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Sunday, May 25, 2014

2014 Politics: Europa/Italia, Pt. 2

Sorry, I have to return to this topic again, with a focus mostly on Italy's participation in the European Parliament elections.

One of the more difficult tasks for understanding Italian culture from the outside is the editorial cartoon. I simply don't get a lot of them--they often involve wordplay on slang, or dialect, terms that are unfamiliar--and many of the ones that I understand I still don't "get".

So, I'm happy to report one I read yesterday in "La Repubblica" that I liked (translated):
Person 1:  The "Grillini"  (n.b., followers of Beppe Grillo, the populist Five-Star Movement) are preparing seriously for the work waiting for them in Europe.
Person 2:  Yeah, they've learned to say "vaffanculo" in 27 different languages!
I have to say that pretty much hits the nail on its head. I went to see a rally for the Cinque Stelle with Beppe the other evening in Milano's Piazza del Duomo.  Let's try some pictures:
The above is the famous Duomo (Cathedral) of Milano--its square is the heart of the city (when there's no soccer game going on, anyway)....
This is a video of Beppe waxing passionate about wages and income, ending with the inevitable "ma va fa in culo".  Hope it works for you (the video transmission, not so much his suggestion).

The rhetoric heated up tremendously in the middle of the week, then cooled substantially.  The rules require one-day without rallies before the elections; also, there were no political ads on TV, except public service ones reminding people what the EU is about and reminding people of the "right, and civic duty" to vote.  Clearly, these are characteristics I wish the US would copy.  I had it a little wrong about the voting days; the requirement was just that countries hold their elections "by May 25"--some of them preferred to do it earlier, or over more days, but in all cases there was a rule not to disclose actual or exit poll results prior to the completion of the voting in all the nations.  Italy's polls will not close until 11 p.m. tonight, so it will be a late one as they watch the results come in and discuss them, no doubt at length.

So, a few words on each of the major parties and issues, my fearless predictions, and then a brief comment on the rather infelicitous choice of the Ukraine to hold its Presidential election today.

Pd (Partito Democratico--allied with the European Socialists and Democrats) - The Democratic Party is the offspring of the Socialists, some of the leftward leaning Christian Democrats and Liberals, and those of the Italian Communist Party who were more committed to reform than revolution, when all those parties collapsed in the early nineties in the great scandal about parties embezzling money from the government.   They--very narrowly--won the most votes in the last elections, which earned them a huge bonus of delegates in Parliament, and they have been trying to justify themselves and their oversized representation in Parliament since then, with limited success.

Matteo Renzi is the leader of the party, and since February, the Prime Minister of the national government. He promised much, and was seen, and portrayed himself, as someone who could lead the country out of its current "crisis", which has taken the form of an economic slump combined with a lack of direction and confidence.   Here is a picture my favorite Italian mag, "L'Espresso", put together when he took over:

The face is his; the reference, of course, is to Napoleon, the Man on the White Horse.  Italy has a soft spot for charismatic leaders, and that's what they thought they were getting when he took over, perhaps because of the sudden nature of his rise to leadership in the party and the Machiavellian nature of his coup to remove the existing Prime Minister (Enrico Letta, also of his party) and move in.  What they are getting is something more Obamaian:  he has only had 80 days, and his argument is that he has accomplished a lot in that short time, but really only has gotten one measure through:  a rebate of 80Euros a month for working people in the lower-middle-class and below. It's true that he has had some headwinds, and that the other parties (besides the two smaller ones in his coalition) haven't cooperated, the 5-Star Movement spectacularly so, but, you know, he should have known it was going to be like that.   He has run a low-key campaign, he has succeeded in bringing in the other leaders of the party to support the party's campaign, and very honorably has refused to trade insults with Grillo and Berlusconi.  This will prove to be the best strategy if he is not humiliated in today's voting; he may want to try to get their support for big changes in the future.

M5S (Movimento Cinque Stelle --non-affiliated) The "Five-Star Movement" is headed by Grillo and his eminence grise, the long-haired introvert Roberto Casaleggio.  The party has risen meteorically in the past three years, from nothing to the verge of being the leading party in the country, and it has ridden on the back and on the hoarse, shouting voice of Grillo.  Grillo is something unique in politics, as far as I can think, a comedian gone big time:  I would say his style is a mix of Lewis Black and Bill Maher (for my American readers); he has put forward some good ideas (particularly about a 21st-century style of politics using websites, blog, etc. as a means of democratic discourse) but they are pretty much drowned out by his provocative public image. The correct way to view his party is as populist, non-ideological, and basically a protest movement centered around his personal popularity as a troublemaker.

There has been some talk in the past week--principally from Berlusconi--comparing Grillo to Stalin, then to Hitler.  The Stalin part came because the M5S expelled a number of members of Parliament from its party (some resigned, some stayed without the party backing) because they objected to the way Grillo rudely treated Renzi when the two had a semi-public "confronto" (which actually just means "meeting") in the early days of Renzi's government.  Basically, the argument which caused them to be expelled (by vote of their active members, on their website) was "get with the program, or leave"--the program being, no cooperation with Renzi, we're going to beat them in this election.

So, in short, that's the aim of M5S today; to finish first in the popular vote (the PD has hedged--they said, pragmatically, that they would call it a victory if they have the most seats in Parliament from the country, which suggests less confidence about the popular vote and more in their consistent showing across the five regional constituencies which will proportionally elect the representatives).  If that happens, Grillo promises to recall President Napolitano (loosely from the PD, who has chosen the last three "unelected" Prime Ministers) and require new elections.  He has no power to do that except, possibly, popular support in the form of mass marches.

So, to get back to the Hitler/Stalin, Grillo broke his longstanding ban on TV talk show appearances for his group to go on the most popular one this week and show that he was not Hitler, not Stalin, that he could talk without yelling (but apparently, still unable to stop to take a breath or drink of water), and discuss, in a fairly reasonable way, his program.  It includes an informal trial (think of "Reconciliation Commission") for all the politicians, journalists, and financiers responsible for this mess, and, if the Europeans don't listen to him, a referendum (whether legal or not) on withdrawal from the Euro.

This last one has gotten him a lot of criticism, justly, for a lack of coherence:  he wants the central bank of Europe to issue bonds on a cross-national basis, but isn't committed to staying in the Euro?  Anyway, a lot of other parties in Italy want these Eurobonds, so it's not original, though it is logical and a very concrete proposal to test Germany's good faith that will be put to the test soon.

FI (Forza Italia, allied with EPP, European Popular Parties) -  This is Silvio Berlusconi's personal political machine.  "Go, Italy!" is how I would translate it.  This is essentially his Last Hurrah campaign--one more time, to stop the Red Peril of the PD (not so much Renzi, whom he likes, but the Communist redistributionist program he is supporting) and the dangerous Grillo (the one of the Hitler/Stalin allusions).  To me, Berlusconi is just about as ridiculous as ever, though he knows how to push the buttons of the Italian people.  His program is totally confusing and confused:  for example, attacking the German banks, though he is politically aligned with Merkel's party.  He has been able to make some hay with his complaint (that he shares with Grillo) about the last three unelected governments; it has come out during the campaign (through Tim Geithner's new book) that there was a bit of a conspiracy to overthrow Berlusconi's last government in 2011, during the crisis of bond prices in the Southern European countries, to put in a government more amenable to fiscal austerity (which conspiracy was, in fact, successful). I think they are starting to realize that his day is past, though, and I expect his party's results to be underwhelming.

Back to Hitler/Stalin/Napoleon for one last moment:  the real allusion that makes sense in the Italian political moment, and I think it applies both to Grillo and to Berlusconi (but not at all to Renzi), is to Mussolini. The surprising thing to me is that I have not heard anyone comment on it, at all.  American readers may be surprised when I say that I think the reason no one says it is because it would be a characterization that would be ambiguous, not wholly detrimental nor wholly positive, so no one really wants to go there. Many Italians feel the country was better governed by Mussolini and the Fascists than those since then, with Benito's real problem being a bad choice of allies and war strategy (I would add, not knowing when he was beaten the first time; if he hadn't come back with the infamous German-run Republic of Salo, he might have survived the war and been making trouble politically, probably indirectly through his contacts, for a long time thereafter.) Basically, Berlusconi's historical role, of which he is very proud, was to stand up to the Red Menace (the united left parties) in the early 90's and defeat them, which he has done repeatedly (though not every time), which was Mussolini's original appeal (once he had left the Socialists, that is). The appeal to national pride, to the Catholic voters, etc.--all of this was a lot like Mussolini's basic appeal to the middle class and above when he struck in the '20's and took power, though of course Berlusconi used the modern means--TV (of which he owns a great deal of the national broadcast spectrum) and money (plenty of that, too).

As for Grillo, it's his style--personal, charismatic, confrontational--that recalls Mussolini, plus his opportunist selection of political stances, his willingness to disregard any law, convention, or cultural norm that stands in his way.  They--Mussolini and Grillo--are both bullies, at heart, though Grillo has taken pains to point out that his movement is, in fact, nonviolent, but if you see him in any verbal exchange, you will see that he doesn't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with him.

NCD (Nuovo Centro Destro, affiliated with the EPP) - This is the group of former Berlusconi supporters which broke with him by supporting the PD governments of Letta and Renzi.  The split was a pragmatic decision and basically finalized about the time that Berlusconi was expelled from the Italian Senate after having been definitively, finally, found guilty of malfeasance with campaign funds (surprisingly, Berlusconi seemed to be having some financial troubles at one point).  It is headed by one of Berlusconi's strongest one-time supporters, Angelino Alfaro of Sicily, the current Minister of the Interior in the Italian government (so he has been well rewarded for his "betrayal" of Berlusconi), who is well-spoken, speaks very positively of  Berlusconi on all occasions (Berlusconi does not return the favor), and has with him some other decent, respectable leading figures of the "center-right", as the party's name indicates.  Theirs is a battle for survival; Berlusconi would like to swallow them back up if this election does not go well (in particular, if they don't get to 4% nationally), which could mean curtains for the Renzi government. On the other hand, if they do suprisingly well, this could accelerate the clearly observable decline in Berlusconi's fortunes and they could end up swallowing Forza Italia in a couple of years.  NCD's program is pretty straightforward:  if you're a moderate, and not of the left, vote for us.

LN (Lega Nord, affiliated with EFD) - The Northern League is devoted exclusively to the interests of Northern Italy; they have played around with secessionist ideas, but mostly to the idea that the North should stop subsidizing the thieves in the South and that there should be less immigration into their part of the country.  Their leadership is recovering still from the loss of Umberto Bossi, their original star, to scandal and stroke (he's still alive, but inactive). In the European Parliamentary elections, they have taken a clear stance for withdrawal from the Euro, and they will ally with the U.K. Independence Party, Marine Le Pen's French National Front (so far, she's officially unaffiliated, but should come around to this group), and other parties strongly opposed to the EU.  Their position on Italy has been a little less clear in this campaign, as they would like to get a few votes from other parts of the country, to help ensure they get past the 4% mark (nationally) required for any representation in the European Parliament:  what I've heard their leaders say this time is that they want "true federalism" in Italy (and I was thinking that "true federalism" was where Europe would be going!)  They still have a lot of support in Lombardia (Bossi's region) in the northwest and Veneto in the northeast, and should secure their 4% fairly safely.

AET (L'altra Europe Lista Tzipras, affiliated with EUL-NGL) This strange bird ("The Other Europe--Tzipras List") is made up of the remnants of a bunch of Italian left-wing parties which refuse to be co-opted by the Social Democrats (PD).  They have chosen to ally themselves very clearly--by name--with Alexis Tzipras, leader of the left-wing Greek Syriza party, and there are a number of other left-wing parties around Europe that are allied. (The European formation name is something like "United Europe of the Left and Nordic Group of the Left", in some language.)  The head of their Italian party is Nikki Vendola, who is close to the Communist unions, is broadly popular among the left, and wears a hoop earring--he has kept an extremely low profile in the campaign, and their spokespersons have mostly been non-Italian.  They have been active in my (college) neighborhood.  Their purity has kept them from a couple of alliances that might have helped them, like the Greens, and it will be close to see whether they make the bar of 4%.

FdI (Fratelli d'Italia, affiliated with the possible EAF group).  EAF is European Alliance for Freedom, which means extreme right-wing parties. Fratelli d'Italia (Italian Brotherhood, maybe?) is the survivor of the MSI, the neo-Fascist group which grew quite strong under the leadership of Gianfranco Fini in the late '90's--early '00's and was included in the Berlusconi governmental alliance. Fini has pulled back from active involvement; they have an eloquent leader, Georgia Meloni, who made herself available to all the talk shows.  It sounds as though FdI wanted an alliance with Lega Nord and Marine Le Pen, but Le Pen was trying to change her positioning and didn't want to be associated with the Fascists.  Their positions are based on some very acute criticism of the prevailing parties and have a nationalist agenda (which is probably a bit more coherent than their rivals from the Lega Nord). They are also on the borderline of the 4% level--I think the LePen snub was also due to a possible expectation that they wouldn't make it.

I think that covers all the lists that have a real chance at 4%.  There are five other lists:  one is the South Tyrolean People's Party, which due to its status as a minority language party is guaranteed one seat.  Next is Green Italy, which is going it alone in the European Parliamentary elections--there is a significant Green caucus, but Italy's is unlikely to be represented in it for lack of votes--really they should ally with the center-left or left in Italian elections.   European Choice (SE- 'Scelta Europea") is composed of three responsible, centrist, minuscule groups which together will draw a minuscule share of votes--they are the ones most directly held responsible for the decision to adhere to the hated Fiscal Compact in 2011 (one of their members, Mario Monti, was Prime Minister at the time) and they will continue to be punished--their name for the elections suggests they recognize their credibility on the national stage is finito.  Italia di Valori (IdV), which correctly translated is Italy of Values, not Italy of Valor, is a party founded by Antonio di Pietro, who was a senior judge who became really angry with the regular parties and founded one that is basically non-ideological and anti-corruption:  How little he seems to understand the Italian political system!  He should find another party that's clean enough and ally with them, but will probably die wandering around in the dark with his flashlight.  Both IdV and SE are allied with the European Liberal Democratic group, ALDE, which means they should get exactly 0 representatives from Italy.  Finally, there is one that is called Io Cambio-MAIE:  when I heard them introduced for their turn in the Press Conference (each party got one-half hour, except M5S which refused it), I heard "Io cambio maglie"--I change shirt--which makes sense, actually. Anyway, Io Cambio ("I Change") is a split-off from Lega Nord, and MAIE is an alliance of Italians who live in South America--they have full right to vote and polling precincts there.

Prediction on Italian popular vote:  PD 31%, M5S 29%, FI 16%, LN 7%, NCD 6%, AET 3%, FdI 3%, Others 5%.
On Italian representation:  PD 26, M5S 23, FI 14, LN 5, NCD 4, South Tyrolean Peoples Party 1.  I am least confident about whether FdI would make the threshold, which would give them probably 3 seats and take them away from some of the leaders' numbers.

European Parliament projections--these might take some days or weeks for the numbers to firm up:  EPP 210, S&D 205, ALDE 57, Left 47, ECR 39, EFD 63 (including National Front), Greens 44, Non-affiliated 91.  Those results would make it very tough for the leaders, EPP, to form a majority without some sort of agreement between with the S&D, or at least with the Greens and some Indpendent types, which would probably include the expected relaxation on fiscal austerity and reduction of Euro-federal bureaucracy.

Ukraine Votes!-- OK, but what's the hurry?  I have the feeling this was a decision by the Euro-oriented faction, to show that they are part and gain solidarity, but they won't get any attention by picking this day.  Instead, the best they can hope for is a clear decision (apparently a respectable oligarch, over the more prominently anti-Russian Julia Timyoshenko), generally peaceful results, and for Russia to back its promise to respect the results.  Lately, President Putin has backed off his aggressive tone, pulled the troops back:  essentially he got what he wanted out of this crisis:  1) more respect from the Ukraine, an acknowledgment of their legitimate interests; 2) to remind them they owe lots of money to Gazprom and better pay it, realizing they have few alternatives; and 3) Crimea, which apparently has some hidden natural gas reserves, probably discovered by Russian submarines snooping around near their base awhile ago.  Oops!  There wasn't much else about Crimea to recommend itself from what I've heard, frankly.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Political Affairs - four biggest Elections of '14

1) India
The world's largest democratic elections concluded peacefully--that's the real good news.  500 million voters was the number I heard, and the voting process was systematic and results counted reasonably quickly.

Another good piece of news is that the turnover of political control to the opposition will happen quickly and cleanly.  Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi has already conceded his party's clear defeat by Narendra Modi's BJP opposition coalition--it was pretty massive, really.  Gandhi and his party ran a weak campaign--outgoing Congress Party Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stepping down and no one really stepping up.   Gandhi may be replaced in the future by yet another member of the family, his sister Priyanka, who put him in the shade during the campaign.  Momma Sonia from Italy, who took over the party when her husband, Rahul's father Rajiv, got blown up by Tamil terrorists, may decide if Priyanka's up to the task, as clearly #1 son was not.  We'll get back to Modi in a moment.

Party leader charisma, though important (and a common feature throughout this post), is only part of the story.   India looked for change, and the BJP is the Congress' Party's foil; when Congress fails to live up to its ideals--secular, tolerant, democratic, socialist, generous to the poor, and somehow improving economic conditions in the face of all that solicitude--then the 10-15% of swing voters in India who decide elections switch away.  The fact that India's growth rate has been among the highest in the world the last few years was not convincing to those who remain poor and want more.

Modi is the long-time Chief Minister of Gujarat state; this meant the possibility of increased growth and development to those voters, as Gujarat is the wealthiest and most productive of Indian states (whether Modi had much to do with it is debated, as is his commitment to helping all the people of his state, as opposed to just the wealthy business interests). A lot has been promised, and as long as the growth rate shifts into high gear for a prolonged period, Modi and the BJP can expect to maintain control.  Past history, though, suggests that successfully maintaining a coalition of parties and individuals mostly motivated by opposition to Congress doesn't last too long.

Besides generating economic growth (in my view, always too much to ask of a head of government), Modi will need to keep the society from turning in an ugly direction, and he may be the wrong person for that task. As Gujarat CM, he was accused of negligence--or worse--in the case of 2002 riots in his state in which the response to the killing of a few dozen Hindus attributed to the Muslim community was widespread rioting and the murder of several hundred Muslims.  He was officially exonerated, but his first act as PM will necessarily be that of reassuring India's minorities that they have nothing to fear from the rule of the Hindu nationalists.  To me, that step (saying the right things) is a given; we will have to see how he governs in that regard; part of his constituency is communal support from the militant Hindu community, which will expect him to benefit them specifically.

The Muslim minority (about 10%, or 100 million) seem willing to give Modi a chance if he can deliver the goods.  They are the most downtrodden ones, economically, and in need of a change in the economy and in the social order.   Here is a rather amazing quote from a Muslim shopkeeper who supported the BJP:
Riots don’t matter because they happen all the time,” he said, clutching a lemonade to help cool off in the heat. “What matters is business development — just look at how Modi developed Gujarat. They don’t even have power cuts. He’ll do the same for the country now.
I don't want to take sides in affairs that are not my business, but this gives me some concern.

2) European Parliamentary Elections -
A week from today, all the 28 European Community nations will go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, in what may be the most important election yet of this hugely deliberative but somewhat insubstantial body.  The reason is that the European Community itself, and the policies it has pursued, has risen to a level of campaign issue almost as great as the local political rivalries that generally predominate. Some 200 million are expected to vote, though turnout may be expected to be relatively low, except when the European elections are combined with some local ones.

A great many parties covering all points of the political spectrum in most of the countries are dissatisfied with Europe, the main themes being the unwillingness to grant further powers to the Brussels bureaucrats and a desire to end the current economic policies--tight money, cuts in national budgets, and entrenched subsidies for the relative few who are perceived to benefit for them.  Thus, the strength in pre-election polls of the leftist Syriza party in Greece,  the U.K. Independence Party, the right-wing National Front in France, the Socialists in Spain and Portugal, and the Five-Star Movement and the Northern League in Italy, all of which are advocating some sort of pullback from the current scheme, and are especially not too fond of that darned Euro thing.

The various national parties have lined up with seven cross-border lists, though the non-affiliated parties may end up being the ones with the largest gains.  Here are the main results I will be watching:
  • The winners in some of the national contests, in particular, in Italy--Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party (S&D) vs. Beppe Grillo's 5-Star Movement (not aligned), with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza italia (EPP) running a distant third--in the U.K. (the Conservatives have split on Europe, with the UKIP perceived as the leaders going in), and in France, in which Marine LePen's National Front (non-affiliated) is favored over the traditional vote leaders, the centrist, formerly-Gaullist parties (EPP) and the Socialists (S&D).   
  • The overall leadership among the lists--each of which is to propose a leader as its candidate for the President of the European Commission.  This will be a close race between the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the list with the most current members,  the EPP (European Populist Parties); however, the centrifugal forces are running strongly against these two broad groups of the center-left and the center-right. 
  • The politicking for the Presidency (this is the first time the Parliament will directly elect that position). This will begin with the list with the largest number, which will first try to secure its most natural coalition partner--the S&D plus Greens (G/EFA), or the EPP with the ECD (European Conservatives and Reformists--mostly the U.K. Conservative party and Poland's Conservatives), then try to broaden it with the centrist kingmakers, the Liberal Democrats (ALDE), but even that may not get to a majority. This would leave them stretching to more extremist parties, which could break that fragile coalition--absent a decisive result, or some sort of grand bargain a la Germany, it could take months to resolve. 
  • What will the likely result--end to austerity, easier monetary policy--do to Germany's resolve, leadership in Europe, and its grand domestic coalition between Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (EPP) and the Social Democratic Party (S&D)?
I will follow up with comments here; I will also be watching the Italian results to see which of the lesser parties--after the three national leaders mentioned above, plus the Northern League, which is a regional force in the populous northern areas--can pass the test of survival as a viable force, i.e. exceeding the 4% minimum for representation. 

I have to give credit to the Wall Street Journal--that's right, WSJ--for its useful graphical presentation of the party alignments and projected outcomes based on polling in each nation.  Their title, "Changing Continent", was bland and stupid (it's not the continent that's changing, it's the politics, the culture, the EU--and what's it changing to?), but I give them credit for doing the spadework. 


 3) The United States 
Not much beyond my previous update in March--the two closest Senate races look to be Arkansas (which I had given up as a don't-care-much-loss for the Democrats) and North Carolina. Louisiana, another critical state with an endangered Democratic incumbent, has polls with results varying all over the map--the result is in doubt for November and could possibly go to a post-November runoff.  If the Democrats lose their seats in Alaska, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Montana, and fail to gain a seat in their two decent shots at a pickup, in Kentucky and Georgia, they will need to win two of those three state races to retain control. The betting (speaking of horse race, Belmont Stakes preview coming soon) is about 2:3 against.

I continue to think that, no matter what happens between now and November, the most likely result for Democratic supporters is eventual disappointment with the turnout and the results, with the possible exception of taking out some big-time jerks like McConnell in Kentucky and Governor Rick Scott in Florida.  The building outrage over campaign spending is nice, but it has taken too much of a partisan turn--Republicans need to be convinced that letting the Koch's and Rove's run their show is a bad idea for them, too.

4) Indonesia
(please excuse any spelling errors--I'm telling you, this isn't easy!)
It's close between the US and Indonesia for the third-largest sized election.  I rank the US above Indonesia here because it had 125 million voters in its 2012 Presidential election vs. 120 million for Indonesia's in 2009, but I have no doubt Indonesia's turnout this year will exceed the Americans' this year (in an off-year for the US, to be fair), but probably in the future, too (due to its higher population growth rate).

Indonesia's politics are a confusing scramble of party acronyms and of leaders with varying charisma, popular appeal, and, perhaps most importantly, the ongoing search for support from the two most powerful non-governmental forces, the military and the national Muslim social organization (the N. Ulaam).  Indonesia had legislative elections last month--which seem to have confused things greatly--and parties are organizing for national Presidential elections in July.  In order to win the Presidency, a candidate needs to end up with over 50% of the vote, or the top two candidates will go to a runoff in September.

Current Indonesian law states that a party needs 20% of the legislative vote, or 25% of the seats, to gain an automatic spot on the Presidential ballot--which means that none of the parties qualified!  Thus, there need to be official coalitions of parties to gain access; this is happening right now and should be finalized in the next week or two.

The leading candidate is Joko Widodo, known as "Jokowi", who is the youthful, lanky governor of Jakarta--one could say he looks somewhat like President Obama, but I want to avoid the birther/citizenship argument, so I won't say it.  Jokowi's party is the PDI-P, headed by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri (daughter of founding father Sukarno), and the PDI-P had the most votes in the legislative election, at 19%, but this was less than expected.  Jokowi will be endorsed by some other parties, and he is expected to name the leader of one of them, Jusuf Kalla, as his running mate (but wait!), which all agree will make a potent candidacy, hard to beat.

The second leading candidate is Prabowo Subianto, of Gerindra, the Great Indonesian Movement Party; his running mate is expected to be Hatta Rajawa, leader of the PAN party. This party has risen in recent years and moved from some 4% in the previous legislative election to around 12% this time, in third place. Prabowo is a former special forces commander, so he is considered a military hero for those who look for that.

After this, it gets really complicated.  The second-place party in the elections was Golkar (14%), the remnant of longtime dictator/former President Suharto's political machine, which broke up after he left power.  It is dominated by a rich dude named Aburizal Bakrie, who is trying to decide whether he will help Jokowi win or try to prevent him from doing so.  At one point, he endorsed Jokowi, but has since decided to try other gambits:  he offered to endorse Jokowi if he were named the running mate, but the leaders of PDI-P seem to think he would be a drag on the ticket.  So he may run, if he can get sufficient backing from other parties. There was talk of an alliance with the Democratic party, the political machine of outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono (4th place, down sharply from the last election).

The Democratic party had its convention and nominated a guy named Dahlan Iskan, but then had second thoughts, and there is talk of having one of their other candidates, Wiboro, run with Bakrie.  Then there is the party Hanura, run by former military head Wiranto, which will either endorse Jokowi or run with Bakrie.  Or not.   There's also the PKB, the party of former Pres. "Gus Dur" Wahid, which got 9% and hasn't made an endorsement, and three or four more explicitly Islamic parties, which totalled about 30% of the vote and are lining up behind one or more of the major candidates.

To conclude, what it seems is that Jokowi is fairly close to the 40% or so in firm support which would make him a clear favorite, in either the first or second round, and the other major forces--the Suharto heirs, leaders still standing from the somewhat-disgraced Yudhyono administration, the other military dudes, etc.--are trying to decide whether they should let it be, or try to stop him, and try to stop Megawati (who was defeated soundly by Yudhyono in the last Presidential, in 2009) from taking power again.

I refer to two articles in the Jakarta Globe, on May 13 and May 18, which helped me get this far. 


Saturday, May 03, 2014

5 Quick Posts

1)  The Champion of Madrid will be the Champion of Europe
After impressive road wins in the second match of their semifinals, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid have earned the right to play for the Champions Cup in Lisbon later this month.
Real came to Bayern Munich holding a tenuous 1-0 lead from their home win, but two first-half goals from Sergio Ramos put the game away, and the second half was a rout.  Yeah, Cristiano Ronaldo got a goal--it's all about him, you know.
As for Atletico, they put out my team Chelsea, in London, by a 3-1 score (the first game, in Madrid, was scoreless, for which Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho got all the blame.  He wasn't even playing!--J.K.) Chelsea had about 10 minutes in the first half in which they had the 1-0 lead that Mourinho wanted, but a defensive lapse just before halftime left an Atletico player unmarked at the end line near the goal ("touch line", if you're English), and the centering pass was headed in for a 1-1 halftime tie (advantage to Atletico for its away goal).
Here's where the weakness of this year's Chelsea squad became apparent--forced to the attack, Chelsea was erratic and vulnerable to the counter.  Atletico is like Chelsea's squad in some ways--difficult to attack, skillful on the counter.  The second goal came out of a clumsy foul by one of the many strikers Mourinho tried this year, Samuel Eto'o, and when Diego Costa converted the penalty, Chelsea was unable to counter and ended up losing, 3-1.
I have to root for Atletico in the final:  their history is sort of like Chelsea's--always among the top teams, but never at the very top.  This year was a breakthrough:  along with the Champions League final, they are actually leading in La Liga, narrowly over both Real and Barcelona (the perennial 1-2 teams).  This may be a one-and-done movement, though:  their goalie, Courtois (who made a couple of great stops on Chelsea) actually is under contract to Chelsea and loaned out to Atletico--I think they will want him back.  (Longtime first-string Blues' goalie Petr Cech was seriously injured in the first game, and is probably getting a bit long in the tooth, as well.)  And, Costa, their high-scoring center forward, is also talking about transferring--with Chelsea rumored to be the buyer.
Chelsea's season will end, it seems, with a big whine:  a couple of Mourinho's favored young players are complaining about the playing style (he likes team defense, above all else)--their stays may be cut short this summer.  The Premier League title looks like it will escape Chelsea also, despite a great performance in the climactic game at Liverpool a week ago, because they let slip the game before it, to lowly Sunderland. This transitional year started to show such great promise this spring, but Mourinho might have to rebuild once again.

2) Keystone:  Obama Cops (Kops?) Delay
Just when the pressure on President Obama to make a decision whether to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to transfer the Canadian liquefied tar sands to US refineries was coming to a head, he was granted a temporary reprieve when a judge ruled that a Nebraska protest--that the pipeline could endanger water supplies if it contaminated the aquifer under the pipeline route--needed further study. 
The long-awaited Environmental Impact study ordered by the State Department (which had to rule because of the cross-border pipeline route) had apparently drawn the conclusion that the impact would be slight, because these messy tar sands would be developed one way or the other, though the E.P.A. was still requiring further study.  Now, the decision will surely not come to Obama's desk until after the midterm election.
With no further major elections after that during his Administration, he will be free to Do The Right Thing, but there is reason to doubt what he will decide that would be.  The "jobs" argument for building the pipeline was always weak; the fact that the tar sands will be developed is hard to deny, though the Climate Change asserters would try to do so, by any means at hand. One of the next political fronts will surely be to build more safeguards on the transport by train of the stuff, which is already happening, has already caused some major conflagrations, and is sure to rise to the forefront if Keystone is killed off.   Obama's policy has been, and as far as I know, remains an "all of the above" approach to energy development.  Unfortunately, that puts him on the opposite side most of the time to the movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which has a position more like "none of the above".  OK, solar and wind are all right (though solar panels need the messing mining of rare earths, and wind requires high-tech metallurgy for the turbines), but the real problem is their unreliability.  One thing is for sure:  in the dark and freezing will not be politically acceptable, particularly since localized intense winters are now understood to be part of the climate change package we will experience.

3) Isn't It Good, California Chrome? 
A short while ago, the odds-on favorite California Chrome swept to a fairly easy Kentucky Derby win.  It won using a favored technique, for those horses that can do it:  lie a short way off the lead, make a move in the stretch.  It is clearly a good technique because it minimizes the risks of running through a crowded pack in the middle.  For a couple of decades, the Derby has filled all 20 of its spots, those being determined from those who file and are ranked the highest among 3-year-old horses. So, it beats having to go around ten or so to get to the front, while being the front-runner in the early going rarely pays off, as some speedy horses take that role and that almost inevitably fall back.
C.Chrome's win was so easy that the field for the next race in the Triple Crown, the Preakness, will probably be a whole lot smaller. Lots of owners like to have their horses run in the Derby, just in case, and because it's an honor.  After that, economics takes over, as the filing fees for these big races are high.  There will be a cry for a comparably dominant 3-year-old filly, Untapable, to come out and meet California C. in the second.  Then it's the long, long slog of the Belmont; presumably California Chrome will have to go for it if he wins the Preakness, but we've had a long history of horses unable to win the 1 1/2 miler after winning the first two.
C.C. is the fifth favorite to win since the year 2000.  Before that, there had been a period of 20 years in which the betting favorite did not win.

4) Death Penalty Fail--Put It Down for Good
All right, one could say that the Oklahoma execution the past week was successful--the condemned man did die, though it was from a heart attack after the botched lethal injection caused his vein to explode. It wasn't the way it was supposed to go, though.  This appears to have been a case of unintended consequences in more than one way; the US medical association has decided that assisting this procedure violates the Hippocratic oath, so apparently it falls to the incompetent to try to perform this complicated terminal anesthesia.
The electric chair, of course, is no better; too many have fried rather than being electrocuted, which was supposed to be the result of its use.  Of course, the history of hanging is a series of unfortunate events:  remember when Saddam Hussein's head popped off?  And of course there are all those cases of innocent, or retarded, or underage criminals being killed by deficient state judicial systems.
I think it's time to  acknowledge that our state courts should no longer be allowed to perform judicial murder, mostly because they have shown a lack of competence, from delineating the appropriate crimes, to giving proper defense, all the way to executing the damned thing. It should be a very rare punishment--maybe one or two a year--for certain, very specific crimes that should be made federal ones:  killing a correction guard as a prisoner, the most heinous interstate serial killers (like Ted Bundy), and mass-murdering terrorists (Oklahoma City, and 9/11's K.S. Muhammad, if they ever can convict him, which I doubt).  I think we should come full circle and bring back the firing squad for these (as was the method for the first killed in the current legalized murder spree, Gary Gilmore, though those who kill so they can be executed shouldn't be granted the privilege).  12 trained gunmen, four with blanks--if they can't find 12 willing to do it, then they should cancel it.

5) Bob Hoskins - the (English) People's Actor
Hoskins died this week; he had retired a short while ago because of advancing Parkinson's disease.
He was nicknamed the Cockney Cagney; I think it was because he played in a lot of English heist movies as a gangster.  He had great range, though; he played J.Edgar Hoover (in "Nixon") and Nikita Khrushchev (in "Enemy at the Gates"--how many others ever played that role?)  I do remember the one role for which he was nominated for an Oscar, in "Mona Lisa".  It was a complex role, containing some of the usual Hoskins elements--tough guy, with a heart of gold.   And he was great in comedic roles, too: who can ever forget his role as a detective trying to solve the case in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
I always thought he was the person on whom Martin Amis based his main character in one of his best-selling novels, "Money" (though I don't think that book ever was made into a movie--too bad).  He was, without a doubt, the go-to guy when Hollywood (or Pinewood Studios) needed a working-class Englishman (who wasn't Michael Caine, playing Michael Caine).