Sunday, February 21, 2010

Election Notes

Ukraine - Yulia Tymoschenko has withdrawn her law suit challenging the election of the incoming Victor; Yulia is not resigning as PM; Yulia is really, really angry and will boycott the inauguration. The next question is what will Victor do with an angry and powerful PM. I suspect that Tymoschenko withdrew the court action for two reasons: she'd lose (but the ensuing instability would be unacceptable to the new president) and (therefore) a deal has been cut. What was the deal? As an aside - Russia has not decided yet if they will send someone to attend the inauguration ceremony. Considering their man won, the reticence is odd.

Egypt - I readily admit to a lack of knowledge about Egyptian politics following the Ptolemy era and my recent experience with modern Egypt was decidedly unpleasant. However, the beginnings of a campaign to get Mohammed ElBaradei to run for president of Egypt are strange. Egypt is not noted for its democratic system but regardless of the seemingly insurmountable barrier of a Mubarak dynasty, what is behind the decision to run? Does he have a base of support? Does his experience as head of the IAEA give him some experience for running Egypt? I simply don't know and if anyone does, let me know.

CPAC - OK. I know - no US politics. Get over it. Congratulations to Ron Paul for his enormous and meaningless victory over Sarah and Mitt. Run with it Paul. According to the Very Serious Pundits in Washington (that's you Mr. Broder) this is good news for McCain.

and, last but not least...

Niger - Anyone remember yellow cake? No? There is a lot of it in Niger. In a Niger version of elections, the army took over the reins of power on Thursday from the 71 year old president Mamadou Tandja who is now supposedly in Chad. Tandja was allegedly planning to extend, again, his rule without resort to a messy vote. In what may be one of the best understatements of the year so far, a French diplomat said "All I can say is that it would appear that Tandja is not in a good position". Salou Djibo, a squadron chief, has assumed the leadership role.







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