The Guardian (August 22)
“England currently feels like an eerie, unpoliced, ungoverned, unstable country after a coup. One government is gone but another hasn’t replaced it, and opposition cannot rise to the challenge.” A macro analyst recently wrote that the UK increasingly looks like “an emerging market country…. Brexit coupled with Covid and high inflation have succeeded…. The UK economy is crushed.”
Tags: Analyst, Brexit, Challenge, Coup, Covid, Economy, Eerie, Emerging market, England, Government, Inflation, Opposition, UK, Ungoverned, Unpoliced, Unstable
The Guardian (November 15)
“In a fluid, confusing and opaque situation, the fact that a coup was taking place was one of the few certainties.” Yet, to avoid international complications, nearly everyone avoided that four-letter word when describing the military overthrow of Robert Mugabe. A cautious optimism prevails. Zimbabwe may have escaped a worst fate. “Yet the prospect of President Mnangagwa is hardly a cause for celebration. His long years as Mr Mugabe’s chief enforcer tell one much of what we need to know about his record. The nickname he earned, ‘the Crocodile’, says the rest…. Ordinary Zimbabweans appear as far as ever from taking power.”
Tags: Complications, Confusing, Coup, Mnangagwa, Mugabe, Power, The Crocodile, Zimbabwe
The Economist (October 7)
If Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy “thought that cracking heads would put a stop to secessionism, he could not have been more wrong. He has only created a stand-off that has energised his enemies and shocked his friends.” Rajoy’s reaction “has thrown Spain into its worst constitutional crisis since an attempted coup in 1981…. Only a negotiation can restore calm and it should start immediately.”
Tags: Calm, Constitutional crisis, Coup, Enemies, Negotiation, Rajoy, Secession, Spain, Stand-off, Wrong
The Economist (July 23)
Since the coup in Turkey, two things have become clear. “First, the people of Turkey showed great bravery in coming out onto the streets to confront the soldiers; hundreds died…. Opposition parties, no matter how much they may despise President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, united to denounce the assault on democracy. Better the flawed, Islamist-tinged strongman than the return of the generals for the fifth time since the 1960s. The second, more alarming conclusion is that Mr Erdogan is fast destroying the very democracy that the people defended with their lives.”
The New York Times (July 4)
“Despite his failings, and there were plenty, President Mohamed Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, and his overthrow by the military on Wednesday was unquestionably a coup. It would be tragic if Egyptians allowed the 2011 revolution that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak to end with this rejection of democracy.”
Tags: Coup, Democracy, Dictator, Egypt, Elected, Leader, Military, Mohamed Morsi, Overthrow, Revolution
Washington Post (June 26)
Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani oversaw Qatar’s rapid economic growth. He came to power 18 years ago after staging a coup against his very own father. “Now the 61-year-old emir has completed another surprising initiative by handing power to his 33-year-old son.” This change “opens the way for adjustments in Qatar’s foreign policies and in the rigid autocracy that still reigns over the skyscrapers and luxury hotels of Doha.” Only time will tell if reform ensues.
Tags: Autocracy, Coup, Doha, Economic growth, Foreign policy, Luxury hotels, Qatar, Reform, Skyscrapers
