The year 2018 is a year of big elections: Voting in elections of a head of state has already taken place or will take place in more than 15 countries. In March, presidential elections were held in Russia and Egypt, resulting in Vladimir Putin being reelected with support from 76.6% of Russian voters, and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, receiving about 97% of the votes from members of the Egyptian parliament. In early April, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was reelected with 86% of the votes, securing his position for the fourth term.
In the coming months, a new leader should be elected in Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Pakistan, Malaysia, Libya, and Cameroon, among others.
Based on previous patterns, it is likely that the current heads of state who have held their positions for years or even decades are likely to keep them. The exception will only be countries where laws contain a direct ban on the extension of the powers of the incumbent head of state. Surprises are possible in countries where virtually no necessary institutions exist – in parts of Africa, for example.
Anyway, the upcoming ballot will determine the future of not only specific countries, but entire regions and the whole world for the coming years. This list by BRICS Business Magazine contains a dozen countries where elections deserve the most attention.
Nicolás Maduro, 55, who became Venezuela’s head of state in April 2013, was unlucky. His stubborn attempts to continue building the ‘socialism of the 21st century’ along the same lines as his revolutionary predecessor, Commandante Hugo Chávez – whose spirit, according to the current leader of the Bolivarian republic, regularly appears to him in the form of a bird – coincided with the collapse of global oil prices, a source of 95% of Venezuela’s foreign exchange earnings.
The consequences for the Venezuelan economy, suffering from extremely low efficiency and numerous structural distortions due to the active ‘social’ policy of the government – subsidizing the prices of essential goods, gasoline, and electricity for the population; controlling the exchange rate of its currency, the bolivar, and the nationalization of its enterprises – have been catastrophic. In recent years, the country has been experiencing a continuous economic slowdown against the background of hyperinflation – the outcome of trying to patch huge holes in the budget that the ‘printing press’ did not manage to reduce, even when the oil price was $100 per barrel.
According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, since Maduro came to power, Venezuela’s GDP has declined by almost 32%, including 9.5% in 2017. According to Rafael Guzmán, head of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Development, inflation was 4,068% in the same year. In January 2018, another 84.2% was added to this figure. “The only culprit in these figures is the government of Nicolás Maduro,” says Guzmán.
Until now, the Maduro government has managed to stave off a complete economic collapse and offer some support to the increasingly impoverished population through external borrowing. For instance, Venezuela received about $65 billion in advance payments for future oil supplies from China. Another – rather poor – attempt to attract the currency needed to purchase the necessary goods and settle accounts with creditors was the launch of the national crypto currency, El Petro, in January, the pre-sale of which helped the Venezuelan treasury earn $735 million.
But while Nicolás Maduro cannot boast of much success in the economy, he demonstrates high efficiency in fighting the opposition that wants to remove him from power democratically. In particular, the refusal by Justice First and Popular Will, the country’s main opposition parties, to participate in the municipal elections in December last year, was used by Maduro as a pretext to remove their candidates from the presidential elections, which, after another monthly postponement, should be held in the second half of May. Time and oil prices are on the side of the current president of Venezuela.
The publication of the ‘Panama dossier’ investigation in April 2016, which caused an uproar around the world, also had its consequences in Pakistan. Namely, it led to the early resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – the most influential figure and patriarch of the political scene of the Islamic Republic, who intermittently occupied the premiership four times for a total of 35 years.
In July 2017, official accusations of corruption were brought against Sharif and a criminal case was opened after allegations of illegal possession of offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands by him and his children were substantiated. At the same time, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took the decision to remove Nawaz Sharif from power and slapped him with a lifetime ban on engaging in political activities. In August, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former minister for petroleum, was appointed acting prime minister of the country. Most probably, he will retain this seat before the upcoming general elections in May, which will result in the formation of a new lower house of parliament – the National Assembly, which will name a new PM.
Most likely, it will be Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, 68, who holds the post of chief minister of Punjab, the country’s largest province. His election to office as a result of a constitutional democratic procedure would be an important event and a good demonstration of the stability of the political system and the secular nature of the Islamic Republic. “Such an outcome would contribute to the preservation of the parliamentary system in Pakistan, which would be important for the rest of the Muslim world. Social stability, which only a few Muslim countries can boast, requires open, inclusive, representative political systems,” said former Pakistani Finance Minister Shahid Javed Burki in an article for Project Syndicate.
Ensuring the growth and modernization of the economy, social stability, and security for Pakistan – a country with a young, rapidly growing Muslim population and perhaps the highest level of terrorist threat in the region – is a serious challenge for the future prime minister. If Shehbaz Sharif really does become PM, the experience of his older brother, who has so far managed to ensure high rates of economic development and avoid destabilization, will prove very useful.
The same policy in relations with its neighbors is likely to continue; despite the festering territorial disputes, Nawaz Sharif was able to normalize relations with India, become China’s largest partner in the region, and, more recently, significantly expand cooperation with the post-Soviet countries. The accession of Pakistan (at the same time as India) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the summer of 2017 was an unqualified success.
The victory of the governor of Mexico City, Enrique Peña Nieto, in the 2012 presidential election reassured many. From the first steps, the charming, young 43-year-old (at the time), ambitious functionary managed to achieve fundamental success – he united the disparate political forces of the country to implement a large-scale program of neoliberal structural reforms known as the ‘Pact for Mexico’. He then started their practical implementation on the widest spectrum, from restructuring the education system and reviving the oil and gas industry open to foreign investors for the first time since the 1930s, to combating drug cartels and corruption.
But the real results were hardly what he had envisioned in his plan. The growth rate of the Mexican economy during Peña Nieto’s presidency, who cannot be nominated for a second term under the constitution, fell almost twofold, to 2.1% in 2017. Despite the support and multibillion injections from the government budget, it has not been possible to reverse the trend toward a drop in oil production. The liberalization of the previously nationalized gas market only last year led to a 20% increase in gas prices for the population, provoking massive protests in several cities.
The marked growth of social tensions in the country is a notable result of the Peña Nieto presidency. Mexicans are increasingly unhappy with massive price increases in the absence of revenue growth, the authorities’ inability to make real progress in combating drug cartels, and total corruption. The picture is complemented by the growing tension in relations with the US, provoked by the policy of President Trump, who came to the White House with the promise to fence off Mexico with a thick wall, deal with Mexican migrants, and also to review the terms of the NAFTA free trade agreement, which has already put entire sectors of the Mexican economy on the brink of destruction. One such example is the production of maize, an important element of national culture and lifestyle.
In this situation, it is likely that Mexicans will give preference to a candidate who will substantially correct the liberal course set by Peña Nieto in the forthcoming July elections. It is no wonder that the polls call Andrés Manuel López Obrador, representing the leftist Together We Will Make History political coalition, as the favorite.
The US has already reacted to such a prospect: Trump’s recently resigned national security adviser, Herbert McMaster, said that Washington is seeing the first signs of “Russian interference” in the election of the Mexican president, which the challenger himself denies.
Be that as it may, even if López Obrador, 64, does not reach his goal on his second attempt – six years ago, he also took part in the presidential elections and took second place – a ‘left turn’ is probably inevitable in Mexico’s politics now.
In mid-April, the incumbent president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made an unexpected announcement: He moved up the date of presidential and parliamentary elections in the country to 24 June 2018. Erdogan explained the need to move the elections, previously scheduled for early November 2019, with a need for an early transition of the country to the presidential form of government. Turkey remained a parliamentary republic until the summer of 2014, when the first direct presidential elections took place, which Erdogan won.
Early voting virtually guarantees the current Turkish leader reelection for another term. In fact, this will mean that he will keep concentrating power in his own hands and the policies that Erdogan has consistently pursued in recent years will continue.
Inside the country, the political landscape has been effectively wiped clean after the failed military coup attempt in the summer of 2016, as a result of which Erdogan managed to get all the necessary leverage to eliminate any threats to his power from the opposition forces. The country has been living in a state of emergency all this time, and on July 17, the government may consider extending it.
There is even less reason not to suspect that Erdogan will halt his implicit course for territorial expansion and the widening of Turkey’s political influence in the region. Since late last year, the Turkish army has conducted several large military operations in neighboring Syria and Iraq under the pretext of ensuring the security of Turkish citizens and fighting terrorism. The main attacks were directed at the detachments of the Kurdish Liberation Army, called “terrorists” by Ankara. At the same time, the occupied territories often remain under (temporary) control of Turkish troops and are populated by Turkmen. In fact, many critics of the Turkish regime believe that in practice Erdogan is implementing the strategy of pan-Turkism. “Erdogan always keeps in mind those ideas of pan-Turkism, which he has always adhered to since the very beginning: from the time he was the mayor of Istanbul and even before that when he was a member of the now banned Turkish Welfare Party,” says Sputnik political observer Arman Vaneskegyan. “While single-handedly defining Turkey’s entire foreign policy, Erdogan – with the blatant assertiveness of a political bulldozer – is putting into practice the very ideas which the president has been accused of in the political arena by both the allies and the opponents of his country.”
Playing such a strategic game will require great political artistry on the part of Erdogan, 64, who will need to try not to quarrel with other major players with interests in the region – Iran, Israel, Russia, and the United States.
Southern Sudan is the youngest country in the world and the state whose viability raises the biggest questions. Southern Sudan proclaimed its independence on 9 July 2011. Its emergence on the map is the result of the efforts of the Western community led by the United States, who basically insisted on giving self-government opportunities to the southern region in Sudan, officially, in hopes of ending the years-long civil war between the ‘Arab’ North and the ‘black’ South, which brought Sudan to a full-scale humanitarian and economic catastrophe.
The agreement between the rebels and the central government in Khartoum in 2005, which ended the second, 17-year-long civil war, allowed the South of Sudan to gain autonomy and its first president. In 2010, it was Salva Kiir, the leader of the main political force of the South, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), a former field commander and separatist who fought for secession from the North for many years. In a 2011 referendum, independence received support from 98.8% of the voters and approval from the international community.
Nevertheless, the triumph of democratic procedures did not last. As early as 2013, the civil war in Southern Sudan resumed and continues to this day, marred by military action using heavy armor, ethnic cleansing, evictions of people from their land, and mass starvation. This time around, it is an ethnic conflict between the Dinka people, who formed the elite of the new country and the base of support for Salva Kiir, and the Nuer tribe, uniting around Kiir’s former comrade-in-arms, former vice president, and now his main rival and opponent, Riek Machar.
So far, despite the efforts of the international community represented by the United Nations, Kiir and Machar are uncompromising. “The conflict in South Sudan is a man-made conflict for which the leaders of South Sudan bear a direct responsibility. The dire economic situation and continued conflict in the country have combined to create a dangerous and precarious situation for its citizens,” said Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping El-Ghassim Wane.
For an unbiased observer, there is nothing surprising in this continuing conflict, given that its root cause has not changed: the struggle for control over the huge oil reserves of Southern Sudan, estimated at 500 million tons, and the proceeds from their sale.
Under certain conditions, it can reach a level of confrontation between China, the largest investor and exporter of Sudanese oil before its separation, and the US, whose energy companies have been actively expanding in recent years. In this sense, the forthcoming presidential elections in July, where the current 66-year-old President Kiir is the favorite, look like a formality that will not bring peace to the country in the foreseeable future.
One has to admit the obvious: Until recently, Zimbabwe’s voters have not been spoiled by the diversity of political life and their ability to influence it. Robert Mugabe, 94, had become a household name as the incumbent president for 30 years, from December 1987 to November 2017, as well as the head of the ruling (most of the time non-alternative) party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).
The results of Mugabe’s rule are known only too well: The once prosperous African country turned in his care into a political outcast suffering from international sanctions, and an economic ‘downshifter’ with a pauper population and record-breaking inflation, which in 2008 reached an incredible 231 million percent according to official figures. According to unofficial data, the figure exceeded 6.5 × 10 108%, or 6.5 quintetrigigillion percent.
One of the repeated attempts to remove Mugabe from power democratically failed in 2013. With 61% of the vote, the incumbent leader of Zimbabwe then won another (sixth) presidential term, which opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai called “an incredible farce”.
Only the military who carried out the ‘soft putsch’ in November of last year was able to achieve the resignation of Mugabe – on very lenient terms for him. The officially stated reason for the move was the desire of the military to rid the country of Mugabe’s entourage, whose actions harmed the country. “We wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover. We are only targeting criminals around him [Mugabe] who are committing crimes that causing social and economic suffering in the country,” said Zimbabwe’s official spokesman, General Sibusiso Moyo.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took the presidential oath of allegiance in November, is a representative of a collective of military veterans. In his youth, he participated in the guerrilla war in Southern Rhodesia, and subsequently, after 1980, held various positions in the country’s top leadership.
The announced program of actions for the transitional period until the general elections, scheduled for the summer, involves measures to stabilize the economy as well as reset relations with external partners, above all with the international financial institutions on whom rests the decision to allocate the necessary financing for the country’s development.
Certain successes (for example, the pegging of the national currency to the dollar causing the inflation rate to plummet last year to an unprecedented 1.2%) add popularity to ZANU-PF and its new leader, the 75-year-old Mnangagwe.
He is a favorite of the upcoming elections, although opposition rivals – the previous official successor to Mugabe, Joyce Mujur, as well as Morgan Tsvangirai – should not be written off either.
Until recently, the main intrigue of the upcoming October presidential election in Brazil was whether Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would take part in them. In July last year, the Brazilian first instance court issued a guilty verdict against the Brazilian ex-president in the corruption case, sentencing him to nine years and six months in prison. The appeal that was submitted at the time did not have any result: In the beginning of this year, the Federal Regional Court of the fourth district confirmed Lula’s guilt, increasing the prison sentence to 12 years and one month. In fact, this means the removal of Lula, who was taken to the building of the Federal Police of Curitiba in early April to serve his sentence, from the presidential race – according to the Constitution of Brazil, a person convicted of corruption by a second instance court has no right to hold elective offices.
The removal of a favorite – according to polls, 30-40% of Brazilians were prepared to vote for Lula – dramatically changes the alignment of forces in the upcoming elections. Now, the favorite is the acting head of state, Michel Temer. He led the country in 2015 after the impeachment of the president, Dilma Rousseff, who is also implicated in corruption scandals.
At the end of this March, Temer (for the first time publicly) did not deny his interest in reelection, although he had categorically denied it previously. According to the politician, this decision could be the result of the successes that the country managed to achieve under his leadership. Among other things, halting the fall of the economy, getting rid of the chronic deficit, and launching a number of liberal reforms, including the pension system, changing labor legislation in favor of employers, and beginning privatization.
“I believe that it would be cowardly not to be a candidate. Because, ultimately, if my government were destructive for the country, I would have realized that I should not continue. But on the contrary, I’ve fixed a country that was broken. Literally broken,” Temer said in an interview with magazine Istoé. “I’m proud of what I’ve done and I need to show what’s being done.”
After the de facto elimination of Lula from the presidential race, Temer doesn’t seem to have any serious competitors – today, there are clearly no leaders of Lula’s stature on the left flank of Brazilian politics. Nevertheless, the current president will have to convince ordinary voters of the country, who are traditionally sympathetic to the left, that the course he has chosen is the correct one. Polls show an extremely low level of popularity and support for 77-year-old Temer.
The number one story is that presidential elections will be held in Libya for the first time since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011. Story number two: It is possible that the new Libyan leader will, again, be a Gaddafi.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the murdered head of the Libyan Jamahiriya, Muammar Gaddafi, is to announce his candidacy in the upcoming elections, which should take place no later than 30 September, said a representative of the Basem al-Hashimi al-Saul family at the end of last year. According to him, the program of the candidate, which should be made public in the near future, will contain measures aimed at stabilizing Libya as a nation state, including through the establishment of a negotiation process involving all paramilitary groups operating in the country.
After the events of 2011, Libya remains de facto divided. The country is governed by three governments simultaneously – the Government of National Accord and the National Salvation Government, located in the east of the country, in the city of Tobruk, as well as by the National Transitional Council in Tripoli, formed with the mediation of the United Nations and the EU, all of which operate independently of each other. At the same time, the authorities in the east are closely linked to the Libyan National Army led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who controls a significant part of Cyrenaica, which has been at war with the Islamists all these years. And this list of influential forces operating in the territory of the former Jamahiriya is far from exhaustive.
The nomination of Seif al-Islam, if it takes place, will become another sharp reversal of his fortunes. After the events of 2011, he was captured and handed over to the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq brigade, and was sentenced to death in July 2015. But after six years in prison he was released after the announcement of a general amnesty.
Obviously, Saif al-Islam, 45, is looking to become a figure capable of reconciling and uniting hostile forces. But it will not be easy for him to do, just as it will be difficult to win the trust of voters. “Today, the popularity of the Gaddafi family is not very great, no matter how much their supporters want to demonstrate the opposite. The events of 2011 played a very important role in the lives of the majority of those who are part of Libyan politics today and part of its future. The entire legitimacy of their claims to power is connected with the struggle against the name of Gaddafi. The return of Saif al-Islam will mean to many the restoration of that era – the era against which they fought,” said Higher School of Economics professor and expert on the Middle East, Grigory Lukyanov, as quoted by Sputnik. “Stability and order are, of course, highly prized by the Libyans. But a kind of achievement of the revolution is freedom, which was not there under Gaddafi. These two contradictory values, even in the conditions of Libyan conflict, chaos, and devastation, continue to clash in the minds of the population. That is why it’s difficult to speak about Saif al-Islam having broad support.”
Compared to most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Cameroon has always remained an island of relative stability, and social and economic well-being. Large stocks of oil and other raw materials, good conditions for agriculture, as well as historical links with the former metropolises (primarily France) and China have allowed the Cameroonian economy to diversify and grow dynamically in recent years. As a result, the authorities could maintain social stability and gradually improve the standard of living of the population, more than half of whom still remain below the poverty line.
Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, has remained the main figure on Cameroon’s political scene for almost four decades in a row, occupying his post since November 1982. The constitutional amendments adopted a few years ago allow the 85-year-old enlightened leader of Cameroon, a native of the village of Mvomeka’a of the Fang tribe, an articulate francophone, a graduate in philosophy who studied at the Sorbonne, to nominate himself for a new seven-year term in office an unlimited number of times.
Biya is the unquestionable favorite of the next presidential race. However, the current campaign will have to be conducted against the backdrop of unprecedented, growing risks of destabilizing the country. Since the end of 2016, the English-speaking regions, which account for about a fifth of the 22 million population of Cameroon, have been swept by waves of protests. The formal complaint to the authorities that the English-speaking minority’s rights are being trampled has grown into demands to separate the Anglophone regions from the main French-speaking part.
An even more serious threat is the newly energized terrorist group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly Boko Haram, in the border regions of Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and Cameroon. The consequence was mass migration of the population and the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees into the north and east of the country, where hunger, chaos, and violence are reportedly rampant.
“Cameroon continues to confront a complex crisis deeply affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people,” said UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Najat Rochdi at the end of last year. The extent of the problems is made clear by the fact that in 2017, the Cameroonian authorities asked international donors and the United Nations for some $310 million to help about 1.2 million displaced persons.
Solving these problems will be the foundation of the agenda for the future president, probably be the very same Paul Biya whom Cameroonians will have to reelect in October.
Although the name of the country – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – speaks for itself, there have always been great problems when it came to practical compliance with democratic transfer of power in this country, which is one of the largest countries of Western Equatorial Africa, both in terms of area and population.
Since 2001, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been Joseph Kabila, who inherited it at the age of 29 after the death of his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the former leader of the rebel group Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo. In turn, the latter became president as a result of the overthrow of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu following the first Congolese war of 1996–1997, where victory was achieved with the support of Uganda, Rwanda, and Angola.
Today, the DRC remains an arena of confrontation between paramilitary groups – both homegrown and from neighboring countries – that control large areas of the country to the detriment of the central government in Kinshasa. Basically, the struggle rages for control over the rich resource base of the DRC that contains gold, non-ferrous and rare-earth metals, diamonds, and uranium (half of all proven global reserves).
Despite the fact that the presidential powers of Kabila, 46, expired in December 2016, at the time, the authorities in Kinshasa announced that the country was not ready to hold elections and postponed them for a year. The president’s concession to the opposition was a promise not to amend the constitution, which would allow him to run for a third term. Further statements by the authorities on the need to postpone the vote for at least another year provoked not only a strong denunciation on the part of the opposition, but interference from the United States. Last November, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced her government’s intention to ensure that the presidential election would no longer be postponed and would take place in December 2018. “Further delays and attempts to retain power will only lead to the isolation of the leaders and the government of the DRC,” stated the US representative.
But the US is not the only power playing on the DRC field. An important detail is that Joseph Kabila is a graduate of the PLA University of National Defense in Beijing. So, it cannot be ruled out that despite proclamations from Washington, the election of a new president may not happen again. One possible scenario of further developments may be an aggravation of armed confrontation inside the country and in this entire region of Africa.
