Mongolia just abolished their party-list proportional representation system - right before their next parliamentary elections on the 29th. Will the constant tinkering with the electoral system minimize politics or derail democracy?
Changes in the law also led to the last-minute remapping of electoral districts and allocation of 76 seats. Overall, 48 mandates have been assigned to 21 aimags (provinces) and 28 to the capital city. When the Mongolian parliament approved the gender quota for candidates of at least 30 percent in 2012, it was praised as a progressive step. However, as part of changes to the election law, parliament decided to decrease the gender quota to 20 percent in this election, even though the change had not been included within the Court decision. Both major parties, the Democratic Party and the Mongolian People’s Party, nominated 17 and 16 female candidates, respectively, as required by the law.
This year, 69 independent candidates are running – the highest number ever. According to the Sant Maral Foundation’s annual Political Barometer released in March 2016, more than one-third of the public (31.9% in the countryside, 39.4% in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar) responded that none of the major parties can best solve their problems. The survey also reveals a high percentage of undecided voters, at over 40 percent, which could mean that smaller parties have a better chance at influencing voters’ decisions during the campaign, which officially kicked off on June 11. One feature of Mongolia’s election law is that all campaign activities must end one day before Election Day. This clause has been strongly enforced in past elections and tends to leave everyone to wonder in amazement at how all the posters and billboards on the city streets and buildings can vanish overnight.
China's Economic Relations with Latin America remain ideologically driven and one-sided:
Latin America initiated more anti-dumping investigations and adopted more steps against China’s exports than any other region of the world in the last fifteen years, with the steel industry being the most notorious case. China today accounts for around 50% of the world’s steel market as both consumer and producer, and most of its mills are state-owned. The slowdown of China’s economy and its shift in direction away from construction has increased oversupply, threatening the steel industries of the rest of the world. It is estimated that just the spare capacity in China’s steel industry is larger than the total European steel industry. Today even with an easier path to impose countervailing duties, Latin America’s imports of Chinese steel continue to grow and local production keeps on falling...
In many respects China became the lender of last resort to most of the populist regimes in Latin America, with Venezuela accumulating a skyrocketing debt of $56.3 billion with the Asian giant. This amounted to 45% of its GDP! It is unlikely that China will collect on many of these debts. With the political neutering of socialist president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, and the victory of market-friendly Mauricio Macri in Argentina in December and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Peru only last week, the alliance of solidly market-friendly nations in Latin America widened, which will pose a challenge for China that had put most of its bets with the populist regimes which are dwindling.(Asia Times)
Mirroring Europe, fear of migrants drives populist Right in Australia
"They don't want to see any more refugees in the country. People are struggling, they can't even get the services provided to them let alone bring other people in," said Hanson, whose policies include a call for curbs on immigration and a ban on Muslim refugees.
Political parties including the ALA and Hanson's One Nation have focused on winning a seat in the Senate, as opposed to the House of Representatives.Polls are predicting a close contest between the ruling Liberal-National coalition and main opposition Labor Party, meaning even a few far-right senators could have a major influence.
Peter Chen, politics and media lecturer at the University of Sydney, said they have already had an impact on Australian politics.
"Certainly the mainstream parties, as they have reached consensus around asylum seekers and offshore detention shows that they have attempted to adopt or at least co-opt the core policy messages of some of these far right groups," said Chen, referring to Australia's policy of housing asylum seekers and refugees in offshore processing centers.
(Reuters)
Breakthrough: regional connectivity finally allows India to become a real player in the Great Game of Central Asia
Observers and analysts also sometimes forget that the hinge for the US rebalancing and pivot to Asia remains embedded there in Central Asia. The front edge of the swinging door is simply inching from South West and West Asia towards the Indo-Pacific but nothing changes in Central Asia as far as the US interests go, hence the hinge.
Before coming to the SCO itself, it may also be pertinent to point out that the strategic balance in the region of the New Great Game is changing with the emerging return of Iran to mainstream international politics.
Modi was well advised and his focus on Iran emerges from a sense of pragmatism and opportunity. The trilateral transport and transit corridor agreement between India, Iran and Afghanistan is a potential game changer, providing India the opportunity in two fields denied thus far – first an outreach to the Central Asian region and second a chance to partake in the game of infrastructure, trade and transit. Suddenly, it turns on its head the complete concept of Pakistan’s denial to India of the natural outreach to its near abroad region.(Swarajya)
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