Month: April 2019

Spain heads to the polls Sunday for its most divisive and open-ended election in decades, set to result in a fragmented parliament in which the far-right will get a sizeable presence for the first time since the country’s return to democracy.

After a tense campaign dominated by emotive issues, notably national identity and gender equality, the likelihood that any coalition deal will take weeks or months to be brokered will feed into a broader mood of political uncertainty across Europe.

At least five parties from across the political spectrum have a chance of being in government and they could struggle to agree on a deal between them, meaning a repeat election is one of several possible outcomes.

A few things are clear, however, based on opinion polls and conversations with party insiders. No single party will get a majority; the Socialist party of outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is leading the race; and there will be lawmakers from the far-right Vox party.

Beyond that, the result is too close to call.

​Third election in four years

Voting starts at 9 am (0700 GMT) and ends at 8 pm in mainland Spain for what will be the country’s third national election in four years, each of which has brought a further dislocation of the political landscape.

It is uncertain if Sanchez will manage to stay in office and how many allies he would need to gather together in order to do so.

If, in addition to far-left anti-austerity party Podemos and other small parties, Sanchez also needs the support of Catalan separatist lawmakers, talks will be long and their outcome unclear.

Opinion polls, which ended Monday, have suggested it will be harder for a right wing split between three parties — the center-right Ciudadanos, conservative People’s Party and Vox — to clinch a majority, but this scenario is within polls’ margin of error and cannot be ruled out.

​Known unknowns

With the trauma of military dictatorship under Francisco Franco, who died in 1975, still fresh in the memory for its older generation, Spain had long been seen as resistant to the wave of nationalist, populist parties spreading across much of Europe.

But this time Vox will get seats, boosted by voter discontent with traditional parties, its focus on widespread anger at Catalonia’s independence drive, and non-mainstream views that include opposing a law on gender violence it says discriminates against men.

One of several unknowns is how big an entry Vox will make in parliament’s lower house, with opinion polls having given a wide range of forecasts and struggled to pin down the party’s voter base.

The high number of undecided voters, in some surveys as many as 4 in 10, has also complicated the task of predicting the outcome, as have the intricacies of a complex electoral system under which 52 constituencies elect 350 lawmakers.

Voters in the depopulating rural heartlands, many of whom are old and may well feel little direct connection to the country’s young, male, urban political elite, are of particular importance.

They proportionally elect more lawmakers than the inhabitants of big cities, but at the same time the cut-off point for parliamentary representation there is trickier to reach, making the outcome harder to predict the more parties there are.

An opinion poll will be published at 8 p.m., and results will trickle in through the evening with almost all votes counted by midnight. In the past two elections, the 8 p.m. polls failed to give an accurate picture of the eventual outcome.
…

Support for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom has risen to its highest point in the past four years, largely driven by voters who want to remain in the European Union, according to a poll published Saturday.

As the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) meets for its two-day spring conference, the YouGov poll showed support for secession had risen to 49 percent from 45 percent in the last YouGov poll carried out for The Times in June 2018. 

The SNP is preparing a new independence push after it was defeated in a 2014 referendum by concerns about the economy. 

The party’s proposal for an independent Scotland to continue using the pound in a currency union with Britain was perceived as a particular weakness. 

On Saturday, the SNP leadership proposed that if the country voted for independence, it should use Britain’s pound until a Scottish currency meeting six economic tests could be introduced. Delegates rejected that in favor of a more pressing time frame and formulation urging preparations to introduce a new currency “as soon as practicable after Independence Day,” preserving the six economic tests. 

Scots rejected independence, 55 percent to 45 percent, in a 2014 referendum. Then the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum, but among its four nations, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, feeding political tension. 

Britain is mired in political chaos and it is still unclear when or even whether it will leave the EU. 

YouGov also found that 53 percent of Scots thought there should not be another referendum on independence within the next five years. Scotland’s first minister, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, is pushing for one before 2021, when the current Scottish parliamentary term ends. 

YouGov polled 1,029 adults in Scotland following a new guideline on independence set out by Sturgeon on Wednesday. 

The poll also showed voters moving away from both the Conservatives and the Labour Party north of the English border. 

The Scottish Conservatives, part of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party, are set to lose their only representative in the European Parliament in next month’s election as 40 percent of those who backed them two years ago switched to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. 

“These patterns represent a clear warning to the Unionist camp that the pursuit of Brexit might yet produce a majority for independence,” professor John Curtice, Britain’s leading polling expert, wrote in a column for The Times.
…

French police fired tear gas to push back protesters who tried to march toward the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on Saturday, the 24th consecutive weekend of protests against President Emmanuel 

Macron’s policies. 

The “yellow vest” protesters were back on the streets across France two days after the president outlined policy proposals including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros ($5.58 billion) in response to the protests. 

Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered near European Union institutions in Strasbourg, with organizers hoping to make the protest international by marching to the parliament building a month ahead of EU-wide parliamentary elections. 

Previous yellow vest protests in the eastern city have mostly been peaceful. But concerned about the violence and destruction of public buildings that have marked some yellow vest demonstrations in other parts of the country, authorities had banned protests and barricaded the neighborhood where the parliament and other EU institutions are located. 

Police fired several canisters of tear gas to push back the demonstrators, a Reuters witness said. French television showed some hooded protesters throwing stones and other objects back at the police. 

Turnout falls

The Interior Ministry said around 23,600 protesters took part in marches across the country, including 2,600 in Paris, compared with around 28,000 a week earlier. That was the second-lowest turnout since the protests started in November. 

The protests, named after motorists’ high-visibility yellow jackets, began over fuel tax increases but morphed into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch. 

Many in the grass-roots movement, which lacks a leadership structure, have said Macron’s proposals this week did not go far enough and lacked details. 

Saturday’s protests in Paris, which has seen some of the worst violence in past demonstrations, was jointly organized with the leftist trade union confederation CGT and was mostly calm. Protesters also gathered in Lyon and Bordeaux. 

Protester numbers have dwindled from highs of over 300,000 nationwide at the peak in November to below 30,000 in recent weeks, according to government estimates. 
…

The death toll from a coal mine blast in a separatist eastern region of Ukraine rose to 17 on Saturday, rebel authorities said.

The gas blast on Thursday ripped through the mine in Yurievka village in the self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 and is run by Moscow-backed rebels.

“The tragedy took the life of 17 miners,” Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the unrecognized Luhansk republic, said on Twitter.

He added that the bodies of all the miners that died have been recovered.

Earlier the death toll accounted to 13, with another four people missing.

Pasechnik called the explosion at the Skhidkarbon mine a “terrible tragedy” and declared April 29 a day of mourning.

Russia’s emergency situations ministry sent mine rescuers to the separatist territory after it requested help, it said in a statement.

The Luhansk news agency said the mine was closed in 2014 due to the conflict between Kyiv’s forces and the Russia-backed separatists, but was reopened in 2018.  

Most of Ukraine’s coal is produced in its eastern region, where the ongoing fighting has cost some 13,000 lives.

Kyiv has tried to boost the operations of other pits under its control in the west of the country.

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his administration is considering a plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those in war-torn parts of eastern Ukraine.

Putin made the remark on April 27 at an infrastructure development summit in Beijing.

On April 24, Putin announced a presidential decree that eases the process of granting Russian citizenship to anyone living in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are under the control of Russia-backed separatists.

That decree drew a swift and angry response from Kyiv, the United States, Britain, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the international organization tasked with monitoring compliance with the 2015 Minsk agreements on eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Putin’s decree “is actually about the Kremlin’s preparations for the next step of aggression against our state – the annexation of the Ukrainian Donbas or the creation of a Russian enclave in Ukraine.”

The OSCE said in a statement on April 25 that its chairmanship “believes that this unilateral measure could undermine the efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in and around Ukraine.”

It said it was reiterating its “call for a sustainable, full and permanent cease-fire and its firm support for the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which plays an essential role in reducing tensions on the ground, and in fostering peace, stability and security.”

In a joint statement on April 25, France and Germany – the European guarantors of the Minsk agreements – said Putin’s decree “goes against the spirit and aims” of the Minsk process, which aims to establish a stable cease-fire in the conflict in parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and then proceed to a political settlement.

“This is the opposite of the urgently necessary contribution toward deescalation,” the statement said.

European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the decree was “another attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty by Russia.”

“We expect Russia to refrain from actions that are against the Minsk agreements and impede the full reintegration of the nongovernment-controlled areas into Ukraine,” she said.

Ukraine’s foreign minister called Putin’s decree a form of “aggression and interference” in Kyiv’s affairs, while a Western diplomat told RFE/RL it was a “highly provocative step” that would undermine the situation in the war-ravaged region known as the Donbas.

The U.S. State Department also criticized Russia’s move, saying Moscow “through this highly provocative action, is intensifying its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Critics point to other frozen conflicts in former Soviet republics where Russia has granted citizenship to residents of separatist-held territory in order to choreograph demographic changes over time and justify future military operations.

In 2002, the Kremlin began granting Russian citizenship to residents of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia – a policy that helped raise the number of Russian passport holders there from about 20 percent to more than 85 percent of the population.

Then, when Russia went to war against Georgia in August 2008, the Kremlin justified its deployment of Russian military forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by saying those forces were needed to protect Russia citizens in the separatist regions.

Russian media reports say Russia also has issued its passports to nearly half of the residents of Moldova’s Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transdniester.

That policy has raised concerns in Chisinau that the Kremlin may use a similar argument of defending its citizens in order to justify future Russian military operations in Transdniester.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian, Georgian, and Moldovan Services, Reuters, and AP

 
…

Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside Cyprus’ presidential palace Friday to mourn seven women and girls who police say a military officer confessed to killing and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing.

The protest’s organizer used a bullhorn to read out the victims’ names as well as those of other missing women, and others at the memorial shouted “Where are they?” in response. Some participants held placards decrying “sexist, misogynist and racist” attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs.

​‘What everybody wants is justice’

In a poignant moment, a group of tearful Filipino women held lighted candles and bowed their heads in prayer for the three women and one child of Filipino descent who are believed to be among the victims. A 35-year-old Cypriot National Guard captain is in custody facing multiple homicide charges.

“I felt obliged to do something for these women, all the missing women, all the killed women,” protest organizer Maria Mappouridou said. “I think deep down, all that we want, what everybody wants, is justice.”

Federation of Filipino Organizations in Cyprus chair Ester Beatty said she hoped the event, and the tragedy of the deaths, raise public awareness about migrant workers.

“Right now, it’s really difficult for us to accept what has happened, what is going on. Beatty said. “We still need a lot of answers.”

Cases go back years

Beatty’s group held a silent prayer vigil last Sunday, a week after the discovery of a Filipino woman’s body in an abandoned mineshaft triggered the investigation that led to the captain’s arrest. Police identified her as Mary Rose Tiburcio, 38.

Tiburcio and her 6-year-old daughter had been missing since May of last year. Investigators zeroed in on the captain as a suspect and arrested him after scouring Tiburcio’s online messages.

While investigating her death and searching for Tiburcio’s daughter, police found another body in the flooded mineshaft 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of the capital, Nicosia. Cypriot media have identified the victim as 28-year-old Arian Palanas Lozano, also from the Philippines.

Investigators now think the missing 6-year-old was killed, too. On Thursday, the suspect told them while under questioning about four more victims and gave directions to a military firing range.

The body of a woman, who according to the suspect was of Nepalese or Indian descent, was found buried there.

From the suspect’s statements and information from the investigation, Cypriot police think the other three victims they know about so far are a 31-year-old Filipino woman who has been missing since December 2017, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, and a Romanian mother and daughter.

Cypriot media identified the mother as Livia Florentina Bunea, 36, and her 8-year-old daughter as Elena Natalia Bunea. The two are believed to have been missing since September 2016.

Cyprus horrified

Police said the suspect will appear in court Saturday for another custody hearing. He can’t be named because he hasn’t been charged with any crimes yet.

The scale of the ones he allegedly committed has horrified people in Cyprus, a small nation with a population of just more than a million people where multiple slayings are rare.

President Nicos Anastasiades said Friday that he shared the public’s revulsion at “murders that appear to have selectively targeted foreign women who are in our country to work.”

“Such instincts are contrary to our culture’s traditions and values,” Anastasiades said in a statement from China, where he was on an official visit.

As the president spoke, investigators intensified the search for bodies of victims at the firing range, a reservoir and a man-made lake near the abandoned copper pyrite mine.

Five British law enforcement officials, including a coroner, a psychiatrist and investigators who specialize in multiple homicides, were coming to Cyprus to help with the investigation.
…

Voters in Spain will go to the polls Sunday in national elections in which no one party is expected to win a majority in parliament.

The race pits the incumbent Socialist Party against four others, including the new far-right Vox Party that is aligned with other far-right movements that have emerged across Europe. 

Leaders on both the left and the center-right have urged voters to keep the far right at bay. 

On Friday, incumbent Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, said he was open to the possibility of a coalition with the left-wing United We Can Party, raising the possibility of a center-left governing deal. 

On the political right, the conservative Popular Party has splintered into three main groups, with Vox making inroads with the electorate. The third right-leaning group, Citizens, said it would join a governing coalition only with the Popular Party. 

The Popular Party has alternated in office with the Socialist Party since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s. 

Lengthy bargaining

With no one party expected to win a majority Sunday, speculation has centered on which of Spain’s top five parties will join together after the vote to create a governing coalition. A close election could result in weeks of political bargaining that could include smaller parties favoring Catalan independence, a hugely polarizing topic in Spain. 

Analysts warn of the possibility of a deadlocked parliament and a second election. 

The latest surveys, published Monday, showed that a third of Spain’s nearly 37 million voters still had not decided whom they would vote for. Under Spanish law, no further surveys were allowed before the election. 

The final El Pais survey predicted the Socialists would win about 30% of the vote, making them the front-runners to win the most seats in parliament. 
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party is continuing to suffer from the financial and political fallout of this month’s loss of influence in Istanbul during local elections. A once-close ally and former prime minister has launched a scathing attack on the ruling AKP amid growing currency woes.

“Our country cannot be left to the concerns for the future of a narrow and self-seeking group who are slaves to their ambitions,” wrote former AKP Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an unprecedented assault on his party, following the surprise defeat in Istanbul that ended years of influence. 

“It is extremely significant,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, an emerging markets analysis service. “This is the first organized and concrete challenge to Erdogan’s rule since he came to power.”

Davutoglu’s attack found no voices of support among leading AKP members. “One thing we’ve learned about the grandees of the AKP is they are not encouraging profiles in courage,” said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University. “They may have dirt on their hands, or maybe they are afraid to speak out.”

However, analysts suggest Davutoglu would not have dared to vent such criticism unless he had support publicly. The former prime minister focused much of his criticism on the management of the economy.

“The main reason for the economic crisis is an administration crisis. Trust in the administration vanishes if economic policy decisions are far from reality,” Davutoglu said.

The economy is in recession following last year’s collapse of the lira, triggered by a combination of diplomatic tensions with Washington and concerns about Erdogan’s interference with the central bank.

“Scaring global investors necessary to the development of the country is a dead end,” added Davutoglu.

“Whether Davutoglu forms a party or not is not the key issue. What is important is that this is a call to Mr. Erdogan to heed the segments and factions in AKP he ignores,” said analyst Yesilada. “The small and medium pro-AKP businesses, they are the ones who feel the [economic] pain most acutely,”

Under Erdogan’s 15-year rule, first as prime minister, then president, conservative religious businesses have prospered. Erdogan’s rise to power as an Islamist politician was in part built on his embrace of pro-capitalist business policies.

“In almost 60 years, those [Islamist] political parties have mostly been parochial and closed to international market-oriented economic policies,” said professor Istar Gozaydin, an expert on religion and the state in Turkey. “Erdogan’s AKP distanced itself from that approach from the start, although they have actually been coming from similar backgrounds.”

However, Erdogan’s pro-business credentials, which so successfully attracted international investors in his early years in power, are fading.

Many international investors blame Erdogan’s advocacy of unconventional economic policies for the country’s financial woes, coupled with domestic claims of cronyism, which increasingly dogs the Turkish economy.

The disputed result of Istanbul’s mayoral election is threatening to bring economic and political concerns about the AKP to a head.

Erdogan’s decision to support a petition to Turkey’s supreme election board to annul the Istanbul result and hold a revote has divided the party, with rival factions battling it out on social media.

Advocates of a repeat vote are widely linked to Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, the country’s chief economic minister.

“Allegedly those wanting an Istanbul revote represent construction and media interests,” said Yesilada, “and Berat Albayrak is accused of defending the interests and privileges of this elite.”

Albayrak is already facing growing criticism within the country’s business community for aloofness and lack of accessibility. Some prominent AKP members accused those Istanbul party members calling for a revote of being motivated by greed.

“The AKP has generated enormous urban rents [in Istanbul],” said Ozel, “which they use both to help the dependent and poorer sections of society, but also to enrich contractors who in turn supported the party. So that wheel of fortune will be broken.”

However, seeking to overturn the Istanbul vote is reportedly widely seen as both politically and financially risky within AKP ranks.

The Turkish currency, already facing growing pressure, suffered heavy declines this week amid rumors of diminishing foreign exchange reserves and international and domestic confidence in the economy.

Analysts say there is growing fear that an Istanbul repeat election could be a trigger for further currency turmoil.

“I am certain they [international markets] will react very negatively again,” said Yesilada, “because the sanctity of the ballot is pretty much the only thing left over from this once-glorious Turkish democracy. Once you take that away, there is nothing left, and many people have qualms in investing in autocratic countries. Two, prolonging the election uncertainty would likely only deepen the recession as people won’t invest or buy. Everyone will sit on their money, and that will be bad for the AKP.”
…

The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.

“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.

He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”
…