Category: Analysis

Ever ‘more authoritarian’ Azerbaijan’s referendum ‘lacks legitimacy’

     

Observers are questioning the integrity of the constitutional referendum in Azerbaijan, in which the government reported 91 percent approval of sweeping constitutional changes, including extending the presidential term and increasing… Read more »

Venezuela opposition calls Oct 12 protest for Maduro recall

     

Venezuela‘s opposition called on Monday for mass rallies nationwide on Oct. 12 to push for a referendum to recall President Nicolas Maduro this year as they seek to oust his… Read more »

Putin’s Master Plan: Russian autocracy ‘will always threaten Ukraine’

     

Vladimir Putin is “a calculating master of geopolitics with a master plan to divide Europe, destroy NATO, re-establish Russian influence in the world, and most of all, marginalize the United… Read more »

Iran’s likely next supreme leader a hardline ideologue

     

The candidate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards are grooming to ascend to the post of supreme leader is one of the most reactionary members of Iran’s… Read more »

Jordan election: the same old song?

     

Jordan’s parliamentary elections on September 20 have produced a parliament that will contain opposition figures for the first time in a decade, analysts Michele Dunne and Marwan Muasher write for… Read more »

Succession planning flurry follows Eurasian autocrat’s death

     

The recent death of Uzbekistan’s seemingly perpetual president has drawn fresh attention to the uncertainties of one-man rule elsewhere in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, writes Freedom House… Read more »

Legacies of Totalitarianism – all too evident in CEE

     

Ironically, it was not the end of communism, but the disintegration of post-communism, that has ushered in a time of deeply unsettling global uncertainty, notes Stephen E. Hanson, director of… Read more »

Rule of law, anti-corruption tested in Central America’s Northern Triangle

     

There are indications that Honduras may finally have the momentum and firepower to deal with its corruption problems, say analysts Ana Suazo and Henry Sullivan Atkins. The Indignados movement provided… Read more »

Poland highlights the ‘specter haunting Europe’

     

Tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets of the Polish capital Warsaw Saturday (24 September) to rally against moves by the rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) government that they… Read more »