Global News Journal

Party wins big in Vietnam, but with a few twists

As has happened every few years since the mid-1940s Vietnam’s Communists won parliamentary elections last month by a landslide, claiming 91.6 percent of the chamber’s 500 seats, officials announced on Friday. No surprises there. The Communist Party has a constitutionally-mandated monopoly on power.

We noted in a story on election day that the vote was rigged to retain party control although the outcome would allow for the legislature’s role in policymaking to continue to grow incrementally.

On Friday the results showed that more self-nominated candidates and more businessmen were elected to the unicameral body this time around than ever before. Four out of 15 self-nominated candidates made it this year, including the vice chairwoman of Hanoi’s young businesspeoples’ association and a doctor who runs his own hospital. Four years ago at the last National Assembly election only 1 of the 30 self-nominees who ran landed a seat.

Voters handed seats to Dang Thanh Tam and Dang Thi Hoang Yen, two of the country’s best known capitalists and perhaps the country’s richest brother and sister duo. They preside over the conglomerate Saigon Invest Group and other companies. Pham Huy Hung, head of VietinBank, the country’s biggest partly-private bank, also got seat. So did Dinh La Thang, chairman of state oil and gas group Petrovietnam, which is probably the country’s most influential company. State media said its revenues this year are expected to be close to a quarter of the nation’s GDP and it makes annual tax contributions that put it in a league of its own.

Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales, said the inclusion of businessmen in the national assembly followed the Party’s decision to allow entrepreneurs into its ranks and even install some on its policy-making Central Committee at a congress in January. “The National Assembly seems to be following that theme of getting people with practical experience that are safe into the National Assembly to add their expertise to the process,” he said.

But it may be a while before everyone’s comfortable with the arrangements. Nguyen Si Dung, deputy director of the National Assembly Office,  told reporters there was some concern about conflict of interest with regard to businesspeople now participating in the heretofore rubber stamp parliament. He called for a code of conduct that would prohibit business owners from lobbying or voting for any law that relates to their business interests, such as the law on corporate tax. Businessmen also shouldn’t join the economic committee, he said.

Other demographic targets were missed. Seventy-eight people from ethic minority groups were elected, 12 fewer than targeted; 122 women won seats, 28 below target and 1.36 percent fewer than in the outgoing parliament; 62 people under the age of 40 were elected, eight under target and 1.39 percent lower than last time. Finally, 42 non-party members won seats, which missed a 10 percent target.

from Reuters Investigates:

In case you missed them

Just because it was summer, doesn't mean we weren't busy here at Reuters. Here are a few of our recent special reports that you might have missed.

Tracking Iran's nuclear money trail to Turkey. U.N. correspondent Lou Charbonneau -- who used to cover the IAEA for Reuters --  followed the money to Turkey where an Iranian bank under U.S. and EU sanctions is operating freely. Nice to see the New York Times follow up on this today, and the Washington Post also quizzed Turkey's president about it.

Blue-collar, unemployed and seeing red -- Chicago correspondent James Kelleher went on the road for this story about the long-term unemployed and what that means for Obama and the Democrats at November's midterm elections.

Even though he's been forced to move back in with his parents and has virtually no income, Stevenson opposes Obama's proposal to let some tax cuts for the wealthy, dating back to George W. Bush's presidency, expire at year's end in order to raise revenue and reduce the deficit. 

"How is more people, keeping more of the money they earn, bad for the economy?" he said. "The answer is -- it's not."   

from Reuters Investigates:

Enter stage left — Brazil’s next president?

Not every president has a police mugshot, but it's not so surprising in Latin America.

A special report out of Brazil today sheds new light on Dilma Rousseff, a former guerrilla leader who is likely to be elected the booming country's next president. She spent nearly three years in jail in the early 1970s and was tortured by her military captors. She's come a long way since then.

The product of more than a dozen interviews with Rousseff and her top advisers, the story gives a glimpse of how Rousseff could govern at the helm of a country that, with India, Russia and China, is among the worlds few economic bright spots.

The upshot: while Rousseff is not the leftist-in-waiting that many investors fear, there is legitimate concern that hers could be a status-quo presidency, unable or unwilling to push through major reforms to Brazil's tax, labor or fiscal structure. As a result, there is a risk that Latin America's biggest economy could eventually stagnate under her administration.

Watch Brian Winter discuss the October 3 election on Reuters Insider here.

from Reuters Investigates:

Dive in, the water’s fine

Special reports are the best of the best from Reuters, and this is the place to find them. We'll be featuring investigative stories, in-depth profiles and long-form narrative stories here.

Reuters has a global Enteprise Reporting team with editors in New York, London and Singapore, drawing on the work of some 2,900 journalists in 200 bureaus around the world.

To kick it off, take a look at this story from Frank Jack Daniel in Caracas. Venezuelans will elect a new parliament on Sunday and the opposition is hoping to make a dent in President Hugo Chavez's power.

Chavez has dominated politics for more than a decade -- as one opposition figure put it: "In Venezuela, you have to win elections like David beat Goliath." FULL STORY

We'll have more on Latin America tomorrow with a profile of Dilma Rousseff, the frontrunner in Brazil's presidential elections.

Sun setting on Merkel coalition?

As the sun started to set on the west side of the Reichstag on Wednesday evening — and perhaps on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right government as well — delegates to the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly) began switching to beer from the preferred beverage earlier in the day — coffee, water and apple juice.   There was an unmistakeable air of “Endzeitstimmung” (doomsday atmosphere) on the comfortable rooftop terrace of the historic German parliament building, where the catering is superb and the view of Berlin breathtaking.    The conservative delegates on the Reichstag roof were easy to spot — they were the ones with worried looks on their faces after a couple dozen unidentified “rats” from within their ranks twice failed in votes during the afternoon to give Merkel the votes she needed to get her candidate elected.

The conservatives were drinking their beer and trying to forget the day’s humiliation before going into battle for a third and final round later in the evening.

 ”It was a bit like Germany vs Serbia in the first two rounds,” said David McAllister, a leader in Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Lower Saxony, referring to a 1-0 World Cup loss earlier this month. “But the third round will be more like Germany vs England,” he added with a smile, referring to Germany’s 4-1 win over England on Sunday.   The opposition delegates were also easy to spot on the Reichstag rooftop terrace — they were the ones with smiles on their faces (and beer glasses in their hands) after seeing Merkel humiliated twice by her own coalition. Her candidate, Christian Wulff, fell short of the 623 votes he needed even though there are 644 delegates in the centre-right bloc.

Wulff got 600 in the first round and 615 in the second round. Even if he wins the third round later on Wednesday evening, Merkel has been badly damaged by the debacle.   The question on everyone’s mind is: How can someone lead one of the world’s most important countries if she can’t even keep her own coalition in line?   What is most unsettling for delegates in the centre-right bloc is that they don’t know who the defectors are. It has brought instant comparisons to the beginning of the end of the previous centre-left government of Social Democrats and Greens in 2005.

Early that year, the SPD and Greens were betrayed by someone from their own ranks on three votes in the state assembly of Schleswig-Holstein and state premier Heide Simonis was forced to resign. That humiliation sent tremors through then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s centre-left government and after a similar SPD-Greens government in North Rhine-Westphalia was voted out of power a few months later in May, Schroeder dramatically pulled the plug on his government. He called for snap elections — and ended up losing power to Merkel.   Will Wednesday’s debacle in the Reichstag mark the beginning of the end of Merkel’s reign?

Work starts for Santos after Colombia election win

After weeks of waiting, Colombia’s presidential election run-off was so one-sided it was over in minutes.

Former Bogota mayor and Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus had appealed to voters with his challenge to traditional parties and a call for cleaner government.

But in the end they overwhelmingly chose ex-finance and defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, who promised to continue the security and pro-business policies made popular by his former boss, President Alvaro Uribe.

As soon as results began to flood in from polling stations, the winner was clear: Santos ended up taking 69 percent of votes and a historic record of more than nine million ballots in total.

In an emotional concession speech, Mockus congratulated his rival and thanked supporters who he said had changed the face of Colombian politics forever with their appeal for a fresh approach to running the country.

Then attention shifted to the stadium where Santos’ victory rally was launched by dancers and musicians waving flags.

from Tales from the Trail:

The coming conflict with China

2008 was the last presidential election when voters didn't know or care about the candidates views on China, argues political risk analyst Ian Bremmer.

Bremmer's new book "The End of the Free Market" argues that the Chinese economic model -- which he calls state capitalism -- is so fundamentally different from Western free market capitalism that tensions and economic conflict are inevitable in the years ahead.

The main goal of China's state-directed capitalism is to harness economic growth to ensure political stability and keep the Communist Party in power, Bremmer says.  And since the financial crisis, China has seen the United States and the West as "less indispensable".

Bremmer is not predicting a military confrontation, but an economic war, in which China reserves large parts of its domestic market to domestic firms, and elbows out Western multinationals -- he explains Google's withdrawal from China in terms of protecting China's top internet search engine Baidu, which is already reaping the benefits.

The Obama administration, which often stresses the mutual interests of the two nations and talks in terms of partnership, sometimes underestimates some of the zero-sum games involved in the relationship, he says.

But there is no doubt the administration does see challenges ahead -- last November, Obama told Reuters the two nations needed to address economic imbalances or risk "enormous strains" on their relationship.

There is talk of a yuan revaluation soon, but that alone is unlikely to make much of a dent on those imbalances or calm for long protectionist pressures in the U.S. Congress or elsewhere.

Turkey’s EU bid meets another Cyprus roadblock

Negotiating Turkey’s accession to the European Union hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. But it may be about to get tougher still.

Europeans are already divided over the prospect of inviting a largely Muslim nation into their club of 27 states.  And while some are attracted by Turkey’s huge economic potential, that’s  frequently shadowed by its much-criticised human rights record.

As a result, Ankara’s membership negotiations with Brussels have, perhaps predictably, been slow.

Now a presidential election in northern Cyprus, a sliver of land only twice the size of London, is threatening to wreck any chance of a serious revival in those talks for years.

If opinion polls prove correct, hardline right-wing candidate Dervis Eroglu will oust incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat in the vote this Sunday. Reunification talks between the province, recognised as a state only by Ankara, and the rest of Cyprus could grind to a halt under Eroglu’s leadership.

The conflict started shortly after Britain granted independence to the Mediterranean island in 1960, sparking fighting between its Greek and Turkish communities.

In 1974, a Greek-inspired coup prompted Turkey to invade the island and carve out its own province in the north. Decades of wearisome stop-and-go reunification talks have followed.

from Africa News blog:

Nigerian president on the way back?

So Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has ended weeks of silence with comments on the BBC that he is getting better and hopes to be back home soon.

That at least appears to have answered speculation in local media that he could be brain damaged, in a coma or even dead.

But it hasn’t satisfied critics who say that to fulfil his constitutional duties he should be handing over powers to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, at least temporarily.

"Whether he is alive or brain damaged or spoke to the BBC is not our bone of contention. He left a vacuum which we want filled,” as one put it.

It has been a particularly difficult time with Yar’Adua away and doubts over his future.

Not only has the speculation slowed government in Nigeria and fuelled the maneuvering by politicians only too eager at the unexpected chance for an opening to power, but Nigeria has come under new pressure internationally following the failed plane bombing by a Nigerian passport holder.

J. Peter Pham, senior fellow and director of the Africa Project at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, recently suggested that Yar’Adua’s death or further decline in 2010 could lead to major instability or even a slide towards a failed state.

A day with a hyperactive leftist leader, Bolivia’s Morales

    Spending a whole day with Bolivian leftist president Evo Morales requires a great deal of stamina.     Morales, an Aymara Indian who has introduced a battery of controversial reforms to give Bolivian Indians more power and has put the state in the driving seat of the economy, is hyperactive, to say the least.     He tends to start the day meeting diplomats or government officials at about 6 a.m. and often wraps up after midnight.     In the three years I have been living in Bolivia he has not been on vacation, and it is not unusual for him to visit three or four far-away places in a day.     Today is one of those days.     Morales, who herded llamas as a child, lost four siblings to poverty and never finished high school, became the country’s first Indian president in early 2006. He is revered by poor Indians, who identify with his moving underdog story and are benefiting from heavy social spending.     But he is frowned upon by the middle classes who fear he may try to install a Cuban-style socialist regime in the country.     Critics see Morales, an ally of Venezuelan leftist President Hugo Chavez and Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro, as a dangerous socialist.     The day we spent together, he was wearing jeans, a wrinkled short-sleeve shirt and unbranded sports shoes. He was good humored and cared little for protocol; addressing me as “comrade” or “brother” and once simply with a “What’s up, boss?”     “I don’t know how he does it. I can’t keep up sometimes. I’ve got soroche — high altitude syndrome,” said a close Morales’ aide, when I asked about the president’s hectic schedule, which often includes trips from the Andean plateau to the lowlands and back.     I met Morales, a clear favorite to win a presidential election in December, at a campaign rally at 7 a.m. in El Alto, a sprawling shantytown in the outskirts of La Paz.     “Evo governs and plays but does not get tired,” chanted hundreds of supporters while he played soccer after the rally.     Then we took a plane to the country’s constitutional capital, Sucre, to catch a helicopter to Tinguipaya, a tiny Quechua village of adobe houses in the central Potosi region, where no Bolivian president had ever visited before.     After a campaign event in Tinguipaya we flew to the southern town of Tarija, where he presided over an award ceremony for a soccer tournament, and then off to the northern town of Cobija.     On the plane Morales bragged about a penalty he scored in an impromptu kick about.     “I fooled the goalkeeper. Did you see?,” he said.     By 4 p.m. we had visited four places all over Bolivia — a country of 10 million that is roughly the size of France and Spain combined — traveling by car, plane and helicopter. At one point I tried to take a nap but Morales woke me up listening to loud Bolivian pop music on his cell phone.     At times during the day he looked over papers handed to him by a military officer and he also had private meetings with the defense minister and a governer during our travels.     Morales, a bachelor with a mop of thick black hair and copper skin, was going to turn 50 the day after our trip.     “How are you going to celebrate your birthday?” I asked.     “I can’t,” he said. “It’s forbidden. I’ve got to work. I have a meeting at 5 a.m. … you have to be there, let’s see whether you can keep up with me.”

   “I don’t think I can. I’m already exhausted,” I told him.     Morales ate little during the morning and early afternoon, just drinking water and popping propolis lozenges, a health food made of resin from beehives. I told him I was hungry, that I could not believe he agreed to take us around for a day but failed to offer us food.     He called a flight attendant, who brought out a take-away plastic container with lukewarm chunks of beef and potatoes.     In no time Morales, Reuters’ photographer David Mercado, an army official and myself were all picking food from the container with our fingers. It was a working-class feast inside a presidential plane.     In Cobija Morales met government officials, dined with supporters and presided over a second sports ceremony.     After 14 hours of traveling throughout the country Morales, a keen soccer fan, was still going strong and decided to play soccer with a local team.     On the flight back to La Paz he finally dozed off for an hour or so. We arrived in El Alto after 1 a.m.     “Comrades, I see you at 5 a.m. at the presidential palace. Don’t let me down,” he said before waving goodbye.

(Photograph by David Mercado/REUTERS, October 25, 2009)