Zelensky makes mild Israel criticism as Saudi Arabia 'boycotts' Ukraine conference

Ukraine's President Zelensky has been viewed as a supporter of Israel throughout the Gaza war, although there has been a change in his discourse.

The New Arab Staff
03 June, 2024


Zelensky has appealed to Israel for military support throughout the war [Getty]

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has made a veiled criticism of Israel's war on Gaza, calling on Israel to respect humanitarian law as the death toll rises to more than 36,479 Palestinians killed.

Zelensky has been a vocal supporter of Israel during his presidency and since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has repeatedly called on it to provide it with material support and reminded Tel Aviv of Moscow's 'alliance' with Iran.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore this weekend, Zelensky appeared to change his discourse on Israel's war on Gaza.

"Ukraine said that if Hamas terrorists attacked civilians on the first day of their attack on Israel, then Israel has the right to defend itself," Zelensky said, according to The Kyiv Independent.

"And after that, when Israel was in Gaza and there was a humanitarian crisis, Ukraine said: Firstly, we are ready to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"Secondly, we must respect international law. Thirdly, Ukraine recognises two states, both Israel and Palestine and will do everything it can to convince Israel to stop, to end this conflict and prevent the suffering of civilians."

Zelensky also said Ukraine was ready to support Gaza with humanitarian aid and stressed Kyiv's recognition of Palestine as a state.

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The comments appear to mark a change in the Ukrainian president's public posturing about the war on Gaza, where hospitals, homes, and refugee camps have been bombed.

Zelemsky has compared Hamas's 7 October attacks in southern Israel to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and referred to Hamas as "terrorists".

Since the 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian president has repeatedly called on Israel to end its "neutrality" regarding the Ukraine war and firmly back it against Russia.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shared close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and taken a less critical line on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine than Western countries.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia will stay away from a peace conference for Ukraine in Switzerland due to the absence of Russian delegates, Moscow media has claimed.

The Swiss government had invited 160 delegates to a conference on Ukraine in Burgenstock but Russian officials were not included, leading Riyadh to step back, according to TASS.

Zelensky was reportedly due to visit Saudi Arabia earlier this month to shore up Riyadh's support but this has been cancelled, according to the same report. The New Arab could not verify the claims.

Saudi Arabia has played a role in negotiations in the Ukraine war, having good relations with both sides. In August 2023 it held a summit for Ukraine hoping to find common ground and played a role in a hostage exchange between Kyiv and Moscow.

MIOGYNISTIC FEMICIDE ATTEMPT

Danish PM Mette Frederiksen 'hit' by man in Copenhagen

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was on Friday "hit" by a man on a Copenhagen square, with EU leaders quickly condemning the incident

SHE WAS PUSHED NOT HIT

"A man came by in the opposite direction and gave her a hard shove on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side," the two women told the newspaper.

WAS PUSHING NOT SINISTER ENOUGH FOR THE HEADLINE

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
08 June, 2024

Mette Frederiksen was attacked in a Copenhagen square on Friday evening [Getty]

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was on Friday "hit" by a man on a Copenhagen square, her office said, with EU chiefs quickly condemning the attack.

The Danish prime minister's office said in a statement to AFP that Frederiksen was "shocked by the incident", but did not provide further details.

"Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was hit by a man Friday evening on Kultorvet in Copenhagen. The man was subsequently arrested," the statement said.

The incident comes on the heels of a spate of attacks on politicians from across the political spectrum at work or on the campaign trail in Germany ahead of this week's EU elections.

On May 15, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot four times at close range as he greeted supporters after a government meeting in the central town of Handlova.

Fico, who survived the assassination attempt, was taken to a hospital in a nearby city after the shooting, where he underwent two lengthy surgeries.

Two witnesses, Marie Adrian and Anna Ravn, told newspaper BT that they had seen Frederiksen arrive at the square while they were sitting by a nearby fountain just before 6:00 pm (1600 GMT)

"A man came by in the opposite direction and gave her a hard shove on the shoulder, causing her to fall to the side," the two women told the newspaper.

They said that while it was a "strong push" Frederiksen did not hit the ground.

According to the witnesses, the prime minister then continued to sit down at a nearby cafe.

Why is Denmark expanding its cruel Syrian refugee policy?

Arshu John and María Elorza Saralegui

'Despicable act'

They described the man as tall and slim and said he had tried to hurry away but had not gotten far before being grabbed and pushed to the ground by men in suits.

EU chief Charles Michel and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola on Friday slammed the attack on Frederiksen.

Metsola urged the Danish head of government to "keep strong", while adding in a post to X that "violence has no place in politics."

Michel in turn said he was "outraged by the assault".

"I strongly condemn this cowardly act of aggression," the European Council president said in a separate post to X.

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen also condemned what she called a "despicable act which goes against everything we believe and fight for in Europe", in a statement to social media.

Copenhagen police confirmed that an incident involving the prime minister had occurred but did not provide further details.

"We have one person arrested in the case, which we are now investigating. At this time, we have no further comments or remarks on the case," police said in a statement on X.

"I must say that it shakes all of us who are close to her," Danish Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke said in a post to social media.

"Something like this must not happen in our beautiful, safe and free country," he said.

Zanzibar commemorates abolition of slavery for first time

Issued on: 07/06/2024

 

Video by: Bastien RENOUIL

On Thursday, for the first time, Zanzibar, commemorated the abolition of slavery. The island is part of Tanzania and was a key stopping off point for Arab slavers across east Africa. At one point domestic slavery is thought to have expanded to the point that two thirds of the population were slaves. France 24’s Bastien Renouil attended the day of remembrance.

Falling numbers of Syrian children in Turkey dispel far-right myth of ‘silent invasion’

FASCIST REPLACEMENT THEORY
ByTurkish Minute
June 5, 2024

Pupils attend a lesson at the PIKTES School (Yavuz Selim Primary School) in Şanlıurfa, southeastern Turkey, on October 17, 2023. - With the European Union's help, Turkey is quietly setting up integration-through-work programmes -- even if few officials publicly admit that the Syrians are probable here to stay. The sides signed a landmark deal in 2016 aimed at relieving Europe's migrant crisis. Brussels has released nearly 10 billion euros since 2011 for schools, healthcare, and training programmes. 

(Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)


The latest data from the Turkish migration authority shows that the population growth of Syrian children in the country is decreasing significantly, contradicting the far-right scaremongering about a “silent invasion” that would lead to Syrians outnumbering Turks in the future, according to a report by the Serbestiyet news website.

The notion of a “silent invasion” by Syrian refugees altering the demographic landscape of Turkey has been a persistent narrative among some far-right groups in the country.

Before Turkey’s general election in May 2023, a dystopian film titled “Silent Invasion” was aired on YouTube. The short movie is about a Turkish man who was born in 2011 and had studied to become a doctor, only to work as one of three Turkish janitors in a hospital owned by Syrians where even speaking Turkish is banned, in the year 2043 and in a Turkey where a Syrian candidate has been elected to govern the country’s largest city and commercial hub of İstanbul.

However, official data indicate that the Syrian child population in Turkey is decreasing rather than expanding, challenging these alarmist claims.

As of April 2024 the number of Syrian children aged 0-4 in Turkey stood at 408,164, a decrease from the 528,560 in the 5-9 age group, born between 2014 and 2019, suggesting a decline of 22.78 percent over five years. This trend is expected to continue as the birth rate among Syrian refugees in urban areas, where the vast majority reside, is falling more quickly than that of Turkish citizens.

The peak number of Syrians under temporary protection in Turkey was 3.7 million in 2021, but this figure has since dropped to 3.1 million due to individuals returning to Syria or moving to Europe. Even if no Syrians were to leave Turkey, their projected population would still not exceed 6 percent of the total national population in the future, according to the Serbestiyet report.

Data not only highlight the declining demographic influence of Syrian refugees but also mirror broader trends across Turkey where the overall fertility rate has been on a downward trajectory.

Turkey’s fertility rate has decreased to 1.51, significantly below the replacement level of 2.1, indicative of an aging population.

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), however, does not regularly publish birth statistics specifically for the Syrian population, making precise calculations difficult. Nevertheless, the information available from the migration authority provides a glimpse of the demographic trends among Syrian refugees.

This decrease in the birth rate among Syrians is part of a global pattern where urbanization and stability lead to lower fertility rates. The claim of a demographic takeover by Syrians in Turkey, often referred to as the “silent invasion,” by far-right groups thus stands on shaky ground, with the latest statistics serving to debunk such theories further.

The discourse surrounding Syrian refugees in Turkey has been influenced by broader debates on migration and demographics in Europe and the United States, where similar unfounded claims of a “great replacement” have been propagated by far-right groups.

These narratives often overlook the diverse factors that influence demographic changes.

The living conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey are increasingly precarious.

Human Rights Watch reported in March that the Turkish authorities are increasingly trying to deport Syrians, often forcing them to sign “voluntary” repatriation papers. In these deportations, refugees are usually sent to remote and unsafe regions in northern Syria, such as Tel Abyad, where they face serious humanitarian problems.

Many Syrians in Turkey live under the constant threat of deportation, exacerbating their vulnerability and limiting their access to stable employment and healthcare.

Turkey is party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the 1951 Refugee Convention. As such, and as a matter of customary international law, it is obliged to respect the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids returning anyone to a location where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other cruel treatment, or a threat to their life. Turkish Law 6458 on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP), enacted in April 2013, offers Syrians “temporary protection in Turkey, ensures their non-refoulement, and guarantees their stay until safety is established in their original countries.”

Thousands protest Turkish government’s stray dog cull plan

“We think the cats will be next.”

ByTurkish Minute
June 3, 2024

Animal right activists attend a protest against the ruling AKP's bill aimed at removing stray dogs from the streets, on June 2, 2024 in İstanbul.

 (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)

Thousands of protesters rallied in İstanbul on Sunday in outrage at the Turkish government’s proposals to put down stray dogs, yelling: “No to the massacre!” Agence France-Presse reported.

Bearing photographs of imploring puppy-dog eyes on their T-shirts and placards, demonstrators rallied on Yenikapı Square on the European side of the city.

The government has drawn up legislation to capture and sterilize strays, before putting them down if they are not adopted within 30 days.

“This is not good for animals. It is a murder law,” one demonstrator, Şule Giritlioğlu, a 27-year-old engineer, told AFP.

“We think the cats will be next.”

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says the reform is needed to curb the number of stray dogs in the country and stop them attacking people.

Officials indicate there are four million stray dogs in Turkey.

It is classified as a “high-risk” country for rabies by the World Health Organization.

The government says dogs caused 3,544 road accidents over the past five years, killing 55 people and injuring more than 5,000.

“We have a problem with stray dogs that does not exist in any developed country,” Erdogan said last week.

Haydar Özkan, vice-president of the country’s Animal Rights Federation, argued in the Gazete Duvar media outlet that the government should instead prioritize effective sterilization and animal shelters.

Numerous cases of accidents and attacks involving dogs have circulated on social media in recent months.

Another protester, Emre Onuk, said the law was a case of “bad propaganda” launched just before municipal elections on March 31.

Erdoğan lost İstanbul and Ankara to the opposition in the vote.

Onuk, a 42-year-old engineer, judged the president was now seeking to “reconsolidate his power” by trying to “divide people.”

 

Myanmar rebels claim junta outpost on Bangladesh border

Only five junta-occupied border posts remain in the township, residents said.

By RFA Burmese
2024.06.07

A junta border guard station in Maungdaw township, Rakhine State 

An ethnic minority insurgent group has captured a junta base on Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh, sources close to the rebel group told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

The Arakan Army, or AA, which resumed its battle against the junta for territory in Myanmar’s west in November, controls eight townships in Rakhine state and two in Chin state. 

In January, the AA turned its focus to Maungdaw, a strategic township for border relations with Bangladesh. On Thursday, AA troops captured junta Border Guard Station No. 6 in Inn Din village.

Nearly 600 soldiers were stationed at the guard post, said one resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons.

“The border guards, combined with forces from other outposts, were stationed in that camp,” he said. “A junta division commander was also posted there. There are many casualties from the junta side and some soldiers ran away.”

In late May, junta airstrikes killed one civilian and wounded nearly a dozen in Maungdaw township. The AA launched an unsuccessful offensive against the same border post on Jan. 5, but were held back by the junta’s combined navy, air force and army. 

RFA tried to contact AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha and Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein, but neither responded by the time of publication. 

Junta troops built the post in 2017 after destroying a predominantly ethnic minority Rohingya village that was located there, residents told RFA. 

The AA is also attacking Maungdaw’s Myin Hlut-based Border Guard Station No. 9. The insurgent group captured Maungdaw’s Border Police Command Office No. 1, which is the largest junta camp in Maungdaw township, residents said, adding that only five junta-occupied border guard posts remain in the township. 

Rebels are maintaining attacks on Ann, Thandwe and Maungdaw townships, where the junta’s Western Regional Military Headquarters for Rakhine state is based.

A ceasefire between the AA and the military broke down in November, at the same time that other ethnic minority and pro-democracy insurgents launched attacks that have put forces of the junta that seized power in 2021 under unprecedented pressure.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

UN chief ‘strongly condemns’

Myanmar military attacks on civilians

By

 AFP

June 7, 2024

UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned on Thursday recent attacks by Myanmar’s military that reportedly killed scores of civilians in western Rakhine state.

The Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic minority armed group, attacked junta forces in Rakhine in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a military coup in 2021.

Guterres “strongly condemns the recent attacks by the Myanmar military that have reportedly killed scores of civilians, including in Rakhine State,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

The AA says it is fighting for more autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population in the western state, which is also home to around 600,000 members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority.

This week the AA said junta troops had killed more than 70 civilians in a raid on Byain Phyu village, north of the state capital Sittwe.

The junta said the claim was “propaganda”.

Phone and internet services have been all but cut off across Rakhine state, making it difficult to verify reports of violence.

Guterres also called for an end to the “ongoing persecution” of the Rohingya minority who find themselves trapped between the fighting between the junta and the AA.

Rohingya activists have accused the AA of forcibly displacing tens of thousands of members of their community, and burning and looting their homes.

They have also accused the junta of forcibly recruiting thousands of Rohingya to fight against the AA, as the military loses ground.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Rakhine for neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017 during a crackdown by the military that is now the subject of a United Nations genocide court case.

– Reports of ‘indiscriminate’ bombing –

Guterres also condemned attacks by the junta that reportedly killed civilians in northern Sagaing region, a hotspot for resistance to the military’s 2021 coup.

Earlier this week local media reported that an air strike on Ma Thaw village in Sagaing had killed around a dozen people gathered to celebrate a wedding.

The junta has not responded to request for comment on the incident. 

“Indiscriminate aerial bombings” continued to be reported across the country, Guterres said, calling for those responsible to be held to account.

The junta has lost swathes of territory to established ethnic minority armed groups and newer pro-democracy “People’s Defence Forces” in recent months. 

Rights groups accuse the junta of using the strikes to punish communities suspected of opposing its rule.

Around 2.7 million people have been displaced from their homes by the conflict that erupted after the junta seized power in 2021.

SISI AUSTERITY

Egyptians struggle with first bread subsidy cut in decades

A quadrupling of the price of subsidised bread has made it harder than ever for millions of Egyptians to get by.

 

Issued on: 07/06/2024 -

 Eqypt's government, facing a rising wheat import bill, increased the price of subsidised small loaves of flatbread for the first time in decades on June 1. The loaves are available to more than 70 million people and are vital for the poorest. Even though they are still heavily discounted, the increase to 20 piasters ($0.0042) per loaf from five piasters is one that many households can ill afford.

How South Africa’s ANC became just a regular political party



African National Congress (ANC) supporters at FNB stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 25, 2024. PHOTO | REUTERSADVERTISEMENT

By THE CONVERSATION

FRIDAY JUNE 07 2024

The African National Congress (ANC), the party that’s led South Africa since the first democratic elections in 1994, has long considered itself a “liberation movement” – representing all South Africans, as the “voice of the people”.

But its dismal performance in the 2024 elections (winning only 40 percent of the national vote) confirms that its transition from the status of a liberation movement to just a political party is now complete.

There can no longer be a pretence that it alone represents “the people”. It is now simply the largest among a host of ordinary political parties doing what ordinary political parties do: scrambling for votes, political power and influence

I have studied the ANC since the days of the liberation struggle and as a party in power.

Read: SA elections: ANC vote counts lowest since 1994

In reality, any notion of the ANC embodying the people has been creaking for years. Those at odds with its leadership have peeled away to found new political parties. First there was Bantu Holomisa, who fell out with Nelson Mandela in 1996.

More recently, in 2012, Julius Malema was expelled after supposedly bringing the ANC into disrepute. Malema founded the Economic Freedom Fighters to fight the election in 2014.

Only the Economic Freedom Fighters was to gain much political traction. But the message was clear: the coalition on which the ANC was based was becoming ever more fragile and could not last.

Hence the historical significance of the electoral eruption of the uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MK Party) of Jacob Zuma, former president of both the ANC and South Africa.

Prior to the 2024 election, Zuma’s party was widely recognised as representing a threat to ANC hegemony, both nationally and provincially in KwaZulu-Natal. But the strength of its performance has taken South Africa (and the party itself) aback.

Within six months, and with only the rudiments of organisation stolen from the ANC itself, it has taken 14.5 percent of the national votes and 45 percent of the KwaZulu-Natal votes in its first election.

Read: South African polls: ANC is weaker, opposition fragmented

Few can dispute that its rise is the most dramatic stage in the dissolution of the coalition which gave the ANC a claim to being a liberation movement.

The making of a liberation movement

The ANC’s claim goes back to its foundation in 1912. It was a reaction to the formation of the Union of South Africa by white politicians and their exclusion of the majority black people from the right to vote or participate on equal terms with whites.

At its creation, the ANC (or the South African Native National Congress, as it was known until 1923) was the coming together of South Africa’s black and Coloured population (in the old terminology): its diverse ethnic peoples, their chiefly representatives and the emerging African professionals and black middle class.

This culminated decades later in its leadership of the Congress Alliance, the bringing together of the ANC with the South African Indian Congress, the Coloured People’s Congress and the (largely white) Congress of Democrats.

The ANC’s predominance among those fighting apartheid was to be briefly challenged by the breakaway of the Africanists grouped together as the Pan-Africanist Congress in 1959. But the threat dissipated during the long years of exile as the Pan-Africanist Congress collapsed into factionalism.

By the early 1990s, via its alliance with the South African Communist Party, and under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, the ANC could put forth a highly plausible claim to be the genuine representative of “the people”.

Read: Mandela vision of Black unity fades as SA shuts door to migrants

By this it meant the overwhelming majority of South Africans, of diverse colours and backgrounds, who were bound together by a commitment to “non-racialism” and who were oppressed by apartheid. This was confirmed by the ANC’s performance in the 1994 election: 63 percent of the vote.

It could say that the non-racial and democratic South Africa which had emerged from the negotiation process with the apartheid regime was essentially the product of its own vision and imagination.

If any movement could lay claim to having “liberated” South Africa, it was the ANC. However, while aspiring to unity, the ANC was never a monolith.

Indeed, it was precisely because it was always a coalescence of diverse tendencies, notably of communists and non-communists, and of “Africanists” and those committed to “non-racialism”, that so much importance was attached to the notion of its being a “liberation movement”.

A political party was seen as just that: a grouping which represented just a “part” of the people. In contrast, the ANC was presented and viewed itself as embodying the essence of the people, the soul of the nation, and as capable of reconciling differences which might otherwise blow a historically and racially divided nation apart. It followed that those who opposed it were divisive.

In other words, there was always a tension at the heart of the ANC’s notion of democracy. It was always a difficult balancing act. At one moment, it celebrated the diversity and plurality which found its form in a new constitution which was largely based on the tenets of liberal democracy. At another, it insisted on the unity of the nation under its own leadership, which was distinctly illiberal, even totalitarian.

Liberal democracy presumed that the ANC’s leadership of the nation could be displaced at an election. But the alternative notion of democracy suggested that it could not. If the ANC was “the people”, how could “the people” overthrow the ANC?

Read: ANC, Africa's oldest liberation movement, is 'broke'

The ANC has lost ground, but the tradition lives on

At its height, reached in the 2004 election, the ANC swept just under 69.7% of the total vote. With Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement winning 2.3 percent, the total vote for parties representing the historical tradition of the ANC amounted to 71 percent.

In the 2013 election, the total vote for the ANC tradition, made up of the ANC (62.15 percent), Economic Freedom Fighters (6.35 percent) and United Democratic Movement (1 percent), amounted to 69.5 percent. In 2019, the combined vote for the ANC (57.5 percent) and Economic Freedom Fighters (10.8 percent) remained much the same, at 68.3 percent.

So it remains in 2024, with the combined vote for the ANC (40.18 percent), Economic Freedom Fighters (9.52 percent) and uMkhonto we Sizwe (14.59 percent) coming in at 64.3 percent.

In short, the ANC tradition remains dominant, but the ANC as a liberation movement does not.

Herein lies much of the significance of the 2024 election. It is the ANC that has lost ground, not the ANC tradition. What has become divided could reunite. Or more likely, bits of it could reunite.

The faultline

A commitment to the form and values of the constitution is becoming the major fault-line in South Africa’s politics, opening the potential for an alliance between uMkhonto we Sizwe, Economic Freedom Fighters and the remnants of the “radical economic transformation” faction within the ANC.

The more that looms, the greater the possibilities for a coming together of the constitutional element within the ANC, a progressive bloc within the main opposition Democratic Alliance, and other parties, the old (Inkatha Freedom Party) and the new, such as Rise Mzansi, which are committed to the values of 1994.

Never has the future of South Africa’s politics been more uncertain, but the one certainty that holds is that the ANC’s standing as a liberation movement is dead. In effect, there are now two ANCs: the ANC of current leader Cyril Ramaphosa, and the ANC of Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema. They cannot both claim to represent “the people”.

By Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand

Revolution, Decay and the Historic Challenge of the Africa National Congress of South Africa

Ademola Araoye

Friday, June 7, 2024 

In the fullness of time, every revolution must decay. The outcome of the June 2024 elections in South Africa reflects the profound evolution of the character and internal dynamics of the African National Congress (ANC) as the driving force of the rainbow nation in the post-liberation era. The results of the elections also provide a template for longitudinal comparative interrogations of the evolution of the politics of post-liberation societies. This is particularly germane for those states that achieved independence through revolutionary means with promises and hope for transitions from the oppressions of non-colonial administrations to democratic governance. The results of recent elections in South Africa thus portend significant import along many analytical planes. The analytical explorations may be undertaken through the deployment of diverse conceptual lenses: at the level of the consequences of the decay and devolution of the revolutionary ethos that motorized the liberation struggle; the implications of the evolved character of corrosive sub-national forces on the one hand; and on the other hand the impact of the institutionnalization of critical outliers of puritanical ideological vanguard movement as significant players, even if along the tangents of mainstream politics of South Africa. It is averred that the emergence of these two radically opposed forces is the expressive syndrome of the decay of the original revolutionary ferment of the African National Congress. The declining electoral fortunes of the party attest to this.

With a record voter turnout of 89.30 percent in the June 1999 elections that surpassed the 86.87 percent in the April 1994 elections, the first post-racial democratic poll in South Africa, the ANC recorded a landslide victory. It won 266 in the 400-seat parliament, 14 more seats than its impressive performance in 1994. The slide of the ANC from the almost impregnable commanding fort of revolutionary leadership of post-apartheid South Africa to a party struggling to remain barely at the helm is evident in its electoral misfortune in 2024. The diminution of the leverage for the penetration of society of the ANC results from the loss of traction of the revolutionary vision, values and ethos that had shredded the sense of enduring internal comradeship and eroded the legitimacy of the party as the historic guardian of the revolutionary pulse and the hopes of the now vastly disenchanted and disaffected people. The grating realities of the ANC in recent times are vividly captured in the four reports of the Zondo Commission, known as The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector, Including Organs of State. Describing the reports as “a metaphor of fatalism” Garth Le Pere affirms that the revelations of the Commission are a sad and tragic indictment of the extent to which the ruling ANC party has failed its already beleaguered citizens and a growing population of alienated youth, whose bulging demographic is increasingly resorting to forms of nihilist behavior.

The crisis emanating from the relative ascendance of forces driving the decay of the revolutionary ethos of the ANC reached its crescendo and manifest in the outcome of the 52nd National Conference held in Polokwane in December 2007. Polokwane 2007 was a historic watershed and the precursor to the September 2008 unceremonious repudiation of the leadership of the intellectual and ideologically steadfast Thabo Mbeki, who served as the immediate post-Mandela second President of post-liberation South Africa. As expected, the ANC won the general elections of 2009, with 66 percent of the vote. However, a major 15-seat loss was reflected in the 264 out of the 400 seats it won in parliament. Meanwhile, the national leadership of Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma that emerged as president from the 2009 elections crystalized all the elemental fissures to drive popular disenchantment with and the implied de-validation of all that the ANC had historically stood for. When the chairman of the Zondo Commission posed the challenge: “Where was the ANC as the Guptas took control of important SOEs [State-Owned Enterprises] such as Transnet, Eskom, and Denel? Where were they? What were they doing?” Of course, we know the answer because the ANC was directly and indirectly involved as the ruling party in lubricating the machinery of state capture, besides being an active rent-seeker in that sordid process. Chairperson Zondo further asserts in the fourth report: “The ANC and the ANC government should be ashamed that this happened under their watch.” President Jacob Zuma was in charge of the brigandage of the ANC. The ANC paid a heavy electoral price for the scathing report of its mandate dereliction and negligence in power in the June 2024 elections. Paradoxical, a disgruntled Zuma, playing spoiler to avenge the humiliation of his imprisonment for corruption and loss of stature within the ANC party, took a cue from the playbook of African politics and mobilized his ethnic Zulu constituency to price away vital votes of Zulus from both the ANC and the radical EFF. The idiosyncratic Zulu Zuma was thus the most triumphant in the June 2024 South African elections.

Meanwhile, in the universe of post-liberation states, the loss of the parliamentary majority by the African National Congress in the June 2024 elections signposts a seminal movement away from the near euphoric unanimity of the vision of post-liberation South Africa as a potentially predictable radical departure from the malignant proclivities of the African state. At the same time, the new political reconstruction of the political space facilitated by democratic elections suggests a positive reaffirmation of the ultimate universal functionality of democracy where the substantive tenets of democracy are faithfully adhered to. In that sense, notwithstanding the paradoxes iterated above, the shifts in the construction of power in South Africa has given the lie to spurious conceptualization of the imperative of an Africanized version of democracy.

In the June 2024 elections, the ANC the main party that fought the war of liberation mobilized by the revolutionary canons of Marxism and eventually led the negotiations for the relatively pacific end to apartheid under the heroic leadership of Nelson Mandela, as predicted by informed pundits, managed to garner a mere 40.18 percent of the votes cast. That translates to 159 seats in the 400-seat parliament. The Democratic Alliance, which has its antecedents as an anti-apartheid Progressive Party founded in 1959 scored 21.81 percent of the popular mandate. Between 2009 and 2024, the DA increased its share of parliamentary seats from 67 to 87. Two parties that had broken away from the ANC for reasons not unrelated to the crisis of the continued legitimacy of the ANC made the last four major parties in the new parliament. uMkhonto we Sizwe, commonly referred to as the MK Party, claims to be a left-wing populist party. It was founded in December 2023 by embattled former president Jacob Zuma, who was jailed for corruption. Although the symbolism implied in the adoption of the name of ANC’s military wing MK by the new party is not lost on analysts, the MK is an umbrella of the Zulu nation. It was in third place with 14.58 percent of votes cast and allotted 58 seats. In the fourth place with 9.52 percent was the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of youth Julius Malema. It has 39 seats in the combined regional and national seat allocation. The emergence of the EFF which has assumed the critical role of a lightning rod of the decaying status quo broke from the ANC to express disappointment with compromises forged by the mainstream ANC during negotiation to post-liberation, to protect the integrity of the institutional, structural, and infrastructural gains in the post-liberation South Africa. Of significance is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), also a Zulu-oriented party that won 17 seats.

The end of the run of the dominance of the political firmament of post-liberation South Africa by the African National Congress (ANC) since 1994 was inevitable. At the level of conceptual abstraction, much of the problem of the ANC in post-liberation stemmed from the inevitability of the decay of every revolution. The process of revolutionary decay is impacted by the interaction of any multiplicity of factors and forces as well as the structural configuration that defines the immediate environment. These forces, factors, and the dynamic emanating from their interaction may be distilled as contextual exigencies driving the trajectory of the reformatory process. Overall the extant contextual exigency poorly served the ANC. For a start, South Africa’s transition to democracy in the 1990s was not as peaceful as is often characterized by the outside world. Compromises made in the context of attaining a pacific resolution of the historic complexities that bedeviled the country constituted sore points for the puritanical radicals within the ANC. At the same time, the difficult compromises were welcomed by marginally committed ideological wayfarers, some in the highest echelon of the ANC hierarchy, who were determined to exploit the transition to post-racial society and transform their private economic standings. The tensions of the various tendencies left the door open for the accelerated pace in the process of the decay of the revolution. In the case of South Africa, the onset of decay of the revolution was reflected in internal tensions within the ANC that followed the signing of the National Peace Accord in 1991. These were exacerbated after the passage of the international icon and hero of the nation, Nelson Mandela, in December 2013. Under the watch of Mandela, the centrifugal inclinations of the potentially clashing diverse forces within the ANC were effectively kept in check. These resulting difficult internal dynamics of the ANC initially elicited a trickling disillusionment in the followership. That disillusionment snowballed into a groundswell of apathy to the fate of the once formidable guardian instrument of the vision of an inclusive, safe, secure, developmental state of a post-racial national society. Ashraf Patel codifies that of the registered 27.8 million voters – and with a voter turnout of 58.7 percent, 13.5 million voted. 14 million eligible voters (majority youth and rural) chose not to register or participate, suggesting a large-scale disillusion with the current political system.

The disillusionment is codified by Le Pere as follows: The Zondo reports are, therefore, symptomatic of an underlying cynicism in our (South Africa) national life where the powerful and networks of ANC patronage get what they desire while the weak majority suffer what they must. Consequently, the ANC has hopelessly failed the test of what the great French philosopher and historian of ideas, Michel Foucault, called ‘governmentality’ which has to do with the responsibility of government to provide consequential welfare and security for its citizens that is normatively defined and ethically driven. Instea, Le Pere continues, the Zondo reports are emblematic of a growing pathological syndrome where the ANC government has and presided over greater inequity and injustice, whose manifestations are rising of racially determined poverty, inequality, and unemployment, compounded by economic stagnation, institutional decay, and social dislocation. For Ashraf Patel, the impact of the crisis of continued legitimacy of the ANC is highlighted as having collectively brought about the rise of populism and discontent in our (South African) politics that have led to a death knell of the grand social democratic compact. Patel also apportions blame to Alliance partners South Africa Communist Party (SACP) and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). He accuses them of happily riding the gravy train benefits of patronage, without any critical discourse within their ranks and those who questioned this were marginalized.

The descriptions above could also refer to any post-colonial African state. It is sad because the fortune of the ANC has serious implications for the trajectory of South Africa and, indeed, for the African continent as a whole. The moral slide of the ANC, seemingly infected by the paralyzing pathologies and malignancy of the post-colonial state, is disturbing in reneging its moral leadership for the people. A key threat to social harmony is identified as a crucial imperative that requires attention. Noting that with race-based parties now entrenched in the body politic at legislative level, the need for mechanisms to consolidate the fragilized social cohesion is proposed by Ashraf Patel. He advances that Government and civil society partners should convene a Social Cohesion summit, perhaps annually and set up a council to address a myriad of race, gender and other exclusions that have led to the rise in ethnic-based populism. It is important to proactively develop measures to mitigate threats to social harmony.

These failures have the potential to dismantle the prospects of sustaining a pole of assured developmental thrust for the continent as a whole. South Africa’s leadership as the nuclei core around which continental progressivism revolves may also be imperiled. Yet, in all this is an assuring silver lining. The outcome of the elections adequately reflected the pulse of the nation. The statement of President Cyril Ramaphosa, even in the face of the historic setback for the ANC, was poignant. He asserted that through their votes the people had demonstrated, clearly and plainly, that our democracy is strong, it is robust and it endures. They have given effect to the clarion call that has resonated across the generations: that the people shall govern. Our people have spoken. President Ramaphosa was notable when he affirmed that: Whatever authority, whatever power, we are entrusted with must be exercised to advance the interests of the people. A final takeaway may be that while a few discordant notes around the integrity of the process may have been heard, South Africa still provided exemplary operations of democracy credibly at work. Even and critically so, in Africa. Secondly, timely interventions are necessary to equilibrate in given periodicity every social system. A pretension of the ostrich of not seeing, hearing nor speaking evil as state policy serves and saves no one.

* Professor Ademola Araoye is a retired official of the United Nations and former Director of Abuja Leadership Center, a TETFUND Center of Excellence in Public Governance and Leadership at the University of Abuja. He is author of Sources of Conflict in the Post- Colonial African State (AWP, 2012).

Int’l jurist groups call for justice in murder case of Kurdish human rights lawyer

ByTurkish Minute
June 7, 2024

Tahir Elçi, a former head of Diyarbakır's bar association and a human rights activist, was assassinated on Nov. 28, 2015.

A total of 33 NGOs from across the world have released a joint statement concerning the trial concerning the murder of prominent human rights lawyer Tahir Elçi, urging Turkish authorities to ensure justice through an effective criminal procedure, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

Signatories included bar associations, lawyers groups and legal advocacy organizations from several countries, mostly located in Europe. Bar associations from Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands were among the undersigned organizations.

The statement called on Turkish authorities to bring those responsible for Elçi’s murder to justice, conduct the trial in compliance with international legal standards and take into consideration the requests made by the Elçi family regarding evidence and witnesses.

It also demanded an independent investigation into allegations that some witnesses were subjected to torture and ill-treatment.

The NGOs criticized some of the procedural issues in the case such as a 110-day delay in the crime scene investigation and refusal to treat three police officers who were present at the scene as suspects until the release of an independent report by the London-based Forensic Architecture.

The forensic report had concluded that an initial indictment pinning the blame on a Kurdish militant was not realistic and that Elçi was most likely killed by one of the police officers.

The joint NGO statement pointed out that the next hearing of the trial will be held on June 12 and that it is likely to be the last one.

Diyarbakır prosecutors have demanded prisons sentences of up to nine years for three police officers on charges of causing death by gross negligence, while the militant faces aggravated life for killing Elçi with probable intent and for attempting to kill a police officer.

Elçi, the former head of the Diyarbakır Bar Association, was killed in November 2015 while delivering a speech in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir during a clash between the Turkish police and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Calling for a peace rally on what turned out to be the day of his death in Sur, a historic district of Diyarbakır, Elçi said he wanted no violence, war, destruction or armed operations in the area.

Turkey had blockaded Sur at the time as part of mass operations against the PKK, with Diyarbakir’s historic “four-legged minaret” damaged during the clashes. Elçi was shot to death in front of the minaret, where he was delivering his call for peace.

Leading an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s, the PKK is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

Elçi received death threats in 2015 after stating that “the PKK is not a terrorist group. While some of its actions may be referred to as such, it is an armed political movement with significant support” during a live TV show on CNN Türk hosted by pro-government columnist Ahmet Hakan.

Elçi was briefly detained in November 2015 over remarks that sparked a wave of death threats against him. He was subsequently released pending trial and faced up to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

Pro-Kurdish party calls for early elections after removal of its mayor

ByTurkish Minute
June 6, 2024



DEM Party co-Chairperson Tülay Hatimoğulları

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) has called for early elections amid the removal of its mayor in a southeastern city from office, saying the government has lost its legitimacy by disrespecting the will of the people, the Artı Gerçek news website reported.

On Monday the interior ministry announced the removal of former Hakkari co-mayor Mehmet Sıddık Akış of the DEM Party from office due to an ongoing investigation and a separate trial on terrorism-linked charges. He was replaced by Hakkari Governor Ali Çelik. The ministry’s move attracted widespread criticism and protests for being “anti-democratic” and “hijacking” the will of the Kurdish people.

DEM Party Co-chairperson Tülay Hatimoğulları, who has been in Hakkari for several days to join demonstrations protesting Akış’s removal, and the party’s other co-chairperson, Tuncay Bakırhan, met with representatives from civil society organizations in Hakkari on Thursday.

Hatimoğulları said at the meeting that Turkey should immediately hold early elections because the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), have lost their legitimacy, resorting to illegitimate measures to stay in power.

She said the results of the March 31 local elections in which the AKP sustained its worst election defeat since its establishment in 2002 and the MHP lost significant public support made clear that they no longer have legitimacy.

The March 31 elections produced surprising results for the AKP, with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerging as the country’s leading party for the first time in decades, receiving 37.7 percent of the vote. The AKP’s nationwide support, however, stood at 35.4 percent, while the MHP garnered 4.9 percent.

She accused the AKP and the MHP of taking political revenge for their election loss on the DEM Party by removing its democratically elected mayor.

Akış, the first mayor ousted from office since the March 31 local elections when the DEM Party won a dozen provincial municipalities in the predominantly Kurdish southeast, was also handed down a prison sentence of 19 years, six months at the 61st hearing of his trial on Wednesday.

“This illegitimate palace administration and its ally should immediately resign. If they don’t, Turkey should immediately hold early elections. The circumstances necessary for early elections have emerged in the country,” she said.

The last time Turkey held presidential and parliamentary elections was May 2023. The next elections are scheduled for 2028.

Meanwhile, CHP leader Özgür Özel, who refused to call for early elections following the AKP’s electoral defeat on March 31, maintained his stance and said his party would not make such a call.

He told reporters on Thursday that such a decision can only be made upon a demand from the nation, adding that with its 127 seats in parliament, the CHP is not in a position to call for early elections.

The 600-seat Turkish parliament can call early elections only if three-fifths of the lawmakers — 360 MPs — support it.

Meanwhile, a group of lawmakers from the DEM Party on Thursday hung a banner that read “Trustee, go away” on the Bosporus Bridge in İstanbul in protest of the replacement of the DEM Party mayor in Hakkari with a government-appointed trustee.

Turkish gov’t removes Kurdish mayor from office 2 months after his election

ByTurkish Minute
June 3, 2024

Turkey’s Interior Ministry has removed Mehmet Sıddık Akış, the co-mayor of Hakkari from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), and replaced him with a trustee two months after his election to office, according to a statement from the ministry.

Akış, who was elected with 48.9 percent of the vote in the March 31 elections, was detained by law enforcement in the eastern province of Van on Monday morning. There was also a police raid on the Hakkari municipal building late on Sunday.

The ministry announced on X on Monday that the mayor was removed due to an ongoing investigation and a separate trial on terrorism-linked charges. He was replaced by Hakkari Governor Ali Çelik.

Akış is being investigated on accusations of membership in a terrorist organization in a probe launched by the Hakkari Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and also standing trial at the Hakkari 1st High Criminal Court on charges of running a terrorist organization, membership in a terrorist organization and disseminating the terrorism propaganda for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to the ministry’s statement.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.

The fact that the mayor has been removed from office without a conviction has led to comments about the violation of the presumption of innocence.

“Mehmet Sıddık Akış was dismissed from his duties as a temporary measure,” the ministry said on X and “was taken into custody for belonging to a terrorist organization.”DEM Party Hakkari Mayor Mehmet Sıddık Akış

It was the first time a Kurdish mayor has been removed from office since the March 31 local elections in which the DEM Party won control of 77 municipalities across Turkey.
“Will of the Kurdish people hijacked”

Akış’s removal and detention have attracted widespread criticism from the DEM Party and others who accuse the government of hijacking the will of the Kurdish people.

DEM Party deputy group chairperson Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit, who spoke following a meeting on Monday, said her party has decided to hold vigils in front of the DEM Party-run municipalities in protest of the ministry decision to remove the Hakkari mayor and to defend the will of the people of Hakkari.

She accused the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of retaliation for its defeat in the March 31 elections with its actions in Hakkari.

The March 31 elections produced surprising results for the AKP, while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerged as the country’s leading party for the first time in decades, receiving 37.7 percent of the vote. The AKP’s nationwide support, however, stood at 35.4 percent.

Koçyiğit also called on everyone to attend the vigils and extend their support to the DEM Party in the wake of the anti-democratic move by the government.

Meanwhile, the Hakkari Governor’s Office on Monday announced a ban on public demonstrations, protests and marches in the province for a period of 10 days in an apparent bid to prevent protests against the removal of the city’s mayor. A similar ban was also announced for Diyarbakır for a period of four days by the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office on Monday.

Veteran Kurdish politician Ahmet Türk, the co-mayor of Mardin, told the Sözcü daily that the AKP government is resorting to such anti-democratic measures due to a loss of public support given the fact that the party sustained its worst election defeat in the March 31 elections.

Türk said although there were concerns about a new wave of trustee appointments, there was a widespread belief among DEM Party officials that the AKP government would not resort to such a measure for a third time.

The mayor called on all opposition parties to raise their voices and object to the violation of the will of the people.

The DEM Party’s predecessor, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), won 65 municipalities in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions in the local elections on March 31, 2019, but due to the decisions of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) in six cases and the Interior Ministry, nearly 50 mayors have been removed from office or not allowed to assume office.

Some Kurdish-run municipal officials had been replaced by trustees earlier in 2016.

The Turkish government claimed the appointment of trustees was a counterterrorism measure and that the elected mayors were funneling municipal funds to the PKK.

The mayors denied the accusations and described them as politically motivated.

The Diyarbakır Bar Association called on the Interior Ministry in a statement on X to immediately return Akış to office while recalling that the right to stand trial, be elected and engage in political activities are indispensable elements of a democracy.
CHP against trustees

Leader of the main opposition CHP Özgür Özel described the appointment of a trustee to the Hakkari Municipality only two months after the election as the “hijacking of the will of the people.”

He called on the government to remove the trustee and restore the city’s mayor to his position.

“We are on the side of democracy and the people’s will and against trustees,” Özel said in a tweet on X.

The European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor, also commented on the removal of the Hakkari mayor from office on X on Monday, describing it as a “blatant attack to democratic principles & total disregard to people’s will.”

Amor also called the move the “fastest way” for the Turkish government to destroy any hope of reviving Turkey’s EU membership talks, which have been frozen for years.

In the March local elections, the DEM Party — accused by the Turkish government of links to the PKK, won 10 provincial municipalities in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, including the region’s largest city, Diyarbakır.

The party won back 37 of the 48 municipalities whose mayors were ousted by the government after the 2019 elections.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stepped up a crackdown on the Kurdish political movement following a failed coup in July 2016, arresting dozens of Kurdish politicians, removing democratically elected mayors and closing down Kurdish media outlets.