Category: Elections

Pakistan’s Erdogan? Imran Khan’s populism is ‘bent toward Islamism’

     

It’s been a difficult few days for the party that used to run Pakistan, The New York Times reports: First, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, known as the P.M.L.-N., came a… Read more »

Will local governments build Tunisia’s democracy?

     

Amid Tunisia’s struggle to democratize following its 2011 Arab Spring revolution, the country’s first-ever elected local governments may offer hope, USIP staff suggest: Tunisia’s 350-plus localities are inaugurating elected councils this summer,… Read more »

Arab populism succeeds where civil society fails

     

In this year’s key parliamentary elections in Iraq and Lebanon, formerly controversial populist figures performed far better than expected and are playing central roles in the scramble to form governments,… Read more »

Zimbabwe’s upcoming polls present new political dynamics

     

  Since the Movement for Democratic Change’s founding in 1999, Zimbabwe has been going through a protracted struggle for democratization. An entrenched incumbent, fortified by a strong political-military network, has… Read more »

Hope for Turkey’s democracy, even if Erdogan wins

     

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces stiff competition from his opponents, including main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem Ince and Iyi (Good) Party leader Meral Aksener, in Sunday’s… Read more »

Is Nigeria’s democracy fragile ahead of 2019 elections?

     

Is Nigeria’s democracy increasingly fragile or does it give grounds for optimism? Nigeria is the sixth largest electoral democracy in the world, and 2019 will mark 20 years since the… Read more »

Mexico’s maverick populist may “corrode democracy from within”?

     

Sick of corruption and violence will Mexico’s voters embrace the maverick leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (left), popularly known as AMLO? Jon Lee Anderson asks in the New Yorker. Historian… Read more »

Zimbabwe’s divided opposition boosts ruling party’s election chances

     

Zimbabwe’s divided opposition could bolster the long ruling party’s chances of victory after failing to forge a solid coalition for the country’s first elections without Robert Mugabe. Twenty-three candidates –… Read more »