World Politics Digest thread

Delighted to see Modi get a bloody nose. I suspect that one way or the other he'll find a way to blame a minority grouping.

Bolivia

Attempted coup there yesterday which was swiftly put down after the President, Luis Arce, simply names a new head of the army who successfully ordered the troops to stand down.

On the same day as the US Presidential election there were a number of ballots in various states (Idaho, Nevada, Oregon & Colorado) to introduce Ranked Choice voting. Unfortunately they were all well defeated. (There was one victory but it was in D.C.).

What was even worse for advocates of RCV is that there was also a (Republican led) ballot initiative in Alaska to repeal the RCV that they had only used for the very first time in 2022. It's bad enough to lose the fight to introduce RCV to a new state but it is far worse to have it removed after introducing it.

In the days after the election the Repeal side took a big lead. However Alaska famously takes weeks to count their vote due to the gigantic size and rural nature of the state. The votes coming in from the far-flung rural constituencies are often from indigenous Alaskans. They are very much in favour of RCV and in ballot drops for the past week the Yes (Repeal) lead was being slowly eaten away. In last night's ballot drop the race was finally flipped and the No side finally took the lead for the very first time.

There's still 2% of the vote left to count but that should probably favour No as well. Given how tight it is there could well be a recount and the Republicans might try to repeal it again should they eventually lose this time.

Yeah I think that win for Mary Pelota in 2022 was great at the time but in the long run it was bad for RCV. Republicans put that loss squarely at the feet of the voting system and railed against it. In all of those other states where there were ballot measures the example of the Democrats "rigging the system so that they won in Alaska" was used as a cudgel - and it seems to have been very effective at poisoning the very idea of RCV in many Republican minds.

Ironically Mary Peltola is about to lose her seat to one of the Republicans that she beat in that race in 2022 - thereby proving that Republicans can actually win under RCV.

The ballot measure has swung back slightly in the Yes direction - with the No lead now down to a ludicrous 45 votes. The final votes will be counted today.

I don't think there are any far-right candidates who have a realistic shot of getting elected - never mind getting near government.

There are a few who might get a few thousand votes (Malachy Steenson, Gavin Pepper & Paddy Holohan).

What's more likely is parties and independents who dog whistle about immigration will do well: Aontu, Independent Ireland, Mattie McGrath etc

The extremely unpopular president of South Korea has just declared martial law

Apparently he is doing this out of desperation because he's a lame duck who cannot get any legislation passed.

Even his own party have come out against this move.

Looks like an impasse is developing

Law makers are still in the parliament and are not leaving until martial law has been lifted.

I think the people need to take to the streets. Let the generals know they won't accept a tyrant trying to cling to power.

It's 3am in Seoul now. It's very possible that people have slept all the way through this and are in for a rude awakening in a few hours.