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The Little Everyday Challenges Prepare Us for the Larger Ones







Globalisation has made us more vulnerable. It creates a world without borders, and makes us painfully aware of the limitations of our present instruments, and of politics, to meet its challenges.  Anna Lindh



ICELAND


• Iceland – parliament (Oct. 28)
Politics in tiny Iceland have taken a rollercoaster ride over the last several years, and the country's latest developments are as dizzying as ever. It's been just a year since Iceland's last election, but the center-right governing coalition fell apart in mid-September, forcing new elections this month thanks to a shocking scandal that ensnared Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson. Benediktsson's father, one of Iceland's wealthiest men, had written a letter on behalf of a friend who is a convicted pedophile to help "restore his honor" so that he could legally seek certain employment again. Although the prime minister didn't write the letter himself, he and his party stand accused of trying to cover up its existence for months.
Consequently, the centrist Bright Future party exited the coalition led by Benediktsson's right-wing Independence Party, which led to the collapse of the government. Independence has long dominated Icelandic politics, along with the center-right Progressive Party and center-left Social Democratic Party, but the 2008-09 financial crisis and its aftermath wreaked havoc on Iceland's economy and its party system, leading to the rise and fall of many small parties over the last decade.
The upheaval has been intense. The Social Democrats came to power with the left-wing Left-Greens in 2009, but the painful economic recovery saw a Progressive-led coalition with Independence wash out the Social Democrats in a tidal wave in 2013. However, the Panama Papers leaks, which included financial information about tax evasion on the part of wealthy individuals and public officials around the world, implicated Progressive Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson in 2016, leading to massive protests and early elections that October. The Progressives suffered major losses, but Independence was able to form a new coalition without them thanks to the rise of minor centrist parties. Fast forward to 2017, and the Progressives themselves have split, with former leader Sigmundur Davíð announcing the formation of a new party.
Polling since the abrupt collapse of the latest Independence-led coalition has been sparse, but it shows the potential for the opposition to gain power. The Left-Greens have long polled as the second-most popular party and could soon displace Independence as the largest following this latest scandal. However, the Left-Greens would likely struggle to form a governing coalition since the Social Democrats are still deeply unpopular.
The other opposition parties are decidedly less traditional. The Pirate Party, a radical pro-direct democracy group that prioritizes digital copyright reform, was an international media darling in the run-up to last year's election after it polled in first place for months on end, but this party of political amateurs saw its support plummet in the closing months of the campaign. However, its 14 percent of the vote was still a major success, and recent polls indicate the Pirates could once again draw double digits next month.
Another newer party is the People's Party, which failed to break the 5 percent threshold to win seats in 2016 but has surged to nearly 10 percent in the recent polls. The party is lead by Inga Sæland, who is legally blind and advocates for people with disabilities. Where this populist party fits on the ideological spectrum isn't clear, though. Inga is a former Social Democrat who left the party after the 2008 financial crisis because she felt it wasn't doing enough to help the poor, and her economic policies are generally left-wing. However, Inga also authored a Facebook post last March where she bemoaned asylum-seekers, earning comparisons to Trump (she later distanced herself from that post).
Iceland could be in for yet another messy election season followed by months of fraught negotiations to form a multi-party coalition. Although this nation of just 333,000 people is a relatively minor player on the world stage, its politics don't lack for excitement. [Daily Kos International Elections Digest, October 1, 2017]
FIRST IN PI - SPG SIGNS ICELAND: SPG has signed the Icelandic government as its latest foreign lobbying client, according to a contract obtained by PI. It's the latest foreign client for the firm, which has been having a moment after Robert Stryk, its executive chairman, was featured in The New York Times Magazine's piece on lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump's team. SPG also represents the governments of Afghanistan, Kenya and the Czech Republic, as well as the Korean International Trade Association . The contract did not specify how much Iceland is paying SPG per month.
- SPG is also reorganizing itself into five divisions, according to the firm: a private diplomacy division headed by Jacob Daniels, a former Trump campaign hand in Michigan; a global investments division in New York, headed by Josh Boles; a global security division headed by Dan Hoffman; SPG Studio, a marketing and communications team headed by David Glick; and a corporate and campaign strategy division for which the firm is looking to hire. [POLITICO Influence, October 5, 2017]

GERMANY








• International Digest: Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union party won a fourth consecutive term in power in Germany. However, the Alternative for Germany party's historic 13 percent of the vote will see the far-right enter parliament for the first time in many decades. The center-left Social Democrats quit the so-called "grand coalition" with arch-rival Merkel after their 21 percent was the party's worst result in post-World War II history. Merkel will consequently have to seek new coalition partners with the center-right Free Democratic Party and the center-left Greens. [Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest, October 3, 2017]

FRANCE








EXPAND YOUR MIND


Is Paris Burning? NONFICTION 

CZECH REPUBLIC


• Czech Republic – parliament (Oct. 20-21)
Voters in the Czech Republic will go to the polls later this month in what is expected to be a blowout defeat for outgoing Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka's Social Democratic Party. The center-left Social Democrats hold just a quarter of the seats in parliament and have governed in an uneasy alliance with ANO (a centrist populist party whose acronym translates as "yes" in Czech) since the 2013 elections. However, that alliance effectively broke down this year as Sobotka increasingly clashed with ANO leader Andrej Babiš, who was replaced as finance minister earlier in 2017 when coalition infighting almost brought down the government.
Babiš is the Czech Republic's second-wealthiest man and a billionaire media mogul. He is also likely to become the next prime minister, as ANO has won a dominant plurality in every recent poll. However, Babiš has been accused of corruption and of using his party as a way to gain power, drawing some unwanted comparisons to Donald Trump and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, another media mogul-turned-oligarch. Indeed, parliament recently voted to strip Babiš' immunity so that he can be prosecuted on fraud charges related to his business dealings, though he'd regain that immunity if he becomes prime minister.
ANO burst onto the stage ahead of the 2013 elections ironically in large part due to its anti-corruption stance, though it's generally a pro-business party (and also somewhat skeptical of further European integration). It's likely that ANO will form a coalition with some of the small, more traditionally center-right parties following the election, given its unhappy relationship with its current partners. [Daily Kos International Elections Digest October 1, 2017]


BELARUS


The big question

Russia just finished its annual capstone military exercise last week, a massive and coordinated series of dress rehearsals for repelling an invasion from the West, and then going on the offensive. And though the war games called “Zapad,” or “West,” did not end, as some in Europe had feared, with the military occupation of Belarus or a Crimea-style incursion into the Baltics, they did provide a show of Russia’s vastly improved capability to coordinate large-scale military operations. So we asked Post Moscow Bureau chief David Filipov, should the West fear Russia more after Zapad-2017?
“There’s no doubt that Russia showed a remarkable capability to carry out what Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist for CNA who kept a running scorecard of the games, called ‘a high end conventional fight against the United States and a coalition of NATO members.’
“Though the official scenario of games was focused on the Baltic nations and Belarus, Russia’s military ran drills across the country, involving its fleets, its allies in other former Soviet republics, its air force and its strategic nuclear forces. As Kofman points out, the ultimate result was a response to ‘an adversary that had a global force,’ which can only mean one thing.
“U.S. and European military analysts had expected this — Zapad takes place every four years, as part of Russia’s rotating annual war games, and the 2009 and 2013 scenarios ended with a similar simulated escalation. And because units that took part in the 2013 exercise carried out Russia’s stealth occupation of Crimea in 2014, NATO took care to reinforce its military deterrent in the Baltics and Poland.
“But Zapad also revealed Russia’s big fear — that it is being hemmed in by an aggressive, hostile force in NATO. Moscow believes that the U.S. and its allies instigated the rebellion that resulted in a pro-Western government in Ukraine in 2014. And Russia’s planners believe that Belarus is the West’s new target. 
“Zapad shows that Moscow would be ready to escalate quickly and decisively to defeat a Western attempt to unseat its Belarusan ally, Alexander Lukashenko, and pry the country from Russia’s orbit. And if a U.S.-led alliance were to declare total war, Russia would be ready to mount a devastating response.
“Message delivered. Now, if only someone could convince Moscow that NATO has no intention of invading Belarus…” [The Washington Post. Sept. 25,2017]



AUSTRIA


The right is set to be the big winner in Austria’s upcoming general election

 • Austria – parliament (Oct. 15)
Austria is poised for a dramatic shift toward the radical right in two weeks. The mainstream conservative People's Party (OVP) has surged into a polling lead after selecting telegenic 31-year-old Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz to lead it. Kurz's leadership means the OVP is making a play for the same anti-immigrant voters who have contributed to the rise in support for the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) since Europe's refugee crisis boiled over in 2015. Tired of playing junior partner in a grand coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPO), the OVP under Kurz will almost certainly head the next government.
Polls have OVP taking first place with around 33 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, although the FPO is no longer polling in first place as it ominously was for almost all of 2016, the party is locked in contention with the SPO for second place, with the two regularly tied at around 25 percent each. Meanwhile, the center-left Greens and a splinter faction led by former Green MP Peter Pilz are each fighting to stay above the 4 percent minimum threshold, but neither is likely to achieve much relevance even though the Greens won last year's runoff against FPO for Austria's mostly ceremonial presidency.
Consequently, there's likely no governing coalition that could emerge without the OVP at the helm. Given the gridlock that grand coalitions over the last several years have experienced, Kurz's leadership is a sign that the OVP is ready to give up on leading its own grand coalition with a center-left partner resistant to conservative economic policies. Instead, the OVP is poised to ally with the radical right and form a coalition with FPO, marking a dramatic rightward shift in policy, particularly in the realm of European integration and immigration. Indeed, FPO has even gone so far as to claim Kurz stole their own campaign ideas—though watch this complaining cease just as soon as they're offered the chance to join the next government.
An OVP-FPO coalition would thus make Austria the only Western European country with a far-right party as an actual member of a governing coalition, but it wouldn't be the first time we've seen this happen in Austria, despite its sad history. Indeed, these two same parties formed a coalition once before, when the FPO reached its all-time high of 27 percent of the vote after the 1999 elections. That alliance drew condemnation and sanctions from fellow European Union member states, and it ultimately ended badly for the FPO in the next election, as its support for conservative economic policies alienated many of its working-class voters.
Nowadays, though, two decades of normalization of the radical right across the north Atlantic distressingly means Austria's impending lurch toward the extreme is just another story, and a relatively small one compared to the rise of Donald Trump and neighboring Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Even worse, the center-left SPO has also cracked the door open to cooperation with the FPO, and that crack could swing even wider if the left continues to get drubbed in national elections and, like the mainstream right, tries to co-opt nativist policies to win back its former voters. [Daily Kos International Elections Digest October 1, 2017]

VENEZUELA








Crisis in Caracas, unrest in Venezuela PODCAST


HALEY: VENEZUELA OIL EMBARGO 'NOT OFF THE TABLE': She declined to firmly back the idea, but U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters Thursday the U.S. had not ruled out enacting an oil embargo against Venezuela. "If things don't improve, all those options are always there, and so that's what we're watching to see," she said. "It's not off the table, I can tell you that." She didn't respond to a similar question about pushing for an oil embargo against North Korea.


THE NEW TRAVEL BAN North Korea, Venezuela and Chad were added to the list.   The new restrictions on Venezuela apply only to government officials, not to the broader population, and could have been imposed without including them in the new travel ban proclamation." The changes take effect Oct. 18.



NOTE: The news sources here vary.  Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here.  This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased.  Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value.  Thank you


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