IV595 - August 2024

Images of the military forcibly entering the Government Palace (the Palacio Quemado) have been broadcast around the world, sowing confusion in Bolivia. The failed coup by a faction within the Army, repudiated nationally and internationally, took place in the context of the erosion of Luis Arce’s administration, itself large the result of internal discord within the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. Despite its swift failure, the military rebellion will have political repercussions.

On August 5, at 2:30 pm, Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post as prime minister and fled with some of her Special Security Forces by helicopter to India. She is now in Delhi, and some reports indicate that she wants to go to London for political asylum, but Britain is refusing her entry because of her human rights violations.

On the evening of November 19, 2023, when official data from the presidential runoff in Argentina confirmed the victory of Javier Milei, the candidate of “La libertad adelantado” (Liberty Advances or LLA), many activists and intellectuals of the left and progressivism woke up to a reality that we had tried to deny or that we had not been able to understand. For this reason, the attempt to reach explanations, reasons and hypotheses for this unthinkable event must be, at the same time, an exercise in revising the categories and characterisations we made of Argentine social and political reality in previous years.

Yoletty Bracho, a Venezuelan activist and researcher living in France, has devoted her research to the relationship between popular neighbourhood organisations and the state born from the Bolivarian revolution. Present in Venezuela in the weeks leading up to the elections, she was able to meet with representatives of various components of the left and of Chavismo. Here she gives her impressions of the current situation and the conduct of the elections, based on the testimonies she gathered, and calls for internationalist solidarity with the Venezuelan people

Since he announced his decision to stop running for a second presidential term, Joe Biden has become a “lame duck” – an expression that commonly refers in the United States to an elected official who has reached the final months of their term without any extension prospect. The expression means that the official’s influence has become limited, as everybody knows that they will not remain in office for long. However, a person in such a situation in a presidential political system in which the president is elected by popular vote (indirectly in the US case), is also, in contrast, more free-handed than a president campaigning for an additional term, who must therefore ensure that he (no she, yet) does not lose votes as a result of positions or measures he may take

Facing the hideous specter of a second Trump presidency, the operational leadership of the Democratic Party – that is, the party mega-donors – ultimately took the reins and pushed aside its all-too-visibly declining incumbent standard-bearer. From the voting base on July 21 came the instant response: “Free at last, free at last – thank God Almighty (and Covid), we’re free of Biden at last!”

Russian mercenaries and Rwandan soldiers are protecting the authoritarian regime in the Central African Republic (CAR). In return, they lay their hands on the country’s riches. Yesterday, at the gates of Bangui, the capital of the CAR, the various armed groups operating in the country were partly defeated by the combined action of Wagner’s troops, the UN mission, Minusca, and Rwandan special forces.

On June 4, 2024, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, was re-elected for the third time, but with fewer seats. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was unable to secure an absolute majority. The results make it amply clear that this Hindunationalist supremo is paying the price for his refusal to address the socio-economic crisis that has gripped the country, and gotten worse over the last 10 years under his administration. Rahul Gandhi, his main rival, rose to prominence as the leader of the opposition coalition, Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (India), in an election much closer than anticipated.

Western Sahara is still a ‘Non-Self-Governing Territory’ according to the United Nations (UN), and has been since the end of Spanish colonisation in 1976. The territory is claimed by Morocco and is at the heart of the rivalry between Morocco and Algeria, which supports the Polisario Front’s claim to full independence for Western Sahara, a goal it has pursued for nearly fifty years. Despite the 1991 ceasefire, Western Sahara is still under the domination of Morocco, which represses Saharawi militants. Fabienne Dolet spoke to Fatimetu Mohtar Ali, from the Association de la Jeunesse sahraouie de France. (Saharawi Youth Association of France

In recent weeks, Bangladesh has seen the development of a major protest movement against the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina. The protests began in opposition to a quota system that restricts access to civil service jobs. The authorities responded with a crackdown that has claimed more than two hundred lives, with thousands more still being held in custody.