorial entity within the French Republic,” and promised a referendum on full independence by 2018.

On Nov. 4 the territory is scheduled to vote on a separation from France. French President Emmanuel Macron visited New Caledonia in May and implied that the territory needed France to protect it from Chinese expansionism.

 “New Caledonians are tired of our current system of society,” independence leader Daniel Goa, head of the Union Calédonienne, declared. “They cannot take it anymore.”

Legislative elections held in 2014 saw 25 of 54 seats going to pro-independence members and 29 to those supporting continuing ties with France.

The ethnic Europeans, who mostly oppose independence, tend to be highly nationalistic. In last year’s French presidential election, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen received nearly 30 per cent of the votes in New Caledonia compared with Macron’s 13 per cent.

The nationalists hope a sovereign New Caledonia would become “ambassadors for Oceania” to France and Europe.

They also promise to safeguard the status quo with the two regional powers, Australia and New Zealand.

Campaign Against "Fake News" a Cover for Censorship?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Ever since the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the American political establishment has been bombarding the public with warnings about “fake news.”

But France, too, is not immune to this hysteria. President Emmanuel Macron has demanded that his parliamentary majority provide him with a law against “fake news” during election campaigns.

Angered last year by a phony story claiming he had an offshore account in the Bahamas, Macron has made fighting “fake news” a priority. 

His main opponent in the 2017 election, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, brought up the Bahamas story during a critical presidential debate. 

On Jan. 3, in a speech to journalists at the Élysée Palace, Macron told the gathering that he would aim to “protect our democracy from these false stories.” 

The measure would allow judges to block content deemed false during a three-month period preceding an election.

Judges would have 48 hours to decide if “any allegation or imputation” in a news item was “devoid of verifiable elements that would make it credible.” Only items written “in bad faith” could be blocked, and again it would be up to the judge to decide.

The president’s proposal has aroused opposition from journalists who see it as an attack on press freedom and who view it as unnecessary because the country already has legislation regarding false news stories.

The Conseil d’État pointed out on April 19 that French law already contains several measures intended to combat the dissemination of false information, in particular an 1881 law on the freedom of the press, which permits curbs on the dissemination of false information and views that are defamatory or abusive or incite hatred.

France’s media watchdog, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, requires that media content reach a minimum level of accuracy and honesty.

With regard to elections, Article L97 of France’s electoral code prohibits the dissemination of false information that might influence the behavior of voters.

Critics say that it is difficult for a judge in 48 hours, in an electoral period, to decide what is fake news. They also expressed concern that the process could put journalists’ sources at risk.

The respected newspaper Le Monde warned against the “perilous nature” of information regulation. Serge Halimi, president and editorial director of its Le Monde Diplomatique edition, asserted that the proposal “reveals both the blindness of those who govern when challenged and their inclination to invent new coercive countermeasures.”

The political opposition sees the measure as a threat to democracy. “The potential risk in this law is if it winds up in the hands of a government with the wrong motives,” warned Hervé Saulignac, a Socialist member of parliament who is leading the opposition. “That’s where it could lead to catastrophe.” 

At a time “when the press is threatened around the world, it is better to protect the press,” he added.

“This is nothing less than a crude attempt at controlling information and its means of diffusion,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Unbowed party, who also ran against Macron in last year’s election, argued. 

Constance Le Grip of Les Républicains, a right-wing group, told parliament the law was “useless, redundant, inadequate, dangerous, an attack on freedom of expression, badly written and only raises concerns instead of bringing solutions.” Le Pen, too, has attacked the proposed law as a “liberty killer.”

Macron’s bill was presented to parliament on June 7. The government wants the law to come into force before next spring.

But we should always remember that the cure is often worse than the disease. This law will not solve the problem of fake news.

But we should always remember that the cure is often worse than the disease. This law will not solve the problem of fake news. Moral panics often lead to the undermining of freedoms.

Ending Turkey's Democracy

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal
 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election as President of Turkey on June 24 came as no surprise. He has now ruled Turkey as either president or prime minister for more than fifteen years. 

Muharrem İnce, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate had hoped to force Erdogan into a second round run-off for the presidency, but failed. Erdogan won outright in the first round with 52.6 per cent of the vote. 

In the parliamentary voting, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost some ground, but its alliance with the Turkish ultra-nationalist National Movement Party (MHP) provided it with 344 seats in the new 600-seat parliament. (The MHP, naturally, supports Erdogan’s renewed war against Kurdish separatists in the southeast of the country.)

How fair was this election?  You can guess.  Not only was the president the beneficiary of overwhelming support from both state and corporate media, but one of the candidates, Selahattin Demirtas of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who came third, was in prison. 

Ince, who 30.6 per cent, said Turkey was now entering a dangerous period of “one-man rule.” But Erdogan called the election result a “lesson in democracy to all the world.”

Nor should we forget the purges and mass arrests that have taken placed since the failed military coup in July 2016, with thousands jailed or in exile – almost 152,000 have been dismissed from the public service alone. 

Erdogan’s AKP has to a large extent co-opted the organs of the state. It runs a countrywide network of patronage, charities, religious orders and “youth groups.” 

The passing of a new constitution, approved by referendum in November 2017, has granted him sweeping powers to run the country largely uncontested. Parliament has been weakened and the post of prime minister abolished.

The president can now appoint the head of the National Intelligence Agency, the Religious Affairs Directorate and the Central Bank, as well as ambassadors, governors and university rectors. He has also placed the chief of staff of the armed forces under control of the Defence Ministry.

Erdogan sees himself presiding over a “great transformation” that will undo the secularization imposed on the state by its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and make it once again an Islamic power. 

The Islamization of the state has been going on for many years, but its pace has increased, with a focus on the education system; Erdogan wants to raise a “pious generation.”

Last year Erdogan made substantial changes to school curricula, and after 2016 fired more than 33,000 teachers and closed scores of schools over claims that they had ties with those involved in the coup attempt.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has described Erdogan as a leader “who exerts himself for the sake of God.” He is trying to leave a legacy that will last for decades. Turkey to all intents and purposes is in its Second Republic, this time a neo-Ottoman one.