Photo by Robin Hammond

What does a country in the middle of collapse look like? This was the question filmmaker Lorie Conway attempted to answer in her new film on Zimbabwe, “Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law.” A recent showing by the United States Institute of Peace gave a venue for both the filmmaker and the film’s primary focus, human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, to discuss this question and its implications. By focusing on the rule of law, or at times the lack thereof, the film attempts to demonstrate not only the decline of the country, but also what is needed to get it back on track.

Once seen as the breadbasket of Africa, for many years after independence Zimbabwe enjoyed economic growth and strong socio-economic development in areas such as literacy, education, and healthcare. But underneath the rosy exterior, political intimidation and oppression remained. This reality was further masked once the main opposition party united with President Robert Mugabe’s party, turning Zimbabwe in a de facto single party state under ZANU PF. But with growing economic pressures and the emergence of a new opposition party with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the late 1990s, the veneer started to fall away. What has happened since then – violent farm invasions, massive internal displacement, years of runaway hyperinflation, rampant government corruption, violent political oppression, crackdowns on independent press and civil society – are signs of a country in collapse but also symptoms of the underlying problem which is what happens when a government chooses to completely disregard the rule of law in favor of maintaining their power at all costs.

The World Justice Project defines the rule of law as four principles: 1) All person and entities are accountable under the law, including government officials, 2) law are clear and widely available, applied evenly, and protect fundamental rights, 3) the process for enacting laws and their administration is fair and accessible, and 4) justice is delivered by an independent judiciary who have adequate resources and are representative of the communities they serve. As the film and panel discussion highlighted, Zimbabwe lacks all four of these principles which makes development and growth extremely difficult.

In the fight for the rule of law, Beatrice Mtetwa looms large. Formerly a state prosecutor, when she left the prosecutors office and started her own firm in 1989, she quickly gained a reputation for her willingness to take on cases that others wouldn’t touch due to political sensitivities or controversy. As a result, she has appeared in some of the most high profile human rights cases in recent Zimbabwe history. Representing opposition politicians, journalists, evicted farmers, democracy activists and civil society leaders, Mtetwa is at the forefront of trying to uphold the law and hold the government accountable to basic human rights standards.

Doing so is not always easy or successful. Starting in 2001, the judiciary underwent restructuring which saw Zimbabwe’s independent judges forced out in favor of presidential political appointments. The obvious result is a biased system where the outcome of any given case is more likely to be based on political considerations than the legal merits. Coupled with draconian laws like the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which heavily constricts the media, and the Public Order and Security Act which gives the security sector wide ranging powers to protect the presidency and curtails freedom of association, the ability of an attorney to hold parties to basic legal principles is difficult and at some times, downright impossible.

But not always. Despite the deficiencies in the rule of law in Zimbabwe – the World Justice Project ranks the country second to last in the world in its’ Rule of Law Index – the persistence of figures like Mtetwa and their work demonstrates that for now there is still room where people can motivate change. Though slow, by constantly pushing back against corruption and authoritarianism, lawyers and civil society actors can diminish the progress of this backslide and hopefully move the line further towards a more democratic and inclusive government.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold elections later this year, the first since the violent elections of 2008. Both of the major parties have failed within the power sharing government and much is at stake in the election, not just in terms of who takes power but what direction the country will follow for the future. Opinions about who is best for the country vary but as with any democratic contest, the most important element is that the people are able to make that choice in a fair, free and transparent fashion. The rule of law is crucial to making that happen. So far, recent analysis is not optimistic that the reforms needed to guarantee this will occur prior to the election but there is still time. And regardless of the outcome of the election, it is obvious that major reforms in governance, judicial discretion and tackling security sector impunity are needed to put Zimbabwe back on track. Doing so will not only improve human rights but encourage economic growth, two things urgently needed to bring Zimbabwe back from the depths of collapse.

Many Americans feel that their current system of government is unable to get anything done in any meaningful way. Conflicts between interests in the U.S. government has blocked essential legislation from being passed, and interest groups in the political system thrive off preventing the president from passing many of his key policy initiatives. While compromise is certainly needed in the United States at the moment, the American political system has done a good job in identifying and eliminating corrupt practices and in promoting policies that reflect the core ideals of the American people. When there are questions of unfair or corrupt practices in the United States, the country is able to address the issues. While many issues are not technically illegal, the U.S. will maintain the authority to challenge for equality. Any less is simply a detriment to society. The best recent example was the absurd and inequitable wait times in some areas of the U.S. that voters had to endure in order to vote in the last election. Hiding behind non-existent, inequitable or unjust laws cannot be tolerated when there is a clear breach of confidence in a society. In the end, no matter what their backgrounds are, all Americans have the same right to vote as anyone else in the country. Discouraging their rights to participate in an election is now something commonly seen as a stain on American democracy.

America’s neighbors are not strangers to conflicts in their political systems. In the Canadian Province of Ontario, the last regional election resulted in a scandal where the Provincial government that has been sitting for over 10 years wasted over 500 million dollars in order to win two seats in the last election. Information revealed this week showed that the costs of a policy move to cancel the construction of two power plants was likely done in order to secure the votes of those two seats during the election. After the opposition challenged that the government simply moved the power plants for votes by using public funds, the sitting government closed all business in the legislature in order to stop the ability of the opposition to bring inquiries onto the sitting Premier of Ontario and his party at the time. During this downtime, the governing party removed their leader and others who had direct links to the movement of the power plants, and reopened when they saw it fit to do so. After, they claimed the 500 million dollar bill only costs 40 million, but it is apparent that the government used public funds to needlessly change a policy decision to win a majority in the parliament and that they likely knew of the real costs in the process.

While claiming that using this policy move was not part of their campaign plan to be re-elected and was not illegal, there is a clear violation of the customary laws prevalent in all Commonwealth countries and the legal tradition of equity when one political party can use a large amount of public funds in order to be re-elected to their own benefit. Clearly the legislature should have never been allowed to be closed and one party should not be able to have such a large financial advantage using public funds for their own political party. To maintain the legitimacy of the political system, charges ranging from corrupt practices to criminal charges should be laid on any member of the current or past government that knowingly used public funds and lied to the costs of the amount in order to be re-elected. In a legal test, any reasonable person in that position as a government minister or advisor during an election campaign would clearly know that it is unjust and illegal when one party in government has the intent of using a policy decision in the middle of an election campaign in order to secure their seat. After the last U.S. election, there was a condemnation and acknowledgement of the errors of allowing voting wait times so long that it affected American democratic values. In Ontario, an acknowledgement of the issue should be met with charges and an election. The outcome of a large scandal is that a ruling party will always be seen as corrupt in every action they take, whether it is true or not. Democracy must be reaffirmed before a society can progress, and legality must be paramount over the issue so that equity prevails and ends the ability of corruption to continue.

To see how a political system works when there is no transparency in a government’s decisions and the ruling party is seen as lacking respect for legal equity and the confidence of society, we must look at this past week in Venezuela. After the last election, Nicolas Maduro won by a very thin margin and the opposition in Venezuela took to protest the vote, and have been protesting fervently since Hugo Chavez was officially replaced. The lack of confidence in the Venezuelan political system comes from many years of Hugo Chavez and actions by his government to solidify Chavez and his presidency beyond the powers of the legislature and Judiciary in Venezuela. Claims by both the government and opposition of violence and intimidation being used is so prevalent that a recent discussion in Venezuela’s National Assembly lead to many ministers being physically beaten in a brawl on the floor of their congress. Venezuelan politics is a reflection of how power can be abused and maintained by all parties claiming guilt over their opponents. When all political groups in a country are painted as bad as the worst ones and the government denies traditional balances in their political system, there are no mechanisms that provide for transparency and inquiry into legal and illegal actions by government ministers. In broken democracies, elections can be the only form of equity when the lines between legal and illegal are no longer respected. Without a true balance and respect for legal norms and traditions along with an equitable government and a mechanism to clear out corrupt practices, a healthy democracy cannot truly exist. The valves that exist in democratic and fair government systems to defuse tensions must always be respected in order for a society to progress. It is to the benefit of very few people when a legal system will support inequitable acts simply to legitimise corruption and end progress in our society. The legal system is an outcome of democratic values, to promote inequity in a legal system is to lack an understanding of democracy as a whole.

A new era in Icelandic politics. (c) Mia Bennett

On Saturday’s parliamentary elections in Iceland, two center-right parties seized power from the incumbent Social Democrats. Iceland Review states that the Independence Party won a reported 28.5 percent of the vote, while the Progressive Party won 25.2 percent. What does this mean for Iceland’s Arctic strategy and the region at large?

The EU dimension

First of all, EU membership is now likely off the table. Both the Progressives and Independents oppose acceding to the union. In fact, it was the Progressive Party which promoted the idea of replacing the Icelandic króna with the Canadian dollar. In 2012, the party’s leader, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, said, “If we are going to adopt another currency, then the Canadian dollar looks very promising.” Yet they’re still pro-króna more than anything. For the EU, the fact that Iceland will not be joining the union any time soon means that at least for the near term, Brussels has lost the chance of gaining an Arctic coastal state. The EU’s website states that it has three (and potentially four) Arctic Council member states among its members, but the number will now probably remain at three. The Arctic Dialogue, a high-level summit between EU and Iceland officials regarding Arctic energy activities, such as Iceland’s hydrothermal industries and oil and gas in the Arctic at large, took place on April 15. The dialogue was part of the accession talks for Iceland to join the EU. With the new government in power, it’s unclear whether these talks will even continue. This could affect Iceland-EU cooperation, which might occur now on a more limited level now that membership is not in its crosshairs. Yet in an April 8 press release, Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle emphasized that the “European Commission remains fully committed to continuing the work with the government of Iceland after the elections.” Whether this commitment will be mutual has yet to be determined. In any case, Iceland supports EU’s bid for permanent observer status in the Arctic Council and will probably continue to do so. Talks may also still go on regarding a joint maritime service center oriented towards economic development and monitoring of activities in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. So just because EU membership is shelved doesn’t necessarily mean that all talks and cooperation with the EU will be put on hold.

Domestic issues

Either Gunnlaugsson or Bjarni Benediktsson, leader of the Independence Party, will become prime minister. Regardless of who takes the top office, it’s likely that Iceland will refocus on growing its primary industries. In March, Gunnlaugsson stated in an interview with Bloomberg, “There are great growth opportunities in the fundamental industries of Iceland.” The center-right parties’ express interests in resource development could cause Iceland to continue to rely on export-oriented industries such as fisheries, aluminum processing, and potential oil and gas development to fuel its economy. This, in turn, would help stabilize the króna, which plunged in value against foreign currencies during the crisis. Thousands of Icelanders are basically underwater with their mortgages, as many have a principal that varies based on the króna’s exchange rate.

With the Althingi’s possible increased emphasis on natural resource development, Icelanders are naturally concerned about environmental protection. Members of the Progressive Party answered the following question from Grapevine, an Icelandic newspaper:

Will your party do something to protect the land and its resources? Is a more stringent regulative framework needed to ensure conservation of the environment?

“The Progressive Party believes that it is important to include an article in the constitution that puts resources within Icelandic territory into the national ownership.”

No mention was made of conservation, but the fact that the Progressives want to emphasize Icelandic ownership over natural resources is interesting. I think this has more to do with offshore fisheries and potential oil and gas resources rather than land (recall the Anglo-Icelandic Cod Wars), but let’s not forget that land, too, is a hot-button issue in Iceland. When Chinese businessman Huang Nubo expressed interest in buying land in eastern Iceland to turn into a $200 million tourist resort, it stirred up a lot of controversy. Gunnlaugsson was rather supportive towards Huang’s plans, while Benediktsson was more opposed. In 2011, he said that foreign purchases of land would need to be “carefully considered.” He did add, however, “I think there lies a very high chance of cooperating with this man who seems to want to go in tourism and other such things.” (A great blog post about Huang’s saga can be found here.)

Huang seemed to be quite positive about his chances with the elections. In March, he commented to the China Daily, “There will very likely be a favorable turning point on the deal in April…But if I get nothing clear and final from the Icelandic government by the end of May, I’ll no longer be interested in pursuing the project, and I’ll let it go.”

So perhaps given the election results, we will see a continued strengthening of the Iceland-China connection from parliamentary quarters, particularly if Huang’s development plans are approved (although this is a private business venture rather than a government-backed deal). Iceland may continue to look to Asia, the Nordic countries, and nearby North America for business opportunities rather than continental Europe. The country may also continue to position itself as an Arctic coastal state strategically situated in the North Atlantic, emphasizing its Arctic identity over a European one. By consequence, the U.S., which had an air force base in Keflavík until 2006, could soon have to contend with Chinese investment not just in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Indian Oceans, but the Atlantic, too.

The U.S. doesn’t need to worry too much at this stage about losing out in the competition for Icelandic business. Eimskip, the Icelandic shipping company, moved its North American hub from Virginia to Portland, Maine in March 2013 in order to shortern North Atlantic shipping times – a decision I’ll write more about in my following post.

Mr. Grimsson goes to Beijing

President Grimsson: Still the face of Iceland in the Arctic.

All in all, things probably won’t change too much in the Arctic with the new parties in power in Reykjavik. Iceland’s most visible face in the circumpolar north has not been the prime minister, but rather President Olafur Grimsson, a political independent. As his office is elected separately, he will continue in his position. The longest serving president in Icelandic history, he has held office since 1996. Long terms, however, are not unusual; the previous president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, served for 16 years. The Grapevine says that opposing a sitting president is considered “bad form,” so it’s unlikely that we’ll see any real challengers to Grimsson. For a long time, the president was also not supposed to become mired in politics, as the position is more akin to a head of state than a political leader.

Yet Grimsson changed that with his involvement in the financial crisis in Iceland in 2008. A high-flying president comfortable in front of reporters and cozy bankers, many thought he was partly responsible for the country’s economic collapse. But Grimsson managed to save face by vetoing a bill passed by the Parliament, then led by the Social Democrats, that would have required Iceland to pay back some of the $5 billion lost in Dutch and British Icesave accounts. After the veto, the bill went to the people in a referendum, and Icelanders voted against it. Grimsson became the first president to use the power of the veto, symbolically transforming the office into a very political — and powerful — one.

Grimsson, former leader of the socialist People’s Alliance party, betrayed the wishes of the Social Democratic prime minister and her party. In 2012, the main opponent against Grimsson, Thora Arnordsdottir, ran on a platform calling for the president to stay out of politics. Now that the Independence and Progressive Parties will take power, Grimsson will have political allies in the Althingi. Grimsson, whom blogger Heather Exner-Pirot has called a “known Sinophile,” will probably continue building ties with the snow dragon and other Asian states interested in the Arctic. The Chinese-Iceland attraction is mutual, too: earlier this year, a popular television show on CCTV about the Arctic featured Iceland, showcasing the country’s natural beauty, geothermal energy and aurora. If that attraction is confirmed by parliament’s new leading parties, then the Iceland-China connection stands to grow stronger in the coming years while the island nation expands into new markets as well. This time, shipping — not banking — will provide the way forward into far-flung corners of the globe.

The new president will be puppeteered out of office quicker than he was put in 

The election played out as many opposition supporters of Henrique Capriles supporters feared.

Government candidate Nicolas Maduro won by a close margin — closer than expected actually. Capriles denounced the results, pointed out cases of fraud and intimidation and called on his supporters (approximately 50 percent of the population, even according to official results) to demand a vote recount of the National Electoral Commission (CNE).

More specifically, the Capriles campaign called for verification of the receipts that print out after a ballot is cast, also buying time for international votes, the vast majority of which were cast for him in the Oct. 7 election, to be counted.

This call to action galvanized his base, which had been disillusioned after his quick acceptance of defeat in October. Yet no one, not even Maduro’s own party, seems to think much of the new leader.

From start to finish, Maduro’s most ardent supporters aren’t his supporters at all. They are Chavez supporters. One of Chavez’ last recorded statements to the public asked voters to support Maduro in the event that something were to happen to him. This deathbed plea has translated into a certain power beyond the grave. Maduro’s most popular campaign slogan, was in fact, a solemn vow by voters: “Chavez, te juro, voto por Maduro” [Chavez, I swear, I am voting for Maduro].

Maduro has now been left with the ticking timebomb that is Venezuela: a worsening economy, a sharply declining oil production capacity, a horrific security situation (Caracas is widely considered the most violent city in the Western Hemisphere), and, to top it all off, his own party is increasingly fractionalized and fissured.

Within the official party it is widely known that Maduro is not in charge. Most speculate he’ll be asked to step down within the first two years. Venezuelans are exhausted and fed up with the worsening economic and security situations, but they’ve never had a set figure to blame it all on. Until now, the blame has been shifted to the advisors and people “around” Chavez because he was so well-loved.

The people don’t love Maduro. At the first sign of discontent, the people “around” Maduro — most likely Diosdado Cabello — will find a way to blame then remove him, with little trouble or fanfare.

Cabello has broad support in the military and is thought to be more astute than Maduro when it comes to political movements and manipulations. It was Cabello’s decision to reject a vote recount after Maduro had already agreed to one.

Maduro’s sad fate as a temporary placeholder was visible since the beginning of the campaign in early April. Some of Maduro’s campaign posters didn’t even have his face on them – they had Chavez.

The average Maduro supporter couldn’t, and still can’t, really articulate why Maduro had been anointed as the chosen one. Antonio Mendoza, a government architect explained:

“Chávez designo a esta persona, que seguimos. No estamos en posición de cuestionar, somos militantes… simplemente es la línea que nos dejó el presidente. El presidente vio en él … cualidades extraordinarias,” [Chavez, designated this person, whom we follow. We aren’t in a position to follow, we are militants… this is simply the line the president left us. The (former) president saw in him… extraordinary qualities].

With supporters like this, it won’t take long before Maduro becomes the scapegoat for the country’s various ills and he is unceremoniously dumped from office.  The only bets now are if it will be before he hits the two year mark, and if Diosdado Cabello will take the roll himself, or test it out on someone else first.

India tends to receive most of the attention when it comes to mind-boggling demographic trends, though its western neighbor is no laggard either.  True, India is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country in about a decade or so.  But by some estimates, Pakistan eclipsed Brazil to move into the fifth position last year and could pass over Indonesia to take the fourth spot by 2030.  Yes, India will add the equivalent of Europe’s labor force over the next 15 years and end up supplying a full quarter of the global workforce.  But Pakistan’s population nearly doubled over the past two decades and its working-age population is growing at a faster clip than the overall population.  Pakistan also is a younger country, with a median age of 22 versus 26 in India.  And according to Forbes magazine, Karachi is the world’s fastest-growing megacity, with its population expanding 80 percent in 2000-2010.  Such dramatic growth helps to explain the city’s steady slide into chaos (see here and here).

In theory, the youth bulges in India and Pakistan are good things, since a growing proportion of workers to non-workers in a society – what is often termed the “demographic dividend” – helps propel capital accumulation and economic growth.  Youth bulges played an important role in powering the East Asian economic miracle from 1965-1990.   But it is unclear whether this pattern will be replicated in South Asia, since India and Pakistan have difficulty in generating productive employment for new entrants to their labor forces.*

Indeed, the “Global Trends 2030″ report issued by the U.S. National Intelligence Council late last year, warns that Pakistan’s burgeoning young population, combined with a slow-growing economy, “portends increased instability.”  James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, underscored this point in Congressional testimony earlier this month when he stated that Pakistan “faces no real prospects for sustainable economic growth.”  A new assessment by the Asian Development Bank likewise warns that the country’s growth prospects are dim and will remain far below what is required to absorb new workforce entrants.

Some are touting Pakistan’s young generation, which is the largest in the country’s history, as the decisive factor in shaping its political evolution.  As one analyst puts it:

[Y]oung people have become a formidable political force, likely determining who wins the 2013 election….  Pakistan’s young people are increasingly patriotic, socially conscious, and globally oriented, and the person or political party that can play to these qualities and win over this coveted bloc will shape politics in the region for years to come.

Similarly, a new British Council report argues that there is

a transformational opportunity for any party that succeeds in motivating young voters to go to the polls. A ten percentage point increase in youth turnout would translate into an additional 2.5 million votes on election day. It could also be enough to swing the vote of large numbers of marginal constituencies.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, 20 percent of the country’s 84 million registered voters are under the age of 26 and almost half are between 18 and 35.  One-sixth of these registered voters are new to the rolls.  And much of the rising popularity enjoyed in the last year or so by Imran Khan, a cricket hero who until recently was a politician of little note, is due to support by urban youths.  Still, it is not certain whether the potentially sizeable youth vote will actually materialize or, if it does, which political parties would benefit.

This is all the more so since the British Council study disconcertedly finds that Pakistan’s young people are overwhelmingly pessimistic about their country’s future and have very low regard for democratic institutions but a high opinion of the military establishment and religious organizations.  Indeed, their support for military rule or sharia law is higher than for democratic governance.

Even more worrisome is a new report about how the jihadi movement draws its strength from Pakistan’s mainstream society.  Of the tens of thousands of young men recruited into militant groups, the report finds, most are products of working- and middle-class families as well as the public education system.  This contradicts the conventional wisdom that terrorist recruits come largely from impoverished communities or the madrasas system of religious education.

Pakistan’s political future turns in significant measure on whether its massive number of young people becomes a force for moderation or radicalism.  The next few weeks will offer clues as to which way they will turn.

*I have written elsewhere in greater detail about the deep challenges India faces in converting its demographic potential into economic reality.  A new overview of the country’s young population can be found here.

This commentary is cross-posted at Chanakya’s Notebook.  I invite you to connect with me via Facebook and Twitter.

[The Star]

There is little doubting that the Kenyan elections just passed went a whole lot better than the last ones, in 2007, that resulted in widespread violence and chaos. December 2007 and January 2008 saw bloodshed that some observers chalked up to simple tribal and ethnic clashes. But that simplistic assessment reduced complex political contexts to hoary cliches that evoked deepest, darkest Africa. Nonetheless, there was considerable fear of a reprise of those awful weeks as this year’s election approached.

But that Kenya avoided the despair of just over five years ago hardly means that the recent elections went especially well. First, the outcome itself may be seen as sub-optimal. According to official results Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, son of one of the country’s liberation heroes and the country’s first post-independence president, won just a shade over 50% of the vote, sufficient to grant him an outright victory with no need for a runoff. But Raila Odinga, the current Prime Minister who came in second in this election as he officially did in 2007, plans to contest the results  And while observers have generally declared the closely contested election to have been relatively clean (compared to 2007 in particular) there have been more than a few signs of irregularities and there was some violence in the run-up that are attributable to the country’s larger political divisions.

But more to the point, Kenyatta’s victory is, to say the least, problematic. Kenyatta faces charges in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his involvement in fomenting violence in 2007 and 2008. Going forward his Presidency will be tainted in the eyes of vast swathes of the country, the legitimacy of the most recent election itself notwithstanding. The fact that ICC prosecution filed a motion on Monday seeking to drop all charges against former head of civil service Francis Muthaura may well mean that the charges against Kenyatta will come next, but it is hard not to take a cynical view that the ICC decision is more one of political expediency than legal legitimacy. That will be the view of many in Kenya. Of course there are many in Africa who look upon the ICC with great suspicion because it seems to target Africans disproportionately. Kenyatta will certainly work this distrust to his advantage.

Perhaps tellingly, United States Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the situation in Kenya. he praised the Kenyan people for voting peacefully. But he also did not mention Kenyatta by name. That will further help bolster those who question Kenyatta’s legitimacy. And legitimacy is arguably  the most valuable and rare currency in Kenyan politics.

So yes, by all means we should be pleased that the elections last week went so smoothly. Even better if Kenyatta ends up as the clear-cut winner according to all official counts and legal challenges. But let’s not overstate where Kenya is right now. Things may not be as bad as 2007-2008. But they are not great either. That Kenya has seen worse does not make these the best of times.

The last time Zimbabwe made widespread international headlines occurred as the country descended into violence following the contested 2008 presidential elections. That chapter in Zimbabwean history ended with the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that split power between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The final conditions of the GPA are set to be fulfilled this year with a referendum on a new constitution and new presidential elections. But despite the appearance of moving forward, a closer look at recent events shows that all is not well in Zimbabwe.

A rash of new arrests of civil society leaders are just the tip of the iceberg but also highlight the problems facing a legitimate transition of power later this year. ZANU PF’s national conference in December ended with a commitment to deregister “errant NGOs.” Almost immediately, the government started targeting the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) by arresting multiple employees and the organization’s director along with charging the organization itself with illegal voter registration. More recently, the government introduced a new law that harshly regulates youth organizations as members of the National Youth Development Trust were arrested and their office in Bulawayo raided. Last week, police raided the office and seized equipment from the Zimbabwe Peace Project which tracks political violence and also broke up a peaceful protest by Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) with arrests, beatings and teargas.

These incidents depict the general backdrop of Zimbabwean politics today as the referendum on the draft constitution approaches in March. WOZA’s Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams spoke at a roundtable event in Washington, DC last month about these challenges and the difficulties of pushing for progress in such a politicized setting. Both women were optimistic then that in the end, real reform could be made this year. But in some corners, such cautious optimism is waning. At this point even if the referendum and subsequent election are peaceful, the lack of legitimacy for the result is pretty much guaranteed.

The reason for this largely lies in the first sentence of this post: the last time people paid attention to Zimbabwe was during the violent aftermath of the 2008 election. Once that subsided, attention turned elsewhere. Meanwhile, not much actually changed inside the country even with the GPA. The pro-democracy group Sokwanele released a report in December 2012 detailing gross violations of the GPA by all parties involved, although ZANU PF dominated in the number of infractions. The political violence and corruption seen so clearly in 2008 never fully stopped which means that the reforms needed for a legitimate democratic process are still lacking. Along the way, regional actors such as SADC largely enabled the lack of reforms by consistently siding with ZANU PF, leaving few avenues for the people of Zimbabwe to seek government accountability.

With the constitutional referendum set for March 16, the consequences of such crackdowns are growing. Regardless of the outcome, the referendum is just a warm up for the general elections. The recent attacks on civil society are just one sign pointing to a repeat of the contentious elections of 2002 and 2008. If that is to be avoided, now is the time for the world to start paying attention to Zimbabwe again.

The eleventh Iranian presidential election is scheduled to be held this June. Local council elections will also take place at the same time as presidential elections.

To take an analytic look at this year’s Iranian elections from a number of relevant angles, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) will be discussing the elections with leading observers and analysts of Iranian affairs.

Part of FPA’s “Candid Discussion Series” by Reza Akhlaghi, these discussions will engage internationally recognized and accomplished professionals who come from media organizations, think tanks, and academia armed with extensive research and insight on Iranian socio-political, geopolitical, and cultural affairs.

This year’s presidential elections come amid a crisis hitting the country on a multitude of dimensions, including a corruption-stricken economy worsened by harsh international sanctions; a sharp decline in the value of the Iranian currency that has drastically lowered the purchasing power of average Iranians; absence of a settlement to the country’s nuclear dossier; intensification of Iran’s highly factional politics; and regional transformations induced by the Arab Spring.

Through these discussions, we will try to find answers to questions on whether or not the elections are held in a democratic fashion; the direction of shifting alliances in Iran’s corridors of power; the potential impact of sanctions on the selection of final candidates to run, and on the future and stability of the Islamic Republic. Please join us as we take an in-depth look into Iran’s upcoming elections with help from a team of world-class experts.

Siamak Dehghanpour is an Iranian-American journalist and television personality. He is the host of the “OFOGH”, a news television talk show program on the Voice of America (VOA) television’s Persian News Network (PNN). OFOGH (Horizon) covers a wide range of issues in Iranian affairs as well as geopolitics of the Middle East.
Mr. Dehghanpour is also a Managing Editor of PNN.

Siamak Dehghanpour was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. After  finishing military service during the Iran-Iraq War, he attended the University of Arts in Tehran to obtain a B.A. and a M.A. in theater, TV, and film-making. He produced independent documentaries, some focusing on Iran’s religious minorities. In Iran, Mr. Dehghanpour, grandson of a well-known Iranian poet and journalist, owned a publishing business, and worked for numerous publications as a production manager, managing editor, and board member.

He joined VOA in June 2003 to launch “News and Views”, a Persian-language news show. Since then, he has conducted many interviews with high-level officials, congressional leaders, and foreign policy experts and analysts. Mr. Dehghanpour has extensively covered 2012, 2010, 2008, 2006, and 2004 US General and Mid-term Elections for VOAPNN. The “OFOGH” program has a massive following inside Iran as well as on the internet and is considered a flagship program of VOA PNN.

On the second anniversary of the OFOGH program, Mr. Dehghanpour sat down with Reza Akhlaghi of Foreign Policy Association to share his views on the current state of Iranian affairs.

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What, in your opinion, have been the key obstacles for Iranian intellectuals in becoming a force in nurturing democratic values in the Iranian society and in helping with the institutionalization of those values?

Many of the Iranian intellectuals during the last hundred years have had a tendency to be more secular and less religious because of their education. But the lower class and to some extent the middle class in society are still somewhat religious, despite the fact that the religious government after the revolution has done significant damage to the people’s faith. This trend has put them at odds with the core of society and at fight with the clerical establishment. The problem as I see it is that many Iranian intellectuals are still struggling when it comes to freedom of religion and the rights of minorities.

Over the last ten years, the government has done everything possible to root out civil society. They suppressed NGOs and tried to turn the clock back to the time before the intellectuals engaged with the “reform government” to empower NGOs. An entire generation of work is needed to institutionalize democratic values.

Today, it seems many in the opposition are united on a need for free and fair elections in Iran as a way to work toward democracy but as long as civil society is weak, there is no guarantee that the next government will be different. Having said that, Iranian intellectuals still can play a crucial role in educating and nurturing secular values because even in a democratic Iran we may still see the will of majority be forced upon minorities.

How would you assess the role of the Iranian Diaspora in impacting Iran’s internal socio-political dynamism?

So far, it’s been disappointing politically, but culturally it’s been effective. That’s why in the last couple of years you see writers, filmmakers, university professors, actors, economists, and entrepreneurs under intense pressure and intimidation not to be in contact with the Iranian Diaspora. The Iranian Diaspora has played a significant role in lobbying for Iranian activists inside Iran to receive prestigious awards and international recognition and have increased awareness about what is happening inside the country. But this has been more of a response to the internal pressure and not a coordinated action by the Diaspora to impact the internal socio-political dynamics of the country. On the political side, the Iranian Diaspora has the knowledge to help Iran but they have not translated their knowledge into a concerted action yet. There are serious trust issues. There is a debate between the opposition leaders who believe in one big umbrella or council, and others who believe that unifying the opposition is an impossible task given the sea of differences between the opposition over whether to change the regime by pressure and sanctions or to reform it through non-violent means. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry conducted activities that have proven to be effective in damaging the trust between different factions in the Diaspora. Until there are fair and free elections in Iran, where we find out who has the most support in the country and how a future coalition government could look like, the partisan bickering will continue among the opposition outside the country.

Unless there will be another major uprising in Iran, it’s hard to see any serious move from the Iranian Diaspora to tune in their actions with the needs of the Iranian people.

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To what extent, in your opinion, the Iranian clergy has the potential to embrace democratic values and democratic change? Would a democratic Iran be necessarily against the interests of the Shiite clergy?

In Iran today there are so many young clerics who are either in jail or are oversees embracing democratic values at this moment. The Special Clergy Court has been an Inquisition type court system of the 21st century in Iran. But it is hard to believe that a huge number of clerics who are graduating out of the seminaries every year and are closely monitored by the government and financially dependent on it, can move away from the regime.

Having said that, there are many Grand Ayatollahs who either publicly stood against the Supreme Leader’s will, or were indifferent and unsupportive of the government. There is a growing concern among clerics that Qom could lose its traditional position and influential clerics to Najaf, if they feel that they are being intimidated. It is no secret that the government has been investing a lot in Najaf and Karbala and been closely monitoring Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s house.

Obviously, a future democratic Iran with no state religion could be a threat to the current influence of the Shiite clerical establishment, but this is hard to believe at this stage given the regional complexity of an aggressive Shiite Iran being surrounded by hostile Sunni states. There are also some clerics who believe that a weakened religious government actually would be a gift to the traditional clergy because it will put them back to their traditional position and bring back the respect they used to have within the society. But some say this is very unlikely because the genie is out the bottle.

How do you see the dynamics of the upcoming presidential elections shaping up given Iran’s heavily factionalized power structure?

Iran is diplomatically and economically challenged and needs to come out of this as fast as possible. The last seven and half years also have proved that a stubborn president could cause serious damage to the Supreme Leader’s untouchable position. Given the fact that none of the current candidates in the short lists of each faction offer great promises, and considering the Supreme Leader does not want another Ahmadinejad, it’s possible that we will see the power of the next president be shared with his vice president. A president who can save the regime’s face on foreign policy front and a strong VP who is equipped with economic skills to deal with the huge problems the country is facing. That setting could settle the fight between Ahmadinejad’s faction and the Resistance Front (Jebheye Paydari) on one side and with his opponents in Majlis, including Ali Larijani and Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and the Supreme leader’s advisors like Ali Akbar Velayati on the other. They don’t seem to have a significant role for reformists like Mohammad Reza Aref to play.

In a post-Arab Spring Middle East, do you believe Turkey is better positioned to play a leading role in the region than Iran is? How do you see the tensions between Turkey and Syria play themselves out in the region?

For the time being, Turkey can play a better role but as time goes by Turkey will face internal and regional challenges that could cause the Turkish leadership to reconsider its new strategy. It’s hard to be serving NATO’s mission, having an eye on EU, supporting Hamas, uniting with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, cracking down on PKK and the Kurds, and violating basic human rights all at the same time for Erdogan’s government. Turkey’s policy is trade-driven and cannot tolerate chaos on its borders. Iran and Syria know that but whether NATO and EU, with their own economic troubles, can help Turkey remains to be seen. Can Turkey pursue other energy sources besides Iran? It’s hard to see that for the time being even with the help of Russians who have a huge stake in Syria.

What’s your take on the current economic sanctions against Iran? Have they been an effective tool in making the Iranian leadership re-calculate its foreign policy and security policies?

I guess for sanctions in general to be effective they need to be in place for a long time, which some say is meant to weaken the regime and not the people. History does not prove that sanctions result in regime change and dictatorships have shown that they will pay any price to circumvent sanctions and earn enough money to pursue their policies. But it’s notable that there is a serious debate between Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani on the impact of sanctions and many believe that mismanagement has done more damage than sanctions. It’s also interesting that the nuclear negotiators are pushing for a removal of sanctions as a precondition for cooperation. If the sanctions are still “a piece of paper”, as some in Iran have suggested, then why so much emphasis on removing them? It’s no secret that sanctions have slowed down Iran’s nuclear activities, especially at the enrichment facilities. Is the world market ready to tighten up more on Iran’s oil and natural gas export? That’s the key question. So far the pressure has been to a point of harming the economy but not collapsing it. Some believe that the leadership in Iran wants to come out of this huge pressure with a face saving deal. Are they going to get what they want? We may find out in the next year or so.

Do you believe there are rivalries among factions in Iran to become the torch-bearer of re-establishing ties with the United States? With presidential elections on the horizon, how are those rivalries taking shape?

Obviously, no one more than Ahmadinejad has shown the readiness to open-up a venue for talks with the U.S. Today, many influential power players are talking about the need for US-Iran relations publicly. It’s hard to believe that the Supreme Leader wants this under these circumstances but the pressure on him is mounting as the pressure on his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini forced him to drink the “poisoned chalice”.

Some in Iran argue that Tehran should take advantage of the apparent tension between President Barack Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and move towards Washington. With Senator John Kerry, who will take up the job of No.1 US diplomat held by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2013, there will be interesting developments to watch. Many still remember Senator Kerry’s participating in a 2007 Davos panel with then President Mohammad Khatami. Despite the fact that the Senator has not authored any major sanctions legislation against Iran during his chairmanship in the Foreign Relations Committee, he did vote in favor of all the sanctions bills. Will Tehran take advantage of this opportunity or wait for Senator Kerry’s move is unclear, but Washington has been steadily pursuing a two-track policy of pressure and diplomacy. What the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are going to do between the upcoming Israeli elections and Iran’s presidential elections will have a great impact on how Iran will be dealt with.

The upcoming presidential elections in Iran is scheduled for June 14, 2013. Iran’s 2009 presidential election was fraught with accusations of fraud and irregularities. While the elections inside Iran received significant international media attention, the results of Iran’s out-of-country voting (external vote) in 2009 did not receive a well-deserved scrutiny. With Iran’s preparations to hold its next presidential election overseas, it is important to highlight some of the voting irregularities and ambiguities pertaining to the country’s out-of-country voting (OCV) program in 2009.

Out-of-country voting is only set up during Iran’s presidential elections and its procedure is largely unregulated. Unlike many countries that employ OCV, Iran does not restrict entitlement to voting based on length of stay abroad or reason for staying abroad, and there is no registration requirements for ex-patriot voters. Furthermore, the legal framework contains no distinct rules for external voters. As an example, according to news reports, in 2009, external voters in many locations were allowed to produce a passport in lieu of a birth certificate or national identity card as was required in in-country voting. Additionally, Iran’s Presidential Election Law, related by-laws and administrative decrees promulgate the procedures, eligibility requirements, and rights and responsibilities for participation in Presidential Elections. Also, it is worth noting that many OCV procedures are determined by administrative decrees or by procedural directives that are inaccessible to the public.

Vagaries related to OCV extend to counting and reporting requirements as well. There was no available information in 2009 on how OCV votes were to be tallied and whether the counting process was to be observed by political parties. The data related to Iran’s presidential election results in 2009, which was subsequently removed from the website of Iran’s Interior Ministry (MOI) following the post-election turmoil, was proved incomplete. Iran’s Press TV report, which directly reported the MOI data, only listed results of 95 countries or territories where OCV was administered while other press reports indicated that polling was to take place in 130 countries or territories. Because of discrepancies and reporting deficiencies, it is not clear how many total votes were cast abroad. Figures range from 234,812 votes (Press TV claiming to report Ministry of Interior figures) to 372,225 (calculations made by AEI based on the Press TV data). Additionally, in a number of countries (such as the United States, Turkey, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates among others), press reports indicated that there were multiple polling locations, but results were only reported in one city. In the United States, it is clear that polling occurred in at least 31 locations and that tens of thousands of Iranians voted. Results, however, were only released from ballots in New York.

Spoiled ballots also proved problematic. The Interior Ministry reported zero spoiled ballots for all polling locations except in Lahore in Pakistan. There were, however, many cases in which there was a discrepancy between the summed total of votes cast for each candidate. In Canberra, Australia, for example, the summoned total of votes cast for each candidate exceeded the reported number of total votes. These discrepancies could imply that there were indeed spoiled ballots in multiple locations. It is not clear why this data was not included in the MOI report.

Reporting from mobile ballot boxes was also a cause for concern. Only results for mobile ballot boxes positioned in five countries were reported by the Interior Ministry. This included one ballot box in Kazakhstan, one in Cyprus, one in Hyderabad in India, two in Lebanon and one in Ukraine. Iranian press, however, reported in 2009 that 13 mobile ballot boxes were to be used in at least five other countries including Malaysia, Japan, Syria, Iraq, and Oman. Results for these mobile ballot boxes were never released by the Iranian Interior Ministry.

The Iranian Interior Ministry reported in 2009 that Iranian expatriates elected Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as president, and Mousavi won 111,792 votes compared to Ahmadinejad with 78,300 votes. It was reported, however, that Iranians inside Iran elected the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for a second term in office. Many Iranians inside and outside the country called for vote-recount. When those calls were not heeded to by Iranian officials, extensive protests took place around the country and the world by Iranian citizens and expatriates.

Majles, the Iranian parliament, recently embarked on a plan to possibly stymie any chance that an ally of Ahmadinejad might be elected as president in June 2013. Fifty Iranian parliamentarians recently presented a plan to the Majles Commission on Councils and Interior Affairs. The plan advocates the creation of a high council entitled the “National Elections Council”. The council would comprise 11 high-ranking Iranian officials to administer elections, a role seen by Ahmadinejad and his government as the sole responsibility of Iran’s Ministry of the Interior under the Iranian constitution. The new proposal is also seen by many as a new gesture to win the confidence of Iranian voters inside and outside of the country during the upcoming presidential election and repair the country’s damaged international image. However, the amendment to the election law, if approved, could also be viewed by many as an acknowledgement of the Iranian law-makers and senior decision-makers that election fraud did in fact take place in the 2009 elections. It is unclear if this plan will be approved in time for the elections in 2013 and if it will mitigate problems with the OCV process. Only time will tell if Iran will be able to avert the irregularities that plagued OCV voting in 2009.

New (/old) Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. After serving in the same post in 2006-7, Abe returns in late Dec. 2012 amid frustration with Japan’s stagnant economy and uncertainty over future reliance on nuclear power. Photo: Koji Sasahara/Associated Press

On the heels of South Korea‘s recent election, Japan has chosen new leadership as well. Well, not completely new. Shinzo Abe–who was prime minister for a brief term in 2006-7–of the Liberal Democratic Party will lead what he termed “a crisis breakthrough cabinet.”

Described and right-wing, nationalist, hawkish, and outspoken, Abe has vowed to shore up the economy, deal with a swelling national debt and come up with a fresh recovery plan to address the damage caused by last year’s tsunami and subsequent nuclear power plant scare.

Japan relies heavily on nuclear power, which supplies 1/3 of its energy needs. After the Fukushima meltdown last year the government closed all of Japan’s nuclear plants, and established a plan to completely cease using nuclear power in 30 years. Cutting off domestic energy production hit the economy hard- energy costs skyrocketed and Japan was forced to increase imports of oil and natural gas, which greatly increased its trade deficit. Abe’s government has indicated it will look at plans for reinstating nuclear power to help with economic recovery.

Abe also wants to encourage investment and broaden Japan’s global economic presence, which will hopefully lead to inflation needed to boost the economy. He is in favor of raising Japan’s military stature as well as its partnership with U.S. on security and defense matters. Locally, Abe has rankled China and South Korea on several occasions with nationalist statements and policies some see as insensitive and provocative.

As with South Korea, Japan’s election came down the wire, indicating a public divided on the direction of the country and who best to lead it. This will create challenges for Abe to gain support for his policies; a sizable bloc of opposition party members remains in parliament.

Europe, Asia, and the U.S. are still searching for effective solutions to the economic crisis; it is unclear whether Abe’s program will make a difference. Handling the nuclear power question is also tricky- while understandably skittish after the disaster, it was such a big part of Japan’s economy that removing nuclear power might cause more harm than good.

South Korea and Japan are critical to the prosperity and stability of Asia, and both are undergoing significant political changes at the same time. The economies in both countries are in fragile states; previous attempts to fix the situation have not worked. New ideas could help, and democratic choice of government allows new ideas to come to light.

For President Obama, Democrats and Republicans, the issue of demography may be the missing key to pushing through comprehensive immigration reform. The immigration issue is one that is not only in the minds of Americans, but is an issue close to the hearts of many in Mexico. A large number of Mexicans have some ties to the United States with relatives living there permanently or working there to support their families back in Mexico. Often Mexico’s greatest export floats between oil and people, people who fund many households and communities in Mexico through remittances from their employment abroad, most often coming from the United States. Any conflict coming out of the immigration debate in the US will affect Mexicans greatly, even if US immigration is not one of the main policy initiatives of Pena Nieto’s new government. While Latino’s may decide many future elections in the US, their voting power and financial influence may also shape policy inside Mexico itself, out of the direct control of both respective governments.

Pena Nieto had made some statements on future policy development, but he was not known for going into any great detail on his policy initiatives during his campaign. Recently his detailed policy focus has been put out to the public, focusing on poverty reduction, energy, transparency and drug violence.

Mexico’s economy has been doing surprisingly well over the last few years, but Pena Nieto was able to use the lack of trickle down opportunities to gain a strong foothold in Mexico’s election. His policy seeks to have the benefits of Mexico’s economy go to communities that have not seen any direct benefits. It is unclear how wealth distribution could be conducted without causing some major rifts in Mexican society, but he may be able to keep this promise if Mexico’s economy stays healthy and the trickle down sinks into the rest of Mexican society with employment and investments for all Mexicans growing for everyone’s benefit. Often economic policies cannot be attributed to one governmental term, like in Brazil; economic successes spanned two or three different presidential terms, even if Lula was seen as the one who produced the eventual economic boom.

Transparency and narco violence will be a major challenge over the next few years for President Pena Nieto as well as President Obama. With the US wars in the Middle East coming to a close (for the moment), the focus on other parts of the world has become a priority for the Obama Administration. Mexico’s drug violence and government efforts to end control by the cartels is directly linked to demand for narcotics over the border into the US and cartels that run throughout North America. In reality, more violence has come about on the US-Mexico border than the last few years of US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. The next four years will determine the next twenty years of drug policy between the US and Mexico. Formerly, Nieto’s PRI party left the cartels alone and many officials would not challenge their control in the regions where the cartel’s operated. With the election of the PAN and former President Cardenas, the government went to war with the cartels, but also created a war against corruption in Mexico’s government and police as well. With no assured policy solution to drug violence in Mexico, it will be difficult for Pena Nieto to rally the country to fight a war so drugs do not enter the US, especially since it comes from a policy that was started by a different President and a different party. Even former PAN President Vicente Fox has made statements supporting the legalisation of narcotics in Mexico as a tool to depressurise the violence. In the end, the result of Mexico’s uncontrollable drug violence will be one that neither Pena Nieto nor Obama can predict, but should be ready for as any policy outcome may be possible over the next four to six years.

Reminiscent of the carefully-choreographed 2008 Beijing Olympics, China’s unveiling on Thursday of the lineup of the new Politburo Standing Committee, its highest leadership body, took every precaution to ensure an orderly transfer of power. Security in Beijing was tightened, shops were ordered to remove fruit knives from their shelves, hotels opened and inspected all stored guest luggage, and taxi drivers were ordered to remove the cranks from their rear windows, lest any anti-government propaganda be thrown again into the streets. The 2,270 carefully selected delegates had cast their votes behind closed doors in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People for the new Central Committee, a ruling council with around 200 full members and 170 or so alternate members with no voting rights which will determine the country’s direction over the next decade.

As widely expected, the new Central Committee appointed Xi Jinping as general secretary of the Communist Party, replacing Hu Jintao, while Li Keqiang was named premier. The Politburo Standing Committee, the innermost ring of power with seven members, now includes Xi and Li along with former Vice Premier and Chongqing party chief Zhang Dejiang (an economist who trained in North Korea), former Shanghai party chief Yu Zhengsheng, former Propaganda chief Liu Yunshan, former Vice-Premier and financial guru Wang Qishan, and former Tianjin party chief Zhang Gaoli. The committee was reduced from nine to seven members, as many media outlets had predicted.

The new leadership appears to have been drawn along factional ties, in what seems to be a victory for former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin over the outgoing president and party secretary Mr. Hu. Of the seven on the new committee, only Li Keqiang and Liu Yunshan, a 65-year-old who had been keeping a tight rein on domestic media, are viewed as being strongly allied with Hu. More surprisingly, it was expected that Hu would cement his legacy and influence by remaining head of the Central Military Commission, and continuing a tradition in which exiting party leaders kept hold of the military portfolio for several years. If Hu held out the promise of bold reform for some, this seems to have been squashed by the failure of the committee to promote the reformers Li Yuanchao, Wang Yang, and Liu Yandong. Mr. Li studied briefly at Harvard’s Kennedy School in 2002, and was responsible for pilot schemes to enhance democracy within the party. Wang Yang, Guangdong province’s reform-minded party boss, had eased restrictions on nongovernmental organizations and won international plaudits for negotiating a non-violent settlement with local villagers who took over the village of Wukan, following a land grab by local officials. Although failing to reach the inner circle, Wang, along with Shanghai party chief Yu Zhengsheng and Liu Yandong, were elected to the less powerful Central Committee.

In his welcoming speech, Mr Xi acknowledged China’s new leaders faced “severe” challenges, including rampant corruption, but would battle to improve people’s lives and not lose touch with the population (a population that has understandably shown little interest in following the leadership changes). Mr. Xi concluded, “Ours is a political party that serves the people wholeheartedly. We have every reason to be proud. Proud but not complacent. We will never rest on our laurels.” If the composition of the new Politburo Standing Committee is any indication of the direction of political and economic reform in China, those Chinese people hoping for bold reforms and the great renewal of the Chinese nation may have to wait a little while longer.