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LeMonde
27-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
In Venezuela, Maduro claims landslide win in elections amid opposition boycott
As expected, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro secured a sweeping victory in the legislative and regional elections held on Sunday, May 25, which part of the opposition had called to boycott. With more than 90% of ballots counted, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV, United Socialist Party of Venezuela) won 23 out of 24 governorships and a commanding majority in the Asamblea Nacional. Chavism, the political movement founded by Hugo Chávez, received 82.68% of the vote, winning 40 out of 50 seats in the national constituency – the regional constituencies have yet to be allocated. According to the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE, National Electoral Council), voter turnout reached 42.6%. The opposition, which advocated abstention, contested this figure, highlighting inconsistencies (the total number of votes cast does not match the reported turnout) and portrayed the low turnout observed on the ground as a victory for their movement. This regional and legislative election was the first held since the contentious July 28, 2024, presidential election and the highly disputed re-election of Maduro. The victory claimed by Chavism could not erase the president's lack of legitimacy or the looming economic challenges he faced.
Boston Globe
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
José Mujica, Marxist rebel in Uruguay who became president, dies at 89
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white,' Mr. Mujica said in a 2009 speech while campaigning for the presidency. 'I have repented.' Advertisement After winning the election, he told the British newspaper the Guardian: 'I need capitalism to work . . . to attend to the serious problems we have. Trying to overcome it all too abruptly condemns the people you are fighting for to suffering, so that instead of more bread, you have less bread.' As president from 2010 to 2015, Mr. Mujica oversaw an economic boom as well as a reduction in poverty and the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage, and marijuana. His accomplishments made him one of the most successful leaders during the 'pink tide,' the wave of left-wing presidents elected across Latin America in the early 21st century after years of military dictatorships and conservative civilian governments. Advertisement Unlike Hugo Chávez, the authoritarian socialist who ruled Venezuela for 14 years, Mr. Mujica fostered good relations with the United States and refused to tinker with his country's constitution to prolong his presidency. He also avoided the corruption and other acts of malfeasance that blighted or brought down presidents in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. The presidency did little to change Mr. Mujica's ascetic lifestyle. He continued to drive a battered 1987 Volkswagen Beetle. He donated most of his salary to charity and eschewed the presidential mansion with its 42 servants for a ramshackle flower farm, where he lived with his wife and a three-legged dog. Such practices earned him the moniker 'the world's poorest president.' 'Whatever your own particular shade of politics,' the BBC declared, 'it's impossible not to be impressed or beguiled by José 'Pepe' Mujica.' José Alberto Mujica Cordano was born in Montevideo on May 20, 1935. He was 8 when his father, a peasant, died, leaving him to be raised by his mother, a flower seller. He grew up in what he described as 'dignified poverty.' Although reputedly a promising student, he dropped out of high school, sold flowers, worked in a bakery, and consorted with small-time criminals before drifting into radical politics. In the early 1960s, he was hired as an organizer for Enrique Erro, a popular left-wing lawmaker and labor minister. While working for Erro, he traveled to the Soviet Union and China. But the stagnation and authoritarianism of Eastern Bloc communism made him a skeptic of rigid political orthodoxies. In Cuba, by contrast, he was mesmerized by Fidel Castro's revolution and decided to follow a similar path in Uruguay by joining the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement. Advertisement By then, Uruguay's economy was floundering while frustration mounted over the political domination by traditional parties. Initially, Mr. Mujica and his Tupamaro comrades garnered support with quirky escapades, such as plundering groceries, toy stores, and casinos and distributing the loot to the poor. But the goodwill evaporated when the rebels began bombing companies, abducting politicians and diplomats, and executing government troops. Mr. Mujica insisted that he tried to keep violence to a minimum. But in 1970, when police spotted him in a Montevideo bar, he pulled a pistol and was hit by six bullets in the ensuing gun battle. After he recovered, Mr. Mujica was sent to prison, where, in what would be the Tupamaros's last hurrah as an armed group, he and 105 other rebels escaped through a tunnel. The prison break prompted a massive military backlash. Most of the fugitives were rounded up, numerous Tupamaro leaders were killed, and, in 1973, Uruguay's democracy was stamped out in a civilian-military coup that ushered in 12 years of brutal authoritarian rule. During that period, a peace commission found, the dictatorship killed 175 leftist political activists and forced thousands into exile. Back in prison, Mr. Mujica was subjected to beatings and electric shocks that left him incontinent and nearly toothless. He spent more than a decade in solitary confinement in total, including about two years in a hole in the ground where he shared space with rats and frogs. Advertisement 'Pepe had long lost track of the frontier between reality and imagination,' Mauricio Rosencof, a fellow Tupamaro inmate, told Pablo Brum, author of the book 'The Robin Hood Guerrillas.' 'It was a horrible thing to witness.' Eventually, Mr. Mujica was allowed to see a psychiatrist, read books, and grow flowers in his cell. After democracy was reestablished in 1985 and political prisoners were freed, Mr. Mujica - more than any of his comrades - managed a smooth transition to civilian life. 'Sometimes, pain is a good thing if you're capable of turning it into something else,' Mr. Mujica told students at Washington's American University in 2014. Prison, he said, 'was bad, but at the same time, I found myself. If anything ever happens to you, try to remember that you're strong and that you can start over and that it's worth it.' Mr. Mujica proved to be an effective, homespun public speaker. He once delighted TV viewers by calling a stuffy news anchor a 'turnip.' Within a few years, he and other former Tupamaros members helped create the Movement of Popular Participation, a political party that became a key faction within Uruguay's leftist Broad Front coalition. Mr. Mujica emerged as a popular candidate. He was elected to the lower House of Congress in 1994 and to the Senate in 1999. He became agriculture minister in 2005, and four years later he won a landslide victory in the presidential election. Under Mr. Mujica, Uruguay's economy grew by 3.6 percent annually, foreign investment flowed in, renewable energy projects took off, and the number of people living in poverty dwindled. He signed a 2012 law that waived criminal penalties for ending pregnancies during the first trimester, making Uruguay one of the most permissive countries in Latin America on the abortion issue. In 2013, he signed a marriage-equality law. Advertisement 'Abortion is as old as the world,' Mr. Mujica told Brazil's O Globo newspaper. 'Same-sex marriage, please, it's older than the world.' His boldest stroke, in 2013, was signing what was at the time a pioneering marijuana legalization law. It allowed registered households to grow up to six marijuana plants and for adults to buy up to 40 grams of cannabis per month at state-run pharmacies. The government also took over the cultivation and distribution of the drug. Mr. Mujica, who preferred cigarettes and rum, argued that legalization would take power and profit away from drug-trafficking gangs. At times, he was applauded as an unvarnished truth-teller. At the Rio+20 U.N. summit in 2012, he scolded world leaders for preaching environmentalism while permitting unbridled industrial growth. As his stature grew, Mr. Mujica met with Argentine-born Pope Francis and such celebrities as the rock band Aerosmith. But he said he was unimpressed by fame. 'If you don't have many possessions,' he told the BBC, 'then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself. I may appear to be an eccentric old man . . . but this is a free choice.' Mr. Mujica leaves his wife, Lucía Topolansky, a former Tupamaro rebel and legislator who in 2017 became Uruguay's first female vice president. The couple had no children because, Mr. Mujica once explained, they were too busy trying to forge a new society. 'I belong to a generation that sought to change the world,' he said. 'If there were no dreamers in this world, we would still be walking around the jungle wearing loincloths.' Advertisement
New York Times
20-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
In Trump's America, There Are No Rules, Only Access
One of the most dramatic policy reversals in U.S. economic history happened this month. In the span of just a few days, President Trump announced sweeping tariff increases, panicking global markets, and then partially backed down — all without meaningful consultation with Congress or much evidence his administration used a rational process to arrive at the numbers. Economists, who don't often agree on much, greeted the plan with near unanimous criticism and a fair degree of derision. Few if any political analysts could articulate a coherent rationale for why threatening to launch a trade war on most nations on earth would make strategic sense. Yet in a way it does, because the real story may not be about trade. Looked at in a different way, it's about power. In principle, it is not up to the president to decide unilaterally whether to impose tariffs, or on which countries to impose them. The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution clearly vests this authority in Congress. However, Mr. Trump made use of his powers to restrict trade under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to regulate trade during economic emergencies. The president effectively declared that the executive branch could bypass Congress's constitutional authority. Financial markets seemed to grasp this. Unlike past global crises, this episode did not send investors fleeing into the dollar's safety. Quite the opposite: The dollar dropped sharply when the tariffs were announced and continued to fall even after the administration reversed course. This suggests that investors are anxious about much more than just the economic damage from protectionist policies. They're worried about the United States no longer being a safe place to hold their assets. They have good reason to be concerned. To those familiar with policymaking in countries where authoritarianism is emerging, the seemingly irrational exercise in wealth destruction rings all too familiar. Starting in 2003, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela imposed draconian price and exchange controls that severely hampered productivity and ultimately led to rising scarcity of goods and the evaporation of a massive oil boom — yet gave him the power to control the private sector's access to government-subsidized foreign exchange. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe instituted large-scale expropriation of white-owned farmland in 2000, devastating agricultural productivity in a country once known as Africa's breadbasket, but allowing him to reward political allies by giving them the land. Argentina's central bank nationalized all bank deposits in 1946, fueling double-digit inflation and a run on the currency but giving President Juan Perón the power to decide who received loans. In 2018, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave himself the power to fire central bank governors, which he later used to push down interest rates ahead of elections, boosting near-term growth while undermining longer-term macroeconomic stability. In my research, I have studied precisely this type of decision-making in developing countries. While economists are often puzzled by the apparent lack of economic logic behind such measures, the reality is that almost invariably, the politicians imposing them know perfectly well what they are doing. They don't misunderstand the economy — rather, they understand all too well how to exploit it for political gain. Let's allow that some people inside the White House are true believers in tariffs. They argue that tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs, put money in America's coffers, restore fairness in trade and spur investment. But looking for logic behind the Trump administration's tariff calculations is missing the point: Only by imposing apparently arbitrary decisions can a government intent on carrying out a power grab effectively signal that it can do whatever it wants. Mr. Trump's use of executive authority under stretched legal interpretations is not restricted to the trade sphere. He invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador without due process, using the false pretext that the United States was being invaded by Venezuelan criminal gangs. His administration has issued executive orders punishing prominent law firms — effectively retaliating for their previous legal challenges to Mr. Trump or his policies. When viewed through the prism of authoritarian consolidation of power, the government's actions begin to appear coherent and consistent. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has not come close to its goal of drastically reducing government expenditures — and may in fact end up increasing the deficit — but it has delivered an unequivocal message to America's civil servants: They serve at the discretion of the chief executive. Nearly every major decision taken by the president in the three months since his inauguration shares a common denominator, which is the assertion of executive power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches and the professional civil service. It is hard to overstate the corrosive effects of this pattern of decision-making on economic incentives. Corporate leaders today may not know how to respond to the uncertainty created by the apparent unpredictability of the president's decisions. Over time, they will be replaced by others who will learn how to play the influence game. Mr. Trump made the new dynamic transparently explicit when he declared that tariff exemptions would now be decided 'instinctively.' The message to the private sector was clear. There are no rules — there is only access. Half a century ago, the American economist Anne Krueger brilliantly described these dynamics as the political economy of a rent-seeking society — one in which the efforts of entrepreneurs are aimed not at understanding how to satisfy the needs of consumers to improve productivity, but rather at currying favor with the politicians who ultimately determine the winners of the economic contest. Falling into a rent-seeking dynamic makes countries poorer, but it also gives politicians the ability to exploit the economy for political gain in ways that may seem unthinkable in modern democratic societies. That is why the discretionary and often seemingly arbitrary use of power to determine economic fortunes lies at the heart of nearly every episode of democratic backsliding. Raising tariffs on the world economy will not make America stronger. It will strengthen the group that currently holds political power, and it will undermine America's democratic institutions. That is the true cost of reckless economic power.
Ammon
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Ammon
Ex-president and wife sentenced to 15 years in jail
Ammon News - Peru's former president, Ollanta Humala, has been found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in prison.A court in the capital, Lima, said he had accepted illegal funds from the Venezuelan president at the time, Hugo Chávez, and from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to bankroll his election campaigns in 2006 and lawyer said he would appeal against the conviction. His wife, Nadine Heredia, was also found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to 15 years in jail. However, she has been granted safe passage to Brazil after seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy. BBC
Al-Ahram Weekly
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Global implications of populism - Focus - Al-Ahram Weekly
Populism is rising in Europe, the US, and Russia, raising questions about national and international politics and implications for global stability. Populism has been rising in different regions, including Europe and the US, constituting a challenge to local and global politics. While this phenomenon existed in Europe before World War II, the rise of the Soviet Union as a principal threat to Europe after the war prompted it to neglect populism's negatives and emphasise confronting the Soviet challenge instead. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Europe began a process of identifying new internal and external threats, attempting to keep its capabilities mobilised for confronting challenges that might suddenly arise. This process led to identifying several internal threats, such as migration, lack of skilled employment, and populism as serious threats. Moreover, European integration began a new phase with the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, creating the EU in its current form, which prompted Europeans to identify populism as a threat that might impede European integration. The phenomenon of populism does not have a precise definition among scholars. While some limit it to the charismatic style of leaders that can attract voters, others define it as an ideology that promotes national sovereignty. Populism has two main pillars: securing public security from external threats and eliminating the gap between societal segments. Some scholars argue that populism thrives on the popular will and the conflict between rich and poor. Based on this definition, some considered former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to be a populist leader, who declared himself the executioner of citizens' desires and the protector of his country against others. Populism is not restricted to individuals, as national policies could be included under its paradigms. For instance, some policies that gain more public support than expected can be described as populist policies, particularly if they are against the status quo. In other words, policies adopted by populists in some countries, including Poland, to accomplish populist purposes, such as restraining immigration, can be described as populist policies. Populism is also not an exclusively left-wing feature, as extreme right-wing parties in Europe might be characterised as populist. They oppose foreign immigration and employ public protests to exercise pressure on elected governments that follow a welcoming approach to refugees. This means that populism as a political ideology brings together extreme-right and leftist parties through prompting them to adopt similar approaches. For the left, people are being harmed due to the widening economic gap between the rich, who are utilising resources for their own benefit, and the poor. For the right, the gap has increased because governments have employed capitalist policies in line with existing global political and economic norms. Consequently, both the extreme-right and left agree on the necessity of amending the ruling norms. People might vote for populists due to a mistrust in national institutions, as societal segments that believe themselves to have been harmed also believe that national institutions function in favour of the rich elite. Moreover, capitalist systems feature high rates of economic inequality, which results in solidifying the influence of the ruling elite. Some liberals describe populists as racists, economically illiterate, aggressive, pro-authoritarianism, morally inferior, and dangerous. These attributes have been criticised by Michael Cox, a British scholar of global politics, who argues that populists are smarter than they are sometimes given credit for, as was seen in their success in drawing the UK out of the European Union (EU), as well as winning the US presidential elections in 2016. Other examples of populist success in Austria and Hungary prove that populism has roots within the European Union. Populism can also be defined as a style of public mobilisation. From this perspective, populism is a double-edged phenomenon, as it provokes protests and strikes, increasing political instability and solidifying the absence of consensus between governments and opposition parties. Moreover, protests can be seen as a tool of delivering on the voices of the fragmented social classes by mobilising those who are harmed and pushing them into more integration in society. Demonstrations also increase the public accountability of governments. This study adopts a broad definition of populism to include charismatic individuals and policies that aim at disrupting current political norms and introducing new ones based on electoral results. DEMOCRACY: The connection between populism and democracy is complex. Basically, constitutional democracy in any country depends on two main pillars, which are the balance of power and reciprocal checks. Both principles are criticised by populists, who argue that elected legislative authorities represent the people and therefore must not be divided into two chambers. Moreover, balancing elected institutions with unelected institutions, such as the judiciary, has been criticised by radical populists who believe that the elected authorities must not be contested as they are elected by the public to accomplish their wishes, and these ought to be respected. An outstanding example of this came with what US President Donald Trump did in November 2018 when he declared new rules to ban anyone crossing the borders of the US illegally from receiving asylum and attempting to stop illegal immigration at America's southern borders. Judge Jon Tigar of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revoked that decision and ordered the Trump administration to accept asylum requests from migrants whether they had entered the country legally or not. Trump criticised the judge and called his decision a 'disgrace' as well as claiming that he was a judge who was following rules set out by former US president Barack Obama. The way Trump connected this judge with the former president shows his perception that the judiciary is an institution that must follow the elected president and work in line with his policies and not stand against them. A similar situation occurred in Turkey when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan transformed the Turkish political regime from a parliamentary to a presidential one, consolidating the powers of the president over the judicial branch. While the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) justified this step as a way of maintaining political stability in the country, some analysts argued that the purpose of these constitutional amendments was to consolidate the executive power of the president over the judiciary. Since populists reject the principle of the balance of power upon which any democratic system is built, and since they attempt to restrict the judicial branch, we can label them as the supporters of authoritarian leaders who perceive themselves to be legally mandated by the people to act freely. Such a view justifies the attack of populists on unelected institutions that might impede any attempt to change political norms. Even so, populists prefer to stand for elections, even if they are not always convinced of their validity, to get into office, as it is then that they can employ their power to destroy existing systems. For example, in 2016 populists in the UK succeeded in pushing the Conservative Party government headed by former British prime minister David Cameron into a popular referendum about withdrawing from the European Union, even though Cameron's government was against the campaign. Populists are not democratic. However, when their choices are limited between direct democracy and representative democracy, they choose direct democracy to undermine the legitimacy of representative institutions that are perceived to be an impediment to them. The success of the Hungarian populist party Fidesz in jeopardising the democratic system in that country is another indicator of this. Fidesz gained a two-thirds supermajority in Hungary's 2010 parliamentary elections, and in 2012 a new constitution was adopted without taking into consideration the concerns of the opposition parties. Fidesz did not stop there, as its lawmakers passed a law in December 2018 aiming at stripping Hungary's Supreme Court of its main administrative jurisdiction and putting this under a new court to be established and supervised by the justice minister appointed by Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, hence tightening the grip of the party's leader over the judicial branch. Populist participation in coalition governments can destabilise countries, as their more liberal partners may not be able to cope with their ideas. For example, the assassination of populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 helped his populist party the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) to win second place in the elections (26 seats out of 150) that were held in May 2002. Consequently, the LPF participated in the coalition government led by Jan Peter Balkenende, who was affiliated with the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), a major centrist party in the Netherlands. This government lasted 87 days and collapsed due to conflicts between two ministers from the LPF. The LPF also stood against EU enlargement, so it was not possible for two parties with different perspectives on European integration and immigration to work together. GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS: Populism is destructive of global politics as populists are reluctant to accept the idea of integration with other nations, meaning that the rise of populism is a real threat to the unity of Europe, for example. Countries integrate economically and politically to achieve higher rates of economic growth, stability within their markets, and to preserve their national security. Several steps have been adopted by Europe to reach the current stage of economic integration. For example, the EU has abolished limitations on trade and permitted factor mobility, meaning that labour can move from one country to another freely. Yet, according to British populists, the principle of factor mobility, particularly the free movement of labour, significantly impacted unemployment rates in the UK. They argued that an influx of workers from other European countries, particularly from Eastern Europe, had taken jobs that should have been filled by British citizens. Populists perceive integration as a threat to their own culture and identity. While integration aims at maintaining political and economic security, it also removes boundaries between different cultures, affecting the local habits of countries and pushing for new norms of culture over time. European populists argue that integration makes national identities melt in the framework of a new continental identity, allowing citizens to become dual citizens, for example. They reject the idea of open borders, seeing them as an obvious threat to national security. Since economic integration requires the free movement of labour, capital, and other factors of production, and since the Schengen Agreement allows Europeans to move freely between different countries, European populists are demanding the renegotiation of the Schengen Agreement and the imposing of strict surveillance on borders. The increasing number of terrorist attacks that have taken place in Europe in recent years has also solidified the populist perspectives on the necessity of closing borders in Europe. For instance, the 2015 Paris attacks, originally planned in Belgium and carried out on French territory, consolidated populist perspectives on the necessity of closed borders. Populists conceive integration as an attack on the sovereignty of their countries, as it allows a higher authority beyond their borders to intervene in their internal affairs. A prominent example of this was the case of Italy in 2011, when the EU exerted significant pressure on the then government led by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi resigned, and Mario Monti, a technocrat, was appointed as prime minister without an election. This event fuelled populist sentiments, which were reflected in the 2013 Italian general elections. The populist Five Star Movement emerged as a major force, gaining 25.6 per cent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies and 23.8 per cent in the Senate. Another clear example of populist protest has been against refugee relocation policies in Europe, which have faced significant opposition from several states, including Italy. Germany under former chancellor Angela Merkel sought to return refugees to their first country of registration, a move seen as an attempt to alleviate growing dissent within her then ruling coalition government. Since most refugees had entered Europe through Greece and Italy, these countries were disproportionately burdened and forced to accommodate more refugees than they could manage. Meanwhile, other states, such as Poland and Hungary, refused to accept refugees, citing national-security concerns. These countries viewed the EU's refugee policies as a direct challenge to their national sovereignty and an unwelcome intrusion into their domestic affairs. The French National Front (now National Rally) views the EU as a mechanism that undermines the will of French citizens, perceiving it as an integrationist project at odds with national interests. It rejects the concept of European citizenship and opposes the current framework of cooperation with European institutions, particularly on issues such as security and immigration. Instead, it advocates renegotiating the European treaties to make them more aligned with the principles of national sovereignty. A similar stance is adopted by the Sweden Democrats, who also call for the renegotiation of the European treaties and propose leaving the EU altogether if their demands are not met. If the populists succeeded in dismantling the EU, this would likely see the euro currency abolished and replaced by the reintroduction of national currencies. This return to nationalism could exacerbate conflicts between countries, making them more visible and severe as cooperation gives way to competition and unilateral decision-making. On the other hand, populists prioritise maximising their national interests on the international stage, often pursuing confrontational policies rather than cooperative ones. After Trump assumed office in the US for the first time in 2016, his administration introduced significant instability in relations with its European allies, particularly over their financial contributions to NATO. Trump argued that the US' Western allies were benefiting from NATO's protection while the US bore the majority of the burden. He demanded that member states increase their contributions to the NATO budget by raising their military expenditures to two per cent of GDP. Trump's demand for increased military expenditures by European NATO members represented an effort to replace existing norms with new ones favouring the US without fully considering the adverse effects this might have on NATO's European members. For example, some countries, such as Iceland, lack large standing armies capable of absorbing such increased spending. This demand illustrates how populists are willing to disrupt established alliances and forge new ones to prioritise their national interests. Further examples of Trump's populist foreign policies include the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, signed in 2015, his economic conflict with China through the imposition of high tariffs on Chinese imports to the US market, and the sanctions imposed on Turkey. These actions underscore the confrontational nature of populist policies on the international stage. Moreover, these examples demonstrate that the rise of populism in one country can pose a broader threat to global stability. This perspective explains the EU's strict response to Austria in 2000 following the success of the populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), which secured 26.9 per cent of the vote in the 1999 elections. In February 2000, the FPÖ formed a coalition government with the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), sparking widespread concern across Europe. The EU downgraded bilateral relations between its 14 member states at the time and Austria to a bureaucratic level. Additionally, the European Commission warned that any violation of EU values by Austria's government could result in penalties, including the suspension of Austria's voting rights in the European Council. What's next: Populists are nationalists who do not mind standing for election if this is the only way to get them into office. However, once elected, they might try to weaken the democratic system. Unlike democrats who use ballots and constitutional methods such as referendums to pass laws, populists often believe in popular rallies as the most effective way to show support for passing controversial laws, such as limiting migration and withdrawing from agreements. Based on this, if populists succeeded in ruling major countries in Europe, such as Germany or France, this could make it more probable for wars to occur. Russia, for instance, which is ruled by a populist leader, is waging an offensive war against Ukraine due to the latter's desire to join the European Union and NATO, which is perceived by the Russians as a threat. If the populist influence keeps rising in Europe, it is expected that populist governments across the continent will try to amend the EU agreements to impose restrictions on the movement of people across borders, downgrading EU integration. They will also impose more restrictions on foreign migration, which are perceived by populists as a threat to European identity. If they succeed in amending the EU agreements, they will also mobilise national identity, which over time could lead to increasing competition and tensions with neighbouring countries, as each will attempt to impose its hegemony over others. Mechanisms of cooperation and coordination will be reduced, as populists do not want to see foreign agreements that might limit their ability to act internally and externally and consider them to be a threat to national sovereignty. Moreover, the European role in global politics will be affected, and a conflict of interests may be evident between European countries that might pursue contradictory foreign policies to maximise their own interests. The rise of populism in Europe could also lead to the rise of populists in Africa and Asia, increasing the potential for war between countries. To conclude, populism as a phenomenon does not have a precise definition, as some theorists define it as an ideology while others perceive it as a political movement provoked by those left out of economic progress wanting to take down ruling norms and establish new ones. As a result, for these theorists the core of populism lies in the strife between the rich and the poor. Other theorists believe that populism affects the democratic system positively, as it forces the ruling elite to consider the demands of fragmented social segments. However, the negatives of populism are still overwhelming, as populists generally attempt to undermine the legitimacy of non-elected institutions like the judiciary. Moreover, they tend to be authoritarian and seek to limit the efficiency of the democratic system, which is believed to be beneficial for the elite. On the international level, populists are nationalistic and seek to maximise benefits for their countries, even by waging economic wars or withdrawing from international treaties. Since populists are nationalists, they reject the idea of any integration that might restrict national sovereignty or place it under external obligations that could be seen as not fitting national character. The writer is a researcher at Al-Habtoor Research Centre in Cairo. * A version of this article appears in print in the 13 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
