position:elected president

French President Elect: Unveiling The Golden Boy Emmanuel Macron
▻http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19045

http://therealnews.com/media/trn_2017-05-01/shalimi0508elections.jpg

Sharmini Peries: And also, given that this new party has no real political base in the National Assembly and there is National Assembly election scheduled for June 11th, how will the political landscape in France respond to this, particularly given the fragmentation that we were just talking about.

Serge Halimi: Well, it’s really difficult to tell at this time. It’s quite clear that elements of the right are going to split from the right and rejoin with Macron. Elements of the socialist party are going to split from the socialist party and rejoin Macron. But I think that one thing that is more important than this is the social element that was disclosed by the vote. Because Macron’s golden boy image and actions account for the fact that despite of his landslide victory, 56 percent of the workers voted for Marine Le Pen. Of course, Paris, which is the most bourgeois of major French cities gave a landslide to Macron; received 90 percent of the vote there.

In other words, you saw in this vote a prosperous and educated France that voted for Macron and won. And the richer city is in terms of how much income it taxes its residents, the more likely the city is to vote for Macron, who incidentally promised to eliminate much of the wealth tax. So this is, I think, one thing we must emphasize, the fact that Macron is really the elected president of the prosperous France and of the middle class, and that Marine Le Pen got a lot of support from the working class, and this is something that will stay during Macron’s term, and I think the policies he has in mind, especially the deregulation of the labor market will insist on the features of his program, which is a program meant for the wealthy.

Sharmini Peries: And so then let’s talk about where the French left is. Its main candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, won nearly 20 percent of the vote during the first round of the elections. The highest they’ve ever had in terms of a left socialist party perspective. What are his chances of winning the National Assembly and more seats there so he can actually challenge Macron as he seeks to implement more neoliberal measures in France?

Serge Halimi: Well, the result Mélenchon got was not the highest the left had in France, you had, of course, several decades ago, the communist party that got more than 20 percent of the vote. But it’s still a very good result he got in the first round. Now the question is the extent to which this result will translate in parliamentary seats, and the parliamentary system is such that its very unlikely that Mélenchon will get that many seats. We have 577 seats in the National Assembly and most of the projections say that Mélenchon will be able to get 40 or 50 seats at most. So maybe we will be surprised by what happens in the next few weeks, but the most likely outcome will be Macron getting almost a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. The right, getting 200 seats more or less. And then Mélenchon and the extreme right getting very few seats because the system is rigged against parties such as the National Front and the left international assembly.

#France

Major New Brazil Events Expose the Fraud of Dilma’s Impeachment — and Temer’s Corruption – Glenn Greenwald
▻https://theintercept.com/2016/06/30/major-new-brazil-events-expose-the-fraud-of-dilmas-impeachment-and-tem

Even more significant is the growing evidence of the full-scale corruption of Dilma’s installed replacement, Michel Temer. In just over 30 days since his installation, Temer lost three of his chosen ministers to corruption. One of them, his extremely close ally, Romero Jucá, was caught on tape plotting Dilma’s impeachment as a way to shut down the ongoing corruption investigation, as well as indicating that Brazil’s military, the media and the courts were all participants in the impeachment plotting.

A key investigation informant, former Senator and construction executive Sérgio Machado, has now said that Temer received and controlled R$ 1.5 million in illegal campaign funds, while a separate informant last week said Temer was the “beneficiary” of R$ 1 million in bribes. And Temer is now banned by a court order from running for any office for 8 years due to his own violation of election laws. Remember: this is who, in the name of fighting “corruption,” Brazil’s elites installed in the place of the elected President.

Meanwhile, Temer’s political party, PMDB is almost certainly the most corrupt in this hemisphere. Its president of the lower House Eduardo Cunha – who presided over Dilma’s impeachment – is now suspended by the Supreme Court, and the House’s Ethics Commission just voted to expel him entirely because he lied about bribe-filled Swiss Banks he controls. The same construction executive, Machado, testified that three of PMBD’s key leaders – including Jucá – were paid a total of R$ 71.1 million in bribes. Meanwhile, two key Temer allies from the center-right PSDB that Dilma defeated in 2014 – Temer’s Foreign Minister José Serra and Dilma’s 2014 opponent Aécio Neves – are now both targets of the corruption investigation.

The US Starves Syria
▻http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34558-freedom-rider-the-us-starves-syria

Madaya is surrounded by the Syrian army and also by Ahrar Al-Sham, an al-Qaeda linked group and among those so-called “moderates” supported by the United States in its regime change effort. If the corporate media in the United States are truly interested in the plight of Syrians perhaps they ought to do the real work of journalism instead of acting as courtiers for the Obama administration.

While images of hungry children are the story du jour from Syria, the White House continues in its relentless effort to get an elected president out of power no matter what the consequences. A State Department memo leaked to the Associated Press proves that the Obama administration continues pressing for Assad’s ouster and has even come up with a date, March 2017, when they plan for him to be gone. This optimistic scenario assumes that the Syrian army will collapse, a prediction that has been wrong ever since 2011. It also assumes that Russia and Iran will do an about face and leave Assad at America’s mercy. Both predictions are dubious. When the memo became public the State Department was caught red faced and red handed. They called it a “staff level think piece,” an unofficial document and an exercise of no consequence.

Juste pour enfoncer le clou sur #madaya (dont on ne parle plus, on est passé à autre chose...)

Petite cuisine politique libanaise
Introducing Taymour | Moulahazat
▻http://moulahazat.com/2015/03/20/introducing-taymour

There’s something very important about the timing here. Jumblatt didn’t only decide to give up his seat before the parliamentary elections, he decided to give it up before we even had an elected president. And it’s not only because Jumblatt wants to finish the transition before M8 and M14 agree on a deal that is likely to isolate him in the center. We all know by now that – one way or another – the PSP always finds itself in the ruling coalition. What scares Jumblatt here is the identity of the new president. While Sleiman was an ally, the new president might not be one. The last time we had a president from the Chouf (Camille Chamoun), a civil war erupted in the mountains, and Kamal Jumblatt wasn’t reelected in 1957 (And the best part? Kamal Jumblatt was actually an ally of Chamoun when he became president). Jumblatt is aware that a president from the Chouf would gather a certain amount of influence, especially among the Christians of the district. He is also probably more than capable of handling that problem. 2015 is not 1955. He just doesn’t want the transition of power to happen in Mukhtara while a president from the Chouf is interfering from the Beiteddin palace.

And Guess who is from the Chouf? Presidential candidate no. 1, Commander of the Army Jean Kahwaji.

And yes, I am clearly hinting here that the upcoming transition of power in parliament might mean that Kahwaji is the most likely candidate to win right now.

With a new Kingmaker in parliament, hopefully a new King.

“We Are Not Beginning a New Cold War, We are Well into It”: Stephen Cohen on Russia-Ukraine Crisis | Democracy Now!
►http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/17/we_are_not_beginning_a_new

(...)
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I think you’ve emphasized the absolute flaw in at least the American—because I don’t follow the European press that closely—the American media and political narrative. As a historian, I would say that this conflict began 300 years ago, but we can’t do that. As a contemporary observer, it certainly began in November 2013 when the European Union issued an ultimatum, really, to the then-president, elected president, of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, that “Sign an agreement with us, but you can’t have one with Russia, too.” In my mind, that precipitated this crisis, because why give a country that has been profoundly divided for centuries, and certainly in recent decades, an ultimatum—an elected president: “Choose, and divide your country further”? So when we say today Putin initiated this chaos, this danger of war, this confrontation, the answer is, no, that narrative is wrong from the beginning. It was triggered by the European Union’s unwise ultimatum.

Now flash forward to just one month ago, about the time I was with you before. Remember that the European foreign ministers—three of them, I think—went to Kiev and negotiated with Yanukovych, who was still the president, an agreement. Now, the Russians were present at the negotiation, but they didn’t sign it. But they signed off on it. They said, “OK.” What did that agreement call for? Yanukovych would remain president until December—not May, when elections are now scheduled, but December of this year. Then there would be a presidential election. He could run in them, or not. Meanwhile, there would be a kind of government of national accord trying to pull the government together. And, importantly, Russia would chip in, in trying to save the Ukrainian economy. But there would also be parliamentary elections. That made a lot of sense. And it lasted six hours.

The next day, the street, which was now a mob—let’s—it was no longer peaceful protesters as it had been in November. It now becomes something else, controlled by very ultra-nationalist forces; overthrew Yanukovych, who fled to Russia; burned up the agreement. So who initiated the next stage of the crisis? It wasn’t Russia. They wanted that agreement of February, a month ago, to hold. And they’re still saying, “Why don’t we go back to it?” You can’t go back to it, though there is a report this morning that Yanukovych, who is in exile in Russia, may fly to eastern Ukraine today or tomorrow, which will be a whole new dimension.

But the point of it is, is that Putin didn’t want—and this is reality, this is not pro-Putin or pro-Washington, this is just a fact—Putin did not want this crisis. He didn’t initiate it. But with Putin, once you get something like that, you get Mr. Pushback. And that’s what you’re now seeing. And the reality is, as even the Americans admit, he holds all the good options. We have none. That’s not good policymaking, is it? (...)

Egypt court acquits Al Jazeera photographer, 61 Morsi loyalists - Ahram Online

▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/93250.aspx

North Cairo criminal court has acquitted 61 supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi and Al Jazeera photographer Mohamed Badr.

The defendants were arrested in mid-July, almost two weeks after Morsi’s ouster, when clashes erupted in downtown Cairo between police and protesters demanding the elected president’s reinstatement.

They were put on trial for inciting murder, thuggery, possessing unlicensed weapons, vandalising public facilities, blocking roads and using force against the security forces.

Hundreds of Brotherhood leaders, members and sympathisers have been detained since Morsi’s removal on 3 July.

Muzzling the Egyptian media

Over the last few month, we have witnessed a bitter campaign in Egypt directed against those Arab and Western media organizations that the interim government and military authorities have described as ’misleading’, writes the editorial in the London- based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi (6th of September)

CRITICISM OF AMBASSADORS: This campaign was accompanied by some strong criticism of foreign ambassadors. The [leading pro-government daily] Al-Ahram even accused U.S. ambassador Ann Paterson of being ’part of a plot by the Muslim Brotherhood and foreign militants designed to undermine Egypt’s stability and divide the country in two.’

With the growing complexity of the political crisis in Egypt, Egyptians have turned against some countries just because they have called for moderation or defended the legitimacy of an elected president [Mursi]. In this polarized climate, journalists began trying to exclude their colleagues just because they worked for certain news organizations.

The Egyptian judiciary has recently moved to underwrite this erroneous behavior on the part of some political parties and official circles against certain media outlets. A few days after its office was raided by the police, a court issued a ruling closing down [Qatari-based] Al-Jazeera’s ‘Egypt Direct’ channel. Al-Jazeera English had already been raided and three of its foreign journalists expelled.

To be sure, that was not the first time that al-Jazeera has been targeted by the Egyptian authorities. The channel was also targeted at the beginning of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 before president Mubarak was overthrown. At the time, the Mubarak authorities also targeted other channels such as [Saudi] al-Arabiya and the BBC. Al-Jazeera was also targeted by the Syrian and former Libyan regimes.

The ongoing campaign against freedom of speech in Egypt has been joined by many Egyptian media outlets, which have been raising crude slogans such as ’Egypt is fighting terrorism.’ It seems that the Egyptian media, whether public or privately owned, is becoming more and more one-eyed. This does not serve the truth, or the final goal of establishing a civil state that embraces all Egyptians. On the contrary, such a policy increases the very divisions that every Egyptian has complained about since the last presidential election. What we are witnessing now is a process of strengthening one side at the expense of the other. It is also an attempt to recreate the old [Mubarak] order, albeit in a new and ‘improved’ form.

What is even more dangerous is the fact that this media exclusion conceals an attempt to silence certain political views. This has never succeeded anywhere, and will certainly not succeed in Egypt. This policy will certainly not figure as a high point in the interim government’s record; quite the contrary. While pretending to pursue a policy of national reconciliation, the government has been gagging the opposition. How can the interim government make people believe that it wants to draft a constitution that respects public liberties while it is so obviously against alternative opinions? Besides, is the blocking of broadcasts not now a relic of the past, which only used to be practiced by tyrannies?

This is not the way to counter alternative opinions, nor is it the best way to settle scores with al-Jazeera or any other outlet. Far better to allow all opinions to be aired freely. Let the people decide.

For a military or political authority to muzzle media outlets or drive them off the air means that it does not feel secure in its position nor in the choices it is offering the Egyptian people.