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Global developments are not always trends. While some contexts may project a pattern, be it in election outcomes or economic indicators, they merely give us a broad understanding while the truth remains in the specifics.
Brazil witnessed a departure from a 34-year-old poll pattern, when democratic leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent President and far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro, who was seeking re-election. Srinivasan Ramani analyses Lula’s win here.
The margin was narrow — Lula secured 50.9 % of the votes — but the former two-time president’s comeback is staggering. While Lula may have won the presidential vote, he has his task cut out, to govern with policies that weed out the potent but dangerous ideological mix of ultra-nationalism, conservatism, and free market policies of his ousted rival. For, poll defeats do not make far-right ideologies disappear.
Former Israeli Prime Minister and the head of Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara gesture after first exit poll results for the Israeli Parliamentary election at his party’s headquarters in Jerusalem. | Photo Credit: AP
As was seen in Israel, where former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the recent elections with considerable help of his new, far-right allies. Stanly Johny breaks down this poll outcome and what Netanyahu’s leadership likely entails. Domestically, the rise of the far-right in Israel, most of them Netanyahu allies, has challenged the social stability of the country, where Arab citizens make up some 20% of the population. But Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t seem to be perturbed. He thrives in crisis. Regardless, any leader invested in the country’s long-term interests cannot ignore the growing violence in the occupied lands and widening social disquiet inside Israel proper. Israel’s leaders must look for a solution to the Palestinian question, The Hindu Editorial said.
Meanwhile, Denmark emerged an exception when voters, in the country’s recent parliamentary elections, defied the trend in Europe, of right-wing electoral gains, and rewarded their centre-left Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. For continued political success, however, she has to begin with easing the cost-of-living crisis, while keeping the effects of Russia’s war on Ukraine minimal on the Danish public, The Hindu’s Editorial said.
Top Five
- The most dangerous moment since 1962: The Ukraine war is a textbook example where the parties involved are treating each other with matching hostility, writes Stanly Johny.
- Will Rishi Sunak be a ‘living bridge’? Meet the many other world leaders of Indian origin – Stanly Johny.
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s win is the most decisive reversal of a great wave called an ‘Age of Reaction’, writes Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
- China’s 20th Party Congress over, the road ahead and why India needs to be cautious – former National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan writes.
- In Pakistan, a state of war with much drama ahead. Karachi-based political economist S. Akbar Zaidi writes that with the military making it clear that ‘when the state is in a state of war, the people and the army tackle it together’, things have become far more complicated politically.
China Watch:
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. File. | Photo Credit: AFP
In a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government hosted by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar appeared to critique China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), when he said connectivity projects must respect sovereignty issues, Suhasini Haidar reports.
Beijing on November 4 said it had named 11 bridges along its key Tibet-Xinjiang highway, parts of which run through Aksai Chin, after four Chinese soldiers killed in the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash, Ananth Krishnan reports.
Sri Lanka watch:
Crucial drugs are still in short supply in crisis-hit Sri Lanka, even as Opposition and government critics took out a rally to highlight repression and enduring economic hardships of people.
