Tag: Government transitions

Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

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KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s coup leaders and the main pro-democracy group signed a deal Monday to establish a civilian-led transitional government following the military takeover last year. But key players refused to participate, and no deadline was set for the transition to begin.

The framework — signed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo and the leaders of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — appears to offer only the broadest outlines for how the country will resume its progression to democracy. That process was upended in October 2021, when Burhan unseated the civilian half of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council with Dagolo’s backing.

Since the coup, international aid has dried up and bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become routine, plunging Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. Security forces have ruthlessly suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches. Deadly tribal clashes have flared in the country’s neglected peripheries.

It’s not clear whether or how quickly the deal signed Monday can offer a way out for Sudan, given that it appears to leave many thorny issues unresolved and doesn’t have the support of key political forces, including the grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees. That network’s leaders called for demonstrations against the agreement.

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, have also rejected the deal.

Many of the points in a draft of the deal were already promised in a 2020 agreement that saw Sudan’s previous transitional government make peace with several rebels in Sudan’s far-flung provinces.

According to the draft, the deal envisions Sudan’s military eventually stepping back from politics. The document says it will form part of a new ’’security and defense council” under the appointed prime minister. But it does not address how to reform the armed forces, saying only they should be unified and controls should be imposed on military-owned companies.

It makes specific mention of Sudan’s wealthy paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Dagalo. The force amassed wealth through its gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves in recent years.

It also does not address creating a transitional judiciary system or say when the transitional government will be put in place. Only then will a two-year transition officially begin — the end goal of which is elections.

Analysts have cast doubt over whether the aims of the agreement are achievable, given its lack of detail on key issues and the boycott of key players.

‘‘Realistically none of these complex processes can be dealt with within a transitional time frame of two years,’’ said Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Khartoum.

Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the coup threw off course a democratic transition that began after three decades of autocratic rule by President Omar al-Bashir. The former leader was toppled in April 2019, following a popular uprising.

The U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, attended Monday’s signing and later, at a speech at the palace, described the deal as ‘‘Sudanese-owned and Sudanese-led.’’

Monday’s development came after months of negotiations between the military and the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, facilitated by a mediating team of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Britain.

In a joint statement issued after the signing, the four countries commended the agreement.

“A concerted effort to finalize negotiations and reach agreement quickly to form a new civilian-led government is essential to address Sudan’s urgent political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges,” the group said.

The hope is the deal could draw in new international aid, after donor funds dried up in response to the coup.

Sudan has also seen a sharp increase in inter-tribal violence in the country’s west and south. In the southern Blue Nile province, two days of clashes between the Berta and Hausa killed over 170 peopl e in October. Last month some 48 were killed in tribal clashes in Darfur. Many commentators have attributed the rising tribal violence to the power vacuum caused by last year’s military takeover and the subsequent political and economic crisis.

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Jeffery reported from Cairo.

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December 5, 2022
In new role as G-20 chair, India set to focus on climate

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BENGALURU, India — India officially takes up its role as chair of the Group of 20 leading economies for the coming year Thursday and it’s putting climate at the top of the group’s priorities.

Programs to encourage sustainable living and money for countries to transition to clean energy and deal with the effects of a warming world are some of the key areas that India will focus on during its presidency, experts say. Some say India will also use its new position to boost its climate credentials and act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones.

The country has made considerable moves toward its climate goals in recent years but is currently one of the world’s top emitters of planet-warming gases.

The G-20, made up of the world’s largest economies, has a rolling presidency with a different member state in charge of the group’s agenda and priorities each year. Experts believe India will use the “big stage” of the G-20 presidency to drive forward its climate and development plans.

The country “will focus heavily on responding to the current and future challenges posed by climate change,” said Samir Saran, president of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. The ORF will be anchoring the T-20 — a group of think tanks from the 20 member countries whose participants meet alongside the G-20.

Saran said that India will work to ensure that money is flowing from rich industrialized nations to emerging economies to help them combat global warming, such as a promise of $100 billion a year for clean energy and adapting to climate change for poorer nations that has not yet been fulfilled and a recent pledge to vulnerable countries that there will be a fund for the loss and damage caused by extreme weather.

He added that India will also use the presidency to push its flagship “Mission Life” program that encourages more sustainable lifestyles in the country, which is set to soon become most populous in the world.

When outgoing chair Indonesia symbolically handed the presidency to India in Bali last month by passing the gavel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the opportunity to promote the program, saying it could make “a big contribution” by turning sustainable living into “a mass movement.”

The impact of lifestyle “has not received as much attention in the global discourse as it should,” said RR Rashmi, a distinguished fellow at The Energy Research Institute in New Delhi. He added that the issue “may get some prominence” at the G-20 which would be a success for the Indian government, but critics say the focus on lifestyle changes must be backed by policy to have credibility.

India has been beefing up its climate credentials, with its recent domestic targets to transition to renewable energy more ambitious than the goals it submitted to the U.N. as part of the Paris Agreement, which requires countries to show how they plan to limit warming to temperature targets set in 2015.

Analysts say nations’ climate ambitions and actions — including India’s — are not in line with temperature targets.

Many of India’s big industrialists are investing heavily in renewable energy domestically as well as globally, but the Indian government is also preparing to invest in coal-based power plants at the cost of $33 billion over the next four years.

At the U.N. climate conference last month, India — currently the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases — proposed a phaseout of all fossil fuels and repeatedly emphasized the need to revamp global climate finance. The country says it cannot reach its climate goals and reduce carbon dioxide emissions without significantly more finance from richer nations, a claim which those countries dispute.

Navroz Dubash, author of several U.N. climate reports and professor at the Centre for Policy Research, said that a key question for many countries is how “emerging economies address development needs and do it in a low carbon pathway” with several in the global south, like India, pointing to a need for outside investment.

As the chair of the G-20, India is a good position “to say what it will take for us to develop in ways that don’t lock up the remaining carbon budget,” Dubash added, referring to the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still containing global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels.

“Developing countries are making a convincing case that green industrial policies are actually quite dependent on having public money to throw at the problems,” said Dubash. Some experts say more than $2 trillion is needed each year by 2030 to help developing countries cut emissions and deal with the effects of a warming climate, with $1 trillion from domestic sources and the rest coming from external sources such as developed countries or multilateral development banks.

“This public money can also be a way of getting in private money, which is what the U.S. has done in its Inflation Reduction Act,” Dubash added. The U.S.’s flagship climate package that passed earlier this year includes incentives for building out clean energy infrastructure.

The G-20 will also be looking closely at alternative means to getting climate finance, experts say. The group could potentially take a leaf out of the Bridgetown initiative proposed by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, which involves unlocking large sums of money from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to cleaner energy.

ORF’s Saran said that as G-20 chair India can help move forward the conversation on the initiative. Developing countries are often charged higher rates of interest when borrowing from global financial institutions. Rejigging global finance to make renewable energy more affordable in the developing world is key to curbing climate change, Saran said.

The idea has recently gained traction amongst developed nations, with France’s Macron recently vocalizing his support.

“A large share of emissions will come from the developing world in the future,” Saran said. “If we make it easier for them to shift to clean energy, then these emissions can be avoided.”

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Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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December 1, 2022
Chinese vaccine plans spark hope for end of ‘zero COVID’

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BEIJING — A campaign to vaccinate the elderly has sparked hopes China might roll back severe anti-virus controls that prompted protesters to demand President Xi Jinping resign, but the country faces daunting hurdles and up to a year of hard work before “zero COVID” can end.

Stock markets rose after the National Health Commission on Monday announced the long-awaited campaign. A low vaccination rate is one of the biggest obstacles to ending curbs that have confined millions of people to their homes, depressed the economy and kept most visitors out of China. Health officials did not say how long it might take.

A vaccination campaign will require months and China also needs to build up its hospitals and work out a long-term virus strategy, health experts and economists warn. They say “zero COVID” is likely to stay in place until mid-2023 and possibly as late as 2024.

“China is in no place right now to move away from its ‘zero-COVID’ policy toward a ‘living with COVID’ policy,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics. “Health care capacity is very weak.”

China, where the virus first was detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, is the last major country trying to stop transmission completely. Others are relaxing controls and trying to live with the virus that has killed at least 6.6 million people worldwide and sickened almost 650 million.

Chinese protesters accuse the ruling Communist Party of failing to outline a path away from restrictions that have repeatedly closed businesses and schools and suspended access to neighborhoods. The curbs have kept case numbers lower than other countries but are seen by the public and scientists as excessive.

Families who have been confined at home for up to four months say they lack reliable access to food and medicine. Others struggle to get treatment for other medical problems. Authorities faced public fury over reports two children who were in quarantine died after their parents said anti-virus controls hampered efforts to get emergency medical care.

The protests, the most widespread show of dissent in decades, erupted Friday after a fire in Urumqi in the northwest killed at least 10 people. That prompted angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other controls. Authorities denied that, but the deaths became a focus of public anger over the human cost of “zero COVID.”

The ruling party has promised to make restrictions less disruptive and eased some controls this week following protests in Shanghai, Beijing and at least six other major cities. But party leaders said they were sticking to “zero COVID“ and gave no sign when it might end.

On Wednesday, the Health Commission reported 37,828 new cases in the past 24 hours, including 33,540 without symptoms. The official death toll stands at 5,233 out of 319,536 confirmed cases, compared with 1.1 million deaths in the United States out of almost 100 million infections.

Beijing has tried to discredit protesters by accusing them of working for “foreign forces,” a reference to long-running complaints that Washington and other Western governments are trying to sabotage China’s economic and political rise.

On Tuesday, the ruling party legal affairs committee vowed to “resolutely crack down on the infiltration and sabotage activities of hostile forces.” Its statement promising to carry out the spirit of a congress last month where Xi, China’s most powerful figure since at least the 1980s, awarded himself a third five-year term as leader.

The statement didn’t mention the protests and echoed routine declarations issued after such party meetings. But it was a reminder of the ruling party’s determination to enforce its will and of its hostility to opposition.

The National Health Commission said its campaign will encourage people over 60 to be vaccinated.

Many have avoided vaccines due to safety worries and because, with few cases in China, their infection risk was low.

The commission said it will send out mobile vaccination units to reach people in their 70s and 80s who can’t leave home.

Nine in 10 Chinese have been vaccinated but only 66% of people over 80 have gotten one shot, while 40% have received a booster shot, according to the Commission. It said 86% of people over 60 are vaccinated.

State media have described unvaccinated elderly people as at “highest risk” from the virus.

“We hope elderly friends can actively complete the vaccination as soon as possible,” said a commission spokesman, Mi Feng.

China uses vaccines made by domestic developers including Sinovac and Sinopharm. It has withheld approval of mRNA vaccines such as the one invented by Germany’s BioNTech, though a Chinese company bought distribution rights in 2020.

Last year, the country’s top infectious diseases official acknowledged those homegrown vaccines were less effective.

Still, ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, an infectious disease expert on Shanghai’s COVID-19 team expressed confidence China can emerge from COVID with the right vaccination program.

“Our diagnosis, treatment and vaccines have reached a very high level,” Zhang Wenhong said at a Nov. 18 medical conference in the southern city of Haikou. “We are fully capable of finally taming the coronavirus.”

However, China’s small, overworked health care system, especially in the poor, populous countryside, could be overwhelmed if infections spiral as restrictions are relaxed.

China has 4.3 hospital beds per person, barely half of the average of eight in neighboring Mongolia, a much poorer country, according to the World Health Organization. Japan has 13 and South Korea has 12.5.

“China will never lift COVID restrictions completely like other countries,” said Yu Changping, a respiratory specialist at People’s Hospital of Wuhan University.

“The epidemic will not disappear in the next three or five years and may never,” Yu said. “It is a long-term task for China’s prevention and control.”

The outbreaks that began in October prompted affected communities to close shops and offices. Factories were required to isolate workers from outside contact.

Economists estimate those areas account for up to one-third of China’s economic output. Some forecasts say China’s annual growth will stay below 3%, less than half of 2021′s 8.1% expansion.

While case numbers are low, “there is definitely a risk that ‘zero COVID’ just fails at this point. It spreads rapidly everywhere,” said Williams. “I think that the response from the authorities would be to go back to the playbook from January, February 2020 and lock everywhere down.”

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November 30, 2022
Spotlight on Malaysia’s king to resolve election stalemate

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s election uncertainty deepened Tuesday after a political bloc refused to support either reformist leader Anwar Ibrahim or rival Malay nationalist Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister, three days after divisive polls produced no outright winner.

The stalemate put the spotlight on the nation’s ceremonial king, who will have to find a way to resolve the impasse.

Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan, or Alliance of Hope, topped Saturday’s elections with 83 parliamentary seats, but failed to reach the 112 needed for a majority. He has been locked in a battle to form a majority government with former Prime Minister Muhyiddin, whose Malay-centric Perikatan Nasional, or National Alliance, won 72 seats.

Muhyiddin gained an upper hand after securing support of lawmakers from two states on Borneo island but both rivals still need the backing of the long-ruling alliance led by the United Malays National Organization for a majority.

Caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, a senior UMNO official, said the highest-decision making body of UMNO-led Barisan Nasional, or National Front alliance, decided at a meeting Tuesday not to support any group to form a government.

“So far, BN has agreed to remain as the opposition,” he tweeted.

Malaysia’s monarch, Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, said the crisis must end. He urged the nation to be patient as he makes his decision.

“We have to move on … we need to move forward for our beloved nation,” he told reporters waiting outside the palace.

Sultan Abdullah earlier asked lawmakers to state their preferred choice for prime minister and coalition by 2 p.m. The king’s role is largely ceremonial but he appoints the person he believes has majority support in Parliament as prime minister.

Muhyiddin’s bloc includes a hard-line Islamic ally, stoking fears of right-wing politics that may deepen racial divides in the multiethnic nation if it comes to power. The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party was the biggest winner with a haul of 49 seats — more than double what it won in 2018. Known as PAS, it touts Sharia, rules three states and is now the single largest party.

His alliance said it has already sent more than 112 sworn oaths by lawmakers to the king. UMNO, however, warned that individual support of its lawmakers without the party’s approval is invalid.

The drama is a replay of the political turmoil in Malaysia that has seen three prime ministers since 2018 polls.

In early 2020, Muhyiddin abandoned Anwar’s ruling alliance, causing its collapse, and joined hands with UMNO to form a new government.

Sultan Abdullah at the time requested written oaths from all 222 lawmakers and later interviewed them separately before picking Muhyiddin as prime minister. But his government was beset by internal rivalries and Muhyiddin resigned after 17 months. For a second time, the monarch sought written statements from lawmakers before appointing UMNO’s Ismail Sabri Yaakob as the new leader.

Ismail called for snap polls at the behest of UMNO leaders as the party was convinced it could make a strong comeback amid a fragmented opposition. Instead, ethnic majority Malays, fed up with corruption and infighting in the party, opted for Muhyiddin’s bloc.

Many rural Malays, who form two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people — which includes large minorities of ethnic Chinese and Indians — also fear they may lose their rights with greater pluralism under Anwar’s multiethnic alliance.

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November 22, 2022
Brazil armed forces’ report on election finds no fraud

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RIO DE JANEIRO — The defense ministry released a report Wednesday highlighting flaws in Brazil’s electoral systems and proposing improvements, but there was nothing to substantiate claims of fraud from some of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters protesting his Oct. 30 defeat.

It was the first comment by the military on the runoff election, which has drawn protests nationwide even as the transition has begun for President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s inauguration Jan. 1. Thousands have been gathering outside military installations in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and other cities calling for intervention by the armed forces to keep Bolsonaro in office.

When the defense ministry announced this week that it would present its report on the election, some Bolsonaro supporters rejoiced, anticipating the imminent revelation of a smoking gun. That didn’t happen.

“There is nothing astonishing in the document,” Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, who has been a member of the Brazilian electoral authority’s public security tests, told The Associated Press. “The limitations found are the same ones analysts have been complaining about for decades … but that doesn’t point to evidence of irregularity.”

Defense Minister Paulo Nogueira wrote that “it is not possible to say” with certainty the computerzed vote tabulation system hasn’t been infilitrated by malicious code, but the 65-page report does not cite any abnormalities in the vote count. Based on the possible risk, however, the report suggests creating a commission comprised of members of civil society and auditing entities to further investigate the functioning of the electronic voting machines.

Bolsonaro, whose less than two-point loss was the narrowest margin since Brazil’s 1985 return to democracy, hasn’t specifically cried foul since the election.

Still, his continued refusal to concede defeat or congratulate his opponent left ample room for supporters to draw their own conclusions. And that followed more than a year of Bolsonaro repeatedly claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting any evidence — even when ordered to do so by the electoral authority.

In the months leading up to the vote, as polls showed him trailing da Silva, Bolsonaro pushed for the military to take on an expanded role in the electoral process. The election authority, in a gesture apparently aimed at placating the president, allowed for armed forces’ unprecedented participation. The report presented Wednesday was signed by the defense minister and representatives from the army, navy and air force.

The electoral authority said in a statement it “received with satisfaction the defense ministry’s final report that, like all other oversight bodies, did not point to the existence of any fraud or inconsistency in the electronic voting machines and 2022 electoral process.”

Bolsonaro didn’t immediately comment on the report, nor did the presidential palace respond to an AP email. His party’s leader said Tuesday the president would question election results only if the report provided “real” evidence.

Da Silva, speaking Wednesday in the capital, Brasilia, on his first visit since the election, told reporters that the vote was clean and Brazil’s electronic voting machine system is an achievement.

“No one will believe coup-mongering discourse from someone who lost the elections,” da Silva said. “We know that the institutions were attacked by some government authorities.”

Brazil began using an electronic voting system in 1996. Election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud. Outside security audits have been done to prevent the system’s software from being surreptitiously altered. In addition, prior to election day, tests are conducted to assure no tampering has occurred.

The electoral authority said in its statement Wednesday that it would analyze the defense ministry’s suggestions. Aranha, the system security professor, said the military’s suggestions to address flaws aren’t specific and would actually make an audit even more difficult.

This year, the armed forces also conducted a partial audit, comparing hundreds of voting stations’ results to the official tally. The idea was first floated by Bolsonaro, who in May said they “will not perform the role of just rubber stamping the electoral process, or taking part as spectators.”

The federal government’s accounts watchdog carried out a partial audit similar to that of the military, tallying votes in 604 voting machines across Brazil. It found no discrepancies. Likewise, Brazil’s Bar Association said in a report Tuesday that it had found nothing that pointed to suspicion of irregularities.

“There are important lessons from all this,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia, who continued: “primarily, the idea to formally involve the armed forces in electoral processes is an error that should never be repeated.”

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Associated Press writer Carla Bridi reported from Brasilia. AP videojournalist Juan Arraez and writer David Biller in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

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November 9, 2022
With Bolsonaro tamed in defeat, Brazil steps back from brink

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RIO DE JANEIRO — In the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, many feared a narrow result would spell the death knell for Latin America’s largest democracy.

So far, however, the worst has been averted, despite a nail-biting victory for former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, and ongoing protests by Bolsonaro’s supporters across the country.

The conservative leader’s allies quickly recognized da Silva’s victory, the military stayed in the barracks and vigilant world leaders swooped in to offer support for da Silva and nip in the bud even the thought of anything resembling the Jan. 6 insurrection that overtook the U.S. Capitol.

“All of Bolsonaro’s escape valves were shut off,” said Brian Winter, a longtime Brazil expert and vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “He was prevailed upon from all sides not to contest the results and burn down the house on his way out.”

Although Bolsonaro has refused to congratulate da Silva or disavow die-hard protesters who remained on the streets Wednesday, Brazil’s institutions generally seem to have held up.

That leaves a more vexing challenge: how the 77-year-old da Silva, universally known as Lula, unites a deeply divided country, rights a wobbly economy and delivers on the outsize expectations spurred by his return to power.

One thing is clear, if anyone can do it, it’s the charismatic da Silva — whose political skills are admired even by his detractors.

“That’s what we need, someone not only who can address inequality but also inspire our emotions and ideas,” said Marcelo Neri, director of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s social policy center, who led the Ministry of Strategic Affairs in the Cabinet of da Silva’s handpicked successor, Dilma Rousseff.

In many ways, the conservative movement Bolsonaro helped ignite — if not the politician himself — has emerged stronger from the vote, Winter said. His allies were elected as governors in several key states and his Liberal Party has become the largest in Congress, curtailing da Silva’s ability to advance his own agenda after a decadelong malaise that has left millions of Brazilians hungrier than when da Silva last held office in 2010.

What’s more, Brazil’s demographics seem to favor Bolsonaro’s aggressive brand of identity politics — including an anti-LGBTQ agenda and hostility to environmentalists — that have earned him the moniker “Trump of the Tropics.”

The country’s own statistics institute forecasts that the number of Brazilians identifying as evangelical Christians — who preelection polls show overwhelmingly favored Bolsonaro and skew right — will overtake Roman Catholics within a decade.

Thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters thronged a regional army headquarters in Rio on Wednesday, demanding that the military step in and keep him in power. Outside a military building in the state of Santa Catarina, hundreds of protesters gave the Nazi salute while chanting the national anthem. Meanwhile, truckers maintained about 150 roadblocks across the country to protest Bolsonaro’s loss, despite the Supreme Court’s orders to law enforcement to dismantle them.

Since the return of democracy in the 1980s, all Brazilian leaders have been guided to varying degrees by a common belief in strong state-led enterprises, high taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution policies.

Bolsonaro initially attempted to run a more austere, business-friendly government, that is, until the social devastation wreaked by COVID-19 and his own sinking electoral prospects ultimately led him to loosen spending controls and emulate the policies he once attacked.

How da Silva will govern is less clear. He squeaked out a narrow victory of barely 2 million votes after forming a broad coalition of players. And with promises to maintain a generous welfare program in place through 2023, he will have limited fiscal space to spend on other priorities.

His running mate from another party, former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckim, was a nod to centrist, fiscally conservative policies that made da Silva the darling of Wall Street during his early years in power. This week, da Silva tapped Alckim to lead his transition team.

Also standing alongside him on the victory stage Sunday night, however, were several stalwarts of the left who have been implicated in numerous corruption scandals that have plagued his Workers’ Party and paved the way for Bolsonaro’s rise.

Although da Silva’s supporters have downplayed the concerns about corruption — the Supreme Court annulled the convictions that kept him behind bars for nearly two years — for many Brazilians he is a symbol of the culture of graft that has long permeated politics. As a result, he’s likely to be held to a higher ethical standard in a country where political support is often obtained in exchange for Cabinet appointments and budgets.

“This wasn’t just a fever dream by his opponents,” Winter said of the corruption allegations that have long dogged da Silva’s party.

Da Silva’s victory coincides with a string of recent victories by the left in South America, including in Chile and Colombia, whose leaders revere the former union boss. During his first stint in power, da Silva led a so-called pink wave that promoted regional integration, rivaled U.S. dominance and put the rights of overlooked minorities and Indigenous groups at the center of the political agenda.

Under Bolsonaro, Brazil largely retreated from that leadership role, even if the sheer size of its economy alone means a return to leadership is never far off.

Scott Hamilton, a former U.S. diplomat, said that da Silva will have to make a tough choice on whether to use Brazil’s considerable leverage to pursue an ambitious foreign policy to tackle entrenched problems or simply use his star power on the world stage to shore up support at home.

“Basking in not being Bolsonaro will get him lots of positive attention in itself,” said Hamilton, whose last post, until April, was as consul general in Rio. “The more ambitious path would involve trying to help resolve some of the toughest political issues where democratic governments in the region are in trouble or extinguished.”

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Goodman reported from Miami.

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November 2, 2022
Danish leader to quit in bid to form new Cabinet despite win

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Voters in Greenland secured the last two seats necessary for the center-left bloc of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to win Denmark’s general election.

But Frederiksen plans to resign later Wednesday, because the Social Democratic leader wants to attempt to form a new government with broader support across the political divide — something she had suggested before the election.

The two seats in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, meant that the so-called red bloc of Frederiksen reached the required 90-seat majority and put her in a strong position after Tuesday’s tight election.

The Greenland results came in early Wednesday and the red side’s win was based on the assumption that a vote count in Greenland would give the autonomous Danish territory’s two seats to the center-left bloc.

Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit, two left-leaning groups, grabbed 37.6% and 24.6% of the votes, respectively. Four of the 179 seats in Denmark’s legislature, known as the Folketing, are reserved for Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, another autonomous Danish territory.

Frederiksen will formally hand in her resignation to Queen Margrethe at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT; 4 a.m. EDT) Wednesday after which talks to form a government — so-called queen rounds — are expected to begin with party leaders.

“It is also clear there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form. Therefore, tomorrow I will submit the government’s resignation to the queen,” Frederiksen said Tuesday as she announced she would step down.

Margrethe’s role is largely ceremonial, but she performs certain official functions, including attending the opening of parliament, signing new laws, formally nominating a person to head the government-formation process and appointing the prime minister. Sometimes several “queen rounds” are needed before a new government can be formed.

Troels Bøggild, an associate professor of political science at Aarhus University in western Denmark, said that Frederiksen ”has two options to form a government.”

“Either go with the Moderates (at the center) and the Liberals and if that fails, she can crawl back to the red bloc and form a government there.”

“By resigning, she shows that her election promises to build a broad center government is serious,” he told The Associated Press. “If she didn’t resign and formed a government in the red bloc, she would face criticism. To avoid that, she has resigned.”

Frederiksen was forced to call the vote earlier this month amid the fallout from her government’s contentious decision to cull millions of minks as a pandemic response measure. The cull and chilling images of mass graves of minks have haunted Frederiksen since 2020 and eventually led to cracks in the center-left bloc.

The Social Democrats remained Denmark’s top party with 27.54% of votes, but it remained unclear long into the night whether the center-left parties together would reach a majority. The decisive seat flipped at the very end of the vote count.

Before that, former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen appeared set to become kingmaker. His newly formed centrist party won 9.27% of the vote for 16 seats, according to the preliminary results. Final results were expected later.

Løkke Rasmussen said he too wanted Frederiksen to try to form a government, but he wouldn’t provide support for her to remain “as prime minister.”

Løkke Rasmussen, a two-time government leader who lost the 2019 election to Frederiksen and abandoned the center-right Liberal party following an internal power struggle, wouldn’t say whom he would back as the next prime minister or whether he saw that role for himself.

“I know for sure that Denmark needs a new government,“ he told jubilant supporters in Copenhagen. “Who is going to sit at the end of the table? We do not know.”

Prior to the election, the 44-year-old Frederiksen floated the idea of a broader alliance that would also include opposition parties, but was rebuffed by opposition leaders Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberals and Søren Pape Poulsen of the Conservatives.

Even though the election result suggested she could ostensibly carry on as prime minster with only center-left support, Frederiksen said she would adhere to her ambition to also reach out to opposition parties.

“The Social Democrats went to the election to form a broad government,” she said on election night. “I will investigate whether it can be done.”

Frederiksen, who became Denmark’s youngest prime minister when she took office at 41 more than three years ago, teamed up with the opposition to hike NATO-member Denmark’s defense spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Her steadfast leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly overshadowed by the mink-culling episode.

The decision to slaughter up to 17 million minks to protect humans from a mutation of the coronavirus was taken in haste and without the required legislation in place. It dealt a devastating blow to Danish mink farmers, even though there was no evidence the mutated virus found among some minks was more dangerous than other strains.

“It can take a long time before a new government is formed as all the pieces of the puzzle have been tossed up in the air,” Bøggild said, adding he believes that Frederiksen will become prime minister again.

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November 2, 2022
Denmark PM to try to form new government after election win

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was in a strong position to remain in power after her Social Democrats won the most votes Tuesday in Denmark’s election and a center-left bloc in Parliament that backs her appeared set to retain a majority by just one seat.

The result was preliminary and based on the assumption that a vote count in Greenland expected early Wednesday would give the autonomous Danish territory’s two seats to the center-left bloc.

“I am so thrilled and proud. We have gotten the best election result in 20 years,” Frederiksen told supporters early Wednesday in Copenhagen.

Despite the success, Frederiksen, who heads a Social Democratic minority government, said she would resign as prime minister and try to form a new government with broader support across the political divide, something she had said suggested before the election.

“It is also clear there is no longer a majority behind the government in its current form. Therefore, tomorrow I will submit the government’s resignation to the queen,” said Frederiksen, adding that she would meet with other parties about forming a new government.

Frederiksen was forced to call the vote earlier this month amid the fallout from her government’s contentious decision to cull millions of minks as a pandemic response measure. The cull and chilling images of mass graves of minks have haunted Frederiksen since 2020 and eventually led to cracks in the center-left bloc.

The Social Democrats remained Denmark’s top party with 28% of the vote, but it remained unclear long into the night whether the center-left parties together would reach the 90 seats needed for a majority in the 179-seat Parliament. Exit polls suggested they would fall short, but the decisive seat flipped at the very end of the vote count.

Before that former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen appeared set to become kingmaker. His newly formed centrist party won 9% of the vote for 16 seats, according to the preliminary results.

Løkke Rasmussen said he too wanted to Mette Frederiksen to try to form a government but he would not point at her “as prime minister.”

A two-time government leader who lost the 2019 election to Frederiksen and abandoned the center-right Liberal party following an internal power struggle, Løkke Rasmussen, wouldn’t say whom he would back as the next prime minister or whether he saw that role for himself.

“I know for sure that Denmark needs a new government, “ he told jubilant supporters in Copenhagen. “Who is going to sit at the end of the table we do not know.”

Denmark may be a small, tranquil country known for having some of the happiest people on Earth, but its politics is filled with intrigue that will be familiar to fans of the fictional Danish TV drama series “Borgen.”

Before the election, Frederiksen, 44, floated the idea of a broader alliance that would also include opposition parties, but was rebuffed by opposition leaders Jakob Ellemann-Jensen of the Liberals and Søren Pape Poulsen of the Conservatives, who both ran as candidates for prime minister in a center-right government.

Even though the election result suggested she could ostensibly carry on as prime minster with only center-left support, Frederiksen said she would keep her ambition to also reach out to opposition parties.

“The Social Democrats went to the election to form a broad government,” she said. “I will investigate whether it can be done.”

Denmark’s more than 4 million voters could choose among over 1,000 candidates — the most ever — from 14 parties. Four of the 179 seats in the Danish legislature, Folketinget, are reserved for the Faeroe Islands and Greenland, which are autonomous Danish territories.

Concerns about rising inflation and energy prices linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine and a shortage of nurses in the public health care system were key themes in election campaigns.

“What I feel is important and is a worry to many are the soaring prices, whether it be electricity, bread or gasoline,” said Inge Bjerre Hansen, 82, after casting her vote in Copenhagen. “My son is reducing the number of his visits because it has become expensive to fill the tank (of his car).”

Unlike in previous elections, immigration received little attention. Denmark has some of Europe’s strictest immigration laws and there is broad agreement among the major parties to keep it that way.

That and internal squabbles help explain the collapse of the populist Danish People’s Party, which spearheaded Denmark’s crackdown on immigration two decades ago. Once polling over 20%, the party recorded its worst parliamentary election result since its creation in 1995, with around 3% of the vote, the results showed.

The Danish People’s Party faced competition for nationalist voters from new right-wing parties. Among them are the Denmark Democrats, created in June by former hardline immigration minister Inger Støjberg. In 2021, Støjberg was convicted by the rarely used Impeachment Court for a 2016 order to separate asylum-seeking couples if one of the partners was a minor.

She was eligible to run for office again after serving her 60-day sentence. The official results showed her party getting 8%.

Frederiksen, who became Denmark’s youngest prime minister when she took office at 41 more than three years ago, teamed up with the opposition to hike NATO-member Denmark’s defense spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Her steadfast leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly overshadowed by the mink-culling episode.

The decision to slaughter up to 17 million minks to protect humans from a mutation of the coronavirus was taken in haste and without the required legislation in place. It dealt a devastating blow to Danish mink farmers, even though there was no evidence the mutated virus found among some minks was more dangerous than other strains.

———

Ritter reported from Stockholm. Associated Press journalists and Aleksandar Furtula and Anders Kongshaug in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

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November 1, 2022
Thousands march in Khartoum on 1st anniversary of Sudan coup

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CAIRO — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sudan’s capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, marking the first anniversary of a military coup that upended the nation’s short-lived transition to democracy.

Videos published on social media showed marchers with flags and drums, most of them bound for the Presidential Palace. Other footage showed protesters standing in front of convoys of security forces.

Netblocks, an online network tracker, announced early Tuesday that internet services across the country were blocked. Various Sudanese pro-democracy activists and local journalists reported security forces fired tear gas at protesters and earlier closed off bridges leading into Khartoum. The Associated Press has been unable to verify these claims.

Since its takeover, the military has cracked down and suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches, with as many as 118 protesters killed, according to statistics published by the Sudan Doctors Committee.

Sudan’s top general, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and paramilitary deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo were meant to oversee a democratic transition after Sudan’s autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019.

But last year, Burhan dissolved the ruling Sovereign Council, arrested the transitional prime minister and unseated the civilian faction of a power-sharing government that had been in place. He later said he acted to stop a civil war.

Rights groups say hundreds have been detained since the military takeover, many without charge.

In recent weeks, internationally backed talks between Sudan’s pro-democracy movement and the ruling military have made some progress.

According to The Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — an alliance of political parties and protest groups — the military has agreed on a draft constitutional document written by the country’s Bar Association. This would allow the appointment of a civilian prime minister who would lead the country through elections by 2024.

But Sudan’s more ardent pro-democracy groups, including the grassroots Resistance Committees who spearhead anti-coup street protests, reject any settlement with the military. Along with the Communist Party, they have demanded that those responsible for the year’s deadly crackdown on demonstrations be tried in court.

‘‘I have no trust in the army’s intentions, the new negotiation is just a new division of wealth and power” said Ammar Yahya, the spokesperson for a Khartoum branch of the Resistance Committees.

The coup has plunged Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. International aid has dried up while bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become increasingly routine.

In a statement also marking the coup’s anniversary, the head of The U.S. Agency for International Development condemned the takeover but said she was ‘encouraged’ by the recent agreement over the Bar Association’s constitutional document.

‘‘I reiterate the call for the military to cede power back to civilian authorities,’’ Samantha Powell added.

The year has also seen a resurgence of deadly tribal clashes in the country’s neglected peripheries. Fierce clashes between the Hausa and Berta people last week killed at least 230 people in southern Blue Nile province.

Many analysts consider the rising violence in the south a product of the power vacuum caused by the military takeover, with the ruling generals’ clampdown focused on the center of power, Khartoum and the country’s heartland, while the peripheries descend into chaos.

Burhan and Dagalo have separately promised to step back from politics following the reinstatement of a civilian government. But amid the chaos, both have also sought to further their political influence.

Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, implicated in the killing of more than 100 sit-in protesters in June 2019 in Khartoum, have continued to expand across the country. Meanwhile, Burhan has overseen the reinstatement of dozens of civil servants sacked by the previous government for their association with al-Bashir’s circle.

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October 25, 2022
Italy’s far-right leader formally asks for mandate to govern

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ROME — Italian politician Giorgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, said Friday that she and her allies have asked the nation’s president to give her the mandate to form what would be Italy‘s first far-right-led government since the end of World War II.

Meloni and her campaign allies met for about 10 minutes with President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal presidential palace. She emerged to tell reporters that the coalition had unanimously indicated to Mattarella that she deserved the mandate to govern.

The palace later announced that Mattarella had summoned Meloni back, by herself, to meet with the president late Friday afternoon.

At that meeting, the president could decide Meloni has assembled a viable government and invite her and her ministers to swear in the next day. He could also give her the mandate to try to form a government and some time to report back to him on her progress.

If Meloni, 45, succeeds, she would be the first woman to become Italian premier.

Obtaining the premiership would cap a remarkably quick rise for the Brothers of Italy party that Meloni co-founded in December 2012 and which in its first years was considered a fringe movement on the right.

“We have indicated myself as the person who should be mandated to form the new government,” Meloni said, flanked by her two main, sometimes troublesome, right-wing allies — Matteo Salvini and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. “We are ready and we want to move forward in the shortest possible time.”

She cited urgent problems “at both national and international level,” apparent references to soaring energy prices afflicting households and businesses and the war in Ukraine, which has seen European Union members divided over strategy amid worries about gas supplies during the approaching winter.

Berlusconi and Salvini stayed silent during Meloni’s brief remarks to reporters. But at one point Berlusconi raised his eyebrows and looked behind her head at Salvini as Meloni spoke.

Both men are longtime admirers of Russian leader Vladimir Putin; Meloni staunchly backs Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. Those differences could make coalition rule challenging.

Berlusconi, a three-time premier, has been chafing over the election victory by Meloni’s party. The Brothers of Italy took 26%, while Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the anti-migrant League of Salvini, snagged just over 8% apiece in an election on Sept. 25 that saw record low turnout.

In 2018, in the previous election for Parliament, Meloni’s party took just over 4%.

Still, while her forces are Parliament’s largest, Meloni needs her two allies in order to command a solid majority in the legislature.

Berlusconi, who fancies himself a rare leader on the world stage, recently derided her as “arrogant” in written comments, apparently after Meloni refused to make a lawmaker who is one of the media mogul’s closest advisers a minister.

Earlier this week in a meeting with his lawmakers he expressed sympathy for Putin’s motivation for invading Ukraine. In that conversation, which was recorded and leaked to Italian news agency LaPresse, he also bragged that Putin had sent him bottles of vodka for his 86th birthday last month and he gave the Russian bottles of wine while the two exchanged sweetly worded notes.

In response to Berlusconi’s comments that were also derogatory about Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, Meloni insisted that anyone joining her government must be solidly in sync with the West in opposing Putin’s war. If that meant her government couldn’t be formed, Meloni said, she’d take that risk.

Salvini has at times also questioned the wisdom of tough Western sanctions against Russia. A fellow lawmaker in Salvini’s League party who was recently elected president of the lower Chamber of Deputies has publicly expressed doubts about continuing the measures.

Outgoing Premier Mario Draghi’s national pandemic unity coalition collapsed in July, after Salvini, Berlusconi and populist 5-Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte refused to back his government in a confidence vote. That prompted Mattarella to dissolve parliament and pave the way for elections some six months early.

While final efforts to form the new government were underway, Draghi was in Brussels, attending the final day of a European Council summit, grappling with ways to deal with higher energy prices.

On Thursday, Mattarella received opposition leaders, who raised concerns that Meloni, who campaigned with a “God, homeland, family” agenda, would seek to erode abortion rights and roll back rights such as same-sex civil unions.

———

Giada Zampano contributed reporting.

———

Follow AP’s coverage of Italian politics: https://apnews.com/hub/giorgia-meloni

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October 21, 2022
Mali accuses France of `duplicitous acts’ which it denies

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UNITED NATIONS — Mali’s foreign minister accused former colonial power France on Tuesday of “duplicitous acts” of aggression and espionage aimed at destabilizing the troubled West African country — allegations immediately dismissed by France’s U.N. ambassador as “mendacious” and “defamatory.”

The acrimonious exchange at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Mali highlighted the depth to which relations between the two countries have plunged since a coup in August 2020 and the August 2022 departure of the last of thousands of French forces that had been in the country at the government’s invitation since 2013 to fight Islamic extremists.

Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop reiterated accusations the transitional government made in August that French aircraft “invaded” its airspace, and alleged that France was providing material to “criminal groups” that is destabilizing the civilian population.

He called for a special Security Council meeting “for us to bring to light evidence regarding duplicitous acts, acts of espionage and acts of destabilization waged by France against Mali.”

“Mali reserves the right to exercise its right to self-defense,” Diop said, “if France continues to undermine the sovereignty of our country and to undermine its territorial integrity and its national security.”

France’s U.N. Ambassador Nicolas De Riviere countered, saying he wanted “to re-establish the truth after the mendacious accusations and defamatory accusations from the Malian transitional government,” stressing that “France never violated Malian airspace.”

He said French troops were redeployed in the Sahel “based upon observation that political conditions and operational circumstances were no longer in place to remain engaged in Mali,” noting that 59 French troops paid with their lives in nine years of fighting alongside Malian soldiers against “terrorist armed groups.”

Despite Mali’s “grave, unfounded allegations” and its “unilateral, unjustified” denunciation in May of the 2013 agreement that brought French troops to the country, De Riviere said, “France will remain engaged in the Sahel, the Gulf of Guinea and the Lake Chad region alongside all reasonable states who have taken the choice to counter terrorism and to respect stability and peaceful coexistence among communities.”

“We shall persevere in our fight against terrorism in coordination with all of our partners, and we shall also continue to support civilian populations who are the main victims of terrorism,” the French ambassador said.

Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012, and extremist rebels were forced from power in northern cities with the help of the French-led military operation. But they regrouped and have launched attacks in central Mali and targeted the Malian army, U.N. peacekeepers and civilians.

Col. Assimi Goita took part in the August 2020 coup and in June 2021, he was sworn in as president of a transitional government after carrying out his second coup in nine months. Late last year Goita reportedly decided to allow the deployment of Russia’s Wagner group, which passes itself off as a private military contractor but is long believed to have strong ties to the Russian government.

The U.N. special envoy for Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, told the Security Council that Mali is facing “a very challenging security, humanitarian and human rights situation, with severe consequences for civilians across large parts of the country.”

The security situation remains “volatile” in central Mali and the border area between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, he said, and there has been a sharp increase in activities by extremist elements affiliated with the Islamic State in the greater Sahara and the al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin.

The extremists “are taking advantage of security voids which the Malian forces are striving to fill and are fighting for territorial control” while targeting Malian troops and U.N. peacekeepers, Wane said.

On a positive note, Wane highlighted steps toward elections which foreign minister Diop said would take place in February 2024, progress on monitoring a 2015 peace agreement, and a recent agreement which Diop said would reintegrate 26,000 former combatants by 2024.

But the U.N. envoy criticized the transitional government’s restrictions on the 17,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force known as MINUSMA.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said they include “no-fly zones, visa denials, and refusals of ground patrols and flight clearances” which have severely impacted MINUSMA’s key roles protecting civilians and investigating violations of their human rights.

“We are appalled by reports of human rights violations and abuses allegedly perpetrated by violent extremist groups and by Malian armed forces in partnership with the Kremlin-backed Wagner group,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Britain’s deputy U.N. ambassador James Kariuki said the military response to “the terror” imposed by Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliated extremist groups must protect human rights. He pointed to a 40% increase in cases of conflict-related sexual violence in Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ latest report on Mali.

In August, Kariuki said the U.N. independent expert on human rights reported violations by Malian forces alongside “foreign military personnel described as Russian military officials.”

“The malign presence of the Wagner Group can no longer be ignored or denied,” he said.

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed “the unprovoked withdrawal” of French and European Union contingents from Mali for the upsurge in extremist activities.

She called the negative Western reaction to the strengthening of Russian-Malian cooperation and its assistance to country’s military “yet another manifestation of the patronizing approach and double standards of former colonial powers.”

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October 18, 2022