AHS Comparative Government

Last week, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev of corruption, "publishing reports claiming that ... Medvedev control[s] mansions, yachts and vineyards - a fortune that far outstrip[s] his official salary."  Navalny then led nationwide protests on Sunday demanding Medvedev's resignation; Moscow police estimated the size of the crowd in that city at 7,000 to 8,000.  Navalny did not secure official permission to hold the protests (it is almost impossible to get such permission in Russia these days).  He and hundreds of other protesters were arrested:

"Russia Protests: Opposition Leader Navalny and Hundreds of Others Held." BBC News. BBC, 27 March 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39398305. Accessed 28 March 2017.

Earlier this month, Navalny was attacked on a city street in Siberia by an unknown assailant who sprayed Navalny's face green.  There is a strong temptation to read the attack as a warning to Navalny.  On 23 March, Denis Voronenkov, a politician opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin who had fled to Ukraine, was shot to death in Kiev.  On 21 March, a prominent anti-Putin lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov, was nearly killed when he fell from his fourth floor apartment in Moscow.  On 30 January, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian human rights campaigner, was poisoned and nearly killed -- for the second time in less than two years.  Kara-Murza was a close associate of Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister and Putin opponent who was shot to death on a bridge near the Kremlin in February 2015.  On 26 December 2016, Oleg Erovinkin, was found dead in his car on a Moscow street.  Erovinkin, a former general in the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union (KGB), had also served as an aide to Igor Sechin (currently the head of Rosneft, the state-owned Russian oil company) when Sechin was a Deputy Prime Minister.  Finally, on 20 December 2016, Petr Polshikov, a Russian diplomat, died of a shot to his head in his Moscow apartment.

Mexico will elect a new president in July 2018. At the moment, the leading candidate is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the probable candidate of the left-wing Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA). López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, was the presidential candidate of the left-wing Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD) in 2006 and 2012; in 2006, he came within 250,000 votes of winning the election. (To this day, millions of Mexicans believe that López Obrador lost in 2006 only as the result of election fraud perpetrated by the victorious right-wing Partido Acción Nacional -- the National Action Party, or PAN.)

The Mexican left has not won a presidential election since Mexican elections became competitive at the end of the 20th century. Indeed, in recent years, the Mexican left has been divided between MORENA and the PRD. But the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto of the centrist Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI), is unpopular, and the PAN is widely reviled for initiating the country's war on narco-trafficking. Could 2018 be the year that the Mexican left achieves an historic breakthrough?

http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21718906-mexico-city-we-have-problem-mexicos-populist-would-be-president

On Monday, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), called on the British government to permit a second referendum on Scottish independence. To justify her request, Sturgeon noted that one of the arguments that persuaded Scottish voters to reject independence in 2014 was the claim that Scotland could only remain in the European Union (EU) if it remained part of the United Kingdom. Given that the United Kingdom is currently preparing to withdraw from the EU over Scotland's opposition (62% of Scottish voters voted to remain in the EU in last June's Brexit referendum), the situation has changed radically since 2014; accordingly, says Sturgeon, Scottish voters should be asked once again if they wish to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Sturgeon suggested that the second referendum on Scottish independence be held in late 2018 or early 2019; such a timetable would force the British government to try to persuade Scottish voters to remain in the United Kingdom at the same time that it was concluding negotiations with the EU over the terms of Britain's departure from it. Not surprisingly, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that such a timetable for a second Scottish independence referendum was unacceptable -- but she did not rule out holding a second referendum.

Sturgeon made her proposal just as the British government is about to announce formally the country's decision to leave the EU -- an announcement that, under EU rules, will begin a two year period in which Britain and the EU must try to agree on the terms of Britain's withdrawal and on the terms of its future trade relationship with the countries remaining in the EU:

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21718923-scots-support-independence-has-risen-so-has-their-euroscepticism-nicola-sturgeon-hopes

China has eight registered political parties in addition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. China, however, does not have competitive elections (except nonpartisan elections for village committees in rural areas), nor does China permit open criticism of government policy. Accordingly, China's non-Communist parties do not fulfill the roles usually played by opposition parties in Western countries: they do not offer sustained criticism of and an alternative to government policy, nor do they stand ready to form a government following the next election. Instead, China's eight "other" parties offer advice to Communist Party policy makers, and serve as conduits of information from those policy makers to various segments of the Chinese population.

Earlier this month, however, a senior leader of one of China's non-Communist parties criticized the Chinese government's extensive censorship of the internet, and called for a relaxation of controls on internet expression. The proposal caused a stir, and was even reported online -- until Chinese censors began to delete the reports:

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21718576-has-one-them-broken-ranks-chinas-one-party-system-has-surprising-number-parties

Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the President of China, will be elected to a second term as CCP General Secretary at a Party Congress this fall.  He will be elected to a second term as President of his country next spring.  In his first term, Xi has been very successful in consolidating his power; however, he has not lived up to his early promises to undertake meaningful economic reform:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-economic-reform.html?_r=0

Last week, a by-election (special election) was held in the British parliamentary constituency of Copeland, in northwest England.  The election was necessitated by the resignation from the British House of Commons of the former MP from the constituency.  Although Copeland was seen as a safe Labour seat, the Conservative candidate, Trudy Harrison, won the election.  Ms. Harrison is the first Conservative to be elected to the House of Commons from the constituency since 1931; she is also the first candidate of a ruling party to win a British parliamentary by-election since 1982.

The Labour Party's defeat in Copeland reflects the unpopularity of the Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn.  (Corbyn, the most left-wing Labour Member of Parliament, was elected Party leader by its general membership.  Most Labour MPs are adamantly opposed to Corbyn's leadership, believing that Labour cannot win a general election so long as he remains Party leader.)  Under Corbyn, the Party has become increasingly irrelevant in British politics: everyone in the country accepts that the ruling Conservative Party will win the next general election in 2020.  This has given the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, a free hand in governing the country: there is nothing May can do that will cost the Conservatives the next election.

The Economist argues that, at this point, the only real restraint on the Conservative Government is the strong possibility of a second independence referendum in Scotland, a referendum designed to allow Scotland "to leave Britain before Britain leaves the [European Union]."

"Monarch of All She Surveys."  The Economist, 4 March 2017: 44.

Later this month, Carrie Lam, the former head of the Hong Kong Civil Service, will likely be selected to serve as the territory's chief executive.  The process by which she will be chosen will not be democratic notwithstanding the commitment made by the Chinese government to the people of Hong Kong, when Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong was restored in 1997, to establish a fully democratic political system in Hong Kong.  The Chinese government's continuing unwillingness to establish such a system has led to massive street protests in Hong Kong and even calls for "self-determination" for the territory.  While most Hong Kong residents may not support independence, they do not view Hong Kong's political leadership as entirely legitimate:

https://www.economist.com/news/china/21717974-has-outcome-already-been-fixed-race-has-begun-hong-kongs-leadership