Iran: Hardliners grab power 

Frankly, it’s hard to describe Iran’s presidential election last Friday as anything other than rigged. What else can you call it when ordinary Iranians are “free” to vote for the regime’s preapproved candidates?  

As I write, confirmation of the result has yet to come, but most election watchers know that the outcome will be a win for the political hardliners and most likely Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative Shia cleric who heads the country’s judiciary.  

That Raisi would become Iran’s next president was always on the cards after the Guardian Council, a 12-member body of jurists and clerics closely aligned with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, vetted the candidates for office.  

Of the 592 candidates who stepped up for presidential race the Guardian Council approved only seven men, of whom Raisi is the most prominent.  

Raisi has something of an unsavoury reputation on the human rights front with rumours that he rarely leaves Iran for fear of arrest over the execution of as many as 5,000 political prisoners in 1988.  

So just what then would the election of a hardliner like Raisi mean for ordinary Iranians and what kind of response can the West expect from such a regime?  

The first thing worth noting, is that with these elections the hardliners will have all the core components of power under their control. In real terms this means an even more puritanical system of Islamic government implementing the vision of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  

As for ordinary Iranians themselves it means that their lives will be bound by even tighter restrictions. Women especially will likely fare even worse than they have under the outgoing centrist presidency of Hassan Rouhani.  

It was Rouhani of course who back in 2013 promised that his election had “opened a new chapter,” with Iranians' dancing in the streets in the hope that his term in office would bring a return to normality. 

 “Your government of prudence and hope will materialise its promise of saving the country’s economy, reviving ethics and establishing constructive interaction with the world,” insisted Rouhani.   

But ultimately, he went on to oversee a country where the economy went into free fall, debt racked up, the Iran nuclear deal collapsed, and only two women were appointed to Rouhani’s cabinet.  

In short, it was far from what most Iranians had hoped for and now they can expect even less after the latest power grab by Raisi and the hardliners. For his part Raisi has said that should he win, he will support ongoing negotiations between Tehran and the nuclear deal’s remaining signatories - the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China - that are intended to broker an agreement that would lead to the US re-joining the accord and the removal of sanctions.  

But most Iran watchers expect Raisi to adopt a far more conservative approach by which improving relations with the West will figure low on list of his priorities.  

The simple fact remains that most hardliners were never happy in the first place about the nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of action (JCPOA) as it’s officially known.  

It’s far more likely that what we will now see is Tehran drawing ever closer to Beijing as the new regime seeks the billions of dollars of Chinese investment that it needs to claw its way out of the deep economic crisis Iran currently finds itself in. 

The reluctance of many Iranian voters on Friday to turn out for the elections also tell us much about what lies ahead. This shunning had less to do with apathy than being a way of expressing disapproval of the new regime. It was in effect a boycott and the laying down of a marker by those Iranians who remain desperate for reform.   

While Iran might never have been a true democracy at least over the past four decades there was always a degree of choice and competition in elections for president and parliament. As the country moves to what effectively a one-party state it remains to be seen just how much more pressure the Iranian people can take. In a nutshell, expect Iran to remain in the global headlines but perhaps more than ever for all the wrong reasons. 

Nicaragua: Whatever happened to the Sandinistas? 

“I don’t want an educated population; I want oxen.” These were the words of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, back in the day when he ruled the Central American country with a callous brutality.  

This was a leader who thought nothing of diverting foreign earthquake aid to his own warehouses. He and his cadres also quite literally bled their people to death, the president and his son being both part owners of a company that collected blood plasma from up to 1,000 of Nicaragua’s poorest people every day for sale in the United States and Europe.  

The homeless, the alcoholics, the desperately poor went to sell half a litre for a few Nicaraguan cordobas in order to survive, while Somoza and his family pocketed the vast profits from the exported blood plasma. 

Then in 1979 along came the socialist party and group that overthrew Somoza in the Sandinista revolution that bore their name. Their fight from the hills and jungles which was brought into Nicaragua’s cities with the support of the civilian population was the stuff of legend and which I covered as a young journalist.  

Today, however, it’s an altogether different story as the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) under President Daniel Ortega increasingly reveals its own autocratic colours and many Nicaraguans turn against them.  

Not that Ortega is listening to their woes, on the contrary. With elections looming in November, Ortega is determined to hang onto power using whatever it takes. Last week saw his regime detain another five prominent opposition figures in a further crackdown seen as an attempt to crush any serious challenge in November’s ballot.  

That many of those arrested include revered former Sandinista guerrillas who battled alongside Ortega to topple the US backed Somoza dictatorship only adds to the irony of the president’s transition from one-time respected revolutionary to detested dictator.  

“It’s crystal clear he’s clearing the field to run without any meaningful opposition,” was how Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the America’s Division at Human Rights Watch summed up the latest arrests.  

That Ortega’s increasingly brazen clampdown is unlikely to spill over into protests as it did before is only because of widespread fear among much of the Nicaraguan population. Back in 2018 when opposition protests erupted more than 100,000 Nicaraguans fled to neighbouring Costa Rica. Today the number leaving in fear is again rising.  

It’s all a far cry from those turbulent days back in 1979 and the years afterwards when they took to the streets in support. Today the near mythical status the Sandinista revolution once held far beyond the country’s borders has been irreversibly tainted. 

 Like so many people back in the wake of the revolution, I too as a young correspondent was in awe of those remarkable men and women who ousted the hideous Somoza regime. Rarely since have I ever been in a situation where the universal sense of solidarity and desire for justice and fairness were so profoundly felt. Many of those that took part in the revolution will remain heroes, for not all like Ortega turned on the people that brought them to power.  

Taiwan: China’s sabre rattling in the Straits 

One headline in a foreign affairs magazine recently referred to it as the “Taiwan Temptation.” At its narrowest the strait separating Taiwan from China is only 81 miles, but ever since the two entities separated in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War relations between the two have been rocky.  

To say that Beijing covets Taiwan as part of China is something of an understatement. Indeed, some Asia analysts have even suggested that perhaps China’s President Xi Jinping has even viewed progress in unifying Taiwan with China as a crucial factor in his quest for a third term in office.  

If the uptick in Chinese military activity lately is anything to by then they could very well be right, terrifying as the implication of that are in terms of tensions between Washington and Beijing right now. On one day, Tuesday of last week, some 28 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defence zone, the largest reported incursion so far in what has been a growing pattern. 

According to sources in Taipei, the Chinese mission included 14 J-16, six J-11 fighters, four nuclear capable H-6 bombers as well as anti-submarine, electronic warfare and early warning aircraft.  

The Chinese operation came too barely two days after the G7 group issued a communique following its UK summit in which it highlighted “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and called for a peaceful resolution of issues between China and Taiwan.  

The Chinese air force activity came also on the heels of a warning by NATO leaders in Brussels over China’s military threat calling its behaviour a “systemic challenge.”  

As if that were not enough to give some of us nightmares all this coincided with reports that 

Taiwan has just signed a weapons’ contract with the US worth $1.75 billion.  

But if all this sounds a bit scary then you can at least take heart in the assessment of America’s most senior general Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff 

“I think China has a ways to go to develop the actual, no-kidding capability to conduct military operations to seize, through military means, the entire island of Taiwan, if they wanted to do that,” Milly told a Senate appropriations committee hearing a few days ago. While the US is not treaty- bound to defend Taiwan, few doubt the seriousness any Chinese assault would pose in testing America’s political and military resolve.  

Perhaps for good reason then Taiwan deserves the title some give it as “the most dangerous place on earth.” 

Nigeria: The President, the people, and the Twitter ban 

Imagine waking up one morning to find that the government had turned off Twitter. No bad thing I can imagine some of you saying, but then that’s not the way most Nigerians see it after President Muhammadu Buhari decided earlier this month to do just that partly because his ego was bruised but also as rights activists say to silence dissent. 

The blackout came two days after Twitter deleted a Tweet by Buhari, insisting the post violated its policy against abusive behaviour.  

In the offending Tweet Buhari, a former army general who led troops during the country’s civil war in the late 1960s, had threatened to crack down on young people from the southeast agitating for greater recognition and secession. Buhari pulled no punches in his post stating that he would “treat those misbehaving today in a language they understand.”  

In a country wracked by recent protests marked by police brutality, Buhari’s tweet was incendiary, and his subsequent ban has only further angered many Nigerians in one of Africa’s most populous countries.  

Twitter in Nigeria is huge, with many people depending on it to promote their businesses and selling their wares. In short it has facilitated the ease of doing business. It especially has a massive, interconnected youth population with some of the most engaged Twitter users in Africa. But the main motive behind Buhari’s ban say observers is more sinister. 

“The real reason for the ban, of course, is to silence a citizenry that found, through social media, an unfettered speech and a way to hold the leadership accountable through screenshots, quote tweets, replies, satire, mockery, and humour,” observed Kola Tubosun a Nigerian, author and linguist writing in Foreign Policy magazine recently. 

Amid increasing insecurity and unemployment, and with many government officials older and less internet savvy, the country’s youth have utilised the platform as a searing political weapon. Buhari it would appear is only one of many very jittery about its potential to undermine his rule and authority.  

So far, Nigeria’s government has resisted calls to restore Twitter access from rights groups, and foreign governments, including the US. But equally the ban has been met with more rebellion with users finding ways to bypass it, often using Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) and remaining a thorn in Buhari’s side. It is in short very much a story of our times and a yet another reminder of politics played out in our digital age.