• Bongo’s rule ended by failed promises…

    Gabon coup: Bongo’s rule ended by failed promises and shifting alliances

    Gyldas A. Ofoulhast-Othamot, St. Petersburg College

    The Bongo family’s 56 year hold on power in Gabon was abruptly brought to an end with a military coup on 30 August. The military takeover happened hours after election results were announced that gave Ali Bongo Ondimba a third term. Gyldas Ofoulhast-Othamot, a professor of public and international affairs with published research on Gabon, explains factors that may have contributed to the ouster.

    Did Gabon’s recent election stack up as ‘free and fair’?

    The presidential election on 26 August was the sixth since the formal end of the one-party state in 1990. Like the others, it was contentious from the start.

    The particular issue this time was that three elections (presidential, parliamentary and local) took place at once. This had never been done before. In the context of autocratic and dynastic rule in Gabon, it was bound to be problematic.

    It’s no surprise that the poll was reported to be chaotic. It appears to have been a mixture of ineptitude and wilful incompetence and chaos. Polls opened late. Some opposition ballots were said to be missing. As a result voting had to be extended in some areas.

    Finally, immediately after the vote, the internet was cut and a curfew put in place, rarely a sign of a regime confident that it has won at the polls.

    The many constitutional, legal and electoral changes before and after the elections severely undermined the integrity of the vote.

    Perhaps the most contentious change was the last-minute addition of the single ballot. This meant that voters who selected a member of parliament automatically voted for the presidential candidate in the same party – even if it wasn’t their first choice.

    Collectively, all the changes seemed designed to give the incumbent the advantage. They made for flawed elections.

    Finally, the result, which gave Ali Bongo Ondimba the victory with over 64% of votes cast, was announced while people were asleep. No advance notification was given as it had been in previous contests.

    All signs were that it was a rigged election.

    The leaders of the junta used that as a justification for their takeover.

    What are the weaknesses in Gabon’s political makeup?

    Gabon became independent from France on 17 August 1960. That’s 63 years ago. Except for its first president, Leon M’ba Minko (1960-1967), the Bongo family has governed the country for 56 years – (Omar Bongo Ondimba from 1967 to 2009 and Ali Bongo Ondimba from then on until 30 August 2023).

    Political domination by a single family is the country’s main weakness. The political system has been tailored to serve the interests of one family only and its domestic and foreign allies.

    In this context, it becomes difficult to engineer the types of reforms necessary for a country to modernise and regenerate itself.

    Bongo’s father maintained control through patronage and balancing the involvement of various societal (ethnic) groups. But in the 1990s this became more difficult because of the return of multipartyism and a decline in oil reserves which made patronage more challenging.

    In some ways, Ali Bongo Ondimba’s attempt to go beyond the political equilibrium created by his father doomed him. He promised reforms and a state that would improve the lives of all the people. But he failed to deliver.

    With ever shifting domestic elite alliances and popular demand for better living conditions and for the Bongo regime to end, it was only a matter of time before the military switched sides. It was that or continued repression with the potential for more blood being spilled, as happened in 2016.

    What about the economy? How are ordinary people faring?

    Well endowed in natural resources, Gabon is regarded by the World Bank as an upper-middle-income country with a GDP per capita of US$8,820. This is among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Gabon used to be called the “Kuwait of Africa” because of its oil and natural resources wealth and its small population of 2.3 million.

    But its population remains poor. Only a small elite has benefited from the country’s wealth. Unemployment is said to be as high as 37%, with 35% of Gabonese living below the poverty line of US$2 a day.

    When Ali Bongo Ondimba came to power in 2009, he promised economic reforms. But by 2016, economic stagnation was still the norm. Power cuts are frequent, running tap water has become a rare commodity, and inequalities have increased.

    What history does the military have in the country’s affairs?

    This is the third coup in Gabon’s history.

    The first was in 1964 under President Leon M’ba Minko. France intervened to reinstate him.

    The last two coups have been under Ali Bongo Ondimba. In 2019, it was led by junior officers and was short-lived. Nevertheless, it exposed the frailties of his regime, especially after he suffered a stroke in Saudi Arabia.

    This time it appears that the military brass are all in, at least those who matter in the Republican Guard (GR in French).

    In my view the military has been central to the Bongo regime maintaining its power for all those years.

    For instance, in 1993 and 2016 when the Bongo regime was under duress, only military intervention and repression of opposition groups ensured its survival.

    Also, the loyalty of the members of the state security and defence apparatus has always been well rewarded. The Republican Guard, the most equipped and well financed of all the armed forces, exemplifies that.

    The difference now is that it has decided to be king rather than staying behind the scenes as the kingmaker.

    Its aims are not clear yet – democratic and republican or authoritarian rule.

    What difference is this coup likely to make?

    General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the leader of the junta, does not appear to be related to the Bongo family.

    He entered the Bongo circle through his relationship with the long-time former commander of the Republican Guard, André Oyini. Over time, he rose through the ranks to become Omar Bongo Ondimba’s last military aide.

    Given that proximity to the Bongo family, it looks like a palace revolution rather than true political change. Ali Bongo Ondimba was the heir of a political system built by his father since the 1960s. That system has not collapsed overnight.

    Yet the junta, and more generally the security and defence forces, will have to take into account political, economic and social decay and popular aspirations when deciding the path forward. If not, instability will become the norm.The Conversation

    Gyldas A. Ofoulhast-Othamot, Assistant professor of political science, St. Petersburg College

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • How to pick the next Nigerian president

    It appears this mercantile politician whose character portrait is corrosive to democracy and who elevates self-interest over and above national interest will be taking no prisoners in the pursuit of his “lifelong ambition.” However, I am ready to shout it from the rooftops again and again, that his character attributes will engender a conflict of interest like never before if he is given keys to the presidency.

    • Saka Momodu

    Tinubu: Nigeria No Be Lagos, Shaka Momodu Writes – InfoStride News (theinfostride.com)

  • Why do so few clergy serve in Congress?

    Rev. Raphael G. Warnock delivers a eulogy at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
    Curtis Compton/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

    Robert Speel, Penn State

    While campaigning for Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins – a former pastor – attacked her opponent, Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, for his views on abortion rights.

    “There is no such thing as a pro-choice pastor,” Collins said of Warnock. “What you have is a lie from the bed of hell.”

    Their differing views on abortion reflect a range of views on controversial political issues among American clergy. Yet what made the sparring so notable is the infrequency with which two pastor politicians are even in a position to confront one another.

    If Warnock were to win, he would join Republican Sen. James Lankford as one of two ordained ministers in the Senate chamber. Only about 2% of members of the U.S. House of Representatives are ordained ministers.

    Their numbers are scarce despite the fact that members of the clergy often possess speaking skills, have an impulse to serve and boast strong ties to their communities – all qualities that are useful in politics. Furthermore, Americans are among the most religious people in the Western world.

    So why do so few clergy serve in Congress? And what kind of effect might this have on the priorities and policies that emerge from Washington, D.C.?

    Lawyers, business people lead the pack

    In the “Congress and the Presidency” course that I teach, I discuss the prior professional careers of members of Congress and the way those backgrounds can influence lawmaking.

    Almost half of U.S. senators worked as attorneys prior to their political careers, and 160 current members of the U.S. House of Representatives have law degrees. Other than politics, law is the most common former profession of Democrats in Congress, while business is the most common former profession of Republicans.

    Lawyers in Congress can write legislation using language that can guide administrative agencies and judges, with an eye toward shielding laws from potential legal challenges. The downside of this practice is that legislative text can be weighed down in legal jargon that only other lawyers can understand.

    Meanwhile, the growing ranks of Republican members of Congress with business backgrounds reflect the party’s ideological opposition to government regulation of the private sector.

    Each party’s recent presidents reflect their orientation: The last three Republican presidents – Donald Trump, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush – all worked in business prior to entering politics. Once Joe Biden becomes president in January, he’ll join Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as having graduated from law school.

    From the outside looking in

    Members of the clergy, however, are far down the list of congressional occupations – behind agriculture, engineering, journalism, labor, medicine, real estate and the military.

    Only one former U.S. president, James Garfield, has ties to a previous life at the pulpit – and even those are tenuous. While he’s sometimes described as an ordained minister with the Disciples of Christ – and he did preach to congregations as a young man – there don’t appear to be any clear ordination records. His primary professions before entering politics were as a Civil War general, teacher and attorney.

    It’s possible that the lack of clergy members in Congress may bring less attention to spiritual issues in Washington. Morality may be deemed less important, while crafting public policies that help the less fortunate get short shrift.

    At the same time, the clergy has long played an active role in American politics outside of elective office, usually working to influence policy and politicians.

    Prominent evangelical preachers Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham, James Dobson and Kenneth Copeland all spoke out in favor of Donald Trump’s reelection this year.

    A woman brushes makeup on Franklin Graham's forehead as he stands at a podium during the 2020 Republican National Convention.
    Evangelist Franklin Graham has been a vocal supporter of President Trump.
    Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

    Reverend Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton have each run for the Democratic nomination for president, while Rev. William Barber has garnered attention in recent years for leading “Moral Mondays” protests to advocate for civil rights and progressive causes in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    Legal and papal pushback

    In the past, there have been legal and doctrinal restrictions on clergy members serving in government.

    Up until the 1970s, several states had constitutional restrictions against clergy members serving in the state legislatures, which often serve as a stepping stone for candidates to run for national office.

    But in an 8-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that such state restrictions violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The decision allowed Rev. Paul McDaniel, a Baptist minister, to run to be a delegate to a Tennessee state constitutional convention.

    Church policy can also discourage clergy running for office. Two Catholic priests who had served in the House of Representatives ended their candidacies in 1980 when Pope John Paul II declared that he would begin strictly enforcing a canon law that priests should not serve in public office.

    One of them was Father Robert Drinan, who had served five terms as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts. Drinan was known nationally as a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and he had introduced the first impeachment resolution against President Richard Nixon. Drinan’s support of abortion rights was especially controversial among Catholic church leaders.

    Rep. Robert Drinan, wearing his clerical collar, poses in front of the U.S. Capitol.
    After Pope John Paul II demanded all priests withdraw from electoral politics, Rep. Robert Drinan decided not to seek reelection.
    Bettmann via Getty Images

    Separation of church and state a core value

    Another reason for low numbers of clergy in national elected office may be tied to the country’s longstanding tradition of separating religion from government. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution indicated “a wall of separation between Church & State.”

    Religion and government are more closely intertwined in many other Western countries. For example, in the United Kingdom, 26 bishops who are leaders in the Church of England are members of the House of Lords.

    While most Americans remain religious, the fundamental belief that religion and politics should operate in separate spheres remains strong in the United States. A 2019 Pew Research Forum survey found that 63% of Americans thought that houses of worship should stay out of politics, while 76% of Americans agreed that houses of worship should not openly support political candidates.

    Finally, clergy may be at a financial disadvantage when seeking a national political office. The majority of current members of Congress are millionaires.

    With the possible exception of some megachurch leaders, most members of the clergy do not enter their profession for financial reasons, and you won’t see many with the means to self-finance their campaigns.

    Yet if Rev. Warnock were to win his election in January, it may signal a new trend. The U.S. House of Representatives currently has more ordained ministers than at any other time since occupational statistics began to be compiled in Congress in the 1950s. And if Rev. Warnock becomes a senator, it would be the first time in at least 55 years that the U.S. Senate has had two ordained ministers serving at the same time.

    In the midst of a recession, a global pandemic, political polarization and climate change, perhaps more voters are looking for spiritual and moral leadership in Washington, D.C.The Conversation

    Robert Speel, Associate Professor of Political Science, Erie Campus, Penn State

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Ghana Election Poll: Akufo-Addo loses votes to Mahama

    Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo slipped 13 points to garner 20% in the third wave of the Ghana Election Poll which run from August 1 to September 31, 2020.

    In the second wave, he dropped 2 points and his opponent John Dramani Mahama gained 14 points.

    Mahama, on the other hand, garnered 76% in the third wave of the poll on the question: If the elections were held today, who would you be voting for? Apart from the two major political parties, the interest in other candidates in the minority parties still remains very low.

    Based on Party Affiliation, Ghanaians would vote across party lines. However, a lot more Ghanaians who consider themselves not affiliated to any political party or floating voters, would vote for John Dramani Mahama. Again, John Mahama enjoys massive support across the 5 top regions in the poll if elections were held today.

    Based on respondent gender, John Mahama would gain the vote of males and females by 74% and 78% respectively if elections were held today. As compared to Nana Akufo-Addo, John Mahama has a broad appeal amongst all age groups.

    The scientific poll which was conducted online via the renowned market research firm MSI-ACI had 2,246 responses from Ghanaians, a little more than the 2,055 responses recorded in the Second Wave.

    Over 90 percent of the respondents were living in Ghana and the rest were living in countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Central African Republic and Algeria. At least half of respondents in the survey claimed to not belong to any political party, while those who are NDC/Lean NDC and those who are NPP/Lean NPP were 25% and 21%, respectively.

    Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error (with finite population correction) of plus or minus 2.068%. A representative sample of the Ghanaian population of 28,956,587 – population projection as stated on page 6 of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 7) – was achieved by weighting (matching) the data according to age and gender demographics of the 2010 population and housing census and the GLSS 7.

    The Ghana Election Poll is powered by GhanaWeb and the Africa Consumer Panel which is a cooperation between the digital publisher Africa Business Communities and renowned market research firm MSI-ACI.

    The online poll is conducted every month and the results are published at the beginning of every other month on GhanaWeb.com.

    It is devoid of spam as the respondents can take the survey only once. The MSI-ACI platform that hosts the survey records the device on which the respondent takes the poll and does not allow for a second attempt from the same device.

    The Ghana Election Poll is different from the open-access poll which is running on GhanaWeb. The latter allows participants to self-select into participation and its results cannot be generalized because it is a representative of only the participants of the poll.

    The Ghana Election Poll is hosted on the website of the renowned market research firm MSI-ACI and one can take part in the survey by clicking the link here.

    Ghana Election Poll banner can also be found on GhanaWeb at ghanaweb.com/poll/

    www.ghanaweb.com

     

  • finally admits Joe Biden has won…

    Donald Trump acknowledged that Joe Biden won the US presidential election for the time on Sunday, but claimed attempts to “steal votes” meant the contest was rigged.

    The president stopped short of conceding defeat and his legal team are still focused on challenging the electoral process in the courts despite no evidence having been provided that there was widespread fraud.

    His comments come after several thousand Trump supporters gathered in Washington DC to protest against the election results on Saturday, with clashes erupting and at least 20 arrests made.

    Source

  • Multiple Republican senators think President-elect Biden should be receiving security briefings

    Header media
    High-ranking GOP senators told reporters on Thursday that they think Joe Biden should be receiving security briefings following his projected win in the presidential election. The Trump administration is currently withholding the classified briefings from Biden. The list of senators who support Biden receiving security briefings includes Chuck Grassley, John Thune, Lindsey Graham, James Lankford and John Cornyn.
  • Before Kamala Harris, many Black women aimed for the White House

    Harris isn’t actually the first Black woman to run for vice president of the United States.
    Photo Illustration by Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

    Sharon Austin, University of Florida

    The vice president-elect of the United States is the American daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

    With Joe Biden’s projected presidential win over Donald Trump, Sen. Kamala Harris breaks three centuries-old barriers to become the nation’s first female vice president, first Black vice president and first Black female vice president. Harris is also of Indian descent, making the 2020 election a meaningful first for two communities of color.

    Harris wasn’t the first Black female vice presidential aspirant in American history. Charlotta Bass, an African American journalist and political activist from California, ran for vice president in 1948 with the Progressive Party.

    Before she was Biden’s running mate, Harris was his opponent in the Democratic presidential primary. She is one of many Black American women to have aimed for the highest office in the land despite great odds.

    Two Black women wearing Biden/Harris shirts watch Harris, in white, speak on TV
    Watching Kamala Harris’s first speech as the 49th U.S Vice President-elect, Nov. 7, 2020 in Miami, Florida.
    Johnny Louis/Getty Images

    Hands that once picked cotton

    African Americans have faced many hurdles to achieving political power in the United States, among them slavery, Jim Crow and disenfranchisement.

    Black women, in particular, have hit barrier upon barrier. Women didn’t gain the right to vote in the U.S. until 1920, and even then Black people – women among them – still couldn’t vote in most of the South. In the 1960s, Black women helped organize the civil rights movement but were kept out of leadership positions.

    I address issues like these in the government and minority politics classes I teach as a political science professor. But I also tell my students that Black women have a history of political ambition and achievement. As the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. said in 1984 about the progress Black voters made last century, “Hands that once picked cotton will now pick a president.”

    Biden, himself a former vice president, understands the significance of the role.
    Mark Makela/Getty Images

    Today, Black female mayors lead several of the biggest U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. Black women are police chiefs, gubernatorial candidates, and, in growing numbers, congresswomen.

    Now, Black women, who once had no chance of even voting for president – much less being president – see one of their own a step away from the Oval Office.

    ‘Unsuitable’ for the job?

    Kamala Harris is a Democrat who served as California’s attorney general and later one of its senators. But, historically, most Black female presidential candidates have run as independents.

    In 1968, 38-year-old Charlene Mitchell of Ohio became the first Black woman to run for president, as a communist. Like many other African Americans born in the 1930s, Mitchell joined the Communist Party because of its emphasis on racial and gender equality. Black female communists fought Jim Crow, lynchings and unfair labor practices for men and women of all races.

    A portrait of Charlene Mitchell
    Charlene Mitchell, America’s first Black female presidential candidate.
    Wikimedia Commons

    Mitchell’s presidential campaign, which focused on civil rights and poverty, was probably doomed from the start. In 1968, many states didn’t allow communists on the ballot. Media outlets from the Boston Globe to the Chicago Tribune also discussed Mitchell’s “unsuitability” as a candidate because she was both Black and female. Mitchell received just 1,075 votes.

    Other independent Black female presidential candidates include community organizer Margaret Wright, who ran on the People’s Party ticket in 1976 and Isabell Masters, a teacher who created her own third party, called Looking Back and ran in 1984, 1992 and 2004.

    In 1988, psychologist Lenora Fulani became the first woman and the first African American to appear on the ballot in all 50 states. Running as an independent, she received more votes for president in a U.S. election than any other female candidate before her. Teacher Monica Moorehead of the Workers World ticket, ran for president in 1996, 2000 and 2016.

    In 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected president, Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. representative from Georgia, was a nominee of the Green Party. And in 2012, Peta Lindsay ran to unseat President Obama from the left, on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket.

    Only one Black woman has ever pursued the Republican nomination: Angel Joy Charvis, a religious conservative from Florida, who wanted to use her 1999 candidacy to “to recruit a new breed of Republican.”

    Unbought and unbossed

    Those Black female presidential candidates were little known. But as the first Black female member of Congress, Shirley Chisholm had years of experience in public office and a national reputation when she became the first Black American and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. Chisholm’s campaign slogan was “Unbought and Unbossed.”

    Shirley Chisholm announces her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
    Don Hogan Charles/New York Times Co. via Getty Images

    Chisholm, who mostly paid for her campaign on her credit card, focused on civil rights and poverty.

    She became the target of vehement sexism. One New York Times article from June 1972 described her appearance as, “[Not] beautiful. Her face is bony and angular, her nose wide and flat, her eyes small almost to beadiness, her neck and limbs scrawny. Her protruding teeth probably account in part for her noticeable lisp.”

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    Chisholm received little support from either Black or female voters and won not a single primary.

    The Black women who followed in Chisholm’s footsteps from Congress to the Democratic presidential primary, including Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Harris herself, have seen little more success. Harris was among the first 2020 Democratic primary candidates to drop out, in December 2019.

    Challenges for Black women

    Why did these candidacies and those of other Black women who aimed for high office fail?

    In most cases, my research finds, America’s Black female presidential candidates haven’t made the ballot. Those who did had trouble raising funds.

    Colorful mural of Chisholm with butterflies and flowers
    A mural by artist Danielle Mastrion in Shirley Chisholm State Park, which opened in 2019 in Brooklyn, New York.
    Catesby Holmes, CC BY

    Because their candidacies weren’t taken seriously by the media, they had trouble getting their messages heard. Historically Black female presidential candidates have received no real support from any segment of American voters, including African Americans and women. Generally, people – even those who might have been heartened by the idea that someone who looked like them could aspire to the White House – thought they couldn’t win.

    As a two-term vice president who had a major role in governing under President Obama, Joe Biden knows what the office entails. In Harris, he selected a woman who not only helped him win the election but is also ready to govern.

    November 2020 is a watershed year for African Americans, Asian Americans and women who’ve so long been excluded from so many aspects of politics.

    This story is an updated and expanded version of an article originally published on Aug. 11, 2020. A misspelling of Dr. Lenora Fulani’s name in an early tweeted version of this story has now been corrected.The Conversation

    Sharon Austin, Professor of Political Science, University of Florida

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Georgia’s political shift – a tale of urban and suburban change

    Incumbent Republican US Sen. David Perdue wanted to avoid a runoff.
    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    Jan Nijman, Georgia State University

    Over the past 36 years, the state of Georgia has voted for Republican presidential candidates in every cycle except 1992, when voters backed Bill Clinton. In the past 20 years, it voted consistently for Republican governors and for Republicans in the U.S. Senate.

    But if the results, as currently reported, stand, Georgia will have helped elect Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. Control of the U.S. Senate, too, may be decided in Georgia, as the voters forced two Senate races into runoff elections to be held on Jan. 5.

    Biden’s Georgia lead is only razor-thin and did not materialize until the morning of Nov. 6, as the final votes were tallied. A recount is set to take place.

    U.S. Senate races in Georgia that do not deliver an absolute majority of the vote go into a runoff phase that pits the two leading contenders against one another.

    Incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue faced challenges from Democrat Jon Ossoff and Libertarian Shane Hazel. Perdue’s share of the vote dipped below 50% on Nov. 5 and did not recover. In the runoff, he’ll face Ossoff.

    In the other Senate race in the state – a special election for Republican Johnny Isakson’s seat – 20 candidates competed. Incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp, and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock will advance to the runoff.

    In some ways, these two candidates couldn’t be more opposite. Loeffler is a white, wealthy, suburban woman who campaigned on her close ties to Trump; Warnock is the progressive, grassroots-oriented, African American pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

    Regardless of the final outcomes of Georgia’s two Senate races, the results from the 2020 elections reflect just how much the state’s political landscape has changed in recent years.

    An outlier in the South

    The key drivers of Georgia’s changing electorate are ongoing demographic shifts, combined with urban and suburban growth.

    Since 2000, the population of the Atlanta metropolitan region has grown tremendously, making it one of the three fastest-growing metro areas in the nation. It now contains about two-thirds of Georgia’s entire population. The rest of the state’s growth has been concentrated in other smaller metro areas, such as Savannah and Macon. At the same time, large swaths of rural Georgia have witnessed population decline.

    Raphael Warnock points as he speaks during an Election Night event.
    Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock will advance to a Jan. 5 runoff in Georgia.
    Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

    The bulk of that growth has been in the suburbs, which have become increasingly diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and class. In the suburbs that do remain majority white and middle class, women are now more likely to be college-educated working professionals. These trends generally favor the Democratic vote, and it’s why the suburbs – in Georgia and across the nation – have become important electoral battlegrounds.

    It is not just that many urban, historically Democratic, counties turned out the vote in 2020; it is that many outer suburbs became much less red. Take, for example, Fayette County, one of Atlanta’s large southern suburbs, which has about 68,000 votes: Trump won Fayette with a 19-point margin in 2016 but that margin shrunk to 6 points in 2020.

    No other state in the South has such large urban and suburban populations relative to the overall state population. If Georgia is demographically and politically becoming unlike neighboring Republican strongholds like Alabama and Tennessee, it has, in some respects, moved in a similar direction as Arizona, where the two major metropolitan regions of Phoenix and Tucson make up over 80% of the state’s population, and where Democrats have improved their standing in recent years.

    [The Conversation’s most important election and politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter.]

    Georgia on everybody’s mind

    This is not to overstate Georgia’s blue turn. It is only the slightest shade of blue, based on the slimmest of margins. The state may have helped the Democrats back into the White House, but could just as well end up sending two Republicans back to the Senate, with the promise of federal government gridlock.

    Over the next two months, all eyes will be on these two runoffs. If Democrats can pull off two victories, they’ll assume control of the Senate.

    In a 2017 special election, Ossoff ran for a House seat in Atlanta’s suburbs. It became seen as a referendum on Trump’s nascent presidency, and over US$50 million was spent, making it, at the time, the most expensive House race in U.S. history.

    With not one but two races – and control of the Senate in the balance – money will likely pour into Georgia at an unprecedented clip over the next couple of months.

    Perdue and Loeffler will find themselves as favorites – even if their close association with Trump may now be cause for some strategic repositioning. Perdue secured the most votes in the first round, and while Warnock had the largest share of the votes in the special election – 33% – the Republican candidates nonetheless outperformed the Democratic candidates in the 20-candidate field by a slim margin. Furthermore, Trump’s defeat will likely motivate Republicans to go all out to preserve their Senate majority. To both Democrats and Republicans, it could feel like Georgia gives with one hand and takes with the other.

    That would be a fitting finale from one of the most divided states in a deeply divided nation, but the outcome is far from certain. With Democrats energized, Georgia might just flip the U.S. Senate as well.The Conversation

    Jan Nijman, Distinguished University Professor, Urban Studies Institute and Geosciences Department, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • Tanzanian poll is likely to usher in a new era of authoritarianism. Here’s why

    President John Magufuli has closed down all the reliable means to evaluate allegations of foul play.
    Getty Images

    Dan Paget, University of Aberdeen

    Tanzanians voted in their general election on October 28 in a poll that pitted popular opposition chief Tundu Lissu against incumbent John Magufuli. As the results were announced, Dan Paget explains why incumbent John Magufuli was declared the winner, and what his second term will mean for democracy in the East African nation.

    How do you rate the independence or fairness of the Tanzania election commission now and in the past?

    I no longer have faith in Tanzania’s National Electoral Commission or the validity of the election results. The validity of elections should be something that is determined by independent bodies and rigorous procedures. However, I am afraid that guesswork and judgement are the only means at our disposal to assess the validity of these elections, because other avenues to verify it have been blocked in advance.

    It is never easy to know when to give credence to allegations of election manipulation. Such accusations can always be made in bad faith. If the election commission were independent, and governed by a cross-party board, one might trust them to arbitrate these allegations. Instead the constitution gives the president the authority to appoint the heads of the commission. The opposition has been calling for the commission to be reformed for years.

    In the absence of an independent electoral commission, and independent courts, normally one would turn to independent observer missions. They routinely deploy large teams which observe the conduct of the election and assess irregularities, but these missions have been kept away. So have many of the most respected domestic election observers, such as the Legal and Human Rights Centre. The conclusions of the few observation missions present will be important. So will be the judgements of Tanzania Election Watch, which is assaying the conduct of the election remotely. I recommend their preliminary report.

    Altogether, the reliable means to evaluate allegations of foul play have been all but closed down. Given all that, it is hard to know what to do except to give prima facie credence to the widespread allegations of election fraud made by the opposition and many analysts.

    Their claims acquire weight from the stream of videos and photographs shared via social media. These largely unverified reports appear to show the manipulation of the electoral register, ghost polling stations, pre-filled ballots, pre-printed ballots, ballot-stuffing, polling agents disqualified or barred access to polling stations, and a variety of other irregularities.

    What puts it over the top is the scale and character of the victory for the ruling party – Chama cha Mapinduzi. In its final results, the election commission said the president took 84% of the vote, while Lissu received 13%. In addition, the ruling party’s victories have been declared in places you would least expect them to win, and at a scale which is hard to believe.

    The popularity of the opposition and the ruling party alike is difficult to discern, especially given the absence of opinion polls. This makes the size of rallies one of the few indicators of party popularity left available to us. The rally is a treacherous indicator of party popularity. Nonetheless, as I have argued elsewhere, we can draw a tentative, negative conclusion: opposition support has not collapsed. It is not negligible. If it had, we would not have seen large opposition rallies so consistently. This inference is consistent with the opposition’s wide organisational base.

    Nonetheless, so far, officials have declared the defeat of the opposition’s most admired leaders in their greatest strongholds. Household names like Zitto Kabwe, Freeman Mbowe, Joseph Mbilinyi, Halima Mdee, John Heche and Esther Bulaya have all lost their seats. These defeats, moreover, are by astounding margins. Altogether, it is hard to see why the National Electoral Commission and the wider infrastructure which oversees elections in Tanzania should be given the benefit of the doubt.

    The police made regular arrests of opposition candidates and broke up heir rallies. To what extent were the police – and by extension the government – a factor in the eventual outcomes?

    The police have certainly been a forceful presence in this campaign. The video evidence of them firing teargas, breaking up meetings, arresting opposition candidates and committing acts of brutality are available on social media for all to see.

    On the instructions of state officials, first the leading opposition candidate for the presidency of Tanzania, Tundu Lissu, and then the leading opposition candidate for the presidency of Zanzibar, Seif Hamad, were temporarily barred from campaigning.

    It must all have had an effect on the election outcome.

    Alongside the police has been the army. They have been deployed to oversee the election in parts of the country, and there are multiple albeit mostly unverified reports of brutality and murder at their hands.

    But their actions need to be interpreted in the wider authoritarian context. Tanzania has always been an authoritarian state. The old authoritarian architecture was never removed after the reintroduction of multiparty elections in 1992. But there has been a sea-change since 2015 when Magufuli came to power. Things that were permitted in 2014 are not permitted today. The media are censored. Political parties are oppressed. Politicians and civic activists are harassed, in court and out of it. Rallies were banned for four years. There has been a spate of violence by anonymous actors, which context suggested but did not confirm were connected to the state. That context is key. The trajectory of party politics in Tanzania has been shaped by it. It is crucial to everything.

    Based on what you know so far, was the 2020 election a step forward or backward in Tanzania’s path to fully free and fair elections?

    So far, it seems that this election will usher in a new era of authoritarianism. Any resemblance that Tanzania has borne to a liberal democracy seems to be slipping away. Not only is the apparent scale of election manipulation unprecedented. The authoritarian landslide will be presented by the regime as a vindication of its extreme authoritarian project over the last five years.

    My speculative opinion is that President Magufuli and his ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi will use their super-majority to enact their authoritarian developmental vision. They will institute a deeper and further-reaching authoritarian agenda. This might include lifting presidential term limits, but it is also likely to include the institution of further measures that consolidate the party’s authoritarian transformation of Tanzania.The Conversation

    Dan Paget, Lecturer in Politics, University of Aberdeen

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • NYT/Siena: Trump 47, Biden 43 in Texas

     

    President Trump maintains a narrow lead in Texas, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll on Monday, as he faces a rebellion in the state’s once overwhelmingly Republican suburbs but survives with support from an unlikely ally, Hispanic voters.

    Over all, Mr. Trump leads Joe Biden, 47 percent to 43 percent, among likely voters. The majority of interviews were conducted before the final presidential debate on Thursday. In the Senate race, the Republican incumbent, John Cornyn, holds a larger lead, 48-38, over the Democrat, M.J. Hegar.

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