Boris Johnson seeks to
become British PM after Theresa May’s resignation
Britain’s Boris Johnson confirmed Thursday he
will seek to become prime minister when Theresa May quits as she promised
to set out a departure timetable early next month.
“Of course I’m going to go for it,” the
former foreign minister, ex-mayor of London and leading Brexit campaigner said
at a business event in Manchester.
The decision comes as little surprise as
Johnson, one of Britain’s most identifiable politicians known simply as
“Boris”, has long been known to covet the top job. But it effectively fires the
starting gun on a race that already has more than a dozen runners and
riders even though there is no official vacancy.
May has promised to step down once the first
stage of Britain’s exit from the European Union is secured, but this has been
put in doubt by repeated Brexit delays. At a meeting of senior members of
her Conservative party on Thursday, May resisted growing demands to set out a
detailed plan for her departure right now.
Opinion
polls in South Africa have clearly shown the sharp decline in citizens’
approval of Jacob Zuma’s performance as president over the past three years.
What has been less clear is the impact on the governing African National
Congress (ANC). He was also the president of the ANC, until his term ended in
December and he was replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa.
For many
years, Zuma was considered a 'Teflon' president. He seemed to maintain public
support even in the face of controversial decisions and scandals because of his
personal appeal as an affable populist. Several surveys placed his approval
ratings in the 60% to 70% range throughout his first term in office. Once that
image was finally pierced, one might have logically expected his downfall to be
equally personal, and not take the party down with him.
But new
results from the December 2017 South African Citizen Survey demonstrate just
the opposite. Asking a widely used measure of party support called partisan
identification, a strong predictor of both voter turnout and vote choice, only
32% of those surveyed said they “felt close” to the ANC. This is the worst
result recorded in the past 17 years, and statistically tied as the lowest
level since 1994.
Zuma, it
seems, pulled the ANC down with him. But this question is not asked very
frequently by South African polling organisations. Fortunately, it’s possible
to turn to an alternative indicator to get a more fine-grained take on recent
trends in ANC support.
The South
African Citizen Survey also asks respondents to rate how much they “like or
dislike” each major political party on a scale of 0 to 10. In mid-2015, 61% of
South Africans held a positive view of the ANC. Two and a half years later,
only 43% feel this way. More importantly, the proportion who give the ANC a
higher score than any other party has shrunk from over one half of the
electorate in mid-2015 (55%), to just over one third (37%) in the most recent
survey as shown below.
PRESIDING
OVER ELECTORAL DECLINE
To be
sure, it was already clear from the ANC’s loss of seats in the National
Assembly and provincial legislatures in the 2009 and 2014 national elections
that Zuma was presiding over an electoral decline, however small. This should
have become even clearer in 2016, when large numbers of ANC members lost their
seats as municipal councillors, positions in executive councils, and mayorships
of major metropolitan councils.
Yet many
of these losses could have been pinned to the poor performance of the post-2008
economy. Indeed, ever since 1994, the degree of economic optimism (as measured
by the proportion of South Africans who expect the economy to improve in the
next year) has been a strong predictor of popular support for the ANC.
But the
evidence suggests that over the past year, voter support for the ANC became
tied to their views of Jacob Zuma, rather than the economy. While Zuma’s
popularity has fallen steadily since at least the end of 2015, the biggest
single drop took place in April 2017 when his support levels plummeted by 12
percentage points on the heels of the public firestorm that followed the March
Cabinet reshuffle and sacking of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Yet, even
with the resultant damage to the currency and the markets, South Africans began
to sense an economic turnaround. By year’s end, 48% expected the economy to get
better in the next 12 months, and 59% expected their household living
conditions to improve. But peoples’ evaluations of Zuma’s job performance
continued to plummet (to just 22%), and the public image of the ANC remained at
historically low levels.
Thus,
voters finally turned on Zuma, but only after a long string of personal
scandals, bad political decisions, and public outrage over the use of public
money on his private homestead Nkandla, the “capture” of key state institutions
by Gupta-friendly ministers and directors, and cabinet reshuffles.
Yet the
ANC continued to shield him from the courts, the Public Protector, and from
successive votes of no confidence in parliament. Indeed, the party came very
close to electing his hand-chosen successor, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as its new
leader and presumptive national president.
But at
some point in the past few months, a sufficient number of party members finally
seemed to grasp the fact that Zuma’s continued presence threatened the
electoral interests of the party as well as their own political futures,
particularly those who appeared downwind on the party list. But it took them a
very long time to reach this conclusion, and the party has paid dearly in terms
of its connection with the electorate.
Zuma dragged
the ANC down with him. Yet many might justifiably argue that it has been a
mutual waltz to the bottom: while his behaviour and decisions damaged his own
image, the ANC’s tolerance of his sins of governance has tarnished theirs.
President
Cyril Ramaphosa therefore faces a double challenge. Not only must he
reestablish a positive connection between the residency and the people, but he
must also transform the battered image of the ANC.
The South
African Citizens Survey is based on face-to-face interviews with a nationally
representative sample of 1,300 respondents a month. Results are reported
quarterly on a total of 3,900 respondents, which produces results with a margin
of error margin of error of ±1.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Sampling sites are chosen at random across all provinces, and metro, urban and
rural areas, with probability proportionate to population size, based on the
latest StatsSA estimates of the population aged 18 and older. Interviews are
conducted in English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Sepedi, and
Setswana. Weights are applied to ensure the sample represents the most recent
national population with respect to province, race, gender, age and area type.
Robert
Mattes is a professor in the Department of Political Studies, University of
Cape Town.
Jacob Zuma
in pictures and scandals (Supplied
by International Business Times)
Who Say Army Can't Take Over Power In Nigeria? Ekweremadu
Chief Ike Ekeweremadu, deputy Senate President on
Wednesday said the possibility of the military taking over power in Nigeria
cannot be totally ruled out.
Contributing to a debate on a motion sponsored by
Ahmed Ogembe, senator representing Kogi central during plenary, Ekweremadu said
Nigeria’s democracy was receding.
In his motion, Ogembe had alleged that Kogi State
Governor, Yahaya Bello sponsored thugs to disrupt an empowerment programme he
organised for members of his constituents.
Reacting, Ekweremadu said such incident indicated
that efforts must be made to protect Nigeria’s democracy.
He also warned Bello that “the road he is travelling
will not lead him anywhere”.
According to the deputy senate President, “You will
recall that sometime last year when they wanted to recall Dino I advised the
governor that they are wasting the resources of that state, that it is mission
impossible.
“They took three pages in the newspaper abusing me.
Are we still hearing the recall today? Money has been wasted. Money that has
been used to pay salaries of people in Kogi state was used to mobilise people
to recall senator Dino yet those people have not been paid and Dino is still
here.
“So today I am advising the governor again, that
road he is travelling will not lead him to anywhere. Ultimately, these people
he is seeing here will be back here and he will leave office.
“If he doesn’t stop, there is no how he will come
back in 2019, never, no he will not. God will show him that he is a God of justice
and this is a message to all those people who have caused all kinds of problem
in Nigeria at different level. The problem in Nigeria is that our democracy is
receding. Who says army cannot take over, let us not joke with our democracy
that is the issue.
“The house of a senator was destroyed in Kaduna
state, we are talking about Kwankwaso who was stopped from going to his state
where he ruled for eight years. In Kaduna, Shehu Sani cannot organise a meeting
and we are about a democracy? The international community needs to know this
because they helped us install democracy.”
American-Senegalese singer, Aliaume Thiam, popularly
known as Akon, has spoken about debating with President Donald Trump and
lecturing him on governance.
In a new interview with journalists which held at
Los Angeles yesterday, the 44-year-old singer also dropped a hint on running
for the 2020 US Presidential run.
He also said Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will be
his running mate if he was to run for Presidency.
“If I was to run for President I would actually ask
[Mark Zuckerberg] to be my running man.
“Because I think sometimes it takes people from the
outside to really see life differently, to make differences,” he says in the
video below.
He added that Trump has been making a “huge
difference” but not in a positive way.
“I think Trump would have been a great president if
he made decisions for the people.
“If he was as passionate as he is for his own
interests as he is for the people, oh he would have made an amazing president,”
he said.
Presidential Visit: Plateau State Declares Thursday A Holiday To
Welcome Buhari
The Plateau government has declared Thursday, March 8, a work-free day to enable residents welcome President Muhammadu Buhari on a one-day working visit to the state.
Mr Izam Azi, Head of Service, announced this on Tuesday in Jos, after an emergency State Executive Council meeting.
“The holiday will afford civil servants and other citizens the opportunity to give the President a rousing welcome,” Azi said.
Commissioner for Information and Communication, Yakubu Dati, also announced that there would be restriction of movement during the visit, especially around areas the President would inaugurate projects.
Dati said that government had created alternative routes in affected areas, adding that security agencies would guide movements during the day.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the White House was not in chaos.
He stated this while reacting to a wave of resignations and FBI investigators circling his top aides.
Trump decried reports of “Chaos in the White House” as a “Fake News narrative” in series of tweets.
“Wrong!
People will always come & go,” he said after his closest aide
Hope Hicks and his staff secretary Rob Porter stepped down amid
interwoven scandals.
Trump’s
first year in office has been a frenzy of departures and infighting,
which insiders put down to clashing interests, inexperience and the
president’s unique management style.
“I want strong dialogue before making a final decision,” Trump said, defending his method of promoting staff argument.
Trump further hinted that things were not perfect.
“I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection). There is no Chaos, only great Energy!” he said.
2019 Election: PDP Youth League Reacts To The Defection Of Party Elders To SDP
The National Youth League of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has
reacted to the reported defection of Prof. Jerry Gana, Tunde Adediran,
Alhaji Shehu Gabam and others from the PDP to the Social Democratic
Party, SDP.
Reacting in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary,
Zainab Al-Amin, the PDP youths said, “We the entire members of Peoples
Democratic Party National Youth League (PDPNYL) received the news of
alleged defection of some leaders of our great party including, Prof
Jerry Gana, Prof Tunde Adeniran and Alhaji Shehu Gabam to Social
Democratic Party (SDP) with great shock and sadness.
“It is our candid opinion that the least expected of people that have
had so much gains from the party is to join hands with the
indefatigable leadership of our great party led by Prince Uche Secondus
and his team of National Working Committee to rebuild the party for
greatness, reposition it and Regain every lost ground.
“While we mourn the exit of the aforementioned leaders from the
party, it is our candid belief that the PDP National Youth League will
not be broken.
“The PDPNYL shall continue to reach out to and galvanize young
Nigerians into our great party to ensure maximum support of the youths
ahead of 2019 election.
“The PDPNYL shall always liaise with the office of the National Youth
Leader, National Publicity Secretary, National Women Leader, National
Secretary, National Chairman and every other relevant organs at all
levels to achieve this aim.
“Though we believe that the PDP is the only party that can
resoundingly defeat the ruling All Progressive Congress in 2019 and
beyond, we wish the aforementioned leaders well in their new found
party.”
Silvio
Berlusconi To Play Kingmaker In Italy Election
Over an evening glass of wine, regulars at the Da Luca delicatessen on Rome’s fashionable Via Urbana are arguing about who will run Europe’s fourth-largest economy after parliamentary elections on Sunday.
There is little agreement except that, even by Italian standards, this campaign has been wild and unpredictable.
Led by an untested millennial, the dissonant anti-establishment Five Star Movement is ahead in the polls.
With the ruling center-left in disarray and the far-right capitalizing on the influx of refugees, a kingmaker potentially looms. Silvio Berlusconi, the perma-tanned 81-year-old billionaire who many Italians thought they’d seen the last of after a series of scandals, is back.
“He’s a genius. I hate him, but he’s a genius,” said Massimiliano Baccanico, 46, a tech worker and an urban cycling advocate. “I would never vote for him, but Berlusconi is still popular with a lot of Italians.”
Election posters in Pomigliano D'Arco, which is located near Naples, Italy. Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters
Berlusconi’s center-right coalition has gained ground, boosted perhaps by the campaign presence of Benito Mussolini’s glamorous granddaughter Alessandra and a surge in support for the far-right populist party La Lega, which denounces immigration and the European Union and has ties to Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. And while Berlusconi is banned from holding office due to a tax-fraud conviction, he has been prominent on the campaign trail and is leader of the Forza Italia party.
Into this rich sauce is added an extra ingredient: a new hybrid electoral system that mixes existing proportional representation, in which voters choose parties, and winner-take-all contests.
“This is an extremely uncertain election — very unpredictable, even compared to 2013,” said Antonio Polito, a commentator and the deputy editor at Corriere della Sera, a national newspaper. “We have already gone from a two-party system to a three-party system, a new landscape, and now that we have this new system it is harder to know who the biggest grouping will be. It is impossible to predict. We may end up having another election.”
Why one taxi driver is voting for anti-establishment Five Star Movement0:55
In Italy, the prime minister is chosen from the largest party in Parliament, but the nomination must be confirmed by other lawmakers.
Opinion polls are outlawed in the finals days of the campaign, but the most recent Financial Times poll tracker put Five Star as the most popular single party, at 28 percent, with Berlusconi's center-right coalition ahead overall at 37 percent and a theoretical center-left grouping, including the ruling Democratic Party, trailing at 27 percent.
Five Star experiment
If any country was ripe for anti-establishment sentiment, it was Italy.
The Five Star Movement burst onto the scene after the 2008-09 financial crash and grew during Berlusconi’s ill-fated final term as prime minister. It was co-founded by the outspoken comedian Beppe Grillo, whose blog railed against political corruption.
The ideologically ambiguous movement has developed an eclectic platform of pushing environmental and animal welfare policies, protecting public services from privatization and proposing ways to replace Italy’s notoriously shady politics with "direct democracy," such as online polls to choose candidates.
When Five Star stunned observers by coming in second in the 2013 election, Grillo stood aside; his 1981 manslaughter conviction over a car accident means he cannot sit in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy’s lower parliamentary chamber.
His successor, college dropout and former sports stadium usher Luigi di Maio, is now among the likely candidates to become prime minister if Five Star can hold its lead in the polls.
At 31, Di Maio is exactly half a century younger than Berlusconi, and his lack of experience has attracted criticism.
“They attack him, especially because he doesn’t have a degree,” said his biographer, Paolo Picone. “If you consider that today’s education minister does not have a degree, our health minister doesn’t have a degree … why should Luigi di Maio have a degree to become prime minister?”
The organization has recently recruited some political professionals into the ranks of its candidates, such as Alessia D’Alessandro, a 27-year-old lured back to Italy from her job at a Berlin think tank.
But at a Five Star campaign event in Marino, an ambrosial town in the hills some 15 miles southeast of Rome, some voters said the absence of career politicians was an advantage.
“The existing parties are so untrustworthy, and they all do deals with each other,” said Ivana Baia, 64, who hoped Five Star would support her efforts at reducing noise from the nearby Ciampino airport. “It seems Five Star has people who listen and get things done.”
Others pointed to the movement’s campaign for greater transparency.
“This is about honesty, as well as the things that matter to people, like getting the garbage collected,” said fashion publicist Francesca Audino, 23.
Italians voters choose between the new face of politics or the old guard1:01
Leonardo Quartarone, 16, a student, is not yet old enough to vote but says the movement has brought some fresh air to Italian politics.
“They are the only ones putting their soul into this election,” he said. “They really want it, they are passionate and they have the chance to make a change from the other parties who chose their policies and their candidates behind closed doors.”
But Five Star’s wholesome appeal has been somewhat undermined as it transforms from a protest movement into a political force capable of success.
It promised “zero cost” politics, pledging that successful candidates would donate their parliamentary allowances to a social enterprise fund, but last month it emerged that many had simply kept the cash.
In Turin, which elected Five Star’s Chiara Appendino as mayor in 2016, a chorus of complaints about her performance has grown so loud that she has already announced she will not seek a second term in 2021.
There is similar frustration in Rome, where Virginia Raggi was elected mayor the same year but has been plagued by criticism over uncollected garbage, crumbling roads and a cronyism scandal in which her closest adviser was arrested for corruption.
“Five Star has been totally s---, a disaster,” said Francesco Barilli, 75, a filmmaker among the crowd at Da Luca’s delicatessen. “Look around you. There is garbage everywhere, potholes in the roads.”
Raggi’s plan to reduce the capital’s debt has seen drastic cuts to arts institutions that harm Rome's cultural appeal, he said. “They promised a lot of things, but they have not been able to deliver.”
Marco de Iapinis, 37, an economics consultant, said Five Star had shaken up politics but was not ready to govern Italy. “They are too angry,” he said. “They are a protest movement, not a government.”
Trump-style tax cuts
On a wet evening in EUR, the Rome neighborhood featuring giant fascist-era architecture and wide streets, Forza Italia activists gather in a conference hall under the party’s bright red and green posters.
The area was chosen by Mussolini to host a world fair in 1942 — EUR stands for Esposizione Universale Roma, or “world exhibition of Rome” — but the plans were shelved by World War II.
Berlusconi’s party attracts a decidedly older and more conservative crowd than at the Five Star event, with plenty of tailored suits and fashion-house purses on show.
The local candidates receive polite applause, but the evening’s biggest cheers go to Alessandra Mussolini, who represents Forza Italia in the European Parliament.
Mussolini, 55, takes the microphone, proclaiming “I am not a racist!” before embarking on a long and loud denouncement of Italy’s immigration policy and blaming the outgoing center-left Democratic Party for letting in too many refugees. “How can we be anti-immigration when we are housing immigrants from so many countries?” she asks.
Later, she denies exploiting populist appeal, telling NBC News: “Actually, we are against populism. If you want to see populism, look at Five Star. They promised everything and look what they actually did here in Rome. ... The place is dirty.”
Voters seem pleased by Forza Italia’s promises to boost security and push the pedal on a sluggish economy that has barely recovered from the 2008 crash.
In particular, Berlusconi has floated the idea of Trump-style tax cuts including a “flat tax” in which all workers would pay a single rate, regardless of income.
Alessandra Mussolini talks to supporters. Alastair Jamieson / NBC News
“I like that idea, we need it to help the economy,” said Giovanni Primaroni, 71, a retired cleaner and antique clock repairer. “It is no use listening to Five Star. They are full of bar talk, not real ideas.”
He is not bothered by Berlusconi’s scandal-plagued past. “The guy is already rich, so he does not need to steal from us,” he said.
Berlusconi will not be Italy’s next prime minister, thanks to a 2012 conviction for tax fraud for which he received a four-year prison sentence that was later reduced to community work. (He was also convicted, but later cleared, of paying 17-year-old Karima El-Mahroug — who was dubbed "Ruby the Heart Stealer" — for sex at "bunga bunga" parties.) He has launched a legal challenge to his parliamentary ban, but the case won’t be heard until later this year, well after the election.
However, he could play kingmaker in the likely event of a political stalemate. He has agreed with La Lega leader Matteo Salvini that whichever party in their rightist coalition wins the most votes will pick the next prime minister.
That provides a huge incentive for Salvini, 44, who has expanded his party out of its northern heartlands by appealing to voters in the impoverished south who are angry at unemployment and the daily influx of migrants.
If Berlusconi has largely eschewed dogwhistle politics, Salvini has no such qualms. "We are under attack," he told a crowd last month. "Our culture, society, traditions and way of life are at risk."
'More lost years'
The prospect of instability is a concern not just for Italians, but the whole of Europe, especially after last year’s German elections led to months of stalemate.
In particular, there is concern that both La Lega and Five Star have harnessed rising skepticism about the E.U. to enhance their voter appeal, portraying the 28-country bloc as a capitalist club that has protected northern Europe while allowing Italian jobs to fall victim to globalization.
La Lega has pledged to take Italy out of the euro currency zone, while Berlusconi is opposed to such a move.
The current prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, of the Democratic Party, could stay on in the short-term if the president decided a new election was needed, but Gentiloni believes that won't be necessary. Italy will "have a stable government,” Gentiloni told a joint news conference with Merkel in Berlin last month.
Voters share that view; De Iapinis, the economics consultant, predicted an emergency left-right coalition between Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the struggling Democratic Party, in order to keep Five Star out of power.
That would be a missed opportunity, said Baia, the voter at the Five Star rally.
“Another secret deal and five more lost years,” she said. “It would not surprise me.”
Chief Ike Ekeweremadu, deputy Senate President on
Wednesday said the possibility of the military taking over power in Nigeria
cannot be totally ruled out.
The National Youth League of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has
reacted to the reported defection of Prof. Jerry Gana, Tunde Adediran,
Alhaji Shehu Gabam and others from the PDP to the Social Democratic
Party, SDP.
