New Years Eve predictions seem to be all the rage right now. Everybody wants to predict what Sarah Palin will do next, where the economy is headed, or how far President Obama’s approval rating will fall. However, most years are defined by the people who surprise us – especially in the internatonal arena. For instance, in December 2008, names like Mir Hussein Moussavi and Manuel Zelaya meant nothing to U.S. readers
So, for my New Years post, I decided to pick a few global newsmakers whose names we may learn for the first time in 2010. These aren’t the sure bets, like David Cameron’s near-certain election as Britain’s Prime Minister, but rather the people who could come from nowhere to change the world. Each has a big opportunity on his or her plate, but whether they boom or bust will depend almost entirely on how they chose to exploit their openings.
1. Shaul Mofaz - Israel – Number-Two Man in the Kadima Party (For Now)
Most of the people on this list made the cut because of the political movements they are building – Shaul Mofaz is on it because of the political movement he could kill. A former cabinet minister under Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, Mofaz is now the number-two man under Tzipi Livni in the centrist Kadima Party. More importantly, he is the leader of Kadima’s right wing and was Livni’s rival in last year’s party leadership vote. With Prime Minister Netanyahu trying to split Kadima and lure defecting legislators into his Likud Party, Mofaz has launched an all-out attack on Livni and is demanding that Kadima hold a leadership election immediately. He’s also split with Livni over her decision not to bring Kadima into a unity govenrment with Netanyahu. If he fails in his bid to oust Livni, do not be surprised if he splits Kadima himself, founds his own party, and takes half of the Kadima caucus with him.
2. Nick Clegg - United Kingdom – Leader of the Liberal Democrats
2010 will finally be David Cameron’s year in the U.K. Gordon Brown is legally obligated to schedule elections, and Cameron’s Conservative Party is almost certain to seize power. However, there may be a more interesting subplot in the battle for second place. Recent polls have shown Brown’s Labour Party dropping so far that they are almost even with the third-place Liberal Democrats and their charismatic young leader, Nick Clegg. Clegg is widely seen as a more liberal version of David Cameron, and if Labour cannot pull out of it’s death spiral after the election (which I don’t expect them to), his Lib Dems could emerge as the dominant force on the British left.
3. Yoshimi Watanabe - Japan – Founder of “Your Party”
In 2009, the Tokyo air was thick with the smell of hope and change. Leftist Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party (DPJ) ousted ex-PM Taro Aso and the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – a bureaucratic monster which had governed almost uninterrupted since the 1950s. However, buyer’s remorse is already taking hold as Hatoyama racks up record amounts of government spending. His popularity has taken a nose dive – aided buy a corruption scandal which broke over Christmas – and recent polls show that voters are fleeing both the Hatyama’s DPJ and the once-mighty LDP. almost half of the electorate is supporting neither party, with elections to the nation’s upper house looming in 2010. The man best positioned to fill the gap may be Yoshimi Watanabe, who broke from the LDP in 2009 to found “Your Party”. Watanabe is the probably biggest wild-card on this list, as his new party won only five out of 480 lower house seats in last year’s election and polls have yet to show him moving up. However. with a platform centered on firing 100,000 bureaucrats and reducing the number of seats in the legislature, Your Party could be in position to ride an anti-establishment rocket. Watanabe seems to have the right message at the right time, but the question is whether he can catch fire.
4. Keiko Fujimori - Peru – Likely Presidential Candidate
One would think that Peru got it’s fill of the Fujimori family in the 1990s, when dictator Alberto Fujimori suspended the nation’s democracy. However, it seems that time heals all wounds, and many Peruvians remember Fujimori as a man who brought stability and stamped out the communist “Shining Path” rebellion. Now, his 34 year-old daughter Keiko now seems poised to mount a major campaign in the 2011 presidential election. Of course, the election isn’t until April 2011 and she’s currently running second among the potential candidates – behind conservative Lima mayor Luis Castañeda - so her election is by no means guaranteed. However, simply by getting in the mix, spritely young Keiko Fujimori could restart talk about the authoritarian far-right in a part of the world which has been generally gravitating to the far-left.
5. Salva Kiir – Sudan – President of South Sudan and First Vice President of Sudan
Salva Kiir is a veteran of the South Sudanese fight against the oppressive Sudanese government. But as the head of the military wing of the larger Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), he was never meant to lead the political charge toward freedom. That job was supposed to belong to SPLM rebel leader John Garang, who became President of an autonomous South Sudanese government after a 2005 peace agreement. However,Garang died in a 2005 helicopter crash after only a few months in office, and the quiet, unintellectual Kiir inherited his titles. Now, the South stands ready to vote in a 2011 referendum on complete independence – but the terms of that referendum are still being worked out with the government of North Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. Should Bashir try to keep the South from leaving, it will fall to Kiir to ensure that his people do not fall back under the control of the dictator’s genocidal regime. He may lack Garang’s charisma – but he will have to find his own mojo should he find himself in confrontation with Bashir. If he can shepherd the process safely to conclusion, the soft-spoken soldier will find himself the unlikely father of an independent South Sudan.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
When I started reading this post, I knew it had to be Adam.
December 31st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
^ it’s usually pretty easy to figure out who it is in the first sentence or so – particularly Alex and Adam (Brickley).
December 31st, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Kevin,
That, and Adam is the only one who features people I’ve never heard of, or whose names I can’t spell.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_kurt_hask.html
The Obama administration is actively covering up what really happened. If true, this is bigger than Watergate.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
The last time Labor tied with a third-party (the predecessor to the Libdems) was in 1983. In an FPTP system, a divided opposition creates outsized majorities for the winner. In Canada, 40% of the vote can net you more than half of the seats and that is true for Britain as well.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I just don’t see the Lib Dems doing better than Labour.
Besides that I think the UKIP could possibly win a few seats with strategic voting.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I don’t expect the Lib Dems to win over Labour. I expect Labour to finish a very weak second and the LibDems third (especially as the LibDems are having thier own issues at the moment). Howeve , I expect Labour to CONTINUE tanking after the election. I expect the LibDems to actually overtake Labour in the opinion polls sometime around November or December 2010 – after Labour elects a “more of the same” leader (Ed Miliband) to succeed Brown. After that happens, the Labour vote will suffer a second collapse and Nick Clegg will become opposition-leader-in-waiting and hence the de defacto Leader of the Oppostion even though Miliband will hold the title.
As for UKIP – they almoost always perform vvery badly in general elections and the Conservaitives will pick up enough votes to more than compensate for any UKIP gains on the right (and sadly UKIP is itself being attacked from the right by the BNP). At most, UKIP will take one seat – which will only be possible because ex-leader Nigel Farage is running agaisnt Commons Speaker John Bercow, who will not be challeged by the LibDems or Labour out of traditional courtest. Farage’s choice was a master stroke becasue he sets up a one-on-one with Bercow and makes the election a referendum on the entire system. Furthermore, Bercow is a Conservative who got his Speaker’s seat by “going roguee” and siding with Labour on most issues – infuriating his own party. So, his own former base in his conservative district will likely defect to Farage.
As a side-note. It is entirely possible for Labour to make a comeback – and I am already planning a “how to save Labour” post to precede the election. That said – I think they will be too stupid to back someone other than “the chosen ones” in the Miliband family.
If you want an insight into my thinking on how Labour could come back from the grave, see these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadiq_Khan
http://www.sadiqkhan.org.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRTTgU1FmL4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEdOyPL6MDg
Not saying I agree with him – but from a stratgy standpoint he’s what Labour needs.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:29 pm
MWS #2 – i do that on purpose
December 31st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
oops – MWS #3
December 31st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Adam is certainly the international expert, if somewhat underappreciated, on here.
January 1st, 2010 at 7:43 am
You are greatly overestimating Clegg. A poll out today has the Conservatives on 40%, Labour on 30% and the Lib Dems on 17% which is close to what the result will be. The Lib Dems peaked at the last election and are a centrist not socialist party, indeed most Liberal voters would now prefer Cameron as PM to Brown according to most polls (although their activists are more left-wing).
January 1st, 2010 at 8:11 am
Happy New Year, everybody!
Interesting post Adam, especially about Fujimori and Peru. After reading this, I did a bit of research on Peruvian politics. Apparently Fujimori’s party would be the “Alliance for the Future”, a pro-Fujimori (obviously), right-wing party. Castaneda’s party is National Unity, which is itself an alliance of the National Solidarity and the Christian People’s Party. According to Wikipedia, the party’s ideology is centrist and “Christian Democrat”. The current president, Alan Garcia, is a member of the socialist American Revolutionary Popular Alliance. There is also the left-leaning Union for Peru party. In the previous elections (for both President and legislature) in 2006, the latter two parties of the left came in first and second; interesting that now, the two center-right parties appear to first and second, at least in the polls for President.
According to Wikipedia, it appears that part of Keiko Fujimori’s platform would be to pardon her father. So is she corrupt too, or does she just idolize her dad? How bad/dangerous would she be to Peru’s democracy, and how dangerously authoritarian is her party?
Also I was interested in the politics of Peruvian evangelicals. Well, for one thing, Peruvian evangelicals faced persecution from the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) during its height from about 1980-1995. About 750 evangelicals were killed by the terrorists. Also, according to this and this, evangelicals originally were highly active in Alberto Fujimori’s rise in 1990. Apparently they had disproportionate influence, compared to their share of the population. But it also appears that Fujimori soon broke with his evangelical support. In today’s political scene, I don’t know where most Peruvian evangelicals are going. According to the 2007 census, 12.5% of Peru is evangelical.
January 1st, 2010 at 10:07 am
Try Ahmet Davutoglu in Turkey. He’s rapidly becoming their Kissinger and significantly altering the Middle East landscape.
January 1st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
For those interested in UK side of this thread
As much as I’d like the Libdems to kill off Labour, I doubt very much it would happen. One point in Clegg’s favour is he has equal billing to Cameron and Brown in the US-style TV leaders debates which will provide much needed exposure during the campaign.(it is the first time we have had these). FPTP will be very much against them, as usual.
Farage may take Buckingham from John Bercow for UKIP, but I would say it’s still odds-against. UKIP will do badly overall, the mood to get Brown out will overwhelm them – but they will be prominent in future elections if Cameron fails to grasp the nettle.
Adam – I’d say David Miliband is more likely than Ed Miliband. Sadiq Khan is one of the better Labour prospects, but he may well lose his seat. Alan Johnson is a fairly popular safe pair hands and would be a sensible choice to clear up the mess that is the Labour party.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:39 pm
12 – I follow Peru, but honetly my knowlege of the situation is limited by my lack of Spanish proficiency and the relative lack of English new. Hence, I don;t know much about the policy perscriptions of either Keiko Fujimori or her Fuerza 2011 party. On a a gut level, I would day that she won’t be able to do anything half as drastic as her daddy – namely becasue she soes not have the Shining Path rebels to use as an excuse to seize power. In that sense, she may actually be a victim of her fathers successful (if overblown) acheivement of his gola of totally stamping out Shining Path. That said – we never really kknow what extremists are planning (or capable of) until they actually take power and launch a program. If Keiko gets into office, I would watch the degree to which Keiko remains independent of her father. If he stays out, I say we’re safe – if he gets a big governmetn position (or uses Keiko as a puppet), then we have problems.
11 & 14 – Actually I don’t think I’m overestimating Clegg. I actaully don’t expect anything major from him. I expect him to be the unwitting beneficiary of a second Labour implosion after DavEd Miliband takes over the party (I’m sticking with Ed as my prediction, but I think result is same if it’s David). I think that if, after a humiliating defeat, Labour stays with it’s current game plan and installs one of their current “crown princes”, they will be seen as unreactive to the needs of the electorate and will fall into a death spiral. If they want to be competitive and regain trust, I think they need to totally clean house and radically change their image (hence my suggestion of Sadiq Khan as the next party leader).
January 1st, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Keep in mind that I wrote this a post notas a lits of guarantees or even predictions – but of people who will get BIG OPPORUTNITIES and heence will have great potential.
Clegg, up to now, has been underwhelming as Lib Dem leader and I don’t think he’ll make a breathrough in the election. However, if Labour shoots itself in the foot by going Miliband, he has an opportunity to fill the gap. He could fail to do so – but I think he will get the chance.
Clegg’s shot at greatness will come AFTER the election – not IN the election.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:52 pm
The Libdems chance is less likely to be due to a Labour implosion rather a Labour resurgance forcing a hung Parliament. Due to the curiosities of FPTP, if the GE is relatively close, the Libdems doing worse in the election may well benefit Clegg by forcing a hung parliament, which is what the Libdems want most. That said the Tories should win safely.
The post-Brown Labour leadership race is unreadable – Miliband (elder) and Johnson are the only senior established names likely to run and stand a chance. I do think it is less likely to be a Brownite acolyte (Balls, Miliband (Ed) or Cooper) though. Burnham will be major player in the future and Purnell is in a strong position from the Blairite right (but very unlikely to win the leadership soon). I’m hoping for Harriet Harman though…
I recall after 1997, someone (I forget who) when asked who the next Tory Prime Minister would be, answered presciently that the next Tory PM hadn’t even been elected yet. It may be the case for Labour now.
January 1st, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Rich – you might be right in that the next Labour PM has not yet been elected to Parliament. I have a very difficult time seeing Johnson, Miliband (either), or Harman coming anywhere close to power – which is why I think the LibDems may get their shot to pass Labour. I think both the Brown and Blair strains of New Laour have been thoroughly discredited in the minds of the public and we won’t see a resurgence until both Old and New Labour are rejected in favor of some sort of “Labour Version 3.0″ model.
Old Labour was and old-line, communitarian, trade unionist party associated with miners and factory workers and such. These parties sno longer exist in the modern world. New Labour was more modern, but it lost credibbility and ran out of steam – and it angered Labours’s traditional leftist base.
Labour Version 3.0 will have to be a sleek, urban-based, throroughly modern leftist party. Labour, as a traditionally socialist party, has always had a base amongst the poor, disadvantaged, alientated masses. In modern Europe, those masses are increasingly urban and increasingly composed of Middle Eastern and Asian immigrants – and Labour has failed to pick up their votes (as evidenced by George Galloway’s election as an independent form a poor, minority heavy London electorate).
Strategically, Labour does need to lurch to the left to become viable, but it can’t lurch back to the Old Labour trade union left. It needs to become a modern European socialist party that dissasociates itself from the other parties’ rush to the center. If it re-establishes itself a party of the left – and establishes itself as the new party of alienated minorities, then it becomes viable again.
Granted, I say this as a hard-right Tory sympathizer who, franky, has no interest in the Labour Party’s soul or it’s core values (as I am going to disagree with them regardless). I’m just making a disinterested strategic analysis – but I see that many actual Labour memebers would find my suggestions vvery difficualt to swallow.
January 2nd, 2010 at 2:26 am
I’ve put my money on David Miliband for next labor leader with outside chances to Alan Johnson and Jack Straw.
January 2nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Adam, has Keiko Fujimori spend too much time in the sun and getting hormones treatment?
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
20 – Editors had to move the Salva Kiir photo up to Fujimori’s entry because it bled into the next post in some browsers. I realize this is a problem, but it is not ohard to figure out that the pic does not match the bio.
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:59 pm
19 – I think the Miliband people will see David as damaged goods from the Brown years and the expenses mess, ans will coalesce around Ed as a way to make it look like they’re making a more surprising, dynamic move than they actually are.
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Agree to disagree AB.
The conservatives tried a 30′s year old against a charismatic young new PM and it spoilt a future PM prospect. The elder will get it.
January 2nd, 2010 at 11:29 pm
23 – I will agree to disagree – but after having witnessed the disaster that is Gordon Brown, I think you may be overestimating the intelligence of the Labour Party (after all, if they’re willing to follow Gordon off the cliff…)
Another thing to consider is that, if they want ot save Ed, then it won’t be David either as that would sully the Miliband name if he fails. Johnson would be a better choice in that scenario. That said, I think the party is delusional enough to think that the voters will come floccking back after a few years of doomed-to-fail Tory governance – and hence I expect them to do something tremendously stupid when it comes to selecting a new leader.
January 29th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
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