Political Parties’ Discussion Exposes Nigeria’s Illusion on Privatization

Audu Liberty Oseni

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in its election project ‘Nigerian Political Parties Discussion Series (NPPDS)’ organized inter-party debates on topical socio-economic and political issues ahead of the 2015 general elections. The key objective is to promote issue-based politics, and provide political parties an opportunity to present their programs to Nigerians on sector basis, as a way of institutionalizing the culture of issue-based politics and fostering democratic accountability in the country. Two major political parties, the People Democratic Party, PDP and All Progressives Congress, APC participated in the debates which were held six times staggered in months.

At the debate on the provision of infrastructure with particular focus on water, electricity, housing, health, education, and the oil sector, the People Democratic Party (PDP) believes that privatization is the only alternative to addressing Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit. Although APC does not emphasize privatization, it does not also have a clear opposing view on what it believes in either liberal or socialist perspectives.

If Nigeria is to embrace total liberal perspective that comes with the capitalist ideology where private individuals take over the economy, it is important that we interrogate the liberal model and situate it within the context and prevailing circumstances of our society. The liberal agenda allows for the growing individualization of our society but absence of social contact. In our case, individuals who pose as businessmen represent the interests of the elite, while those who create problems pose as saviors. While our government puts more energy pushing for the legitimization of its privatization policies, the reality is that our privatization process is corrupt and may put the country in a bigger crisis.

In a country like Nigeria that has very weak institutions and lacks political will, privatization is not going to be successful. Effective regulatory bodies that are the key drivers of a successful capitalist economy are missing in Nigeria’s privatization agenda thus making individual forces to determine the market price rather than market forces as postulated by the liberal perspectives. Power plants and other infrastructures cannot be built on the postulation of free market programs that cannot be translated into reality. The fact that no refineries have been built over 20 years while licenses for refineries have been issued to private individuals further confirms the ineffectiveness of Nigeria’s privatization. The Power generating dams, thermal plants, national power grid and local distribution network in the power sector could never have been realized on the basis of privatization. Concentrating state enterprise in the hands of powerful elites without capacity to deliver and who dictate for the state will not give room for successful privatization and its benefits. The priority before them is not to grow the sector but to exploit the weakness of the state to regulate their activities. In the process, they take over the state, and continually put in place those that will continue to protect their interests.

The struggle for privatization and better living conditions depends purely on the political will of the Nigerian state. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s political elites and the emerging political parties are committed to the liberalization policy. They do not seem to have other alternatives to the World Bank and IMF agenda which has privatization at the heart of its agenda which continually puts the poor at the receiving end. Therefore our belief that we are likely to have a political party and ruling class oligarchy that can truly change Nigeria and roll out programs that can transform the society is not likely to come soon.

Corruption is the major obstacle to our development not privatization. Countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea, all fought corruption. How do we think that privatization without the political will to fight corruption will create room for successful economic transformation and well-being of the citizenry? Even as we push for privatization, investment decisions in Nigeria are often driven primarily by political considerations. That is why the sale of government enterprises is often determined on the basis of political loyalty than competence.

For Nigeria to realize the potential of infrastructure, privatization, adequate legal and regulatory frameworks must be put in place. Mass retrenchment that follows privatization as we saw in NEPA shows apparently that the liberal model is not human development. Few societal elite get rich at the expense of the vast majority of Nigerians in the name of privatization. Nigeria has at about 69% poverty rate with many citizens living below 1 dollar per a day. To enjoy the benefits of privatization, poverty and employment must be addressed and citizens must have dependable income for transactions.

If Nigeria has to embrace privatization as the engine of growth for her economy, an enabling environment for operation must be created. If infrastructures needed to boost production are still in the rudimentary state as they are, the private sector cannot perform any magic and turn the economy around. Nigeria government’s abdication of its responsibilities of providing infrastructure and embracing privatization without creating institutions with political will to allow for successful privatization and economic transformation will only compound her problems in future.

Mambilima as Chief Justice of Zambia: Liability or Boon?

Charles Mwewa & Munyonzwe Hamalengwa

Some countries have stopped appointing sitting judges to hot-potato political positions because of the fear of the violation of a centuries-old truism which simply reposes majestically: "Justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done." These democratic countries instead appoint retired judges or other retired personalities of apparent integrity to handle high stakes political positions. After they have handled these volatile political missions, these personalities are never given judicial or other political positions where they stand the chance of being accused being biased towards the appointing authority.

It does not matter whether the accusations hold water or these individuals have pure hearts as the Virgin Mary or similarly angelic entities, the adage of "Justice must not only be done, but it must also be seen to be done" imports the important reality of perception. Perception is as real as reality and perception of corruption is as corrosive to the body politic as real corruption itself. It engenders mistrust, misconduct and actual corruption. People act both on the reality they experience and that which they perceive.

The repositioning by President Lungu at this early stage in his presidency of Chief Justice Irene Mambilima from her high voltage position as Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) where she was wrongly or rightly accused of bias towards the governing party, so far without evidence of any wrong doing, to the highest and most potent of legal and political positions of Chief Justice of Zambia in one breath, raises the spectre of the essence of the old adage.

There are one or two concerns for that. First, and this hinges on the appointing authority himself, it is the nature of the just-ended presidential by-election in Zambia. The January 20th, 2015 election was the most closely contested election ever held in the history of Zambia – 807,925 votes for President Edgar Lungu of PF and 780,168 votes for Hakainde Hichilema of the UPND. With the difference of just over 27,000 votes, the election results would have gone either way. It raises the issue of legitimacy after the fact. If the disparity was gigantic, perhaps, the issue would be minimized. The urgency under which the president appointed the Chief Justice (subject to ratification by Parliament), who was the determining factor and guardian of the just over 27,000 votes which determined who the president would be, may nurture forbidden inferences. Some may wonder: What if she was promised the coveted position predicated on her swinging the election results one way or the other? Or, what if the appointment is expediently engineered in order to prevent would be petitioners from making head ways on this issue? These, of course, are only speculations, but in the framework of legal correctness, they raise fundamental questions germane to the discussions of corruption in Zambia.

Second, it is the issue of Chief Justice Mambilima being perceived to be impartial in future presidential elections should the results be judicially challenged, for example. This is a serious thinking person's food for thought in a democracy. This thinking isn't for the faint of heart. This thinking isn't amenable to reflexive knee -jerk reaction. Insults don't answer questions.

The ghosts of this most powerful phrase ("Justice must not only be done, it must also be seen to be done") in the annals of justice could lie dormant for years and generations, but its spirit could rise again and again. The reign of the former Acting Chief Justice Lombe Chibesakunda was partly marked by controversy because of this very perception that something was wrong or untoward in her appointment even though she herself may have been upright. The controversy was fuelled by some perceptions. The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) went to court to challenge her continued stay, albeit, she had reached retirement age. It is ironic that the same LAZ has now applauded President Lungu’s appointment of Justice Mambilima as Chief Justice given the history.

Would the Judiciary of which she was the head actually be able to remove her? This is in reference to the unforeseeable (but probable) position that these elections (or similar-situated ones) were challenged in court and she was called upon to make judgment. There will be developed bad blood within the legal and judiciary system in Zambia. President Sata had really lobbed Machiavelli in the spokes of the justice quotient of Zambia whose ill effects may echo for generations.

The Zambian judiciary is perceived rightly or wrongly as corrupt and the Chief Justiceship tenure of Madam Lombe Chibesakunda did not help, particularly because of the manner in which it was politically maintained. Some perceived the judicial results of some by-elections as payback time in the politics of political survival. Some of the consequences and legal and political implications of Chief Justice Chibesakunda's tenure will not be known for generations, but surface they will.

Thus, it was not surprising that much jubilation was accorded Chief Justice Mambilima’s appointment because of the hiccups generated by Chief Justice Chibesakunda's tenure. We knew Chief Justice Chibesakunda. We know Chief Justice Mambilima. Both are impeccable and moral ladies as individual human beings. The old adage, however, goes the extra distance. It probes into the perception of the people out there.

Again, how will Chief Justice Mambilima acquit herself after the next election, if the presidential results are challenged and she remains Chief Justice? How will some of the players perceive her? Again, it is not only the reality that counts here, it is also the perception. Will some people who will lose, not recast their suspicions to her appointment as Chief Justice so soon in fact after President Lungu had won the presidency and she was the chief at ECZ which ratified the narrow electoral victory of the appointing authority? And then think of the soon-coming presidential elections, would it not reasonably be foreseen that the PF are setting a stage for a win (whether it will be clear-cut or controversial)?

Admittedly, Chief Justice Mambilima was the substantive Deputy Chief Justice before President Sata played his legal gymnastics. Surely as reigning Deputy Chief Justice she deserves the position, but the context and timing of this appointment is injurious to the norms of fundamental justice, especially in reference to a much closed election under which the just appointed Chief Justice presided as chief election monitor! The full implications of this appointment may echo into the future for generations.

In most democratic countries that take the adage seriously, they would not have appointed a sitting judge to head the Electoral Commission and then immediately after winning an election, appoint this judge to be the Chief Justice of the country. But then again, paraphrasing Frank Sinatra's famous song, Zambia has always done it its own way. 2016 is around the corner and then we will know whether Zambia’s ways of doing things have been the right ways. January 2015 to September 2016 promises Zambians the greatest political rides of their lives.

White House delays immigration order after court ruling

Andre Damon

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would delay implementation of its plan for temporary deportation waivers for undocumented immigrants, after a Texas judge issued a nationwide injunction against the program.

The White House said that it would postpone the implementation of its program, which would provide some undocumented immigrants with three-year stays and work permits, until an appeal is decided. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson declared, “In the meantime, we recognize we must comply with” the decision.

In November, Obama announced that he would, via executive order, create a mechanism for over four million undocumented immigrants to apply to the federal government for the waivers.

Obama’s executive order is aimed at less than half of the undocumented immigrants in the United States, or the roughly 4.4 million people whose children are either citizens or permanent residents. The measure would only be a temporary stay of deportation, and would require undocumented immigrants to effectively admit to the government that they had committed the “crime” of entering the US unlawfully.

The Texas court ruling came days before the start of a part of Obama’s plan, which would allow 270,000 people who came to the US as children to apply for the temporary waivers. A much broader section of the proposal, affecting over 4 million people, was set to begin in May.

The ruling by US District Judge Andrew Hanen argued that Obama overstepped his constitutional bounds in changing immigration policy by means of an executive order, and also did not follow proper administrative procedures in implementing its legislative changes.

The White House defended its executive action, and Obama told reporters Tuesday that “the law is on our side and history is on our side.”

The judge’s ruling is not a decision of the merits of a lawsuit filed by 26 states including Texas, but rather called for delaying the implementation of the executive order until the legal issues are resolved.

Hanen claimed, absurdly, that the injunction was needed to ensure that states would not be forced to bear the costs of printing drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants whose legal status is not assured. “If the preliminary injunction is denied, plaintiffs will bear the costs of issuing licenses and other benefits once DAPA beneficiaries—armed with Social Security cards and employment authorization documents—seek those benefits,” Hanen wrote. “Once these services are provided, there will be no effective way of putting the toothpaste back in the tube should plaintiffs ultimately prevail on the merits.”

Hanen was appointed by George W. Bush in 2002 to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville. He has in the past been a vocal opponent of the Obama administration’s immigration proposals.

Despite Obama’s posturing as a champion of immigrants, his proposal treats undocumented immigrants as criminals, and is entirely tailored to the needs of big business.

The dispute within the political establishment between the supporters and opponents of the Obama administration’s proposals is a debate within the ruling class. Sections of the corporate and financial elite backing the measures hope that they will provide a more reliable supply of cheap labor.

Obama’s executive order was based, as the WSWS wrote at the time, “on the premise, shared by the entire political establishment, that all undocumented immigrants are criminals.” In announcing the measure last year, Obama declared, “Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable.”

The WSWS warned that immigrants who turned their information over to the federal government and applied for a three-year delay in their deportations would be entirely at the mercy of subsequent administrations, or, as the most recent ruling has shown, of the courts.

The limited deportation waivers are entirely compatible with an intensified military-police crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Indeed, when he announced the measures last year, Obama also reiterated his administration’s commitment to a “surge” of resources to beef up the border with Mexico.

In 2013, the last year that records are available, the Obama administration deported 438,421 people, the highest number of annual deportations in US history. The Obama White House has already deported more people than any other presidency, and more than twice as many as the Clinton administration.

Mounting signs of global economic stagnation

Nick Beams

More than six years after the global financial meltdown erupted in September 2008, the world economy is increasingly coming to resemble a minefield with any number of potential flashpoints that could set off another crisis.

The central cause of instability is the lack of any return to growth patterns once considered to be the norm and the consequent growth of financial parasitism.

Summarising the overall situation, the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, released earlier this month, noted that “a return to the pre-crisis growth path remains elusive for the majority of OECD countries. In most advanced economies, potential growth has been revised down and, in some cases, there are growing concerns that persistently weak demand is pulling down potential growth further, resulting in a protracted period of stagnation.”

It warned of the development of a vicious cycle “whereby weak demand undermines potential growth, the prospects of which in turn further depress demand, as both investors and consumers become risk averse and prefer to save.”

The report said immediate policy challenges include persistently high unemployment, high public sector budget deficits and debt and as well “remaining fragilities in the financial sector.” The crisis had increased social stress, hitting low-income households hard, with young people “suffering the most severe income losses and facing increasing poverty risk.”

The main prescription advanced by the OECD is for so-called structural reforms aimed at increasing labour productivity. But, as it acknowledges, one of the main effects of such measures, which are aimed at boosting profit rates, has been an increase in social inequality. It notes that in some of the countries hardest hit by the crisis where “substantial labour market reforms” have been carried out, the result has been “severe job and income losses, hurting young people the most” and that more broadly “vulnerable households have been losing ground since the crisis across a majority of OECD countries.”

In the midst of ongoing stagnation, the other main feature of the global economy is what can only be described as an explosion of financial parasitism.

Profits are increasingly being accumulated not through investment and increased production, but by various forms of speculation fuelled by ultra-cheap money supplied by the world’s central banks via various forms of quantitative easing. The three-fold increase in the US S&P 500 index over the past six years since its low point in 2009 is only one indication of this trend.

In an overview of the situation, the consultancy firm McKinsey &Co recently reported that the world is now awash with more debt than before the global financial crisis.

Global debt has increased by $57 trillion since 2007 to almost $200 trillion, far outpacing real economic growth, with the share of debt rising from 270 percent to 286 percent of global gross domestic product. “Overall debt relative to gross domestic product is now higher in most nations than it was before the crisis” with higher levels of debt posing “questions about financial stability,” the report noted.

One of the most significant expressions of the increasing instability in financial markets is the emergence of the phenomenon of negative yields on both government and now corporate bonds.

Demand for bonds is so high in a world awash with cash that the yield is pushed down so low—the price of a bond and its yield bear an inverse relationship to each other—that the holder would suffer an overall loss by retaining the bond to the time of redemption when its face value is paid out.

The explanation for this seeming insanity lies in the fact that the bond purchaser calculates that before that time arrives the continued flood of cash will push the purchase price even higher and hence there is a profit to be made by selling the bond before the date of redemption.

In a comment published today on Australia’s Business Spectator web site, columnist Alan Kohler noted: “Investing in negative-yield bonds is based on a tried and tested ‘bigger fool’ formula that became so prevalent in the stock market during the 1990s internet bubble. That is, you might be a fool for buying a bond at minus 0.5 percent yield … but a bigger fool will buy it off you for minus 0.6 percent.”

The whole system is able to function because central banks are prepared to intervene and buy bonds at any price. As Kohler explained, what is in operation is a kind of government buyback scheme, guaranteeing profits through speculation and hence where “what would otherwise be described as irrational pessimism is actually a kind of rational exuberance.”

The sums of money involved are huge. According to JP Morgan, some $2 trillion of European government bonds of more than one year’s maturity now have negative yields.

Concerns are now being raised about what the impact of negative yields will be on financial markets. Speaking at a Financial Times conference in London earlier this month, the head of global strategy at Standard Life Investments Andrew Milligan said it could be the start of a “completely new environment for global bond markets” with significant consequences if it became permanent.

Another speaker warned that negative yields had a huge impact on pension funds and insurance companies, placing then under a lot of pressure and forcing them to take a lot more risk.

One area of risk is the rapidly expanding market in corporate bonds in emerging economies issued in so-called hard currencies such as the US dollar. A decade ago this market hardly existed. According to estimates by BNP Paribas, the value of these bonds has gone from $107 billion in 1994 to more than $2 trillion today. Sudden movements in currency values, or a major default, could see a rush for the exits precipitating a financial crisis, involving major institutional investors which have been searching for higher yield because safe investments in government bonds no longer bring a sufficient rate of return.

If a corporate bond price falls, then investors, particularly hedge funds which have borrowed money to buy it, may be forced to sell other assets to cover their losses, leading to a wave of selling, not only of bonds but of other financial assets, setting off a much bigger crisis.

Another potential flashpoint is the rise of the US dollar. With the US Federal Reserve moving to increase interest rates, even if only very slowly, and the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan continuing quantitative easing as other central banks cut interest rates, the value of the US dollar is rising against other currencies.

Writing in the Financial Times this week, financial analyst Felix Martin warned of the potential consequences of this incipient currency war.

“History teaches that a reinvigorated US dollar exposes those whose balance sheets were built on the belief that cheap money would last forever. It acts like a depth charge, exploding below the surface of the ocean. First the minnows float the surface; then the bigger fish; and, then, finally, one or two real whales.”

One or two minnows had already surfaced when emerging market equities, bonds and currencies were “quick to crack” in 2013, after the Fed indicated it was moving to end quantitative easing.

Potential whales, Martin noted, included the Asian dollar bloc where currencies closely track the US currency. This policy made sense in the past, but if the dollar continued to strengthen then the rationale for devaluation would become irresistible with profound consequences, particularly if China decided on a policy-driven devaluation. There could also be a devaluation of sterling in conditions where the UK current account deficit is now 6 percent of gross domestic product, having grown to “alarming proportions.”

But the biggest whale of all was potentially the United States, Martin wrote. The current assumption is that present economic growth in the US will translate into higher interest rates and a strong dollar. But there was “another possibility: that the US itself is not ready for more expensive money”—an outcome which was “more than idle speculation.”

French government forces through austerity measures without vote in parliament

Alex Lantier

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ government yesterday forced through an unpopular bill imposing large-scale liberalization of the French economy without a parliamentary vote. Instead, Valls used the anti-democratic provision 49-3 of the French Constitution, which allows the executive to force the National Assembly to either adopt the bill or bring down the government.

A motion of censure to bring down Valls’ government, a coalition of the Socialist Party (PS) and the small Radical Left Party (PRG), will go to a vote on Thursday. Its sponsors—the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), together with the Left Front—reportedly do not expect it to pass. The PS-PRG coalition controls 306 of the Assembly’s 577 seats, with 288 seats from the PS and 18 from the PRG.

Valls resorted to this move after discussion with President François Hollande, as it became clear that even the PS delegation was hesitating to vote for the law, named after PS Economy Minister and former investment banker Emmanuel Macron. Sources at the Elysée presidential palace told Reuters that they wanted to avoid failure of the bill, a risk that “the executive did not want to take given the bill’s importance for our economy.”

The Macron Law is a major attack on the working class. Its more than 200 provisions include making it harder for workers to sue for wrongful dismissal; letting employers demand increased working hours on Sunday without overtime pay; a comprehensive overhaul of fees for various legal and medical services; and numerous privatizations of public firms.

The proposed law led to numerous protests last year by service workers opposing Sunday work without overtime pay, as well as by medical and legal professionals opposed to the liberalization of their professions.

Valls said the decision was taken to avoid fatally undermining Hollande, whose wars and austerity measures have made him France’s most unpopular president since the end of World War II. “Right now as we speak, the bill would not pass,” Valls told deputies at the National Assembly. “We are at a time when we cannot, in good conscience, weaken the head of the state and the government.”

The government’s resort to provision 49-3 underscores the fact that the austerity program of the PS and the European Union (EU) lacks any political legitimacy. A poll last year found that Hollande’s economic policy has only a 3 percent approval rating, reflecting rising outrage in the working class over unemployment and economic stagnation. The PS therefore pushed through its reactionary policies, with total contempt for the population, without even the fig leaf of parliamentary support.

The PS hypocritically denounced the government the last time 49-3 was used. This was in 2006 by then-UMP Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, as he sought to impose his unpopular First Job Contract (CPE) in the face of mass youth protests. “49-3 is an act of brutality, 49-3 is a denial of democracy, 49-3 is a way of blocking or preventing parliamentary debate,” Hollande declared at the time.

As for the parties in the Assembly who are now criticizing the PS government—led by the UMP and also the Left Front, a coalition of long-time allies of the PS—their opposition is no less hypocritical. They have all designed and helped impose social cuts against the working class for decades. Their decision not to vote for the Macron Law, like that of the sections of the PS itself, is only a cowardly attempt to hide their support for unpopular austerity measures.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the neo-fascist National Front (FN), responded to the use of the 49-3 provision by calling for the dissolution of the parliament and new elections, in which the PS would stand to lose heavily and fall from power, and the FN to make substantial gains. Valls “should present the resignation of his government ... The government itself is admitting that it no longer has a parliamentary majority,” Le Pen said.

The PS government is clearly calculating that the 49-3 maneuver will shore up its parliamentary majority, and give political cover to factions of the PS closer to pseudo-left organizations, including the Left Front and the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA).

“Rebel” (frondeur) PS factions associated with former Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who criticized PS economic policies last year and might feel politically exposed if they openly voted for the Macron Law, will now be able to instead vote confidence for the Valls government. Such a vote would not only preserve the government and their own seats, but also allow the “rebels” to cynically justify their vote as necessary to stop the rise of the FN.

The only way forward for workers is a broader mobilization of the working class in political struggle against the EU and the Hollande government. Such a struggle has been consistently blocked by the Left Front, the NPA and the trade unions, who supported the election of Hollande in 2012 and continue to support the PS government. They isolated protests by sections of workers and of the middle classes against the Macron Law, seeking to prevent these protests from developing into a broader struggle against the government and the entire capitalist system.

As the bourgeoisie works out its strategy for imposing continued austerity despite mass popular anger, a reactionary political division of labor has emerged. While pseudo-left and PS “rebel” forces block a united struggle of the working class and encourage illusions in parliamentary opposition to the PS, PS factions closer to Hollande and Valls work directly with the EU to prepare and justify further attacks on the working class.

EU Economics Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, who previously served as Hollande’s finance minister, demanded that the French government develop a more ambitious liberalization and austerity agenda, going beyond the Macron Law. “France can and must have this,” he declared last week.

Nigeria 2015: Has the Rubicon Been Crossed?

Anayo Unachukwu

The embryos of growth that initially attended Nigeria’s fourth republic and its accompanying orchard of hope withered and mottled prior to maturity. In the aftermath of this blight--at a very nascent stage of the democratic process--it gave rise to a mutant that neither coheres with nor conforms to the spirit and the letter of democracy. Notwithstanding this fundamental flaw, the overly optimistic and forever hopeful Nigerians chose to keep faith with this form of government rather than the alternative.

Is all this about to change, given the recent postponement of its election, reported rigging of Ekiti state election and pronouncements made by major political stakeholders? Is faith in this form of government a miscast judgment--judging by the unedifying conducts of its main political actors and their handlers in the run up to the presidential election?

The current cognitive dissonance confronting the average Nigerian electorates--who have a choice to make between a present that is not too dissimilar from a distant past--may drive them to forget and hanker after yesterday. Some have gone beyond the competing charms of different types of government as they hanker for a complete dismembering of the country.

The Nigerian political elite, over the years, has transformed the country and its society into a Byzantine edifice of corruption where everyday hope and honest aspiration have become something to sniff at and ridicule--as a clear evidence of lack of ambition and gumption on the part of its ordinary citizen. To further compound the lot of its teeming population who are economically disenfranchised, the elite stir and stoke up their contrived ethnic and religious differences; without learning from history about the lethality and the irredeemable end-point of such irresponsible goading.

History, Cicero said, is the great instructor of public life. But history is not the strongest suit of Nigerian political elite (only last year, the current leadership, in its inimitable style and wisdom championed the removal of history from the school curriculum.) History, as an eccentric educator tends not to make available its wisdom to us pre-packaged. Christopher Clark put it succinctly: lessons are “oracles whose relevance to our predicament have to be puzzled over.” Is the current leadership pondering and paying significant attention to historical lesions? Judging by its reckless conduct before and in the run-up to the forthcoming election, the answer is pretty obvious.

Given the development that presaged the Nigerian civil war--concatenation of events in the political process and its wider ramifications on the civil society--it is perilously possible to safely assume that the politics of immediacy has not changed in the country. In fact, it has intensified. Primordial political interests hold sway over enlightened collective interest of common good.

Taken together the forgoing, the pessimistic proposition that Nigeria has eventually crossed the Rubicon may be a safe assumption by political pundits. By gauging the mood and the recent postponement of the presidential election from 14 February 2015 to 28 March, such a pronouncement may not be completely out of kilter. But is this right?

My analysis and writing on Nigeria is an admixture of paranoia and optimism. Paranoia because Nigeria as an entity is facing an existential threat--from Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group which has largely gone unrecognised and unacknowledged by the current leadership. Besides, the declines in oil prices as a result of supply shock and its wider ramifications, extreme hardship and a bleak future in an already economically challenged population are real source of concern in a country with a significant proportion of unemployed youth. Optimism because, although the political elite has refused to learn from history, the average Nigerians that bore the brunt of the civil war have the vestiges and scars etched on their mind. Further, over time, this group has realised that the political class and their diehard claque are riveted by the oil resources with absolutely little or no interest in the call to public service. Moreso, the resilience and irrepressible nature of the average Nigerians who look beyond the fog of political confusion and chaos are reasons for optimism.

All things considered, Nigeria is needed more than ever, notwithstanding the popular saying about Nigeria dividing the world into two camps: 80% does not care about what happens to it; and the remaining 20% is of the view that whatever happens to it, it probably deserves it. Regardless of what anyone may say, if Nigeria were to unravel, the ripples and ramifications will be felt not just in the sub-region but further afield. Further, within the financial industry, Nigeria has provided the fillip in the broader optimism that has serenaded Africa over the last 15 years. Its continued existence will continue to provide the bulwark for economic growth and development in the sub-Saharan sub-region.

The next few weeks to the elections will be difficult. The momentum is with Mr Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC). However, there are worrying signs and development that the ruling party and the incumbent president may not be in a hurry to oblige the electorates with its swan song. In Nigeria, when psephologists talk about the power of incumbency, it invariably means a sub-audition for manipulating state institutions to perpetuate the government in power.

It would be disrespectful, disheartening and dangerous if the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) formed the view that it would use Ekiti state election as a template for the presidential election (“2015: Reading The Political Leaf,” The Guardian, 06 July 2014). This temptation will always be there for the PDP stalwarts and its ardent supporters, given its squandered goodwill and pauperisation of Nigerians since it came to power in 1999, makes its legitimacy and claim to government untenable.

In order to forestall further declension and potential descent to chaos and confusion, the military and the police must restore their  tarnished image by steering clear from the murky waters of politics. The two national parties and their supporters must refrain from activities and pronouncements that would worsen the already fragile state of the nation. Further, the leadership at the centre and its party ought to reciprocate the confidence reposed on it by Nigerians--for the past 15 years--by desisting from the use of federal institutions to legitimise its hold on power. A free and fair election is imperative. Nigeria can still survive this trying period in its history. To paraphrase Immanuel Kant as regards the crooked timber of humanity in this context would read like this: out of the rotten timber of Nigeria, oddities and peculiarities proliferate but should not perpetuate ad infinitum.

The previously silent drumbeats of change have become audible, and its rhythm is in lockstep with the direction and the march of the people; a march not in the direction of the Rubicon, but towards a most needed recovery.

Minsk cease-fire verging on collapse as fighting continues in east Ukraine

Niles Williamson

Fighting escalated in the eastern Ukrainian city of Debaltseve on Tuesday, as the cease-fire negotiated last week in Minsk has failed to take hold.

There was street-to-street fighting in Debaltseve, as pro-Russian separatist militias moved to consolidate control over the city, where at least 5,000 Ukrainian troops are trapped. The separatists aim to reinforce their strategic position by seizing the city—a key rail hub connecting the rebel-controlled cities of Donetsk and Luhansk—from the NATO-backed Kiev regime.

Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) Defense Ministry, told reporters that the separatists controlled “eighty percent” of Debaltseve on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported that a group of soldiers had been ambushed and taken prisoner by the pro-Russian separatists. While Kiev did not confirm how many were captured, separatists claimed that they had captured as many as 300 soldiers.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko phoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday and denounced the separatists’ attempt to consolidate control over Debaltseve as a “cynical attack” on the cease-fire agreement. In the same call, he reportedly appealed to the UN Security Council to “prevent further violations...and full-scale military operations in the heart of Europe.”

Separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko said over the weekend that the rebels do not consider Debaltseve to be covered by the terms of the cease-fire and called on the encircled Ukrainian forces to lay down their weapons and surrender. “Any attempt of the Ukrainian armed forces to unblock Debaltseve will be regarded as a violation of the Minsk agreements; such attempts will be suppressed, adversaries will be eliminated,” Zakharchenko said.

In another sign that the Minsk agreement is breaking down, both sides stated that they would not remove heavy weapons, including artillery, from the front lines as long as the other side continued fighting. Last week’s agreement stipulated the pull back of all heavy equipment from the front lines beginning Tuesday, two days after the cease-fire went into effect.

Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko bluntly stated that “there is no ceasefire, and so there is no precondition for a pull-back of heavy weapons.”

Separatist leaders also announced they would not begin to pull back heavy equipment until the Kiev regime did the same. “We will not do anything unilaterally. That would make our soldiers targets,” Denis Pushilin stated.

The continuing fighting makes clear that the recent Minsk agreement has done nothing to end the bloody proxy war being waged between NATO and Russia in eastern Ukraine, or the danger that this conflict could escalate into total war between NATO and Russia, a nuclear-armed power.

Tensions remain extremely high. This is above all because Washington, which triggered the conflict by installing a right-wing regime in Kiev last February through a fascist-led putsch, has made clear that it intends to continue escalating the conflict.

The Minsk deal was negotiated between the governments of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, amid fears that US plans to directly arm the Kiev regime could trigger continent-wide war throughout Europe.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters that the Obama administration was still prepared to arm the Ukrainian regime with lethal military equipment. “We certainly believe that a diplomatic approach and a political approach is the right approach here, but the same options that were on the table a week ago or two weeks ago remain on the table,” she told reporters.

If Washington has not yet openly repudiated the Minsk deal, this is largely because the military situation facing the pro-Kiev regime forces in eastern Ukraine is desperate. After the last failed Ukraine ceasefire, also negotiated in Minsk last September, the Kiev regime refused to remove its troops and artillery from positions in the east, and fighting continued.

Kiev is again responding to the Minsk agreement by trying to buy time on the ground and strengthen itself in preparation for a renewed offensive against the separatists. On Tuesday, Poroshenko authorized a timetable through the end of the year for the call-up of men up to the age of 27.

Tensions between Russia and the United States are also escalating, as Moscow and Washington trade accusations that they are arming their proxies in Ukraine in violation of the cease-fire.

Speaking after a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Western powers of supplying the Kiev regime with arms. “According to our data, weapons are already being supplied [to Kiev],” he told reporters. “This is not surprising. I am convinced that whoever is supplying the weapons, the number of victims may grow, but the outcome will not change.”

The US State Department released a statement Monday that placed blame on Russia for the continued fighting. It warned that ongoing hostilities between Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian separatists “threaten the most recent cease-fire and jeopardize the planned withdrawal of heavy weapons.”

The State Department reported that it was “closely monitoring reports of a new column of Russian military equipment moving toward Debaltseve.” The statement concluded by calling on “Russia and the separatists it backs to halt all attacks immediately,” and “fully implement their September 5 and 19 Minsk commitments.”

Continuing its part in escalating political and economic pressure on Russia, the European Union announced new sanctions targeted at those in Russia and Ukraine accused of supporting the separatists. The EU announced on Monday 19 additions to the list of individuals in Russia and eastern Ukraine subject to asset freezes and travel bans, including Russia’s deputy defense minister.

European Union gives no quarter in war against Greek workers

Christoph Dreier & Barry Grey

On Monday, the finance ministers of the Eurogroup, meeting in Brussels, made it clear they would not budge from the brutal austerity policies that have plunged Greece into an unprecedented social catastrophe.

Taking their lead from Germany, the finance ministers unanimously rejected proposals from the Syriza-led Greek government for largely symbolic modifications of the debt repayment plan imposed by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The leader of the Eurogroup finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Netherlands, handed Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis a draft statement at the beginning of the meeting that amounted to an ultimatum: Sign or face a cutoff of loans and state bankruptcy!

The statement declared that Greece would dutifully implement the current debt repayment program, including its provisions for new and even deeper cuts in jobs, pensions and social services and a fire sale of public assets to the banks and hedge funds.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble expressed the arrogance of the European and international ruling elites and their contempt for the suffering of the Greek masses, calling the Greek government’s pleas for a measure of relief “irresponsible” and a “waste of time,” and accusing Syriza leader and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of “insulting those who have helped Greece in the past few years.”

The “help” provided by the German and European ruling classes since the Wall Street crash of 2008 has consisted of reducing millions of Greek workers to unemployment and poverty, gutting the country’s health care system, and producing a plague of homelessness and hunger in order to make the working class pay for the multi-trillion-euro bailout of the banks. Similar “help” has been extended to other highly indebted countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland, with similarly catastrophic social consequences.

The austerity offensive against these countries has been used to set a precedent for unprecedented attacks on working class living standards and social services in Britain, Italy, France, Germany and throughout Europe.

The European Union governments evidently decided to use Monday’s meeting to make an example of Greece. Their contemptuous treatment of Syriza was meant to be an object lesson lest others think they can resist the power of capital.

They had taken the measure of Syriza, viewing it not as the representative of insurgent masses, but rather as a supplicant speaking in behalf of failing Greek capitalists. This assessment was borne out by Syriza’s entirely predictable response to Monday’s provocations.

Varoufakis balked at signing the draft statement, complaining that he had agreed to sign a somewhat different text that signaled acceptance of the existing debt repayment scheme, but with certain unspecified differences in wording.

He protested against the refusal of the finance ministers to give the Syriza-led government some wiggle room as it went about reneging on its campaign promises and implementing the austerity program. Nevertheless, he declared after the abortive meeting, “I have no doubt there is going to be an agreement in the end.”

On the eve of the meeting, he had told the Guardian newspaper, “We are a party of the left, but what we are putting on the table is essentially the agenda of a reformist bankruptcy lawyer from the City of London.” He went so far as to call Schäuble the “only European politician of intellectual substance” and laud German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the “most astute politician in Europe.”

It evidently took little more than 24 hours for Syriza to complete its capitulation. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon that Greek officials would seek an extension of the current debt repayment program on Wednesday.

Syriza’s entire approach has been based on the notion that it could somehow schmooze the European ruling classes into slightly modifying their policy. Tsipras hoped to find support among sections of the European bourgeoisie that have expressed certain differences with Germany. He also banked on leveraging economic policy differences between the United States and Germany.

The charm offensive Tsipras and Varoufakis undertook in various European capitals following Syriza’s election victory last month was pitched entirely to the economic and political elites. There was no appeal to the working class.

The leaders of Syriza have never questioned the legitimacy of the capitalist system. On the contrary, they have repeatedly declared their support for the banking system and their determination to fully repay Greece’s debts to the financial elite. The centerpiece of their program is support for the European Union, the political and organizational framework for the bankers’ offensive against the European working class.

Like all petty-bourgeois parties, Syriza’s politics are embedded in the notion that great historical and political questions can be dealt with through evasions, maneuvers and clever tactics. In Syriza’s case, this has included forming a coalition with a right-wing chauvinist party, the Independent Greeks.

It has taken less than four weeks of a Syriza-led government to thoroughly expose the bankruptcy of a middle class reformist outlook in a period of revolution or counterrevolution.

The offensive of the ruling class can be defeated only by revolutionary means: the independent political mobilization of the working class across Europe and internationally against capitalism. Syriza and the various pseudo-left parties that support it are obstacles to this struggle. The building of a new, revolutionary leadership of the working class must be carried out in a struggle against them.

Cerro León: Ayoreo Indigenous Territory Threatened by Government Prospecting in Paraguay

Paola Canova

By early December of 2014, in the northern Chaco region of Paraguay, bulldozers from the Ministry of Public Works and Communications (MOPC) were scheduled to open their way through the thick forest into Cerro León, a unique geological formation at the center of the Defensores del Chaco National Park, the largest protected forested area in the country. Encompassing 780,000 hectares, the park is home to an array of ecological diversity unique to lowland South America, including numerous animal and plant species in risk of extinction. Known by the Ayoreo Indigenous peoples asCucarani, Cerro León extends for about forty kilometers in diameter and is comprised of a succession of hills located within their ancestral territory. According to local NGO Iniciativa Amotocodie, some of the last Ayoreo in so-called voluntary isolation continue to inhabit part of this area. 

The project, entitled "Geological Prospection of the Defensores del Chaco National Park,"  calls for extraction and analysis of rock samples with the goal of evaluating the possibility of using Cerro León as a source of stone materials for pavement.  Ultimately seeking to convert part of the area into a rock quarry, this project violates national laws as well as international treaties ratified by the Paraguayan government.  Its launch was scheduled not only lacking the environmental permits required by the Secretary of the Environment (SEAM), but  also obviating the requisite process of consultation, which, according to Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, is a fundamental right of  Indigenous peoples affected by such undertakings in their territories.

This  impending advance on Cerro León and the park where it is located only came to light following a recent newspaper investigation which appeared on December 26 in Paraguay’s most widely circulated newspaper (ABC Color). In a quick move, the Ayoreo organization Union de Nativos Ayoreo del Paraguay(UNAP) organized a two-day road blockage to protest the threat to their territory. Simultaneously, another Ayoreo organization,  Asociacion Garaigosode del Paraguay (AGPA), with the support of local NGOs Tierraviva and Sobrevivencia, advanced a precautionary writ of amparo against the MOPC and SEAM opposing any exploitative activity in the park. In a positive turn for the Ayoreo, by January 14, 2015, a judge had approved the amparo.

An environmental impact report for this project, a legal prerequisite for obtaining an environmental license, was drafted by the MOPC and designates provision for specific tasks as well as a timeline. Curiously, however, there is no official date on this document. The indiscretion of the MOPC is further highlighted by the fact that, in the report, initial advancement into Cerro León is scheduled for December 1, although the SEAM only officially acknowledged receipt of the report ten days later. It is clear that the MOPC had begun, at the very least, to plan action before being granted the necessary license. During this time both institutions also sidestepped the required consultations with the Ayoreo. Moreover, they audaciously appealed the writ of amparo only a day after the Minister of SEAM visited the Ayoreo to negotiate lifting the blockage -- assuring the Ayoreo protection of their territory and their involvement in a process of consultation.The supporting lawyers for the Ayoreo responded to the appeal requesting the ratification of the writ of amparo. Despite compelling evidence of actions taken by both governmental institutions involved (which included the promulgation of a law modifying the use of the protected area for economic purposes), the Cartes administration publicly denied intentions of accessing inexpensive raw materials. Acquisition of these raw materials would eventually benefit private construction firms for roadworks in the Chaco region.

In a somber precedent for the protection of the Indigenous rights and the environment in Paraguay, on February 9, 2015, the national court of appeals  revoked the amparo promoted by the Ayoreo and their lawyers which was temporarily protecting Cerro León. This is an undeniable message that the current administration will push aside the rights of Indigenous peoples, their territories and the environment if  they obstruct economic development and private lucrative interests. The ongoing events at Cerro León further expose the vulnerability of the Chaco region, especially its Indigenous peoples, to a  resurging wave of looting and frontier-style development which has historically characterized this region. Several additional NGOs have added their support to the Ayoreo by forming a coalition to defend Cerro León. The decision to preserve it or release it to imminent depredation  now rests, ironically, in the hands of the Secretary of the Environment.

South Africa: ANC provincial premier renounces electronic-tolling populism

Thabo Seseane Jr.

Having reached the limits of his populist pretenses, Gauteng province Premier David Makhura of the African National Congress has called on motorists to pay the widely hated electronic tolls introduced on the province’s roads in December 2013.

Gauteng has the smallest land area and the largest population of any province of South Africa, with more than 12 million people, and includes both the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, and the national capital, Pretoria.

In comments later denied by his office, the Saturday Citizen quoted Makhura as saying, “We have to respect the government’s decision for it has the upper hand. If I was to advise anyone in Gauteng, I would say, ‘Please continue to pay.’”

He was speaking at a meeting on February 6 to discuss the recommendations of a panel set up last year to review the socioeconomic impact of e-tolls. Makhura himself appointed the panel amid a faction fight which pitted a group of Gauteng ANC leaders including Makhura and ANC Provincial Chairman Paul Mashatile against members of the party’s national leadership, particularly Transport Minister Dipuo Peters. (See: “South Africa: ANC and unions exploit popular anger over electronic toll collections”)

ANC top brass are seen as unsympathetic to the 10-percentage-point drop suffered by the party in Gauteng provincial assembly representation in elections last May. With metropolitan elections looming in 2016, Gauteng party leaders felt compelled to adopt a populist posture. They denounced e-tolling “in its current form” in an attempt to deflect widespread disgust with ruling party arrogance and corruption, including more than US$20 million unlawfully spent on “security upgrades” at the private country home of President Jacob Zuma.

The February 6 meeting discussed recommendations from the review panel which included a hybrid funding model. This would rely in part on increasing fees for tyres and vehicle license fees, funding from provincial taxation as well as reduced-cap e-tolls. Makhura said all that is still to be decided is how the e-tolls will be paid, the tariff rates and who will be exempted.

Last November SANRAL, an agency of the national government tasked with implementing and overseeing the e-toll system, raised only R415 million (US$35.96 million) in a bond auction, or R100 million less than it was hoping for. At a bond auction on February 4, SANRAL raised just two thirds of the R600 million it was targeting. This is roughly the monthly amount the agency needs for debt servicing, road maintenance, operating costs and the refinancing and repayment of maturing bonds. Business Day editorialised that the turf war between the Gauteng ANC and ANC national leaders “has now become a critical operational issue [for SANRAL] that is a matter of weeks away from developing into a full-blown crisis.” The newspaper observed that the lukewarm response to the latest two bond auctions is despite SANRAL debt being guaranteed by the Treasury.

As far as international financiers are concerned, the problem is that the Treasury also guarantees such ill-managed or unprofitable entities as the power utility ESKOM, the Land Bank, South African Airways and the South African Post Office. Every time the national government issues a guarantee allowing some state-owned entity to borrow funds needed to stagger on, the international credit rating agencies record the amount as a minus on the South African sovereign balance sheet, thereby potentially lowering the credit rating of the country as a whole.

Having imposed rolling blackouts on the country throughout the first week of February, ESKOM raised US$1.25 billion in its first international bond sale in nearly two years. Since then Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have downgraded the company’s credit rating amid a R225 billion funding shortfall in the five years to March 2018. Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene is expected to give details in his budget speech later this month of how the government intends to raise the R20 billion it has pledged to ESKOM.

The utility is increasing charges to consumers to help plug the gap, beginning with a 12.69 percent increase in April. Nomura economist Peter Attard Montalto said annual tariff increases of as much as 25 percent may be necessary to keep ESKOM viable.

This is the backdrop against which Makhura’s comments should be read. Given a choice between meeting the needs of Gauteng’s people and pandering to the greed of international finance, Makhura will toe the line and choose financiers.

The ANC has no perspective independent of the demands of finance capital. As expected of it, it now seeks to strong-arm Gauteng road users into meeting the demands of ruthless bondholders who are already cutting SANRAL off from funding because public opposition to e-tolls threatens their bond income.

Only three bidders participated in the last SANRAL auction. The agency has lost six bidders since the Gauteng government set up the e-toll review panel in June. SANRAL chief financial officer Inge Mulder said the lack of liquidity in the market as a result of the collapse of mass-market lender African Bank—forcing a rescue underwritten by the central bank—had also contributed to higher bond spreads for most state-owned companies.

SANRAL has the equivalent of US$350 million of bonds maturing by September.

Malaysia’s highest court jails opposition leader on trumped-up charge

John Roberts

A five-judge panel of the Federal Court, Malaysia’s highest judicial body, on February 10 upheld a Court of Appeal decision to overturn a High Court acquittal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in 2012 on the trumped-up charge of sodomy. Anwar was immediately consigned to jail to serve out his five-year sentence.

The ruling, enforcing Malaysia’s reactionary anti-homosexual laws, was a political one. It underscored the continued subservience of the courts to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which has autocratically ruled for 58 years since the country’s formal independence from Britain.

A large riot police contingent was present outside the Kuala Lumpur court to control hundreds of supporters of Anwar and his opposition People’s Alliance (PR). Inside the court, the five judges left as the 67-year-old Anwar denounced the verdict. Anwar told the judges that “in bowing to the dictates of your political masters, you have become partners in the murder of the judiciary.”

The judges heard the case over eight sitting days last year then took more than two months before delivering last week’s verdict. Despite their declaration last year that the case was a complicated one, and the delay in issuing their ruling, the judges provided no written judgments outlining their reasoning, which would be normal in a major case.

The court dismissed Anwar’s contention that he was the victim of a political conspiracy involving Najib and the government. Without any examination of the prosecution case, the judges simply declared that there was overwhelming evidence for the conviction and that the claim of a conspiracy was “a mere allegation unsubstantiated by any credible evidence.”

As soon as the decision was announced, the prime minister’s office issued a statement declaring that the courts were independent and calling for the verdict to be accepted. The police have begun to use the county’s anti-democratic laws to crack down on critics. Cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque was detained last Tuesday for a series of allegedly seditious tweets on the case and police named two opposition parliamentarians for investigation under the Sedition Act.

The only legal option left to Anwar is to appeal to the King for a pardon. Such an application would involve an admission of guilt. The verdict will exclude Anwar from any participation in the next scheduled national election in 2018, which was the government’s intention all along. By removing Anwar from political life, it hopes to destabilise the opposition coalition.

In the original trial and subsequent proceedings, the prosecution relied on one witness, Saiful Bukhari Azian, a former Anwar aide, who claimed that Anwar had sexual intercourse with him in June 2008. The prosecution maintained that DNA evidence collaborated Saiful’s statements.

The defence presented evidence that Najib, who was then deputy prime minister to Abdullah Badawi, and his wife and senior police officers, met with Saiful two days prior to the alleged sexual encounter. These meetings with senior UMNO figures continued after the alleged act, before Saiful formally reported it to police.

In attendance at Saiful’s meeting with Najib was the chief prosecutor in Anwar’s trial, Muhammad Shafee Abdullad, who also happened to be Najib’s lawyer. Anwar’s defence lawyers called on the court to force Shafee to step down as prosecutor and for Shafee, Najib and his wife to be called as witnesses, but were repeatedly turned down.

The High Court trial judge, Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, ruled that Saiful was a credible witness in May 2011, but seven months later acquitted Anwar as the prosecution case crumbled when it was clear that the DNA evidence was corrupted.

The DNA sample was supposedly obtained in a medical examination more than two days after the alleged act. The sample had not been frozen initially as required and prosecution witnesses admitted there were up to 10 other DNA profiles in the sample. At least one police officer was proven to have tampered with the sample. Expert forensic testimony discredited the evidence.

A major factor in the Najib government’s ability to jail Anwar on a trumped-up charge is the acquiescence of Washington, which is intent on establishing closer economic and strategic relations with Malaysia.

This was evident in the aftermath of the 2013 national election, which the Najib government would have lost but for a widespread gerrymander. The opposition won 51 percent of the vote to the government’s 47 percent, but only 89 parliamentary seats as against 133 for the ruling coalition.

Hundreds of thousands of Malaysians took part in the largest demonstrations in the country’s history, denouncing the anti-democratic character of the election. Anwar and other opposition figures used the mass protests to appeal to the “international community”—that is, particularly Washington—to intervene.

However, Obama congratulated Najib on his election “victory,” effectively giving Najib the green light to crack down on the rallies. The US State Department issued a pro-forma statement raising concerns about election irregularities, then buried the issue. Anwar, who was always concerned to ensure that the rallies did not spiral out of control, promptly called them off.

At the time of the election, the Brookings Institute, a US think tank, noted that the Obama administration’s relations with Najib’s government were warming. “Najib has fundamentally repositioned Malaysia internationally,” it stated. “He has moved away from the old UMNO policy of seeking to divide Asia from the United States and has seen the United States as an important partner for Malaysian and ASEAN.”

Last April, Obama made the first trip to Malaysia for an American president since 1966 and signed a “Comprehensive Partnership” with Najib, but pointedly refused to meet with Anwar. To emphasise the closeness of their relationship, Obama and Najib both holidayed in Hawaii last December, played golf together and reportedly discussed the international situation.

Malaysia, which sits adjacent to the Malacca Strait, is strategically vital for the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” and its preparations for war against China, which include the ability to mount a blockade of Chinese shipping through South East Asia.

It is not surprising that the US issued only a perfunctory statement on the Federal Court decision. National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan told the media that the US was “deeply disappointed” in Anwar’s conviction and that the case raised “a number of serious concerns about the rule of law and fairness of the judicial system in Malaysia.” Undoubtedly the issue will be quickly buried.

The response is in marked contrast to Anwar’s arrest and frame-up on bogus charges of sodomy and corruption in 1998, when US Vice President Al Gore strongly supported Anwar and condemned his persecution. Amid the 1997–98 Asian economic crisis, the US was pressuring the Malaysian government to implement the International Monetary Fund’s far-reaching pro-market prescriptions to open up the country to foreign investment. As finance minister, Anwar agreed with the IMF’s demands, but was sacked, arrested and charged by UMNO Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who was intent on imposing capital and currency controls to protect UMNO-related companies.

Both then and now, Washington’s attitude has not been determined by concerns over legal and democratic rights, but rather US economic and strategic interests in Asia.