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Why Canadians are tired of Justin Trudeau
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why is Mexico's judiciary overhaul controversial?
Main reason is it means the judiciary is going to be less independent and much more politicized. They're going to be elected, these judges. They're going to have shorter terms. They're going to be aligned with whoever happens to be in political power. That is the intention. That's why AMLO, outgoing president, wanted this judiciary reform to get done and not be changed. But not only does that undermine rule of law and means that his preferences, his party's preferences will likely also be that of the judiciary. But also, especially in a country where there are very, very strong gangs associated with drugs, any place where they have strong governance, they'll be able to also ensure that the judges are the ones that they want, and that is a horrible development for rule of law in a country whose democratic institutions frankly aren't very consolidated. So, it's a problem and it's going to hurt the Mexican economy, hurt the investment climate.
After losing another parliamentary seat, is Justin Trudeau's time as Canada's leader coming to an end?
Certainly. Sometimes you stay a little longer than your performance merits. This is certainly the case for Trudeau. The people are tired of him. They don't feel the country's heading in the right direction. Major problems in terms of inflation, especially real estate, housing costs, lack of availability of housing, and just people wanting something different. We've seen that all over the world with elections over the last year. We're going to see it in Canada in the coming months.
2.5 years in, and 1 million now dead or injured. Is Russia's invasion of Ukraine any closer to resolution?
I'd say it's closer to resolution insofar as the Ukrainians increasingly know that it's getting harder for them to field troops, to fight, to defend their territory. That's why the risk, the risky attack inside Russian territory, which they probably can't hold, but certainly has meant that they're going to lose more territory in Ukraine. Also, certainly you talk to NATO leaders, they understand that the time for negotiations, the time for trying to wrap up the war and freeze the conflict, a ceasefire, at least, if not a negotiated settlement is soon. So, I'd be surprised if the war is still going with the level of intensity in a year as it is right now, but the Ukrainians are not going to get their land back. And what that means and what kind of guarantees they get from the West, including security guarantees potentially, certainly Ukraine very hopeful for an actual formal NATO invitation, which they don't have at this point. That is the state of negotiations happening between the Ukrainians and others.
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hands over a ceremonial baton of command to Claudia Sheinbaum after she was elected by the ruling National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) as its candidate to succeed him in 2024 in the presidential election, in Mexico City, Mexico September 7, 2023.
Mexico’s president-elect pushes controversial judicial reform
In her first press conference since winning the Mexican election in a landslide earlier this month, president-elect Claudia Sheinbaumbacked a highly controversial plan to introduce a popular vote for the country’s Supreme Court justices.
The reform is the brainchild of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, a charismatic left(ish) populist whose Morena party won a supermajority in Congress and fell just shy of one in the Senate.
Directly electing Supreme Court justices via popular vote would put Mexico in the company of just one other country that we know of: Bolivia, where AMLO’s ideological cousin Evo Morales instituted the practice in 2009.
AMLO and his supporters say the move would introduce more accountability to a system long dominated by corrupt elites.
But critics say it would dangerously politicize the justice system, upending the rule of law right as Mexico tries to catch an investment boom from “nearshoring” – that is, the trend of US-oriented companies moving their factories out of Asia as a way to skirt US-China trade tensions and avoid future global supply chain issues.
The skeptics could be right: The Mexican peso fell 2% after Sheinbaum’s comments.
Outgoing Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum speaks as she registers as a for the ruling MORENA party's 2024 presidential election primary.
Is she Mexico’s next president?
A year from now, Claudia Sheinbaum is likely to be Mexico's next president. That’s partly because she’s widely considered the preferred choice of the still-remarkably popular current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has a 59% approval rating after four years in office and has unified leadership within his Morena party.
But it’s also because Sheinbaum is an undeniably impressive candidate who’s built a solid reputation as the leftist mayor of Mexico City. Like López Obrador, she pledges to “shrink the great inequalities” that have defined Mexican society throughout its history.
First, she must fend off challenges from within Morena from Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Interior Secretary Adán Augusto López, but her commanding polling lead over both men and implied support from (officially neutral) López Obrador signal that’s likely to happen.
Then, she’ll have to defeat a unity opposition candidate, but given how little traction opposition parties have established against Morena, she’ll likely enter the race next year as a clear favorite.
If she wins next July, she’ll be the first female and first Jewish president in Mexico’s history. She’ll also be the first physicist. Herein lies the first of the two important differences between Sheinbaum and López Obrador, a president who was infamously cavalier about the public health risks posed by COVID and who has relied heavily on state-owned oil company PEMEX to help realize his populist vision for a more economically equitable Mexico.
In Mexico City, Sheinbaum took a much more science-based approach to the pandemic, with masks and social distancing as part of her virus management strategy. As for fossil fuels, Sheinbaum, who holds a Ph.D. in engineering, has worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Prize. That’s the foundation of her commitment to moving Mexico toward environmental sustainability.
The other difference is all about politics. Love him or hate him, López Obrador is a brilliant politician with a common touch. He knows how to speak over the heads of political elites to mobilize support among working-class voters.
Does Sheinbaum share that talent? If she wins in 2024, that will be the true test of her ability to create a presidency unlike any Mexico has seen before.Mario Delgado, president of Mexico's ruling Morena party, during a press conference to unveil the four presidential candidates in Mexico City.
AMLO wants a popular successor
Mexico's ruling Morena Party on Sunday decided to pick its 2024 presidential nominee in a unique way.
Instead of voting directly for the four declared candidates to succeed term-limited President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, Morena members will weigh in via five polls — one internal survey and four private ones picked by each aspirant — to be conducted over the summer. Moreover, all candidates must resign their posts by Friday in order to enter the race, which will have no debates or allow endorsements by sitting officials.
Why? To avoid infighting and anyone manipulating surveys or using a government position to gain an unfair advantage.
But perhaps more importantly, this selection process smacks of overcompensation since after five years in power, Morena remains little more than a political vehicle for AMLO’s popularity. Although the party insists that the president won't handpick his successor, any hint of showing a preference for, say, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, will be perceived as a de facto nod from the big boss that’ll matter more than any poll.
The winner will be announced on Sept. 6.
Delfina Gomez, candidate for governor of the State of Mexico for the Morena party, celebrates after preliminary election results are announced in Toluca.
AMLO's party wins big Mexican state, looking good for 2024
Mexico's ruling Morena Party on Sunday won a bellwether election in the State of Mexico. This is good news for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO.
For one thing, Mexico is the country's most populous state and has outsize weight in national politics as it hugs the federal capital, Mexico City, and its diverse composition signals wider voter trends. For another, the left-wing Morena defeated the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled the state for almost 100 years and is languishing in the political doldrums under AMLO.
But election night also delivered a warning for the president and his party: In a separate vote, the PRI walloped Morena in Coahuila. Although this border state is much smaller than the State of Mexico, Morena lost because party infighting resulted in the ruling coalition running three rival candidates, which siphoned key support from Morena's pick.
"AMLO will confirm that his political calculations continue to be spot-on as he managed to transfer his popularity to his party's candidate," says Eurasia Group analyst Matías Gómez Léautaud.
This is crucial for Morena to stay in power 13 months out from the presidential election since AMLO is limited to one term. It's an open secret that his preferred successor is Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, now the presumptive frontrunner despite some internal opposition. For Gómez Léautaud, "AMLO's overbearing presence and control will impede any schisms within the party to translate into rival candidacies from disaffected candidates."
Protesters against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan to reform the electoral authority, in Mexico City, Mexico, February 26, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Mexicans protest AMLO changes, North Korea seeks grain, Iran hearts Ipanema, a controversial kiss from Kosovo
500,000 or 90,000?: How many people in Mexico City took part in recent mass protests against President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s overhaul of the electoral system? Organizers say 500,000 turned out to oppose the changes, which would weaken independent election oversight. But authorities in Mexico City, which is controlled by AMLO’s party, say it was only 90,000.
1 million: North Korea is estimated to be short at least 1 million tons of grain right now because of mismanagement and pandemic-related interruptions of imports from China. That’s equal to about one-fifth of the Hermit Kingdom’s annual consumption. In the past, North Korea has suffered famines so bad that people were forced to eat grass and tree bark.
2: Brazil’s government allowed two Iranian warships to dock in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend, despite demands from the US to turn them away. The move is a reminder that although Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Joe Biden may see eye to eye on a lot, Lula’s perspective — in line with much of the Global South — often differs from Washington’s on key issues such as China, Iran, and Ukraine.
3: The young Kosovo artist Ermira Murati has gotten thousands of threats over her striking, 3-meter tall painting of Kosovo PM Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic kissing. The two leaders, who famously despise each other, are meeting early this week in Brussels to try to reach a peace deal. Here’s our recent piece on why that’s so hard to do. And, while we’re kissing in the former Eastern bloc, here’s one of the greatest smooches of the 20th century.What We’re Watching: Trump’s 2024 plans, G-20 & Basquiat in Bali, AMLO vs. Mexican democracy
Donald Trump’s “big announcement”
Tuesday is the day. We think. It’s not completely clear. Former US President Donald Trump has dropped a number of not-so-subtle hints that he will announce his candidacy for president on Tuesday. Millions of his supporters will be watching and hoping he pulls the trigger. Millions of Republicans who fear he’s become a liability for their party are hoping he’ll postpone or shock the world by not running. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other potential Trump rivals for the GOP nomination will be watching with dread for a first glimpse of the campaign Trump plans on waging against them. President Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 80th birthday later this month, will be watching to see what sort of Republican Party his reelection campaign is likely to face. The media will be watching in expectation of the opening salvo of the wildest presidential campaign in living memory. And you know we’ll be watching too.
Basquiat in Bali
The G-20 summit of the world’s 20 largest economies, representing 80% of the world economy, begins Tuesday in the Indonesian beach resort of Bali. What’s on the agenda? Pandemic recovery is the big theme, but the main gab will be about the war in Ukraine, where leaders are seeking a common position against nuclear weapons and for renewal of the Ukraine grain export deal, which expires on Saturday. Also, attendees will be keen to keep the growing US-China rivalry manageable for everyone else on the planet. But by our lights, the biggest intrigue isn’t that Vladimir Putin is skipping the event — why subject yourself to an earful about an unprovoked war that’s going so badly? — but instead his replacement’s latest antics. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went to ironic-trolling level nine by giving an interview on the balcony of his Bali hotel room, where he shot down reports he’d been hospitalized and blasted Western journalists while rocking … a Basquiat t-shirt. Basquiat! Hard to imagine the iconoclastic, bisexual, Black fixture of the early 1980s NYC street art scene finding a happy home in Putin’s ultraconservative war-mobilized Russia these days, but stone-faced absurdity is a diplomatic style that Lavrov has long elevated to an art form of its own.
Mexicans rally against AMLO’s election reform
Is democracy in trouble in Mexico? On Monday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, blasted the tens of thousands of people who spoiled his 69th birthday the day before by protesting his electoral reform plans. AMLO called the rallies — the biggest he's faced after nearly four years in power — a "striptease" by conservatives that smacks of "privilege, racism, and classism." No way, say the protesters, who fear AMLO's authoritarian crusade against the independent National Electoral Institute. The president wants to make elections more "democratic" by cutting the number of legislators, slashing public funding for political parties, and electing INE officials by popular vote. But his critics argue that he only wants to give the ruling MORENA Party a bigger slice of the legislative pie ahead of the next election in 2024, when the term-limited AMLO aims to handpick his successor. What happens next? Congress — where MORENA and its allies lost their two-thirds majority in both chambers in 2021 — will start debating the legislation in the coming weeks, but Eurasia Group analyst Matías Gómez Léautaud says that the bigger-than-expected turnout might make it harder for AMLO to muster enough opposition votes to get his election reform plans passed.This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.
A banner shows the images of three former Mexican presidents, as members of the ruling MORENA party organize documents with citizens' signatures after gathering them for a ballot measure that could put former presidents on trial for corruption.
Mexico's corruption referendum eye-roll
If your country had suffered decades of crippling corruption, wouldn't you want to prosecute those responsible? Of course you would. On Sunday, almost 98 percent of Mexicans who voted in a national referendum on this subject said, in so many words: "Yes, please prosecute the last five presidents for corruption!"
The catch is that turnout was a dismal 7 percent, meaning the plebiscite fell way short of the 40 percent turnout threshold required for its result to be binding.
The consultation was backed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, a leftwing populist elected in 2018 in part on his pledge to root out graft and wrestle the power of government back to the common people. Since then he has held a number of non-binding referenda on his policies, and floated a recall vote on his own presidency later this year.
But nearly halfway into his single six-year term, the graft referendum blunder raises some questions about the viability of AMLO's political style, and the future of his ruling MORENA party after he's out of office.
Opponents of the referendum say it was pointless. To be sure, putting former presidents on trial for graft would be a huge deal for Mexico, currently ranked 124th out of 179 nations on perception of corruption by Transparency International. Instead, the question is whether the vote was even necessary in the first place.
There was nothing stopping the government from investigating former presidents — or anyone else — before this. And critics note that AMLO hasn't made much progress against graft anyway. It doesn't help that his sister and brother-in-law have been accused of taking bribes, and that AMLO himself has demanded the US stop funding Mexican anti-corruption NGOs which he says are against him.
Moreover, some of the more fevered theories claim that the whole thing was really a ploy to give a pass to influential former leaders whom AMLO would rather not tangle with after all.
For his supporters, the point of the referendum was to give AMLO a clear mandate to go after former presidents — including the most recent one, Enrique Peña Nieto. But again, almost no one showed up. Even AMLO himself didn't vote, saying, in his typical messianic style, that he favors forgiveness over punishment.
Also, putting everything to a vote is part of AMLO's carefully crafted image of a "man of the people" who wants Mexicans to decide directly on issues of national importance instead of through their elected representatives. Members of his base, whether or not they actually turn up, appreciate being consulted because they've long felt neglected by traditional politicians.
The fact that this plebiscite failed so spectacularly, though, shows us that perhaps some of AMLO's magic touch is wearing thin. Don't forget it was just two months ago that MORENA lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in the midterm elections. All of this jeopardizes AMLO's plans to carry out what he calls Mexico's "Fourth Transformation" because he'll need to get his successor elected in 2024.
Still, AMLO himself remains immensely popular. Although his approval ratings dipped a bit over his handling of COVID and the economy, they have stayed above 60 percent throughout the pandemic. Despite record levels of COVID, crime, economic crisis, and drug cartel-related violence, Mexicans — particularly older and rural ones — still adore AMLO because he's a plainspoken, frugal political outsider who fights for them.
That popularity goes a long way — but if the man himself can't get people to turn up for a referendum on a key issue like this, is there something deeper brewing? AMLO still has three years to sort it out, but the second half of his term is looking a lot more challenging than the first.