What We’re Watching: No US election winner yet, Myanmar’s election, EU rule-of-law deal

A man attends a "Count Every Vote" rally the day after the US election in New York City. Reuters

US presidential race is (still) on: Three days later, the US presidential contest remains undecided. We're keeping an eye on four battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — that'll decide who gets the 270 electoral college votes needed to become the next occupant of the White House. Still-emerging results from these states and the math make Biden the favorite to win because despite razor-thin margins, the vast majority of outstanding ballots are mail-in votes in blue urban areas. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is crying foul about the entire process, demanding that the count stop where he is ahead... yet continue in Arizona, where the president is trailing Biden. Team Trump has already filed lawsuits in all these states as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin — which have already been called for his rival — but most experts agree that the legal basis for electoral fraud is flimsy, and that Trump will ultimately fail in his crusade for the Supreme Court to rule on disputed state results. Will it all finally end on Friday?

Myanmar votes: Myanmar goes to the polls on Sunday in its second general election since the return of "democracy" a decade ago. The National League of Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and de facto leader of the country, is expected to sweep the vote, mainly because there is no strong opposition in parts of Myanmar except in a handful of states dominated by minority ethnic groups long plagued by conflict. But the wider story is how the government's decision to cancel voting in some of the conflict-ridden states and disenfranchise all Rohingya Muslims indicate that Myanmar — ruled by a ham-fisted military junta from 1962 to 2010 — is becoming less democratic. After all, the NLD effectively shares power with the generals, who control the top portfolios in Suu Kyi's cabinet and have a constitutional stranglehold on parliament. In other words, Myanmar has the trappings of a democracy but the military still calls the shots, as they have done for most of the country's history. We're watching to see if low turnout confirms that most Myanmar people who waited so long for an election are politically apathetic, with dire consequences for the country's (democratic) future.

Can the EU keep good money from bad actors? For several years now, the European Union has been at odds with the avowedly "illiberal" governments of Hungary and Poland over their increasingly brazen flouting of EU democratic norms — judicial independence and civil society protections in particular. But Brussels has been largely powerless to do anything about it because the two countries have shielded each other in EU policy votes that require unanimous consent. On Thursday, however, negotiators finalizing the bloc's 2 trillion euro ($2.36 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery package reached a compromise that should give the EU a little more muscle — but only a little. Under the agreement, Brussels will be able to cut funding over democracy concerns, only two conditions: first, that the rule-of-law threat directly affects how EU money is spent, and second, that a simple majority of member states approve. Those conditions are significantly narrow that Budapest and Warsaw can probably agree to them. Whether they are sufficiently toothy to slow the "illiberal" roll of both countries will remain to be seen.

More from GZERO Media

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.
THOMAS SAMSON/Pool via REUTERS

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty by a French court on Monday for embezzling European Parliament funds, and faces a five-year ban from running for public office. While it may seem like Le Pen’s political career is dead, “This isn’t the end of the story,” says Mujtaba Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director of Europe.

President Donald Trump holds an executive order about tariffs while flanked by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the Oval Office on Feb. 13, 2025.

REUTERS/File Photo

Donald Trump argues that any short-term pain from his global tariffs will translate into long-term gain as businesses move their operations to the US. He plans to announce a sweeping new round of tariffs on April 2. We asked Eurasia Group expert Nancy Wei what to expect from what Trump is billing as a “Liberation Day” from an unfair global trading system.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National party, leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Oh là là! A French court on Monday found National Rally leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misappropriating European funds to her far-right party, and barred the three-time presidential candidate barred from running for office for the next five years. Le Pen has denied wrongdoing and said last November, “It’s my political death that’s being demanded.”

- YouTube

In a few short weeks, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has rapidly reshaped the federal government, firing thousands of workers, slashing spending, and shutting entire agencies. DOGE’s actions have faced some pushback from the courts, but Musk says he’s just getting started. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond for a look at President Trump’s increasingly symbiotic relationship with the tech billionaire, Musk’s impact on politics and policy, and what happens when Silicon Valley’s ‘disrupt-or-die’ ethos collides with the machinery of the US government.

People attend a rally to protest against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as part of a corruption investigation in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 29, 2025.
REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Istanbul this weekend to protest the detainment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a popular contender for the next presidential election.

Democratic-backed Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford and Republican-backed Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel square off in their only debate until their April 1 election.
Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters

Elections are back in the United States — and so is the money. Six months after the 2024 US presidential vote, Wisconsinites will head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether liberal candidate Susan Crawford or her opponent, conservative Brad Schimel,will tip the ideological balance of the state Supreme Court. The liberals currently have a 4-3 advantage.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the Prime Minister's office in Tokyo on March 30, 2025.
POOL via ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters

In his first trip to Asia this weekend, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called for greater military cooperation between Tokyo and Washington.

People walk by as a painter repaints an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran, threatening to bomb the country and impose secondary tariffs if Tehran fails to reach a new agreement on its nuclear program. In a telephone interview with NBC News, Trump stated, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”