2022 was a noteworthy year for several electoral triumphs in countries including Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brazil. Many analysts and pollsters turned out wrong in their predictions as unexpected events and political defeats characterised the year
2022 was a noteworthy year for several electoral triumphs in countries including Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brazil. Many analysts and pollsters turned out wrong in their predictions as unexpected events and political defeats characterised the year
Israel gets a far-right coalition as Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu gets the support of Religious Zionism. Italy, which is moving in the same far-right direction, is going to be ruled by neo-fascist in the form of its first female president, Giorgia Meloni. Mario Draghi’s unity government fell which lead to elections in the European country. Meanwhile, in Malaysia, the King appoints Anwar, a 75-year-old man who held some of the most important positions of authority. In the election, his multiethnic and reformist alliance Pakatan Harapan gained the majority of seats. Bongbong Marcos Jr. of the Philippines manages to win the presidency with Sara Duterte’s tacit support. Will he be able to erase the dictatorial legacy left by his father and move past atrocious human rights abuses? And finally, Brazil, where leftist Lula Da Silva made a triumphant comeback to power after being found guilty of “politically driven” corruption allegations.
Israel Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition
The far right is gaining, while the left is struggling. The results of Israel’s fifth election in three years, conducted on November 1, 2022, showed the expansion of a strong right-wing majority in that country. But this time, it became clear that the electorate was more unified than ever in its support for right-wing ideology and that it was more in favour of Religious Zionism. Contrarily, Palestinian voters expressed dissatisfaction with the Israeli political system, which accounts for their low turnout during the election—53%, despite an increase of over 10% from the previous year.
After winning the election, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition controlled at least 64 seats in parliament, mostly being made up of men who identify as religiously conservative, right-wing, and conservative in general. With a majority of religious nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties ready to enter government and expected to work cooperatively for the next four years, unlike in the past, Netanyahu heads a group that is ideologically homogenous in ways never previously seen. This combination will be kept together by a kind of theocratic Jewish dominance, which will take many forms. They’ll advance a nationalist, right-wing agenda unlike anything Israel has seen in a long time.
The coalition members’ shared goals include preventing the High Court of Justice from overturning unconstitutional laws and giving politicians control over the appointment of judges, in addition to assisting Netanyahu in maintaining power by dropping the case against him on allegations of fraud and breach of public trust. Nothing is more essential to Netanyahu right now than avoiding jail time. He has also often called for annexing the West Bank, as have his potential allies.
The most recent addition to Israel’s political scene deserves worldwide attention in the wake of this month’s elections. The leaders of Israel’s Religious Zionism alliance, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have openly called for armed conflict against Palestinians, were the true winners at the polls rather than the Likud party or its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has served as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Ben-Gvir argues that Israeli Palestinians should be put through “loyalty tests” and should be banished from their own countries if they are found to be “disloyal” to Israel. With 14 members, the Religious Zionism coalition is now the third-largest bloc in the Knesset after receiving historic support from voters.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni party with neo-fascist roots
On the far right is Giorgia Meloni, who was sworn in as the new prime minister of Italy on October 22. Meloni’s party became the largest in Parliament with 26% of the vote. As per the pre-election agreement among the centre-right coalition parties, she became the prime ministerial candidate supported by the winning coalition. Mussolini’s Fascists have a clear lineage to her party, the Brothers of Italy. She opposes abortion rights, incites anti-immigrant prejudice, and opposes LGBT rights.
Mario Draghi (national unity government), on the other hand, is a fervent centrist technocrat who headed a coalition that comprised all parties save Meloni’s. He was her direct predecessor. Before Draghi, Giuseppe Conte led the opposition Five Star Movement (M5S). A no-confidence in the coalition government was submitted in August 2019 by Matteo Salvini’s The League. But Conte persisted in holding the top position thanks to the backing of the left-leaning Democratic party and Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) (PD). This prevented early elections and forced the League on the far right into opposition.
Italy was one of the nations most severely impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020. The first Western administration to undertake a nationwide lockdown to halt the disease’s spread was Conte’s. The COVID-19 epidemic had a particularly negative economic impact in Italy. The issue involving the Italian government in 2021 was sparked in January when Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva withdrew its backing for Conte’s administration. Despite being able to win confidence votes in Parliament during the following days, Conte ultimately decided to step down because he was unable to secure an absolute majority in the Senate.
Mario Draghi became prime minister as a result of this. Italian President Sergio Mattarella urged the former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, to establish a national unity government after talks to build Conte’s third cabinet broke down. After members of his shaky coalition of the right, left, and populists rejected his plea to ensure implementation of the European Union-funded pandemic recovery programme, which set aside 26 billion euros (dollars) to aid consumers and industries struggling with skyrocketing energy prices, the Government led by Mr. Draghi imploded on July 21.
As there was not much of left in the elections, this provided a clean way for the right-wing alliance to prevail. Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party (PD), a centre-left opposition party, garnered 19% of the vote. The nation saw its lowest voting turnout in post-World War II history. Together with Silvio Berlusconi of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the League, Meloni established a right-wing coalition government. Italy’s first female prime minister is Giorgia Meloni.
Malaysia’s unity government
The 75-year-old Anwar has time and again been denied the premiership despite getting within striking distance over the years: he was deputy prime minister in the 1990s and the official prime minister-in-waiting in 2018. In between, he spent nearly a decade in jail for sodomy and corruption however, he always claimed that the charges against him were politically motivated charges aimed at ending his career.
Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia was sworn in as prime minister, but his tenure was marked by an unusual post-election crisis that lasted for five days. In the elections held on Saturday, his Pakatan Harapan alliance gained 82 seats, while Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional group secured 73. A simple majority of 112 was required to create a government. In the election, no man was able to secure a majority. Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, his opponent, tasked him with demonstrating his parliamentary majority. After consulting with various parliamentarians, King Al-Sultan Abdullah, the head of state, chose Anwar as prime minister. The country is split following a close election that placed Anwar’s progressive alliance against Muhyiddin’s largely conservative ethnic-Malay, Muslim alliance. Anwar assumes office at a difficult moment.
Only 30 seats were gained by the long-ruling Barisan coalition. Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, recently announced his diversified cabinet, which is intended to help him maintain his broad-unity coalition. Anwar was able to put together a minority administration after the unsatisfactory general election on November 19 by bringing together four coalitions made up of 19 different political groups as well as two independent MPs.
15 of the 28 members of the cabinet, or the majority, are members of Pakatan Harapan, Anwar’s political alliance. Out of the remaining 13, six were given to BN, the coalition that ruled Malaysia for 61 years straight, from independence in 1957 to the general election of 2018, five to the coalition based in Sarawak, Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), and single posts to Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS), a coalition based in Sabah, and the independent MP Mohamad Naim Mokhtar. Anwar appointed officials from the two most significant parties in the coalition, BN and GPS, to the two newly established deputy prime minister positions, which he created for the first time in Malaysian history to stabilise his unity government.
Phillipines’s Marcos Jr.
Marcos Jr’s father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, ruled for two decades. He ruled Phillipines through a period of martial law where he had absolute power. However, he was finally ousted by a popular uprising in 1986. He stole up to $10 billion and was charged with human rights violations where political opponents were tortured, arrested and disappeared. In May’s presidential election, Marcos (Partido Federal ng Pilipinas) won 31.63 million votes, or 58.8% of the ballots cast, the highest among the six presidents elected since the People Power revolution of 1986. The rival, Sara Duterte garnered 32.21 million, or 61.5%, in the vice presidential race, higher than any president or vice president elected in the past 36 years.
But was Bongbong Marcos Jr’s win in the elections his own? It is pertinent to note that Presidents and vice presidents are chosen via separate direct elections in the Philippines. According to opinion polls taken before the start of the presidential election, Sara Duterte was the front-runner, comfortably leading other candidates. In November last year, however, she announced that she would pursue the vice presidency as the running mate of Marcos, who had already declared his candidacy for president. The move put Marcos atop the polls and helped him cruise to a win in May.
Sara Duterte’s father served as governor of the province of Davao, and his mother was a community activist who had a prominent role in the “people power” movement that deposed the authoritarian president Ferdinand Marcos, Marcos Jr’s father, and restored democratic rule to the Philippines.
Sara Duterte contributed to the Marcos family’s return to power in three ways. First, she withdrew from the presidential race which many thought was hers to win. Robredo was again his main rival in the 2022 presidential election but thanks to Sara Duterte being on the ticket, Marcos won in 64 of the country’s 81 provinces, twice as many as in 2016.
Last, Sara Duterte’s presence helped rebrand the Marcos image. Marcos had a problem before she joined his camp, as many voters saw him as too genial and easygoing. Sara’s father, Rodrigo, even called him a “weak leader” and “spoiled brat.” This compares with the younger Duterte and the public’s perception of her as a tough, dynamic woman. When she was the mayor of Davao, a TV camera caught her smacking a court officer trying to evict poor residents from their homes. The younger Duterte could arguably have won the race on the back of her father’s popularity.
According to several reports, Sara Duterte did not want to be seen as her father’s “puppet” and that is why she sacked all her father’s close aides when she became the mayor of Davao. Born to Rodrigo’s first wife, she may hold grudges against him about her parents’ divorce and was loathe to stay under his thumb, some observers said. During his tenure as president starting in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Washington. He even expelled American troops stationed there tried to rethink over a significant defence agreement with the United States. Meanwhile, Duterte fostered close ties with China and Russia. Marcos Jr. is in power. His father’s reputation is already tarnished by his involvement in violating human rights. US President Joe Biden’s prominent support for democracy and human rights have taken people by surprise as the two nations come closer in the recent months.
The United States’ Vice President, Kamala Harris during her visit to Phillipines promised that if Filipino soldiers were attacked in the disputed South China Sea, Washington would invoke the treaty and assist in defending its longtime ally. Harris also made a historic trip to Palawan, a Philippine island at the centre of Manila’s maritime territorial conflict with Beijing, where she made a commitment to provide additional American assistance to Filipino fishermen who are constantly threatened by foreign intrusion into Philippine-claimed waters.
According to Harris, the US government agreed to pay $66.5 million ($3.7 billion pesos) to upgrade five military sites in the Philippines chosen as part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) (4.6 billion Philippine pesos).
Brazil’s leftist Lula-da Silva defeats Trump of the Tropics
The 77-year-old Lula-da Silva, who was president from 2003 to 2010, will be the oldest person to hold the position. For a politician who was incarcerated and disqualified from holding public office, Lula’s triumph was a surprising return. He was unable to participate in the 2018 presidential election. He had been convicted of accepting a bribe from a Brazilian construction business in exchange for contracts with Petrobras, the country’s state-owned oil giant. Later, his conviction was annulled.
Former army captain Bolsonaro had a lot of support from conservatives and evangelical Christians who wanted to uphold traditional family values. But during his administration, the Amazon was rapidly being cleared of trees, and inequality increased. When Lula is sworn in as president on January 1st, Bolsonaro’s presidency will come to an end. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has disputed the election he lost to leftist adversary Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last month, claiming ballots from some machines should be “invalidated.” However, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) has confirmed that Lula won with 50.9% of the vote against Mr. Bolsonaro’s 49.1%, thus the challenge may not go very far.
US President Joe Biden had sent senior government representatives to meet with Brazilian colleagues last year to deliver a straightforward warning to President Jair Bolsonaro: Don’t sabotage Brazil’s democracy. High-ranking representatives from the White House, the Defense Department, the State Department, and even the CIA have spoken and met with Brazilian authorities in an effort to thwart Bolsonaro’s attempts to rig the results of Brazil’s contentious presidential elections. Bolsonaro has taken a page from the playbook of former U.S. President Donald Trump by saying without proof that the elections were rigged. Thus, Brazil’s Lula Da Silva comes back in power defeating Trump of the Tropics.
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