Tag: Asia / Pacific

Legacy of 2014 coup haunts Thai reformist’s bid for PM

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Two months after Pita Limjaroenrat’s party triumphed in Thailand’s May 2023 election, the reformist politician failed to win enough votes in parliament this week to become prime minister. Thursday’s vote came just days after Thailand’s caretaker prime minister and former army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, announced his retirement from politics. But the junta chief’s legacy still haunts Thailand’s shaky democracy.

Gone, maybe, but not soon forgotten. As Pita Limjaroenrat, the 42-year-old Harvard graduate who won Thailand’s general election, leaned back in his black leather chair as vote after vote was counted Thursday at a joint session of parliament, did he feel his predecessor’s shadow standing over him? Before the final result was declared, it was already clear – Pita had not won the support he needed to follow former commander-in-chief Prayuth Chan-ocha as prime minister. 

Photographed in varying stages of frustration throughout the vote, the winner of the May 2023 polls needed 375 votes in both houses of parliament, the house of representatives and the senate, to become prime minister. He got 324. Across both houses, 182 lawmakers voted against his candidacy, with 199 abstaining.

A disappointing result for the reformist candidate, but not a surprising one. Under the military-drafted constitution promulgated in 2017, all 250 members of the senate – now 249, following an eleventh-hour resignation the day before – were appointed by the junta that seized power under then-army chief Prayuth in 2014. 

Only 13 of these senators supported Pita’s candidacy, with 34 voting against him. A further 159 senators abstained. Dozens more did not show up to the vote.

Thursday’s setback may mark the beginning of the end for the liberal frontrunner. On Saturday, Pita announced that if he failed again in a second ballot set for next week, he would withdraw his candidacy for the premiership.

Although he announced his retirement from politics just two days before the vote, caretaker Prime Minister Prayuth’s nine years in power cast a suffocating shadow over Thursday’s ballot. The arch-royalist seized power in part to ensure the smooth succession of unpopular crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn as his father’s health continued to decline. The former army chief then spent years writing the long-standing alliance between the military and the monarchy into the nation’s highest laws. 

Despite the official end of absolute monarchy in Thailand in 1932, the sovereign continues to wield enormous influence over Thai politics and society.

In 2017, the junta amended the law to give the new king complete control over the nation’s Crown Property Bureau, which manages real estate and investments valued by Forbes in 2012 at $30 billion. The next year, those holdings were signed directly over to King Mahavajiralongkorn himself. The military has consistently justified its often-violent interventions into Thai politics as necessary measures to defend the Crown.

Since taking power, Prayuth oversaw a steep rise in prosecutions under the nation’s infamous lèse-majesté legislation, which makes any criticism of the sovereign punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Pita’s campaign promise to amend these lèse-majesté laws helped propel the US-educated politician to victory earlier this year. It has now made him a target for the backers of an institution that brooks no criticism. 

Read moreIs Thailand at a turning point after Move Forward party’s election win?

Prayuth played a decisive role in uniting the nation’s powerful business interests and conservative Bangkok elite behind the royal family in the face of mounting popular discontent with the Crown’s impunity, according to Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the faculty of political science at Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani University. 

“We can see the establishment and strengthening of the power of the conservative group, which was intended to prevent the rise of the liberal forces in the country,” he said. “To some extent he has been able to force the conservative mindset, to strengthen support for the monarchy among the conservative group.”

Thai political scientist Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who lives in exile in Kyoto, Japan, after facing lèse-majesté charges for criticising the junta and its royal patrons following the 2014 coup, said Prayuth’s role in fusing the monarchy and military had directly set the stage for Pita’s failure on Thursday. 

“Prayuth left a legacy of the immense power of the military in politics,” Pavin told FRANCE 24 on Thursday. “But it’s not just about entrenching the power of the military in politics, but more importantly that of the monarchy too. Hence they attempted to put in place an infrastructure that would maintain their footholds in politics, and that has been the setting up of the senate as [an] instrument of the old elites. Today the senate did its job as designed by those elites.”

A history of violence

Prayuth, who was born into a military family and graduated from the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy before becoming a commander in the prestigious and politically connected Queen’s Guards, is no stranger to the use of force for political ends.

In 2010, he was in charge of the troops that opened fire on the Red Shirt protesters who had stormed the capital from the opposition’s rural strongholds in support of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. 

In 2014, the commander would launch his own putsch against Thaksin’s sister Yingluck, who had also been democratically elected on a platform of lifting Thailand’s rural poor out of poverty. Under the military junta that he led, which styled itself the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), Prayuth oversaw the redrafting of the country’s constitution, which tweaked the electoral process to make it harder for any one party to win a majority and gave the military government the authority to hand-pick the nation’s 250-strong senate ahead of the 2019 elections – which Prayuth, unsurprisingly, won. 

Titipol said that Prayuth’s nine-year grip on power had “left a big scar” on Thailand’s political system. 

“The constitution was initially written to make sure the NCPO, that is to say the coup-makers, could remain in power for another eight years after it was written,” he said.

As well as securing the military’s interests in parliament, Titipol said, the constitution gave the nation’s extra-parliamentary bodies broad powers to disband political parties – powers that a number of these institutions have used freely throughout Thailand’s shaky return to electoral politics. 

Ostensibly independent organs including the Constitutional Court, Election Commission and National Anti-Corruption Commission have all been accused by the opposition of selectively targeting challengers to a conservative coalition of forces that seeks to keep the royal family beyond any possible reproach. 

“The NCPO played its part in working closely with those politicised institutions,” Pavin said. “We must understand that those institutions predated the NCPO. If [the monarchy] would be a kind of network, then they are in the same network working to strengthen the prerogatives of the monarchy. The main objective is to eliminate challenges against the monarchy.”

Stacking the deck

On the eve of Thursday’s vote, the Election Commission recommended that Pita be suspended from parliament following an investigation that found that the lawmaker owned shares in a media company – prohibited under Thai electoral laws. Pita has said he inherited the shares in the iTV television station from his father, and that the station has not broadcast anything since 2007. 

The same day, the Constitutional Court accepted a petition filed by lawyer Theerayut Suwankesorn, who has claimed that by campaigning on reforming Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws, both Pita and his party have violated Article 49 of the 2017 constitution, which forbids citizens from trying to “overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State”. The party has been given a fortnight to present their defence.

That same court has been instrumental in restricting the number of players on the political field. In 2020, the Constitutional Court dissolved the Future Forward Party – the predecessor to Pita’s Move Forward Party – and banned its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, himself an outspoken critic of the monarchy, from politics for a decade.

The year before, the opposition Thai Raksa Chart Party had also been dissolved for proposing the king’s own sister as its prime ministerial candidate.

In 2022, the court ruled that Prayuth himself could stay in power until 2025, effectively extending his term limit beyond the eight years provided under the constitution – a limit he was on the verge of reaching, having appointed himself prime minister in the aftermath of the 2014 coup. 

“If you look at independent bodies in Thailand, they are not truly independent,” Titipol said. “They were to some extent created and appointed by Prayuth Chan-ocha himself, and his people remain there.”

Pita has given himself one final chance to win the premiership. But with the threat of parliamentary suspension hanging over him amid mounting legal challenges in the courts, the deck seems increasingly stacked against him.

For Titipol, this cordoning-off of Thailand’s political field from popular pressure is the lasting legacy of Prayuth Chan-ocha’s nine years in power. 

“Prayuth didn’t do any good for the future of Thai democracy,” he said. “His so-called Thai-style democracy is not liberal democracy, as he, and the military, still have control over the process.”

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Thai lawmakers set to choose a new prime minister

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Thai lawmakers are gathering Thursday to select a new prime minister, a process whose outcome is far from certain even though the country’s most progressive party won both the popular vote and the most seats in the House of Representatives in the most recent election.

Thailand’s May 14 election was regarded as a major political turning point. The reformist Move Forward Party’s victory appeared to spell an end to nine years of unpopular army-supported rule. Two months later, it is unclear if that mandate for change will be honored.

Parliament is due to vote on whether to make Move Forward’s leader, 42-year-old businessman Pita Limjaroenrat, the country’s prime minister. His party captured 151 of the 500 House seats but has assembled a coalition government-in-waiting. The eight parties in the coalition won 312 seats combined, a healthy majority.

“This is a party leading a coalition, and they’ve won the election,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said. “In most other countries, they would be in office by now.”

One of several potential roadblocks to Pita taking power is that the prime minister is elected through a joint vote of the House and the 250-seat Senate, whose members owe their positions to the military-backed regime established by a 2014 coup. Pita, or any other candidate, therefore needs a minimum of 376 votes to become head of government.

The biggest bone of contention between the liberals backing Move Forward and the deeply conservative Senate is the campaign pledge of Pita’s party to amend a law that makes defaming the royal family punishable by three to 15 years in prison.

 


 

The monarchy is sacrosanct to members of Thailand’s royalist establishment, and even minor reforms that might improve and modernize the monarchy’s image are anathema to them. Move Forward’s coalition partners also have not endorsed the proposed legal change, and other parties ruled out joining the coalition because of the idea.

Thitinan thinks that given the massive voter support for Move Forward and the Pheu Thai Party, its top partner and political ally, Pita stands a good chance “because of mounting public pressure on the senators. It will depend on the will, the resilience and the intransigence of the royalist conservative establishment.”

But if Pita cannot win over enough senators, his options appear nil. The options for the eight-party coalition as a whole appear more viable.

One is for the Pheu Thai Party to put forward one of its members as a candidate for prime minister, a possibility that once would have been unthinkable.

Pheu Thai used to be the royalist establishment’s public enemy No. 1. The party is closely affiliated with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire populist who was ousted in a 2006 military coup, in part because his popularity rubbed royalists the wrong way.

Thaksin-backed parties finished first in every election from 2001 until this past May but were blocked or forced from power each time. The 2014 coup, for example, seized power from a government that Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, had formed.

Pheu Thai enrolled three of its members as potential prime minister candidates this year, including Thaksin’s daughter. Paetongtarn Shinawatra. It is a measure of the shift in political winds that Pheu Thai is now regarded as a party that royalists can deal with, compared with Move Forward, which they dismiss as radical.

Paetongtarn’s colleague, real estate developer Srettha Thavisin, is considered more likely to have his name put forward if Pita isn’t election, at least partly as reassurance to the business community. But the possibility that any proposed coalition including Move Forward won’t be approved complicates the numbers game.

The departure of Move Forward would probably require Pheu Thai to enlist allies from among military-friendly parties, which it vowed, with hedging, not to do. In the long run, seeking such an alliance could erode Pheu Thai’s credibility with supporters who stuck by the party and boost support for Move Forward while it’s in opposition.

Another cost could involve ceding the prime minister’s seat to a newly enlisted coalition partner, the key one being the Bhumjaithai Party, which polled third in the May election and secured 71 House seats. The party’s leader, Anutin Charnvirakul, was health minister in the outgoing government and has made no secret of his political ambitions.

If Pita and Move Forward somehow prevail—and it could take several votes over a period of weeks—their political survival still would sit on a knife’s edge.

There have been fears that Thailand’s conservative ruling establishment would use what its political opponents consider to be dirty tricks to cling to power. For a decade and a half, it has repeatedly utilized the courts and supposedly independent state agencies to issue questionable rulings to cripple or sink political opponents.

On Wednesday, the Election Commission said it concluded there was evidence that Pita had violated election law, and referred his case to the Constitutional Court for a ruling. If the court accepts the case and finds him guilty, he could lose his House seat, get kicked out of politics and face a prison sentence.

The alleged violation involves undeclared ownership of media company shares, which are banned for Thai lawmakers. Political scientist Thitinan describes the charge and other legal complaints against Pita as “bogus” and something many people, especially voters who backed him, would be unwilling to tolerate.

“It all depends on how far the royalist conservative establishment wants to go after Pita and prevent a democratic outcome,” he said.

Depending how they are resolved, the efforts to block Pita and Move Forward could prove dangerous and cause Thailand unnecessary pain, said Michael Montesano, a Thai studies expert who is an associate senior fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

“At the end of the day, the political system and those who would dominate need to move into closer correspondence with the realities of Thai society and with the aspirations of its younger, well educated members,” Montesano said. “The biggest question is whether this transition will be painful and even violent, or whether it will be constructive and thus serve the country’s future prospects.”

(AP)

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‘No amateur’: Identity politics, media crackdown help propel Erdogan to victory

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defeated opposition challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s Turkish presidential election runoff – a victory analysts ascribe to Erdogan’s focus on identity issues and use of the government’s resources, as well as Kilicdaroglu’s tepid leadership of a precarious coalition. 

The first round was a shock to many Western observers who thought they might finally see the back of Erdogan. But after the Turkish president came within a whisker of re-election in that ballot, his second-round victory surprised no one. He defeated opposition challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu with 52.1 percent of the vote.

“I will be here until I’m in the grave,” Erdogan said as he addressed jubilant supporters from an open-top bus in Istanbul.

These polls belied the Western cliché that elections are about “the economy, stupid”. Along with his much-criticised response to February’s devastating earthquakes, Turkey’s economic woes looked like a big weakness for Erdogan at the outset of the campaign.

While growth remains robust, five years of an inflation and currency crisis has seen the cost of living soar for many Turks – a major reversal after the abundant economic gains after Erdogan first took power in 2003. Experts blame this crisis on Erdogan’s unorthodox belief that cutting interest rates helps reduce inflation while all mainstream economic theories hold that higher interest rates are required to calm rampant inflation in an economy.

Identity politics

But culture war has been at the heart of Turkish politics ever since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk made the country a modern nation-state in 1923, introducing strict secularism as he transformed Turkey along Westernising lines. Erdogan’s traditional constituency of socially conservative Muslim voters in the Anatolian heartland have always seen him as their champion in this culture war. A gifted orator and political strategist, Erdogan has already gone down in history as the leader who smashed secular Kemalism’s long hegemony over Turkish politics.

“Erdogan won primarily because he was once again able to shift the focus from socio-economic issues to identity issues,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Ankara bureau.

>> Read more: Turkey’s undefeated Erdogan enters third decade of rule

Erdogan also instrumentalised Turkey’s long fight against Kurdish militant group the PKK, which has waged a guerrilla war against the Turkish state punctuated by ceasefires since 1984 and is classified as a terrorist group by the EU and the US as well as Turkey.

Kilicdaroglu won the support of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Erdogan then accused the opposition of having links to terrorism, saying opposition leaders went into “dark rooms to sit and bargain” with militants.

“He was particularly successful in directing the anger of Turkish society towards the PKK [against] the opposition,” Unluhisarcikli noted.

Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu’s big-tent approach was always going to be a tremendous challenge. The opposition contender had to juggle the Nation Alliance – the heterogenous six-party coalition behind his candidacy, which included the nationalist Good Party – with the HDP’s endorsement of his candidacy.

>> Read more: Turkey’s Kurdish areas serve as petri dish for illiberal democracy test

After Kilicdaroglu’s disappointing first-round performance, he won the support of the nationalist Victory Party’s Umit Ozdag and adopted his hard line on the Kurdish issue – which evidently risked alienating the millions of Kurdish voters Kilicdaroglu needed.

“The diversity of the opposition alliance was both an advantage and a disadvantage,” Unluhisarcikli observed. “It was an advantage because it made it possible for Kilicdaroglu to address a wider audience. It was a disadvantage because it led to an image of dysfunctionality. Moreover, while most voters could find an element they could identify with in the opposition alliance, they could also find one that they could not tolerate.”

When he was performing well in opinion polls ahead of the first round, Kilicdaroglu’s unassuming, professorial demeanour looked like a potential boon after two decades of Erdogan’s often mercurial style. But in reality Kilicdaroglu’s image was that of a “lacklustre candidate” backed by a “wobbly coalition”, said Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey specialist at St. Lawrence University and the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

‘Authoritarian reasons’

Beyond the issues and personalities, Erdogan was able to mobilise resources surpassing the typical advantages of incumbency. He made lavish offers to voters using the state’s largesse, notably promising discounted gas bills for a year. Erdogan’s presidential power was helpful to his campaign in other ways, as the government controls 90% of the national media and has effectively curtailed the power of the independent press, seeing Turkey fall to 165 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index.

Highlighting restrictions on press freedom, observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe found during the campaign that the polls were “marked by an unlevel playing field” even if they were “still competitive”.

“There are electoral reasons why Erdogan won and there are authoritarian reasons why he won,” Eissenstat said, emphasising that both sides of this equation are crucial.

“Given Erdogan’s gross mismanagement of the economy, his electoral skills would mean little without the authoritarian components: his control of 90% of the media, his use of the courts to limit the opposition, his use of government resources to support his own campaign,” Eissenstat continued. “As the saying goes, ‘only amateurs try to steal elections on election day’: Erdogan is no amateur. Election day had some irregularities, but nothing wildly out of the ordinary. Erdogan controlled every aspect of how the election was [run] and that is the key explanation for why he won.”

>> Read more: Nationalism is ‘definitely a winner’ in Turkey’s presidential elections

All that said, Kilicdaroglu came closer to defeating Erdogan than any previous opposition standard-bearer. In the 2018 presidential elections many Western observers thought Muharrem Ince had a decent chance of winning. But Erdogan clinched re-election in the first round, despite a lively campaign from the candidate representing Kilicdaroglu’s Republican People’s Party.

“The second round was closer than I thought it would be,” Eissenstat said. “The opposition did very well given the limits it was working under, and the voter turnout was higher than I expected.”

“I am in Turkey right now and my sense from conversations before the run-off [was] that opposition voters were demoralised and that many would stay home,” Eissenstat continued. “In the event, the Turkish electorate’s belief in the moral importance of voting trumped their hopelessness. The exception was the Kurdish vote, which clearly was dampened by Kilicdaroglu’s swerve to the right in the second round.”

Potential successors?

But there is no mistaking the sense of jubilation among Erdogan and his supporters as he enters his third decade in power. This year is symbolic, too, as Turkey is marking a century since Ataturk made it a nation-state.

Beneath the congratulations pouring in from Washington to Moscow, there is a clear divide between the perspectives of Western governments and those of Turkey’s geopolitical partners, pre-eminently Russia. After the Western commentariat hailed Erdogan as a reformer in the 2000s, their attitudes soured during the following decade, as he ramped up an assertive foreign policy amid his turn towards illiberal democracy at home.

>> Read more: How the West, Russia see Turkey’s presidential elections

Yet the West’s most pressing geopolitical priority, the war in Ukraine, demonstrates that Turkey is both troublesome to the Western alliance (as shown by Ankara blocking Sweden’s NATO accession) and a valuable partner (as shown by Ankara brokering Ukraine’s Black Sea grain export deal). 

Russia will “celebrate” Erdogan’s victory as Moscow sees his “transactionalism as convenient” – while “for the West, he will continue to be a challenge, but they will try to make the best of it”, Eissenstat said. “They won’t be happy, but in the end, they want to work with Turkey and Erdogan is its president.”

On foreign and domestic policy alike, Eissenstat expects Erdogan is unlikely to make any major changes during this new presidential term.

“He will likely make some half-hearted nods at a reset with some Western powers and with the markets to try to help stabilise the economy, but I think the general trajectory of his rule is set,” Eissenstat said. “I don’t expect him to become wildly more repressive and I certainly don’t expect him to liberalise.”   

Nevertheless, both analysts foresee one key difference in the 69-year-old Erdogan’s third term: he’s likely to hand-pick his political successor.

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Chinese stand-up comedy warned to toe the line following viral joke about army

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A Chinese comedian was severely punished on Wednesday for making a joke about the People’s Liberation Army and his production company fined roughly two million dollars. This incident demonstrates that Chinese censors are now turning their attention to the small but growing world of stand-up comedy in China, which until now has enjoyed a certain measure of freedom.  

On May 17, Chinese authorities imposed a record fine of 14.7 million yuan ($2.13 million) on the production company that employed comedian Li Haoshi and opened an investigation against him.  

Li, whose stage name is “House”, “seriously insulted the army” and thus dealt a heavy blow to “national honour” and “patriotic feelings”, said the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism which imposed the fine on Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media.  

Six words too many 

“This is the first time that a joke about the army has been punished in China,” said Olivia Cheung, a specialist in contemporary Chinese political history at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. 

This is a severe punishment for a joke that “may seem totally harmless and not necessarily very funny”, said Marc Lanteigne, a Chinese studies professor at the Arctic University of Norway.

The joke in question invoked Li’s two adopted stray dogs chasing a squirrel:  “Normally, when you see dogs, you find them very cute at first. But when I looked at them, six words came to me: ‘Maintain exemplary conduct, fight to win’.” 

Reports do not indicate whether it made the audience laugh. However, what is known is that the scene was filmed and posted on social media, where it triggered an avalanche of comments.  

The problem is that “it is a direct and literal reference to what has been the official slogan of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since 2013,” said Lanteigne. “Xi Jinping himself came up with the slogan and has used it on numerous occasions to refer to the modern army he established,” said Cheung. 

The first part of the slogan, about discipline, refers to the government’s campaign to bring the army into line in the mid-2010s. “The army had a reputation for being very corrupt before Xi Jinping came to power, and he boasts that he put an end to this and brought discipline back into the ranks,” explained Cheung. 

There is also the idea that the PLA is now “able to win victories” as a result of the modernisation reforms implemented by the Chinese president. “It was, and remains, one of Xi Jinping’s priorities and he believes that the Chinese army now deserves the utmost respect thanks to his efforts,” said Cheung. 

The crime of insulting Xi Jinping 

Li thus tripped up twice over. First, he made the mistake of joking “about a subject that affects the president personally”, said Cheung. Second, he compared the army to dogs. This is a risky choice, as these animals are seen in China as “cute but dirty, and better not to have too many around”, said Lanteigne. This is not the kind of metaphor that the government wants to see being used in any sort of media to describe the military.  

However, some Chinese people felt that imposing a two million dollar fine was excessive and took to social media to question the “double standards” demonstrated by the authorities, reported the New York Times. These internet users recalled that a company selling false negative Covid-19 test certificates during the lockdown period was only fined the equivalent of $10,000 dollars.

“It’s clear that this is not just about punishing the comedian for his joke, but about making an example of him for everyone in order to establish a new red line that must not be crossed,” said Lanteigne. 

He sees this punishment as part of a “tightening of restrictions on freedom of expression in recent years”. China has long had a reputation for being heavy-handed when it comes to censorship, but it “began cracking down even harder during the health crisis”, added Lanteigne.  

The Chinese authorities realised during the height of the Covid crisis that there were still issues with their information control strategy. Censorship failed to silence the people of Shanghai, who were confined for more than two months in the spring of 2022 and criticised the authorities in the viral video “Voices of April”. 

In this respect, stand-up comedy was still a haven of relative freedom of expression in China. This form of humour only recently burst onto the Chinese media scene. For a long time, stand-up comedy was perceived as less dignified than other traditional forms of live performance, as it “is considered a Western import”, explained Lanteigne. 

Thwarted freedom of expression in Chinese stand-up 

As a result, there were only a few dozen stand-up clubs in the country where comedians could perform in 2018, wrote the China Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper. In other words, not enough to worry Beijing. Since then, they have rapidly increased in number, with comedians performing on 179 stages across the country. 

One of the reasons for the craze is the popularity of television shows like “Rock & Roast”, which make millions of viewers laugh every week. China’s “zero-Covid” policy has been a boon for comedians, who are now popular with TV stations eager to brighten up the lives of Chinese people under confinement, reported the Financial Times. 

Li has benefited from the buzz, appearing several times on “Rock & Roast”, helping to “make him a star”, according to the New York Times. 

This star status made him the ideal target for Beijing to get its message across. The authorities used to tolerate “caustic” humour “as long as the criticism was aimed at local authorities and referred to the minor administrative hassles of everyday life”, said Lanteigne. 

But when it comes to subjects of national importance – such as the military – comedians are now required to “abide by laws, maintain ethical values and provide the public with nutritious spiritual food”, said the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism. 

This record fine is, in a way, the price of the success of stand-up comedy in China. Comedians’ voices did not carry far when there were only a few hundred of them in 2018. But now that there are officially more than 10,000, Beijing has decided to designate them as actors of official propaganda, as are the state media and film industries. 

Li was hit hard by this new reality. Despite his apology, the China Association of Performing Arts, the body that manages live performance in China, has called for a total boycott of all his shows. 

This article has been translated from the original in French. 

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‘I could die for him’: In Erdogan’s old Istanbul neighbourhood, loyalties run deep

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from our special correspondent in Istanbul, Turkey – In the Kasimpasa neighbourhood of Istanbul where he grew up, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s former neighbours describe a generous young man who was already destined for a bright future. With the future of Turkey at stake in the upcoming presidential election, they are eager to explain why the incumbent deserves another five years on the job. 

On a hill in Kasimpasa, a working-class Istanbul neighbourhood overlooking the Golden Horn estuary, sits a nondescript building, its fading façade sprouting a few satellite dishes. There’s not much to say about 34 Piyale Mumhanesi Street, except that Recep Tayyip Erdogan lived here, and this is the neighbourhood from which he launched his political career.  

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s childhood home at 34 Piyale Mumhanesi Street. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

“He lived here before he became president,” says Semiha Karaoglupacal, owner of the grocery store across the street. “He used to come to the store to shop. Every morning, before he left for work, he would say hello.” At the time, the narrow store belonged to Karaoglupacal’s father. She worked here every day after school.  

Like many residents, Karaoglupacal has never left Kasimpasa. This neighbourhood was once home to shipyard workers who lived along the coast. That’s what brought Ahmet Erdogan, a sea captain and father of Recep Tayyip, to Kasimpasa after the family left their native Rize on the eastern Black Sea coast.  

Erdogan senior was a pious and severe figure, according to numerous biographers. Discipline and a rigorous adherence to the values and precepts of Islam were the central themes of the Turkish president’s childhood. After attending the local primary school, “Tayyip”, as he’s fondly known in his childhood circles, attended a religious vocational high school.  

The exterior of the apartment building in which Erdogan lived in Kasimpasa, Istanbul.
The exterior of the apartment building in which Erdogan lived in Kasimpasa, Istanbul. © Sam Ball / France 24

As a teenager, Erdogan earned pocket money selling simits, the round, sesame-encrusted bread that can be found on every street corner in Turkey. 

“Recep Tayyip Erdogan was always charitable. He used to buy things to give to children, and on Fridays, he would distribute money to them,” recalled Karaoglupacal.

‘We are proud of him’  

Once a gritty neighbourhood, Kasimpasa changed after Erdogan was elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994, according to Karaoglupacal. “It was renovated. We are doing well now,” she explains with a smile. 

>> Read more : Tempest in a teashop: Turks bitterly divided in Erdogan stronghold ahead of presidential vote

Polls may show a close race in the lead-up to the May 14 Turkish presidential election, but in this neighbourhood, there’s an unquestionable favourite. “We are proud of him, proud of what he has become,” the owner of the grocery store says. “We love him because he is one of us.”  

Semiha Karaoglupacal runs the grocery store across the street from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's childhood home in Kasimpasa, Istanbul.
Semiha Karaoglupacal runs the grocery store across the street from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s childhood home in Kasimpasa, Istanbul. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

It’s a sentiment echoed by most Erdogan supporters who oppose the country’s secular elites, identify with his modest origins and admire his achievements. Erdogan, for them, is a man who speaks the language of the street, a true popular hero. 

“He was born for this [position],” says Karaoglupacal, adjusting her veil. “He is not afraid of anyone, except God. He is a true Muslim,” she maintains. “If people are good Muslims, they should support him. With our prayers, he will be victorious. Nothing will stop him.”  

Outside the little store, a street vendor buying and selling a variety of items bellows his sales pitch in the residential neighbourhood. The vendor pauses, waiting patiently. But in vain. There are no takers. On this hot afternoon, there aren’t many people on the streets.  

The lack of customers sees Gonul glued to her cell phone. She runs the hair salon on the ground floor of the building where the president lived.

“I have seen Erdogan a few times when he was mayor of Istanbul, but also when he was a member of the government. He came to visit us in Kasimpasa. He would simply say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ He is close to the people,” she declares, waving her phone for emphasis.  

Gonul runs a hair salon in Kasimpasa, Istanbul.
Gonul runs a hair salon in Kasimpasa, Istanbul. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

A resident of the neighborhood for 27 years, Gonul even lived in the Erdogan family’s old apartment at one stage. “One day, he knocked on the door. I didn’t expect to see Erdogan when I opened the door. I wanted to kiss his hand because it is a sign of respect for elders, but he didn’t want it. He’s a good human being and I respect him as a president.” 

‘Nothing but football’ 

Inside the building where Erdogan lived, it’s perfectly still. The stairwell is still in its original state. Huseyin Ustunbas, 72, lives on the fifth floor, just above the apartment where the Erdogan family once lived. 

Today, he is the only resident who knows the president personally. The kindly septuagenarian is used to receiving visits from foreign journalists and he’s happy to open the door to his large apartment. 

Huseyin Ustunbas lives just above the apartment where the Erdogan family once lived in Kasimpasa, Istanbul.
Huseyin Ustunbas lives just above the apartment where the Erdogan family once lived in Kasimpasa, Istanbul. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

Sitting on his living room sofa, he spins out anecdotes about “Tayyip”, as he affectionately calls his former neighbour. “He only thought about football, nothing but football, ” recalls Ustunbas.  

As a teenager, Erdogan attended an Imam Hatip school, one of many such religious schools founded in Turkey after traditional madrassas were abolished. The schools were primarily aimed at training government-employed imams as well as providing a means to further education for children of pious Muslim families.  

The teenage Erdogan also managed to frequent Kasimpasa’s football clubs: Erokspor, Camialti and IETT. His classmates nicknamed him “Imam Beckenbauer” after his idol, German footballer Franz Beckenbauer. “His father didn’t like him playing, so he would sneak his cleats and go for his matches,” says Ustunbas, noting that Erdogan’s father prevented him from taking up professional football.  

The apartment is dotted with family photos. But one, in particular, has a prominent spot, framed and hung on the wall above the sofa where Ustunbas is seated. It shows the Ustunbas family – his wife, who passed away in 2018, his daughter and grandson – standing next to Erdogan and his wife, Emine.  

“Sometimes he (Erdogan) suddenly feels like coming back to the neighbourhood. He doesn’t plan it in advance,” says the retiree. “That day, I was shopping when I got a call that the president was here,” he says, indicating the photograph. “He asked the photographer to take this picture as a souvenir of his visit. I told him we would never get a chance to see it. The next day, it was dropped off at my house.” 

A framed photograph of the Ustunbas family with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan.
A framed photograph of the Ustunbas family with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

Ustunbas describes the simplicity of the kid next door who rose to the pinnacle of power. “We are friends. Our children played and grew up together. Bilal (Erdogan’s son) is the same age as my son. Their house was like ours. Nowadays, because of the security, we can’t approach him as easily, but if he sees us, he stops to talk. He doesn’t like it when his bodyguards prevent people from approaching.”  

‘He will win this election’ 

The old man regrets that he no longer has his photo albums to display since they are with his daughter now. He has only two souvenirs left, which he hastens to fetch from the sideboard: invitations to the weddings of Esra and Burak, two of Erdogan’s other children. Ustunbas recounts how he found himself not far from guests like former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the king of Jordan. “When he came to greet us, many wondered who we were and why he was talking to us.” 

Huseyin Ustunbas proudly displays the invitations to the weddings of President Erdogan's children, Esra and Burak.
Huseyin Ustunbas proudly displays the invitations to the weddings of President Erdogan’s children, Esra and Burak. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

Erdogan has displayed generosity with his neighbours over the years, including those who are critical of “Tayyip”, notes Ustunbas. “He was already called ‘reis’ (chief or president) when he was young. He was very active; he did so many things to help people in this neighbourhood,” he recalls. “My wife died of cancer. She needed chemotherapy but we couldn’t find the money for the treatment. We called Bilal because [Erdogan’s] adviser was not answering us. After that, we were able to go to the hospital for free. The adviser was dismissed.” 

The devotion is total, and it comes with certainty. “He will win this election. In the previous election, the situation was the same. Foreign journalists asked us the same questions. There were economic problems. He won. We expect him to win 51 to 53% of the vote in the first round.”  

As for Erdogan’s critics, he brushes them off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t listen to those who are against him. I know him. I know what he’s like. I could die for him. I would give my life for him.” 

(This is a translation of the original in French.) 

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Arrest of Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan sparks deadly clashes with supporters

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Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested and dragged from court Tuesday as he appeared to face charges in multiple graft cases, a dramatic escalation of political tensions that sparked violent demonstrations by his angry supporters in several major cities.

The arrest of Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the leading opposition figure, represented the latest confrontation to roil Pakistan, which has seen former prime ministers arrested over the years and interventions by its powerful military.

At least one person was reported killed in clashes between protesters and the military in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, with another five people wounded there, while about 15 injuries were reported amid similar violence in Karachi, Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Lahore. Police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrations.


Amid the violence, officials at Pakistan’s telecommunication authority said regulators blocked social media, including Twitter, and internet service was suspended in the capital of Islamabad and other cities. Classes at some private schools were canceled for Wednesday.

Khan was removed from the Islamabad High Court by security agents from the National Accountability Bureau, said Fawad Chaudhry, a senior official with his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, and then shoved into an armored car and whisked away.

Chaudhry denounced the arrest of the 71-year-old former cricket star as “an abduction.” Pakistan’s independent GEO TV broadcast video of Khan being hauled away.

A scuffle broke out between Khan’s supporters and police outside the court. Some of Khan’s lawyers and supporters were injured in the melee, as were several police, Chaudhry said. Khan’s party complained to the court, which requested a police report explaining the charges for Khan’s arrest.


Khan was taken to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, for questioning at the offices of the National Accountability Bureau, according to police and government officials. He also was to undergo a routine medical checkup, police said.

Khan had arrived at the Islamabad High Court from nearby Lahore, where he lives, to face charges in the graft cases.

He has denounced the cases against him, which include terrorism charges, as a politically motivated plot by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, saying his ouster was illegal and a Western conspiracy. Khan has campaigned against Sharif and demanded early elections.

Tuesday’s arrest was based on a new warrant from the National Accountability Bureau obtained last week in a separate graft case for which Khan had not been granted bail, making him vulnerable to be seized, and his lawyers challenged the legality of the arrest. He is scheduled to appear at an anti-graft tribunal on Wednesday, officials said.

“Imran Khan has been arrested because he was being sought in a graft case,” Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan told a news conference. He alleged Pakistan’s treasury had lost millions of dollars while Khan was in office due to illegal purchases of lands from a business tycoon.

At a news conference, Law Minister Azam Tarar said Khan was arrested because he was not cooperating with the investigations. He also denounced the violence by Khan supporters, saying that protests must remain peaceful. 

“It should have not happened,” he said, shortly after TV video emerged of burning vehicles and damaged public property in parts of the country.

Authorities said they have banned rallies in the eastern province of Punjab.

As the news of the arrest spread, about 4,000 of Khan’s supporters stormed the official residence of the top regional commander in Lahore, smashing windows and doors, damaging furniture and staging a sit-in as troops there retreated to avoid violence. The protesters also burned police vehicles and blocked key roads.

Protesters also smashed the main gate of the army’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where troops exercised restraint. Hundreds of demonstrators shouted pro-Khan slogans as they moved toward the sprawling building.


In the port city of Karachi, police swung batons and fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Khan supporters who had gathered on a key road. 

Raoof Hasan, another leader from Khan’s party, told Al Jazeera English television that the arrest is “blatant interference in the judicial affairs by the powers-that-be.” Hasan added that Khan “was virtually abducted from the court of law.”

Khan’s arrest came hours after he issued a video message before heading to Islamabad, saying he was “mentally prepared” for arrest there.

Khan was wounded by a gunman at a rally in November, an attack that killed one of his supporters and wounded 13. He has insisted, without offering any evidence, that there is a plot to assassinate him, alleging that Pakistan’s spy agency was behind the conspiracy. The gunman was immediately arrested and police later released a video of him in custody, allegedly saying he had acted alone.

In a strongly worded statement Monday, the military accused Khan of “fabricated and malicious allegations” of its involvement in the November shooting, saying they are “extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable.”

The military has directly ruled Pakistan for more than half of the 75 years since the country gained independence from British colonial rule, and wields considerable power over civilian governments.

Sharif, whose government faces spiraling economic woes and is struggling to recover from last year’s devastating floods that killed hundreds and caused $30 billion in damage, slammed Khan for assailing the military. 

“Let this be abundantly clear that you, as former prime minister, currently on trial for corruption, are claiming legitimacy to overturn the legal and political system,” Sharif tweeted after Khan’s arrest.

In a statement, the European Union urged “restraint and cool headedness” in the country, through dialogue and the rule of law.

Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979. The current prime minister’s brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister, was arrested several times on corruption allegations.

In March, police stormed Khan’s Lahore residence, seeking to arrest him based on a court order in a different case. Dozens of people, including police, were injured in ensuing clashes. Khan was not arrested at the time and later obtained bail in the case.

Khan came to power in 2018 after winning parliamentary elections and had initially good relations with the military which gradually soured. 

(AP)



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Iranian journalists remain imprisoned for reporting on Mahsa Amini’s death

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Iran is one of the most repressive countries in terms of press freedom, according to an annual report released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders, which ranked it 177th of 180 nations. Since the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran, 72 journalists have been arrested and 25 remain imprisoned, most of them women. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the cases of two journalists who remain behind bars over their reporting on the young Kurdish woman’s death.    

Two distraught parents embraced in the empty corridor of a hospital in Kasra, Tehran. They had just learned that their 22-year-old daughter Mahsa Amini had died, three days after being arrested by the morality police for “improperly” wearing her hijab.

Journalist Niloofar Hamedi has been held for more than seven months by the Iranian authorities for capturing this silent moment in a photograph and making it public. A correspondent for the reformist daily newspaper “Shargh”, Hamedi was the first to break the news of the young Kurdish woman’s death on September 16, 2022, by posting the photograph on Twitter.

The post provoked an unprecedented wave of unrest and several months of demonstrations against the Iranian authorities.

Arrested at her home by intelligence agents on September 20, the 31-year-old journalist was not given a trial before being put behind bars, according to Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East Office of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières or RSF), which published its annual report on press freedom on Wednesday.

Journalist Elahe Mohammadi, 35, is also being held at Qarchak prison south of Tehran. A writer for the reformist daily newspaper “Hammihan”, she was arrested on September 29 for going to Amini’s home town of Saqez in Iranian Kurdistan to cover the young woman’s funeral, which gave rise to the first demonstrations following her death.

The Iranian judiciary confirmed in April that the two women were indicted on charges including collaborating with the United States, undermining national security and spreading anti-state propaganda. The two women were formally accused in October of being agents for the CIA.

 


 

Symbols of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement

Denouncing these “grotesque accusations”, RSF has demanded the release of the two journalists. In Iran, charges of espionage are punishable by death.

Hamedi and Mohammadi’s cases are of particular concern: “Both have become emblematic of the repression of press freedom in Iran, but also of the (Women, Life, Freedom) movement. They are journalists and women. So they are symbols on many levels. That’s why the Iranian government treats them much more severely,” says Dagher. “Iran tends to punish journalists who are the first to reveal information more severely, and make an example of them for other women and journalists,” adds Dagher.

Nine other female journalists are being held by the authorities, including eight arrested since the uprising that followed Amini’s death. “This is unprecedented in the country and one of the highest figures in the world,” says Dagher, noting that female journalists are being targeted “because they play an important role in covering this movement, especially in giving a voice to women who are at the forefront of the protest”.

RSF says a total of 72 Iranian journalists have been arrested since Amini’s death on September 16, with 25 still behind bars. The incarcerations earn Iran seventh place among the countries detaining the most journalists, with China in the top spot followed by Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus, Turkey and Syria.

Released but under pressure

But even for released journalists, “deliverance can become a threat in itself, with sentences that act like swords of Damocles hanging over their heads”, says Dagher.

This is the case for Nazila Maroofian, another female journalist who investigated Amini’s death. She was sentenced without trial to a two-year suspended prison term for “spreading false news” and “anti-government propaganda” after spending 71 days in prison. Maroofian, who is from the same city as Amini, was targeted by the Iranian authorities for publishing an interview with her father on the news website “Mostaghel Online”.


Others were released in exchange for signed confessions – “statements of remorse”, or promises not to cover certain events or stories – reports RSF.

One of these journalists was Ali Pourtabatabaei, who worked for a local news website in Qom, located 140km south of Tehran, and was one of the first to reveal that young girls were being poisoned using an unidentified gas in schools across the city in November 2022.

Pourtabatabaei was arrested on March 5 amid controversy over the ongoing wave of poisonings. After several weeks in detention, “on the day of his release, the government asked journalists not to cover this story because it was upsetting the public, demanding that they rely only on official sources for all information”, says Dagher.  

Under these conditions, many Iranian journalists have been forced to flee the country. To manage the influx and provide assistance, RSF set up a crisis unit. Several have since settled in France, others in Canada, the United States and Turkey. But even there they are not safe from intimidation.

“Their families continue to be pressured in Iran,” says Dagher, who has collected several personal accounts to this effect. Other journalists have been informed by foreign intelligence services that they are potential kidnapping targets and so have been strongly advised not to travel to countries bordering Iran, including Turkey.

This article has been translated from the original in French.



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Looking back at 20 years of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power

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After two decades in power as prime minister and as president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hoping to win a final mandate in the 2023 presidential election next month. But amid mounting anger over his handling of the economy in recent years, the seasoned Turkish politician could be in for a tough fight against his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Turkish political scientist Ahmet Insel looks back at Erdogan’s time in power. 

A talented orator and wily politician credited with lifting millions of Turks into the middle class, Recep Tayyip Erdogan transformed the country as only Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, accomplished before him. The 69-year-old Turkish president is now running for a third term. But the upcoming presidential election in May is no cakewalk for the seasoned politician with polls suggesting he could be defeated by opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu. 

A profound economic crisis coupled with skyrocketing inflation, deep political tensions and mounting anger over his handling of the February 6 earthquakes, which killed more than 50,000 people, could cost Erdogan his place in the Ak Saray presidential palace. Turkish political scientist and publisher Ahmet Insel spoke to FRANCE 24 about Erdogan’s political legacy and the stakes in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. 

FRANCE 24: After two decades of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power, do Turkish voters still trust him?  

Ahmet Insel: He is not as popular as he was in 2020. In 2018, he won the first round of the presidential election with flying colours, getting 52% of votes. But surveys now show that only 40% or 42% of respondents would vote for Erdogan in the first round of the upcoming election. After 20 years in power, it’s a relative drop but not an insignificant one, given the democratic erosion that has taken place and the ongoing economic crisis.   

He could lose this election because of his decision to change Turkey’s political system to a presidential one, where a candidate needs over 50% of votes to win. If he had kept the parliamentary system, he would certainly win. Despite how he handled the earthquakes, Erdogan still has a surprisingly strong level of support. People also fear the change that would come should the opposition win these elections.   

How would you assess his track record as prime minister and president? 

His track record is negative on three counts. First, he came into a rather authoritarian democratic regime with the promise of establishing a conservative parliamentary democracy and expanding rights. What we see today is an extremely repressive presidential regime that has gutted civil society, gagged the media and made way for an autocracy, justifiable only because elections still exist. Turkey hasn’t made any progress on the democratic front. 

On the economic front, Erdogan implemented a neoliberal stabilisation policy in the 2000s, taking advantage of a very favourable international situation. With the prospect of Turkey joining the EU in a 15-year timeframe, there was plenty of foreign investments. The average income per capita rose from $3,000 in 2002 to $12,000 in 2012, a record high. But since then, it has been declining and is now at $9,000 – the same as it was between 2007 and 2008.   

Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis is largely a consequence of policies that Erdogan has implemented since 2018. The Turkish lira has lost more than 200% of its value in relation to the euro in just four years, which is an astounding rate. Turkey has the second-highest inflation rate worldwide. We reached an official rate of 80-90% last year, but unofficial estimates say the rate was much higher. Our current rate is around 60%. The middle class has become poorer. When Erdogan first came to power, Turkey had been part of the G20 for four years and had the 17th highest GDP in the world. That ranking has now dropped to 20th. There could have been more positive outcomes, but the president wasted the assets he had in his first 10 years as leader.   

Lastly, there is the ideological shift Erdogan made. In the early 2000s, he was culturally conservative and politically liberal, especially regarding gender issues. He supported an open-minded policy on education. But from 2010 to 2011 onwards, he changed his policies and adopted a more nationalistic, “authentic” position, to use his own words. He described himself as a Turkish nationalist who embodies Sunni Muslim values. He started saying his goal was to train a “pious youth”, something unheard of ten years earlier. His nepotism was blatant, he appointed people from “imam schools” – or preachers – to senior positions within his administration. He implemented more religious education in school curriculums. He used the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey (Diyanet) to spread religious ideology. And he transformed the historic Hagia Sophia into a mosque, which was symbolically a big move.   

What about his foreign policy?   

Turkey has become a regional power feared by its neighbours, including Syria, Iran, Greece … Contrary to what Erdogan promised in the 2000s, the country has become a source of many problems, not a solution. He uses the country’s location to position Turkey as an intermediary between Ukraine and Russia. But while Erdogan condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he still cooperates on trade. His stance on NATO is ambivalent. Relations between Erdogan and the EU are completely frozen regarding Turkey’s membership. And he doesn’t respect the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights.  

How can you explain Erdogan’s ideological shift, especially in terms of religion?  

He was trained in political Islam. He was the first mayor of Istanbul to be a member of the [Islamist] Welfare Party. In the late 1990s, he realised his stance on political Islam would limit him to the political fringes. Along with other politicians such as Abdullah Gul, who became president in 2007, he realised it was necessary to refocus his political agenda and occupy the centre-right. His success in both the 2002 and 2007 parliamentary elections was a consequence of his altogether authoritarian, culturally conservative, economically liberal, and politically rather democratic stance. It’s also what garnered him international support.   

From 2011 onwards, he had a majority in parliament and began implementing religiously conservative policies. And then came the Arab Spring. That’s when we found out he had been in close contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. He saw the Arab Spring as a moment to become the rising star of “democratic” Muslims in the region, from Algeria to Syria. He wanted to be the democratic older brother. He strongly supported Mohamed Morsi [in Egypt], Syrian opposition groups, and Ennahda [in Tunisia]. I think that’s the moment he started changing his stance. When Morsi was overthrown, when the US and France supported [army chief Abdel Fattah] al-Sissi, when Ennahda became an enemy of the state, he became suspicious of western allies. He is very paranoid. 

Then in 2014, he was elected president. After the June 2015 parliamentary elections, he lost his majority. He realised he could no longer win elections on his own and formed an alliance with the far-right nationalist party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). They were once fierce opponents, literally hurling insults at one another. In 2018, their interests converged, they joined forces and went on to win a parliamentary majority. Since then, he has associated himself politically with extremist nationalist and religious views.   

Will the February 6 earthquakes impact how people vote in May?   

The way he handled the earthquake may slightly weaken his chances. According to the polls, those who were convinced they wouldn’t vote for Erdogan are even more convinced now.  

On the other hand, the earthquakes took place in regions where Erdogan has a reserve of back-up votes (aside from Antioch). There may be a loss, but on a national level, the impact seems to be minimal.   

What will happen if his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu wins? Will Erdogan admit defeat?   

Erdogan was the one to appoint all the judges of the High Electoral Council, so people are afraid they will declare his victory before the opposition appeals are filed. All the opposition parties have mobilised on the issue of election security to ensure their observers are everywhere. There are 192,000 voting stations in Turkey, the objective is to have observers in at least 160,000 of them.   

What would dramatically change if the opposition wins?   

The government will start sending more positive messages to the EU and, if they have a parliamentary majority, take the necessary measures to change the nature of the regime. It’s possible to change the criminal code, for example, and go back to a system that ensures fundamental freedoms. Foreign policy wouldn’t change that much because the international situation won’t be shifting drastically anytime soon. Turkey’s [foreign policy] position will go from aggressive to calm. Relations with NATO members will be less tense, Sweden’s membership will no longer be blocked. The opposition would probably cancel the purchase of Russian S-400 missiles, a source of major conflict with the US. And there will be a sense of freedom in the air for a few months. After that, it’ll be up to the ruling parties to play their cards right.  

This article was translated from the original in French. 

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Spotlight on family planning as India surpasses China as world’s most populous country

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India is set to become the world’s most populous country on April 14, a title China has held for decades. Faced with a large – and growing ­– population of more than 1.4 billion, India’s family planning service is under pressure to maintain a decreasing fertility rate.

A UN forecast predicts that on April 14 the Indian population will reach 1,425,775,850 – a number that dethrones China from its long-held position as the world’s most populous country.  

The exact population of India today is unknown ­(a 2021 update on the decade-old census was indefinitely delayed by the pandemic) but all signs point to exponential growth. While China’s formerly steep rate of population increase is starting to plateau, India’s curve is still forging upwards. 

It is estimated that India has added 210 million – almost the number of people in Brazil – to its population since the last census 12 years ago. As of 2020, it has gained roughly 1 million inhabitants each month.

>> Read more: China faces demographic crisis as population shrinks for first time in 60 years

The population of India – and China – is now equivalent to the entire continent of Africa, and dwarfs that of Europe and the Americas. 

 

How India’s population compares globally © Worldometer

 

But over the same decades that population growth in India has soared, fertility rates have been falling. In 1964 Indian women had six children on average, today they have closer to two, in part, due to the state family planning service, which India claims it was the first country to provide when it launched in 1952.

“The primary goal was to slow population growth as a means of supporting the economic development of the country, which was only a few years old at that point,” says Anita Raj, Professor of Global Public Health, Director of the Center on Gender Equity and Health, University of California at San Diego.

The scheme has had some successes: India’s 2022 family heath survey found that almost 100% of married women and men aged 15-49 are aware of at least one method of contraception. The public health sector is the provider for 68% of people who use modern contraceptives (products or medical procedures used to prevent pregnancy such as condoms, the pill and IUDs, as opposed to traditional methods such as the withdrawal or rhythm methods or abstinence).

Yet, faced with a soaring population there is work to do. “Total fertility rates have declined for years,” says Raj. “However, if the goal was truly reproductive choice and women’s reproductive autonomy, then more should be done.”

Sterilisation

The most used form of pregnancy prevention in India is female sterilisation, which accounts for 38% of all contraception used. “The emphasis of the national family planning programme historically was on family size, and consequently, sterilisation was the focus,” says Raj.

Yet, male sterilisation rates account for just 0.3% of all contraception methods. This is partly due to a patriarchal society – the family heath survey found more than a third of men regard contraception as “women’s business”.

Contraceptive methods used by married women in India
Contraceptive methods used by married women in India © NFHS India Report, 2021

But there is also resistance to male vasectomy due to lingering “stigma and taboos”, says Debanjana Choudhuri, a gender rights specialist based in India.

In the 1970s, economic and social stagnation led the Indian government to launch a mass drive to sterilise men as a population control method. Heavy-handed enforcement saw men pressured into having vasectomies on pain of having their salaries docked or losing their jobs. Poor men risked being picked up by police from railway and bus stations before being sent for sterilisation.

The result in modern India is that “no scalpel vasectomies have a very poor uptake”, Choudhuri says. “Men aren’t doing enough.”

State efforts still shy away from diversifying contraceptive methods. Sterilisation for men and women is incentivised with payment, and some states have introduced a two-child policy with penalties such as bans on holding government jobs for those who do not comply. The private health sector is the main provider of contraceptive of pills, injectables and condoms.

Recent public health provision of UDIs could be a “game changer in achieving method mix”, says Choudhuri, “but it will take 5-10 years to become popular. There is an immediate need for a healthier method mix, sensitisation, and awareness of long-acting reversible contraception and other short-term methods.”

Contraceptive control

Aside from placing the burden on women, reliance on female sterilisation limits women’s options. “Sterilisation does not support birth spacing, which is important for maternal and infant health and survival. It also is not a solution to ensure women’s control of timing of pregnancies, only limiting of them,” says Raj.

“If sterilisation is the women’s choice and supports women’s health, then that is fine; but too often these decisions are built on family and community expectations.”

Socio-economic conditions also define many women’s choices around family planning. The 2022 family health survey found poorer, less educated women living in rural areas are likely to have more children at younger ages and have less exposure to family planning messages than their wealthier, educated and urban counterparts.

Geography also plays a role, with women in the poorest parts of east India less likely to use any contraceptive methods at all, and especially less likely to use modern contraceptive methods.

“Evidence from all over the world shows when women are given the choice to control their fertility and the opportunities around it [such as education and economic opportunity] you’re always going to see family sizes coming down,” says Alistair Currie, campaign manager from Population Matters, a UK-based charity that addresses population size.

Lowering the fertility rate

Forecasts predict that India’s population will continue to increase for decades to come. The UN’s “medium variant” projection puts the peak of growth at 1.7 billion people in 2064. “Low variant” projections would see the growth curve start to flatten in 2047.

As they are, efforts from the Indian government are slowing population growth at an increasingly rapid rate, but data indicates family planning has a greater role to play. There remains a significant gap between the wanted fertility rate (number of children women want to have) of 1.6, and the actual fertility rate of 2.

“We would hope to see a situation in which all pregnancies are wanted and that people have the capacity to make a choice [to get pregnant],” Currie says. “If that were the case, then we would see a lower fertility rate in India.”

In addition, a population growth spurt looms: nearly half of the Indian population is below the age of 25, likely to have children of their own in coming years.

At the moment, many of this demographic lacking vital information about contraceptives, Choudhuri says. “There’s a prejudice that comes with the family planning programme – because it’s called family planning many people feel that it is not aimed at them. The adolescent population needs to be brought into the contraception conversation. Right now, they are excluded, and that’s alarming.”

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Global progress on phasing out coal in 2022 weighed down by China

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Despite the energy crisis sparked by the Ukraine war, a phasing out of coal continued across the world in 2022, according to a new report by the NGO Global Energy Monitor. Everywhere except China, where new coal production capacity under development increased, offsetting the gains in the rest of the world.

With the spring comes a rare bit of good news in the fight against climate change. In a study published this week, Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO, reported that in 2022, global efforts to phase out coal, one of the most climate-damaging energy sources, continued. The “coal comeback” fears, sparked by the fallout and disruptions of last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, did not come to pass in the end.

That’s the good news. Now for the bad: China bucked the global trend. Worse, China’s new coal plant additions last year offset the coal plant shutdowns in the rest of the world.

In its annual report on coal production, “Boom and Bust Coal 2023”, Global Energy Monitor recorded progress everywhere in the world – except China. The number of coal-fired power plants in operation has decreased worldwide and these include retiring or converting coal plants in countries such as Peru and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

According to the study, no new coal-fired projects are under consideration in the European Union, North America or North Africa. In the Middle East, the report noted that the Tabas plant under construction in Iran could be “the region’s last new coal plant”.

The US tops the list of good performers: its coal-fired power generation fell by 13.5 gigawatts (GW). That’s half of the global decline, estimated at 26 GW by 2022.

Limited use of coal in the EU

The EU, on the other hand, recorded a decrease of only 2.2 GW. This is a low figure compared to 2021, when it reached a record retirement of 14.6 GW.

The gas crisis sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted seven countries to authorise the restarting or operation of coal-fired power plants. These include Germany and Austria, as well as the Netherlands, which reversed a law limiting the operation of power plants to 35% of their capacity.

France, on the other hand, restarted production at the Emile-Huchet power plant in the eastern Moselle region. In total, 26 coal-fired power plants in the EU that were already shut down or scheduled to be closed finally operated during the winter, according to Global Energy Monitor figures.

“It was a question of prioritising energy security, in a context of shortage fears,” explained Nicolas Berghmans, lead European affairs and energy and climate expert at the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). “But in the end, these 20 or so power plants were little used and the ‘coal comeback’ that was feared did not take place.”

But while the worst did not come to pass, there were plenty of energy challenges last year, noted Berghmans. “After a historic summer drought, hydroelectricity capacities were limited and, in France, we were facing the shutdown of several of our nuclear reactors,” he explained. “The damage was limited thanks to energy saving measures that worked well, helped by a mild winter. They have reduced energy consumption both in gas and electricity during the winter,” he said.

“Beyond the results for 2022, this shows that coal is no longer considered the first response in case of crisis,” said Berghmans. “In the EU moreover, this has mostly led to a surge in investments in renewable energy, and while this was not very noticeable in 2022, it will be felt in the coming years. This is very encouraging.”

China bucks the tide

But in stark contrast to this promising trend in many parts of the world, China moved against the tide, darkening the global picture. “China’s steady new coal plant additions (26.8 GW) offset coal plant retirements in the rest of the world (23.9 GW) in 2022,” said Global Energy Monitor.

China now has 365 GW of generating capacity, compared to an average of 172 GW elsewhere. More alarmingly, China alone now accounts for 68% of coal-related projects under development worldwide, and 72% of those are in the pipeline.

“Because of its size and population, China’s energy consumption is necessarily very high,” explained Thibaud Voïta, a researcher at the Center for Energy and Climate at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). “One of the major challenges for Beijing is to meet the energy demand that has been constantly increasing for several years.”

It was a challenge that was particularly hard to meet in 2022 due to gas price rises linked to the Ukraine war, the post-Covid economic recovery as well as repeated heat waves. The long spell of extreme hot and dry weather, that scientists called “the most severe” ever recorded in the world, led to massive use of air conditioning. This in turn saw electricity consumption soaring when hydroelectric capacity was at its lowest.

“To a certain extent, this surge is beyond Beijing’s control and is rather the work of local or provincial authorities,” said Voïta. “Developing coal-fired power plants is still seen by many as the best solution to meet short-term demand while guaranteeing the population the lowest possible electricity prices.”

This saw annual coal capacity additions for many Chinese provinces topping the capacity additions for entire countries. Citing the example of the northern Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, the report noted that, “Inner Mongolia (6 GW) surpassed India (3.5 GW) despite India being the country with the most coal commissioned in 2022 after China. In fact, Inner Mongolia nearly had more new capacity than the next two countries after China combined (India and Japan).”

>> Behind a ‘green façade’, Modi expands coal mining on India’s tribal lands

China’s bleak record however must be qualified, according to Voïta. “In 2019, coal accounted for 57.7% of China’s energy mix. In 2022, it will be 56.2%. We are therefore on a downward trend,” he noted. “Not to mention that in parallel, China is investing massively in renewable energies. They represented, with nuclear, 15.3% of the energy mix in 2019. This share has climbed to 17.4% in 2022 and the goal is to reach 20% by 2025.” That’s some reason for hope.

Zero coal target by 2040

“Today, nearly one-third of operating global coal capacity (580 GW) has a phase out date, and much of the remaining capacity (1,400 GW) is under the purview of carbon neutrality targets,” noted the report, making it a “a reality completely unthinkable a decade ago”.

Despite these advances, the pace of the global coal phase-out remains incompatible with the goal of the Paris Agreement. In order to limit global temperature rise to well to below 2°C, all existing power plants should be closed by 2030 in developed countries and by 2040 in the rest of the world.

Berghmans would like to believe the 2030 objective “remains achievable” in the EU. “On one condition: continue the massive deployment of renewable energies, this is really key,” he stressed.

“But whatever the global efforts, China will play a decisive role,” said Voïta. “Beijing has stated, on the international scene, that it wants to peak its emissions in 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060. The only way for it to achieve this goal is to give up coal. It must now agree to start this process as soon as possible.”

(This article is a translation of the original in French)

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