Even before the polls opened for voting in the U.S. midterm elections, the finger-pointing had already begun. The Obama agenda, instead of coming to term after four years, was suffering a miscarriage halfway through. The potential culprits were many and diverse.
The problem with us progressives as this time of crisis is not that we lack an alternative paradigm to pit against the discredited neoliberal paradigm. No, the elements of the alternative based on the values of democracy, justice, equality, and environmental sustainability are there and have been there for sometime, the product of collective intellectual and activist work over the last few decades.
The elections of Sunday, July 4th, in fourteen Mexican states can be seen as a struggle for Mexican territories by diverse power groups, including the drug cartels. And in the case of Oaxaca, it is, furthermore, the exercise of its citizenship by an aggrieved population whose movement was defeated in 2006, and which has subsequently turned to voting as a manifestation of their rejection of Ulises Ruiz and the political group that he represents.
Nearly 200 protesters gathered in front of the White House on the afternoon of June 14 to denounce continued U.S. support for Ethiopia’s incumbent regime. Chanting in native Amharic and rallying around the Ethiopian flag, the crowd members were predominantly from DC’s sizable Ethiopian diaspora.
Colombia’s congressional elections on March 14 were hailed by the United Nations as the most peaceful in years. The victory of the coalition led by President Alvaro Uribe suggests an easy win for his party in the presidential elections scheduled for May 30.
The official results of Afghanistan’s presidential elections won’t be known for weeks. The ballots cast around the country need to be brought to Kabul — some by donkey and helicopter — and counted. Nevertheless, U.S. officials have rushed to celebrate the process, and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen heralded the elections as "a testimony to the determination of the Afghan people to build democracy." This despite more than 75 reported incidents of violence throughout the country, an estimated 26 civilians and security forces dead, reports of more than a handful of districts where no one voted, and complaints about impermanent ink, intimidation, and other irregularities.
While the outcome of the Afghan elections won’t be known for a few days at best, (raw polling data collected by media outlets suggests Hamid Karzai winning 72% of the vote, with his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, at 23%, although the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission has received 225 complaints about voting irregularities since August 20) senior members of the Obama administration deemed the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan the “most important event of the year.” But Malalai Joya, a member of the Afghan Parliament, thinks otherwise. “This election will change nothing and it is only part of a show of democracy put on by and for the West.” Whoever emerges victorious, she has a point, and the Obama administration should listen.
Facing an unprecedented popular uprising against his autocratic rule and his apparently fraudulent re-election, Iran’s right-wing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attempted to blame the United States. A surprising number of bloggers on the left have rushed to the defense of the right-wing fundamentalist leader. Citing presidential directives under the Bush administration, they argue that the uprising isn’t as much about a stolen election, the oppression of women, censorship, severe restrictions on political liberties, growing economic inequality, and other grievances, as it is about the result of U.S. interference.
As the Islamic Republic of Iran veers closer to outright insurrection and the competing factions of Mir Hossain Mousavi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei engage in a game of high-stakes political brinksmanship, should the United States play a more active role in Iranian affairs? Those in power must chart a careful course, for the same thorny question toppled the legacy of another Democratic president 30 years ago.
On June 12, Iran’s electorate will go to the polls to decide whether to keep Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as their president or replace him. If Ahmadinejad loses, as the latest polls suggest that he might, it will be the first time since 1981 that Iranians have denied a president a second term.