Stopping the autocratic spread in Southeast Asia

30 July 2022

Author: Salvador Santino F Regilme Jr, Leiden University.

Alongside the global decline of democratisation, the spread of authoritarianism and deterioration of human rights in Southeast Asia continues at an accelerated pace. The region appears to be on a trajectory towards autocracy, with countries undoing their progress towards democracy.

Indonesia — the region’s largest electoral democracy — has witnessed the deterioration of civil liberties, an expanded military presence in civilian politics and increased influence of political dynasties. Both Laos and Vietnam remain under their own forms of Leninist dictatorship, while Singapore has long been under a one-party authoritarian rule where political opposition is effectively curtailed. Brunei remains an absolute monarchy with severe problems in the harshness of its justice system. Cambodia has been a constitutional monarchy under the nearly four-decade personalistic rule of Hun Sen.

There are only two countries in the region that possess a relatively longer history of electoral democratic governance — Thailand and the Philippines.

Since 2010, Thailand and the Philippines — two of the region’s largest post-Cold War constitutional democracies — have demonstrated a remarkable shift to autocracy. Both countries are middle-income and emerging economies with a long-standing treaty alliance with the United States. If Thailand and the Philippines stand as Southeast Asia’s only nominal democracies and US allies, how can the regional shift to autocracy be curtailed?

After the fall of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s administration, Thailand has been haunted by military juntas and political crises. The militaristic National Council for Peace and Order has been blamed for widespread human rights abuses. Since the 2014 coup, China has emerged as a key patron of military defence and political support for the Thai state despite Bangkok’s security commitments with Washington.

Thai elites have welcomed China’s patronage, which emerged in an effort to fill the absence of US support that has dried up as the country declines towards militaristic autocracy. Beijing has capitalised on its increasingly active economic trade relations with Bangkok, forming what is now dubbed by China’s State Council the ‘comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership’. Thailand has responded by positioning itself directly within China’s sphere of influence.

In the Philippines, the post-1986 constitutional order — the liberal constitutional democratic system that emerged after the collapse of Ferdinand Marcos’s brutal dictatorship — dramatically deteriorated when Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency in 2016. The ‘war on drugs’, the persistent red-tagging, the forced closure of the nation’s largest media conglomerate and the systemic harassment of political opposition leaders demonstrates how the state abandoned its commitment to human rights.

During the 2022 national elections, Ferdinand Marcos Junior and the incumbent authoritarian president’s daughter, Sara Duterte, registered a record-breaking landslide victory amid widespread disinformation, electoral irregularities, suppression of peaceful political dissent and politically-motivated killings.

The United States had been a key supporter of domestic political, economic and military elites in Thailand and the Philippines, especially during the Cold War years up until the war on terror. While it is in China’s strategic interest to ensure that the political establishments in two of the United States’ enduring treaty allies are amenable to Beijing’s economic and geostrategic interests, that is most likely to happen under an autocratic state that is shielded from any form of dissent.

While the US track record in the region is far from consistent, China’s blatant promotion of autocracy in the Southeast Asian region represents a fundamental threat not only to the further deterioration of democratic institutions but also to the integrity of international law. Beijing’s demand for autocratic stability in Asian countries undermines the emergence of progressive social movements, checks-and-balances amongst various branches of the government and the absence of accountability among abusive state agents.

If there is any hope in stopping the spread of autocracy in Southeast Asia, at least from the perspective of the United States foreign policy establishment, then political support and material resources must be provided to state and nonstate actors that are committed to competitive electoral processes, democratic governance and human rights.

Those actors include progressive civil society groups and independent journalism and media outlets which can counter the widespread disinformation perpetrated by autocratic elites. Military and state elites who are committed to re-establishing democratic civilian control and opposition politicians who have been consistent in upholding the interests of those in the margins should also be supported.

Salvador Santino F Regilme Jr. is an Assistant Professor in international relations and human rights at the Institute for History at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

 https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

 

China’s women students escape tradition at home

29 July 2022

Author: Fran Martin, University of Melbourne

In recent years, the Western media has depicted Chinese international students as either a worrisome source of political influence or an economic resource to be secured post-COVID-19. The gender perspective has rarely featured in discussions — even though a majority of Chinese students in Western countries, including Australia, are women.

Chinese women currently studying abroad are a historically unique cohort. They are largely from China’s wealthier first- and second-tier cities, and belong to China’s most highly educated generation of women. Due to the combined effects of the one-child policy and the growth of China’s middle classes since the 1980s, they have unprecedented parental resources available to them to support their studies.

In China’s post-socialist society, a powerful, state-endorsed neoliberal-style discourse of individual self-reliance and competitive self-advancement appeals to these well-resourced young women. It nurtures their ambitions to achieve personal fulfilment and career success through investment in education.

Yet a resurgent gender neo-traditionalism is causing misgivings about these women’s ambitions. The manifestations of this trend range from the mockery of women with PhDs as a sexless ‘third gender’ and the state-led disparagement of unmarried women over 27 as ‘leftover women’ to the jailing of feminist activists.

It seems that both China’s government and conservative public opinion fear young, middle-class urban women’s self-transformation going ‘too far’ as a result of the new opportunities available to them. This leaves these women in a conundrum. They are caught between their own desire for self-advancement and strong social pressure to follow a standardised feminine life script that would see them married with children by age 30.

For many women, studying abroad offers an attractive alternative, an ‘escape route’ — whether temporary or permanent — from intense gendered pressures at home. This route is more accessible than ever, despite recent COVID-19-related disruptions. Yet this too produces gendered anxieties.

In Chinese popular media, women studying in Western countries are associated — often negatively — with the de-traditionalisation of their sexual and gendered identities. Popular WeChat accounts have published articles claiming that ‘there are many leftover women among overseas graduate returnees’.

These accounts range from conservative laments about the ‘tragedy’ of unmarried, educated women to the bravery of women resisting neo-traditionalist pressures. A more openly misogynist online stereotype, which has been criticised by female netizens, paints overseas female students as ‘loose’ women corrupted by Western sex culture, who should be avoided as marriage partners.

The idea that studying overseas risks young women abandoning neo-traditional gender ideals is reflected in the personal experiences of students. The recently published book, Dreams of Flight, revealed mothers’ fears that their daughters could become ‘left over’ as a result of studying abroad. Chinese men similarly complained that studying overseas makes women ‘too independent’ and unsuitable as wives.

Studying overseas transformed the sense of self and life plans of the cohort of women studied in Dreams of Flight in complex ways. After several years abroad, graduates describe a series of changes in themselves — changes that differentiate them from female relatives and friends who remained in China. Overseas graduates feel that they have become more personally and professionally ambitious. They also feel they have broadened their cultural horizons and developed a higher tolerance for unconventional ways of living compared to their peers who stayed in China.

These changes relate to transformations in gendered identity. Graduates feel that — thanks to years of living independently at a distance from the surveillance of their relatives — they have become more self-focussed. They are more inclined to put their own individual needs and desires, rather than those of their family members, at the centre of their life plans.

For this cohort of graduates, educational mobility results in increased gender de-traditionalisation. Many can no longer relate to their female peers’ desires to get married and have children on the schedule set by mainstream Chinese state and public opinion. They instead hope for lives shaped by more personal desires like ongoing travel, further study and other projects undertaken for pleasure and self-enrichment rather than duty or convention.

Whether these graduates will be able to realise their collective desire to shape their lives in defiance of gendered conventions remains to be seen. What is clear is that they embody a historical paradox. It is the state-led economic, educational and cultural transformations of the past 30 years that have enabled the emergence of this generation of ambitious young women and allowed them to travel far and wide for their education. Yet, as we have seen, the kind of women they are becoming as a result of these transformations makes the official culture nervous.

While conservative voices at home are trying to rein in these women’s unconventional desires and encourage a return to neo-traditional gender roles, it may prove difficult to persuade this particular genie to return to her bottle.

Fran Martin is Associate Professor and Reader in Cultural Studies at The University of Melbourne.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

Can aquaculture meet China’s demand for food?

27 July 2022

Author: Yu Sheng, Peking University

China has made great efforts to meet increasing domestic food demand over the past four decades. From 1978–2021, China’s real agricultural output grew on average 5.4 per cent a year (over five times the population growth), with increased diversification towards high protein and high-value products. Yet a substantial gap remains between food demand and domestic supply — and is expected to increase.

In 2021, net imports of grains were 165 million tonnes, including 96.5 million tonnes of soybeans (58.6 per cent) and 10.4 million tonnes of cooking oils (6.3 per cent) and 28.35 million tonnes of corn (35.1 per cent), accounting for around a quarter of domestic production.

Given their high-quality protein and relatively low production costs, aquaculture products are seen as having higher economic value than the livestock industry — both as food and substitutes for feed grains. This makes aquaculture a prioritised industry in China — the world’s biggest fisheries subsidiser — that could help decrease the gap between food demand and supply.

Between 1980 and 2020, the annual growth rate of China’s fishing industry total output averaged 6.7 per cent a year, comparable to the livestock industry (6 per cent a year) for the same period. In 2020, the total output of China’s fishing industry was 65.49 million tonnes, 52.24 million tonnes of which came from domestic freshwater and offshore aquaculture. This makes China the leading aquaculture producer and exporter in the world, accounting for 60 per cent of global aquaculture production in 2019.

Aquaculture in China has experienced an expansion in output, including rapid change in its output structure and way of production over the past four decades. Driven by ongoing policy reforms and increasing economic concerns, China’s aquaculture production focusses on freshwater and offshore aquaculture as opposed to its focus on fish catching in the 1980s.

Offshore aquaculture produced 20.65 million tonnes of seafood in 2020, accounting for 40 per cent of total aquaculture output. Mussels, oysters and scallops ranked as the top three seafood products (accounting for 35 per cent, 28 per cent and 13 per cent of seafood production respectively), while fishery products accounted only for 7.3 per cent of the market.

Regarding the geographical distribution of offshore aquaculture, the majority of offshore aquaculture activities are located along the northern and southern coasts of China’s exclusive economic zone. 46.7 per cent of sea fishing and farming in 2020 came from the Huanghai and Bohai Seas, 29.5 per cent from the East China Sea and 23.5 per cent from the South China Sea. Less than 15 per cent came from far-sea catches.

Looking to the future, increased per-capita food demand in both quantity and quality will further drive up the need for more aquaculture products in China. According to the recent forecast by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, total aquaculture demand and consequently production will grow from approximately 81 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes by 2035. This growth imperative puts great pressure on domestic aquaculture production competing for limited feed supply.

In addition to freshwater aquaculture such as molluscs and carp, higher trophic species raised in offshore waters may also increase domestic supply in the future. The industry needs to substantially increase its production and efficiencies in resource usage. Yet challenges arise from increasing environmental constraints, bottlenecks in technological and feed development, interactions between political narratives and policy development and the availability of seafood and feed resources globally.

To resolve the issues facing future aquaculture development in China, a new guiding principle has been initiated in the 14th Five Year Plan (for 2021–2025). This new guideline emphasises sustainable production for directing future aquaculture development in China and is expected to be achieved through productivity enhancement. As evidence, wild capture fisheries have already been strictly restricted for the 2016–2020 period and their output in absolute and relative proportion of total aquaculture output has been declining over the same period.

Parallel to speeding up domestic production in freshwater and offshore aquaculture, China is also actively extending its capability to outsource increasing demand. On the one hand, China is increasing its efforts in far-sea fishery resource exploration along with increased vessel-building capacity and technological progress. At the same time, China is increasing its trade and investment overseas to increase the import of aquaculture products.

This is a strong indication that China’s current strategy is to move towards a market-based, demand-driven economy for aquaculture products, along with the Belt and Road Initiative. While outsourcing from international markets is an attractive option, this strategy depends on whether China can access sufficient production internationally. Either way, the consequences are expected to have great implications for the rest of the world.

Yu Sheng is Professor in the School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences and Deputy Director of the New Rural Development Institute at Peking University.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

Colombo’s controversial new president

24 July 2022

Author: Neil DeVotta, Wake Forest University

On 20 July 2022, Sri Lanka’s parliament voted to make Ranil Wickremasinghe the country’s eighth Executive President until November 2024. That is when Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the island on 13 July, would have completed his term. Gotabaya’s humiliating exit stemmed from ferocious island-wide protests precipitated by Sri Lanka’s worst ever post-independence economic crisis.

Wickremasinghe’s appointment is controversial. He was once considered a highly credible presidential candidate. Yet most Sri Lankans believe he now lacks legitimacy to be president, which is why they opposed his candidacy.

Wickremasinghe’s election is procedurally legitimate. But it is politically less so. He won less than 31,000 votes during the August 2020 parliament elections and his United National Party (UNP) failed to win a single seat. The UNP is a storied party that negotiated Sri Lanka’s independence and Wickremasinghe is related to nearly all its important leaders.

The UNP has withered under Wickremasinghe’s leadership. In the 2020 parliamentary elections it qualified for one of 29 national list seats. This is how Wickremasinghe managed to become a party of one in parliament.

The constitutional prerogative that allows the prime minister to succeed a deposed president assumes that the prime minister will have been elected to parliament. But Wickremasinghe was not elected and is considered to have entered parliament through the back door.

His close ties to the Rajapaksa family is the second reason Wickremasinghe is considered ill-suited to be president. Wickremasinghe shielded the Rajapaksas from prosecution when he was prime minister between 2015 and 2019. The Rajapaksas picked him to be prime minister because they believed that he would continue to protect their interests. He is now branded ‘Ranil Rajapaksa’.

Wickremasinghe’s reputation was further tarnished during the 2015 bond scandal involving the UNP when he was prime minister. Having prevented Mahinda Rajapaksa from winning a third term and campaigning on a platform that promised good governance, the national unity government Wickremasinghe was part of turned out to be as corrupt as its predecessor. In typical Sri Lankan fashion, no one has been held responsible for the scandal.

Wickremasinghe has always sought to be politically relevant. After insisting he would not enter parliament via the national list following the 2020 elections debacle, he went months without nominating anyone from UNP and then appointed himself. His determination to latch on to UNP’s leadership despite successive election losses is why the party split. The breakaway group formed the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB).

After Gotabaya fled to the Maldives, Wickremasinghe agreed to step down as prime minister. But the gazette Gotabaya released conveniently appointed Wickremasinghe acting president. Once Gotabaya resigned, Wickremasinghe became interim president and now he has been elected president.

Sajith Premadasa, leader of the SJB opposition, was supposed to compete against Wickremasinghe. He ended up backing Dulles Alahapperuma, a former journalist with strong ties to the Rajapaksa-led Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). In exchange for the support, Premadasa was to become prime minister in an Alahapperuma presidency.

Leading up to the secret ballot vote in parliament, it appeared Alahapperuma’s candidacy was building momentum. But the Rajapaksas preferred Wickremasinghe and most SLPP members did too.

Wickremasinghe won handily with 134 votes, while Alahapperuma captured 82 votes. Mahinda Rajapaksa pretends he is sorry to see the SLPP’s candidate losing to Wickremasinghe, but this is what the Rajapaksas preferred. Bribing parliamentarians to secure their votes to pass constitutional amendments or switch parties is now a common practice in Sri Lanka. It appears the Rajapaksas may have resorted to bribery in helping Wickremasinghe get as many votes as possible.

Wickremasinghe’s election does not represent the will of the people. The public already view him as a Rajapaksa stooge. Under his leadership, the Rajapaksas will avoid being prosecuted for their sundry crimes. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is bound to return to Sri Lanka and enjoy a high security retirement. This does not mean that the Rajapaksas would have been held accountable for their economic malpractice and plunder under president Allahapperuma. He too has long operated within the Rajapaksa camp. The family can continue using the SLPP parliament majority to dictate the government’s agenda until the next parliamentary elections.

The struggle to get rid of the Rajapaksas has only partly succeeded. Mahinda Rajapaksa may have been ousted as prime minister but the family continue to be represented in parliament. The protestors wanted Wickremasinghe out, but he is now president — an outcome no one envisioned. And with Wickremasinghe picking former schoolmate Dinesh Gunawardena to be the new prime minister, the Rajapaksa family will also have a strong ally overseeing parliamentary affairs.

Wickremasinghe’s election is bound to rattle China, given its close ties to the Rajapaksa family. On the one hand, China is a major creditor and Wickremasinghe will need the country’s help restructuring Sri Lanka’s debts. On the other hand, the new president has long championed neoliberal economics and is more sensitive to Indian and western interests in the Indo-Pacific. His election, therefore, has geopolitical ramifications as well.

Once Wickremasinghe was elected president, a magistrate’s court barred people from congregating within 50 metres around the statue of SWRD Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka’s fourth prime minister. The statue lies next to the main protest site outside the Presidential Secretariat. The ruling was in response to police claiming that protestors could damage the statue — despite the protestors having gathered at the site for 103 days. Wickremasinghe will not tolerate disorderly conduct, which may herald a more muted struggle going forward.

The protestors’ demands are laudable but come across as utopian. Their struggle also disregards how the country’s majoritarian politics has fanned nepotism and corruption. The now fatigued protest movement may fizzle and this is especially likely if Wickremasinghe can form a cross-party government and minimise the current scarcities. Sri Lanka represents an economy of deficits. It must cough up US$500 million a month just for fuel. Food inflation exceeded 80 per cent in June 2022. Nearly 90 per cent of Sri Lankans are skipping meals.

The island needs to restructure its debts and restructure its economy. How long the pain lasts and how future protests pan out will determine Wickremasinghe’s presidency.

Neil DeVotta is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

 

China’s entrepreneurial capitalism faces a grim future

23 July 2022

Author: Martin Miszerak, Renmin University

In May 2022, China’s Vice Premier Liu He signalled the government’s intention to end its ‘regulatory rectification’ campaign — a raft of regulations imposed on the education, ride-sharing and technology sectors. He is the top economic advisor to Chinese President Xi Jinping — so his message must have been approved by Xi, who seems to have finally awoken to the damage the year-long crackdown has wrought on investor sentiment.

The Heng Seng index dropped by 23.7 per cent between December 2020 and mid-May 2022, a result partly explained by the regulatory crackdown. While the worst appears to be over, the deeper issues caused by the campaign remain unresolved.

One interpretation of the regulatory crackdown is that the campaign is part of Xi’s strategy to steer China towards a Maoist model of governance in which the private sector is significantly downsized and private companies are ‘likely to lose what is left of their independence and become mere appendages of the state’.

Yet recent research contradicts this view as China’s economy is increasingly penetrated by the private sector. In the 2015–2021 period, the number of private Chinese Fortune 500 companies tripled from 9 to 32, while the number of all Chinese Fortune 500 companies — including state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and companies under mixed ownership — increased by only 40 per cent.

Another interpretation is that wealth inequality is the target of China’s tech crackdown. Founders of technology companies are now among China’s richest citizens, a statistic that Xi could see as an ‘excess of capitalism’ and a barrier to ‘common prosperity’. But expropriating the combined wealth of China’s top tech entrepreneurs would have no impact on the country’s massive income inequality. The majority of China’s top 100 billionaires appear untouched by the ‘common prosperity’ imperative.

The most likely explanation for the campaign is that it is an assault on China’s entrepreneurial private sector. The companies targeted include taxi-hailing platform DiDi, Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, entertainment streaming service Tencent, food delivery platform Meituan and e-commerce company JD.com.

International Management Professor Yansheng Huang’s ‘varieties of capitalism’ framework suggests that these companies eschew business opportunities from state-owned connections, relying instead on their founders’ entrepreneurial genius and international investors. This distance from the state is being disrupted by the crackdown through which the Chinese Communist Party is moving to solidify political control over corporate cash flows.

China’s large private companies have grown through joint ventures with ‘special investors’ — namely SOEs — over the past 20 years. The 2000–2019 period witnessed a fivefold increase in such joint ventures. In 2019, 358 of the 542 largest private companies were directly connected with SOEs, while 73 had indirect connections.

The universe of China’s largest companies resembles a maze in which ‘large private owners are deeply connected to the state and large state owners have deep ties with private owners’. This maze is exemplified by the East Hope Group conglomerate — a corporate group that operates 236 companies, including 15 ‘special investor’ joint ventures.

Though well evidenced, the specifics of these connections are vague and assumed to be beneficial to large private companies. While true, such connections involve SOEs laying claim to private cash flows in exchange for proprietary market opportunities.

These ‘special deals’ involve ‘access money’ — a form of ‘profit sharing with Chinese characteristics’ in which private companies pay for growth opportunities by sharing equity with SOEs, whose leaders likely pay opaque rents to senior Party officials.

A large private company may choose to be ‘disconnected’ from the state when its business model and access to private capital removes the need to pay ‘access money’. This is the case for top tech platforms targeted by the crackdown, whose digital platforms can generate revenue by signing up more users and selling services without the need for ‘special investors’.

DiDi’s extremely slim and transparent corporate structure, as shown in the company’s initial public offering prospectus, is an interesting case. Few state-affiliated investors participated in DiDi’s earlier fundraising rounds, as its founders have always sought to raise capital from world-famous names such as Apple, Temasek and Alibaba. Softbank, Tencent and Uber were DiDi’s principal shareholders after the initial public offering round — a very different world to East Hope Group.

It is hardly surprising that these companies have enraged the CCP. Former executive chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma’s criticism of China’s regulatory and financial system may have triggered this fury, but the underlying reasons go much deeper. While these companies raised billions of dollars without paying ‘access money’ and maintained distance from the Communist Party, demand for profit sharing eventually materialised into a government-led regulatory crackdown.

It remains unclear how DiDi’s case will unfold, but much can be learnt from looking back on Jack Ma’s experience with Ant Financial. Though Ant Group might be allowed to proceed with its much-delayed public offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the company has paid a steep price. Regulators are pushing for a corporate restructuring in which Ant Financial will take on SOE partners to run what were once privately-owned business units. The future of China’s entrepreneurial capitalism looks decidedly grim.

Martin Miszerak is Visiting Lecturer at Renmin Business School, Renmin University, Beijing.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/

Explainer: What's driving the power struggle in Iraq?




Supporter of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr protest against corruption, inside the parliament in Baghdad, Iraq July 30, 2022. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani


BAGHDAD, July 31 (Reuters) - A power struggle in Iraq between the influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr and Iran-backed Shi'ite rivals has escalated with his supporters breaking into parliament and beginning an open-ended sit-in protest. read more

The tussle over who gets to form the next government has deepened a fissure in the Shi'ite community that has dominated Iraqi politics since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

What is the background to the rivalry, why has it escalated, what does this mean for Iraq and what are the risks of violence?

WHO ARE SADR AND HIS RIVALS?

Heir to a prominent clerical dynasty, Sadr is a populist with a fiercely loyal support base and a track record of radical action, including fighting U.S. forces after the invasion and clashing with Iraqi authorities.

He commanded a powerful militia, the Mehdi Army, in the years after the invasion, but officially disbanded it in 2008. Its successor, the Peace Brigades, retains thousands of armed fighters.

He exercises big sway in the state, where his supporters hold many positions. He has emphasised his credentials as an Iraqi nationalist in recent years, opposing the influence of both the United States and Iran.

His Shi'ite rivals form an alliance called the Coordination Framework, which includes Tehran-aligned politicians such as former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and paramilitary groups armed and trained by Iran.

Many of these groups' ties to Tehran date to the Iran-Iraq war, when Iran supported Shi'ite insurgents against Saddam.

Each side accuses the other of corruption.

WHY HAS THE STANDOFF ESCALATED?

Tensions have worsened since an October election in which Sadr's movement emerged as the biggest bloc with 74 of parliament's 329 seats and the Iran-backed factions' share slumped to 17 from a previous 48.

After failing to overturn the result in the courts, the Iran-backed factions set about stymying Sadr's efforts to form a government that would include his Kurdish and Sunni Arab allies but exclude groups he described as corrupt or loyal to Tehran.

Despite their diminished numbers in parliament, the Iran-aligned groups managed to frustrate Sadr by denying the two-thirds quorum needed to elect a Kurdish head of state - the first step towards forming a government.

Frustrated at the deadlock, Sadr instructed his lawmakers to quit parliament in June. The move ceded dozens of seats to the Coordination Framework, meaning it could try to form a government of its choosing, though this would risk Sadr's wrath.

Eyeing a comeback, Sadr rival Maliki put himself forward to be prime minister - a post that must go to a Shi'ite in Iraq's political system - but retreated after Sadr criticised him on Twitter.

Sadr's rivals then floated another candidate, Mohammed Shiya al-Sudani, seen by Sadr's supporters as a Maliki loyalist. This step appears to have been the final straw for Sadr supporters, igniting the protests.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR IRAQ?

Iraq has now gone more than nine months without a new government - a record in the post-Saddam era.

The standoff adds to political dysfunction in a country suffering dire public services, high poverty and widespread unemployment despite huge oil wealth and no major conflict since Islamic State's defeat five years ago.

At a time when soaring crude prices have boosted Iraq's oil revenues to record highs, the government has no budget for 2022 and spending on much-needed infrastructure projects and economic reforms has been delayed.

Ordinary Iraqis meanwhile suffer power and water cuts. The World Food Programme says 2.4 million of the population of 39 million are in acute need of food and livelihood assistance.

The paralysis is diverting attention from problems including soaring global food prices, drought and the lingering threat posed by Islamic State.

Outgoing Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi continues in a caretaker role for now.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF VIOLENCE?

A call by the Coordination Framework for its supporters to rally on Sunday gave rise to concerns of confrontation in the streets, but it then cancelled the demonstrations.

The United Nations has called for a de-escalation, saying "voices of reason and wisdom are critical to prevent further violence". Many Iraqi leaders have also called for the preservation of civil peace.

Sadr has vowed peaceful political action, but is backed up by the armed Peace Brigades and many of his civilian followers keep weapons, stoking fears of armed clashes if the standoff escalates.

Conflict among Iraqi Shi'ites would be bad news for Iran, which has carved out major influence in Iraq through its Shi'ite allies since the United States toppled its foe Saddam.

Iran, which has yet to comment on the latest developments, has previously intervened to quell internal unrest in Iraq.

UK

Mick Lynch takes apart Liz Truss over plans to effectively ban industrial action

“She’s seeking to make effective industrial action illegal, so people people will have to use other means to take action and respond to the employers."

Basit Mahmood 27 July, 2022 

RMT boss Mick Lynch has taken apart Liz Truss over her plans to effectively ban meaningful industrial action as rail strikes continued today.

Truss who is the favourite to replace Boris Johnson, has said that she would introduce minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure in the first 30 days of government under her leadership. As a result, teachers, postal workers and those working in the energy sector could be prevented from going on strike.

The Tory leadership hopeful has also proposed raising the minimum threshold for voting in favour of strike action from 40 to 50 percent. Other measures include raising the minimum notice period for strike action from two weeks to four weeks and implementing a cooling-off period so that unions can no longer strike as many times as they like in the six-month period after a ballot.

Speaking to the BBC Lynch said he thought Truss was a ‘right-wing fundamentalist’, warning that the country would have one of the most extreme leaders should she win the race to replace Johnson.

Lynch said: “This is a direct attack on one of the main pillars of our democracy one of the founding basis of any democracy is the right for a trade union to freely organise and take appropriate industrial action.

“She’s seeking to make effective industrial action illegal, so people will have to use other means to take action and respond to the employers.

“Whose been held to ransom at the moment is the British worker right across the economy.”

He said Truss wants the unions to “surrender” so we have a “low-paid, cowed workforce” in the UK.

“The rest of the country, if you believe in democracy and believe in a liberal economy, cannot support what she’s standing for, because it’s oppression of working people.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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AOC slams Alito for ‘politicized’ and ‘alarming’ Roe v. Wade remarks

Published: July 29, 2022

By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked foreign leaders who criticized the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and called out ‘hostility to religion’ in viral Rome speech

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been criticized for his keynote 

address on religious freedom in Rome. 

ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

‘Remember: it was Alito’s opinion that leaked. That fact paired with his politicized remarks below should be alarming to anyone.’

That’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacting, on Twitter, to a viral speech that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave in Rome.

A bearded Alito delivered a keynote address for Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative on Thursday that focused on religious freedom. It courted controversy by mocking “foreign leaders” — including outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron — who spoke out against the Supreme Court’s controversial decision to repeal Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. for decades.

Related: What percentage of Americans support Roe v. Wade? How people really feel about abortion, according to polls.

As Ocasio-Cortez noted, Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May, more than a month before the Supreme Court went public with the decision on June 24. Alito did not comment on the leak during his speech. And it is not publicly known whether the Court is investigating the leak, as Chief Justice John Roberts ordered in May.

Read more: ‘The Court has no comment’: It’s not publicly known whether the May leak of Alito’s draft opinion on Roe v. Wade is still under investigation

Alito’s remarks in Rome marked the first time he has spoken publicly since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the U.S. became one of four countries to have rolled back abortion rights since 1994, joining El Salvador, Nicaragua and Poland.

“I had the honor this term of writing, I think, the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders,” Alito said Thursday, adding that these officials felt “perfectly fine commenting on American law.”

Related: European Parliament condemns striking down of federal abortion right by U.S. Supreme Court

He mistakenly referred to Johnson as a “former prime minister,” even though Johnson won’t step down until September. Alito joked that Johnson, felled by several scandals, had “paid the price” for commenting on the Roe decision, which drew laughs in the audience. He then noted that Macron and Trudeau are “still in office.”

Alito claimed that a “growing hostility to religion” has emerged in the West, adding that “religious liberty is under attack in many places, because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power. It also probably grows out of something dark and deep in the human DNA — a tendency to distrust and dislike people who are not like ourselves.”

Critics including Ocasio-Cortez questioned the appropriateness of Alito’s remarks about religion and foreign leaders, noting the comments put the impartiality of the justice himself as well as that of highest court of the land into question. “The Supreme Court is in a legitimacy crisis,” the second-term House Democrat wrote.

Alito’s speech went viral, leading his name to trend on Twitter on Friday. “These [justices] are rightwing political actors and aren’t even trying to hide it,” tweeted MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.

Jezebel writer Laura Bassett described Alito as “gloating” over repealing Roe v. Wade amid an “international comedy tour.”

Representatives for Alito and the Supreme Court were not immediately available

 for comment.