Social Democrats concede defeat in Swedish election as far-right Sweden Democrats become second-largest party

Bran Karlsson

The last ballots were counted for the 2022 Swedish elections Thursday, confirming the lead of the right-wing parliamentary block by 176 seats to 173 in the 349-seat parliament (Riksdag). The traditional conservative party—the Moderates—has entered talks with the other right-wing parties to form a government based around their leader Ulf Kristersson as prime minister.

In this photo taken May 24, 2010, Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Akesson speaks during an interview in a basement in Stockholm, Sweden. [AP Photo/Niklas Larsson]

Current Prime Minister and Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson announced her resignation Wednesday evening. After a meeting Monday with Riksdag speaker Andreas Norlén, Kristersson stated that talks to form the new government could take several weeks.

The true winner of the elections, however, was not Kristersson’s Moderates, but the Sweden Democrats. The party, founded by neo-Nazis in the 1980s, is now the second-largest political party in Sweden. Though the other three right-wing parties (Moderates, Christian Democrats, and the Liberals) have asserted, in the face of widespread popular hostility towards the far-right, that they do not wish to place the Sweden Democrats in government, they all bear political responsibility for integrating the far-right party into official politics over the past decade.

Whether or not the Sweden Democrats are formally included in the next government, it is already clear that they will play a decisive role in determining its policies. Kristersson is reportedly aiming for a coalition with the Christian Democrats or a three-party coalition that also includes the Liberals, with the Sweden Democrats backing the government on crucial votes from the outside.

The Moderates lost almost 1 percentage point of the vote compared to the last election in 2018, whereas the Sweden Democrats’ vote rose by 3.1 percentage points—the largest of any party. The Sweden Democrats finished with 20.6 percent of the vote compared to the Moderates’ 19.1 percent.

Around the world, fascistic leaders and news outlets celebrated the Sweden Democrats’ victory. Steve Bannon, the ex-strategist of Donald Trump, described it as “a political earthquake,” while the European Conservatives and Reformist Party, a coalition bloc of far-right parties in the EU, led by Giorgia Meloni, leader of the fascist Brothers of Italy, tweeted, “Let this be an omen and model for the rest of Europe.” Italy will hold an election on September 25, with the Brothers of Italy poised for victory.

Referencing Donald Trump, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson vowed at the party’s election night celebration to “Make Sweden Great Again.” His party has proposed a series of vicious anti-immigrant, law-and-order policies. They include ending permanent residency for migrants, raids on welfare beneficiaries’ homes “to find malpractices,” and the ending of residency rights through romantic partnership.

The only foreign press allowed into the Sweden Democrats’ “raucous [election] party” was the Financial Times. Multiple foreign press requests were denied by the party leadership. The FT reported that there was “one word on the lips of many Sweden Democrats MPs … revenge.” The party’s chief of staff, Linus Bylund, stated that he was looking forward to “journalist rugby.” Asked to explain, he said this was where you “pushed journalists about.”

Later, at the same party, Rebecka Fallenkvist—a Sweden Democrat candidate for Stockholm—blurted out the Swedish version of the Nazi “Sieg Heil” salute as she drunkenly spoke to the far-right news site Samnytt.

One reflection of the ruling elite’s embrace of this far-right filth was the forcing out of Annie Lööf as leader of the relatively small Centre Party. Lööf has been one of the more vocal critics of the right-wing, racist politics of the Sweden Democrats within the political establishment, and focused a considerable portion of her party’s election campaign on a commitment not to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats in government. Under her leadership, Centre shifted from its traditional membership in the right-wing parliamentary bloc to support the minority Social Democrat government. However, the party helped secure a majority in parliament last year for the national budget drafted by the Moderates and Sweden Democrats, which Andersson’s minority Social Democrat government agreed to implement.

In July, Lööf was the target of an attempted assassination by a member of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, many of whose members have run on the Sweden Democrat ticket. Instead of killing Lööf, the attacker murdered Ing-Marie Wieselgren, a well-known psychiatrist.

After Centre performed poorly at the polls, a concerted push developed from media outlets and political figures for Lööf to resign so as to force a reexamination of the Centre Party’s stance on the Sweden Democrats.

This development carries on the general rush of Swedish politics to the right, as all the major political parties have adopted the anti-immigrant, law and order positions of the Sweden Democrats.

The rightward lurch of official Swedish politics is being driven by powerful objective forces. The Swedish ruling elite has abandoned its long-standing pose of neutrality and flung itself behind the US-NATO war with Russia. Sweden’s application to join NATO and a sustained military build-up since 2014 have helped transform Scandinavia into the northern front of the imperialist powers’ war to plunder Russia’s natural resources and subjugate the country to the status of a semi-colony.

At home, the Swedish ruling class intends to intensify its assault on what remains of the country’s social programmes and continue its homicidal pandemic policy. This deeply unpopular programme of war abroad and austerity at home cannot be enforced democratically, which is why the far right are being cultivated and brought into the political establishment.

The financial press reacted to the Sweden Democrats’ unprecedented political strength with offerings of reassurance that the party does not threaten the imperialist powers’ interests. The FT’s Tony Barber wrote, “What will not change are the fundamentals of Swedish foreign and defense policy. The Sweden Democrats support the nation’s application to join NATO. … The Sweden Democrats have also dropped their old hostility to the country’s EU membership. Beyond that, Sweden’s democratic processes and upholding of the rule of law remain strong.”

Barber explained that the “Sweden Democrats differ from insurgent rightwing parties,” claiming they “have expelled their most extremist members.” In fact, a recent report by Acta Publica found that nearly 300 right-wing extremists were running in this years’ elections, most of them associated with the Nordic Resistance Movement and running on the Sweden Democrat ticket.

It must be stressed, however, that while the Sweden Democrats received 1.3 million votes—in a country of 10.5 million people—there are not 1.3 million fascists in Sweden.

The Sweden Democrats, to the extent that they have been able to gain a hearing among sections of the working class, have done so because of the bankruptcy of what is presented as “left-wing” politics in Sweden. Since the 1990s, the Social Democrats have spearheaded the charge to dismantle Sweden’s much-vaunted welfare state and enforce privatizations. In power for 20 of the last 28 years, the Social Democrats have relied throughout this period on loyal support from the Left Party in parliament and the trade unions outside parliament to enforce its anti-worker agenda.

One of the most grotesque expressions of this political alliance is the criminal role the Social Democrats and Left Party played in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as they aggressively promoted the anti-scientific conception of “herd immunity.” International finance capital latched onto the homicidal policies of Sweden’s “left” government as a key means to justify the abandoning of all COVID-19 mitigation measures and allowing the virus to perpetually rip through the population.

Tajik-Kyrgyz border conflict erupts in violence

Andrea Peters

After several days of fighting, an uneasy truce appears to be holding along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. Nearly 100 people died and hundreds more suffered injuries when a long-standing conflict between the two Central Asian countries erupted in violence late last week.

A military helicopter flies over the Kyrgyz-Tajik border near Batken, southwestern Kyrgyzstan, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. [AP Photo/Danil Usmanov]

The governments in Bishkek and Dushanbe each accuse the other of provoking this latest episode. Kyrgyzstan insists that Tajikistan sent troops and paramilitary forces into villages in its Bakten region. Its soldiers, allegedly confronting an “invasion” with tanks and armored personnel carriers, engaged enemy border guards in a firefight when they refused to leave. The Tajik military maintains, however, that its towns were first shelled from across the border and then repeatedly hit by heavy weaponry over the course of several days.

Videos on social media appear to show a civilian bloodbath on both sides, with children and medics among the fatalities. Kyrgyz officials evacuated 136,000 residents from the area over the weekend, and one regional airport was reportedly packed with people trying to leave on Saturday. Some are now returning home.

The immediate cessation of hostilities does not indicate any lasting end to the violence. While indicating on Sunday that his government is ready for negotiations and a “peaceful” resolution, in a statement just released on YouTube, Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Zhaparov emphasized his country’s readiness for military conflict, insisting that it is fully capable of “defending its borders.” Authorities in Bishkek continue to accuse Dushanbe of engaging in a “disinformation” campaign regarding who is responsible for last weekend’s deadly events. Since 2014 alone, there have been 11 major conflicts along a portion of their 600-mile-long shared border. In May of last year at least 54 people died in fighting.

Both mountainous countries with large tracts of arid land and not enough agricultural resources to support their populations, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan each lay claim to the fertile Fergana Valley. According to the UN, Tajikistan’s population is expected to more than double by the end of this century, putting immense pressure on the already food-insecure country. Of the 7 percent of its land that is arable, the World Food Programme says 97 percent is vulnerable to soil degradation, which is expected to worsen as the effects of climate change intensify. According to the Ecological Threat Register, out of 157 countries studied, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are among the top most 19 endangered. They face the imminent threat of desertification.

During the Soviet period, the two states were joined together in the Soviet Union, and questions related to access to water, grazing grounds, and farm land were resolved administratively. The region’s extremely diverse and intermixed population moved back and forth across what are now government borders patrolled by armed forces.

When the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the USSR in 1991, the newly-emerging ruling class in the two Central Asian countries each laid claim to different maps—one drawn in the 1920s and the other in the 1950s—demarcating Tajik and Kyrgyz territory. The death and suffering in the area are a direct consequence of the Communist Party’s final betrayal of the struggle, initiated by the 1917 Russian Revolution, to unite the long-oppressed peoples of the former Tsarist Empire on egalitarian foundations.

Current tensions are being exacerbated by the combined effects of the war in Ukraine, the US’ efforts to destabilize and break-up Russia, the rapidly escalating conflict with China, and the fight for Central Asia’s resources.

Skyrocketing global grain prices are making it evermore difficult for poor and already food insecure countries to feed their populations. The COVID-19 pandemic and Western sanctions against Russia have seen masses of migrant workers from Central Asia, whose families rely on their remittances to survive, lose jobs. In addition to making the scramble for the Fergana Valley more important, these factors drive the corrupt and super-rich who rule Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to seek an outlet for mass social discontent in nationalist, military hoopla.

Facing a debacle in Ukraine, Moscow’s ability to manage the conflict between its two, frequently unsteady, allies is increasingly in question. This weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to both sides to “de-escalate” and find “peaceful, political and diplomatic means” to resolve their differences.

Behind this muted response, however, the Kremlin is trying to hold onto its influence in these areas, which are of major geostrategic and economic importance. A few weeks prior to the present crisis, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin met with Chairman of Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Japarov in an effort “to speed up the signing of a new economic cooperation program for 2022-2026, which will further expand ties, increase trade turnover, the volume of mutual investments.” The Russian statesmen described the Kremlin as “keen to enhance cooperation with Kyrgyzstan in all current directions,” adding, “It is necessary.”

While short on arable land, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are both home to significant gold and iron ore deposits, as well as many other metals essential to industry. Because of their locations, they both offer potential transit routes for the shipment of oil and gas to areas otherwise highly dependent on sea lanes.

During a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Kyrgyzstan, China and Uzbekistan agreed to move forward with a long-stalled plan to create a rail link that will connect China to the Middle East, bypassing Russia in the process. Bishkek’s deepening relationship with Beijing is also a dependency, with the majority of its $5.1 billion in foreign debt owed to Chinese banks.

Meanwhile, the imperialist powers, which have a long involvement in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are pressing forward with their own agendas. UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres just appointed former leader of Kyrgyzstan’s US-backed Tulip Revolution, Rosa Otunbayeva, as special envoy to Afghanistan.

The crisis in that country, brought on by 20 years of the US bloody occupation and the recent return of the Taliban to power in Kabul, is destabilizing all of Central Asia. It poses a particularly significant threat to Russia, which has a large Muslim population. The Kremlin, fully aware of Washington’s long history of using Islamic fundamentalism to destabilize Russia, has well-grounded fears that the surging power and influence of this movement will be used to foment separatist movements in its south and southwest. Russia’s Supreme Court just labeled Tajikistan’s main opposition party a “terrorist” movement. On Monday, Kyrgyzstan declared that Islamist militants were among the troops sent into its territory by Tajikistan’s military this past weekend.

Strikes and protests for wages grow as inflation surges in Turkey

Hasan Yıldırım

Millions in Turkey are struggling to make ends meet in deep poverty as food and energy prices continue to surge and the attack on the living conditions of the working class grows.

As of August, Turkey’s official annual inflation rate rose to 80 percent. ENAG, an independent research organization, calculated inflation at 181 percent. According to Trading Economics web site, Turkey’s official inflation ranks fourth in the world after Zimbabwe, Sudan and Syria.

Turkey’s high inflation is part of surging prices globally, triggered by the massive printing of money by central banks around the world to transfer wealth to the super-rich amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and escalated by the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine. But this has been exacerbated by the fiscal policy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government, which defends corporate profits at the expense of basic social needs.

The ruling class has imposed the main burden of the crisis on the working class. While the Turkish lira continues to depreciate and the prices of all goods, especially basic necessities, rise constantly, workers’ purchasing power is constantly eroded by wage increases far below inflation. Even the “hunger limit”—the monthly food expenditure of a family of four in Turkey—is above the minimum wage, which rose less than 30 percent in July to 5,500 Turkish liras (TL).

The pro-government Türk-İş union confederation announced that the poverty limit at the end of August became 22,440 TL and the hunger limit (monthly food expenditure for a family of four) was 6,890 TL.

The minimum wage has become an average wage for millions in Turkey. According to a December 2021 report by the pro-opposition DİSK union confederation, 64 percent of all workers in Turkey (12.5 million workers) earn minimum wage or slightly above. Seventy percent of private sector workers earn just the minimum wage.

Moreover, 3.4 million workers (18 percent of all workers) earn less than the minimum wage. The vast majority of them are refugees and migrant workers subjected to brutal exploitation. According to a survey conducted by the Consumer Rights Association in March, 90 percent of Turkey’s population lives below the poverty line.

Millions of working people are increasingly unable to meet their most basic needs. In the first six months of this year, the number of households that can only pay their electricity bills with social assistance rose to 2.3 million.

Among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states, Turkey has seen the highest increase in energy prices in the last year. According to Euronews, the Turkish state-owned petroleum pipeline corporation’s (BOTAŞ) natural gas wholesale price rose 1,330 percent for electricity generation, 997 percent for industrial use and 216 percent for residential use.

As of September 1, there has been a 20.4 percent price increase in gas and a 20 percent increase in electricity for households. While millions are asking how they will be able to heat their homes this winter, there has been another 50.8 percent increase in gas and 50 percent increase in electricity in industrial facilities. This shows that new energy price hikes inflate the prices of virtually all goods, including basic necessities.

Amid high inflation, wage increases very rapidly lose their effect. “They raised the minimum wage by 1,250 TL [in July]. We said ‘Okay!’ and then everything else went up,” a Has Çelik metalworker told the daily Evrensel.

On the other hand, Treasury and Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati, the spokesman of the profiteers in the Turkish banks, boasted: “Despite these developments, which started with Russia’s intervention in Ukraine on February 24th and have continued to have a strong impact until today and have captured the whole world, Turkey has achieved significant successes.” According to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), the Turkish banking sector’s profit in the first six months rose 400 percent compared to last year, to 169 billion TL.

As the ruling class escalates its social counterrevolution with the pandemic and the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine, the class struggle is also sharpening.

The wave of wildcat strikes in the first months of this year began to revive as of last August. Amid growing working class militancy, TPI Composite and Standart Profil workers managed to force the companies and unions to accept their demands by walking out.

September is also witnessing a wave of new strikes and protests. Physician assistants in university hospitals went on strike across the country on September 15–16, after they were excluded from the new “supplementary payment regulation” of the Health Ministry and did not receive an additional wage increase. This year, physicians and other health workers in Turkey have repeatedly gone on nationwide strikes.

Meanwhile, 562,000 subcontracted municipal workers across Turkey are demanding official job security. At the call of the Association of Subcontracted Municipal Workers (TABİB), workers organized a demonstration in Ankara on Sunday. They are demanding job security, abolition of compulsory retirement, a raise based on real inflation and to receive the 52-day bonus given to all public sector workers.

Private school teachers, who work for around minimum wage and without job security, are also mobilizing to demand job security and base pay equal to that in the public schools. Public school teachers are also opposing the “Teaching Profession Law,” which forces them to take exams and be subject to “career ladders.”

Bourgeois opposition parties led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which criticizes the Erdoğan government over the cost of living, are revealing themselves to be as hostile to the working class as the government in the municipalities they control. Recently, Yılmaz Büyükerşen, the CHP Mayor of Eskişehir, denounced workers demanding a raise, calling them “provocateurs” and threatening to fire them.

Workers at the CHP-run Kadıköy municipality in Istanbul will strike due to the failure to reach an agreement in contract negotiations covering 2,300 workers. Unless the DİSK-affiliated Genel-İş union agrees to a last-minute sellout, the strike will begin in two months.

In 2021, a strike at the Kadıköy municipality ended in a sellout not approved by the workers. During the short-lived strike, the CHP-run Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB), whose mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s election was backed by various pseudo-left parties, tried to break the strike by collecting garbage.

After being targeted by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, 43 workers dismissed from İBB on the grounds of “security investigations” are continuing their protest in front of the municipality, demanding their reinstatement.

In a statement on contract talks in district municipalities in the city of Izmir, the Genel-İş union has warned that there might be strikes in several municipalities. Talks are underway covering 294 workers in Dikili, 1,400 in Buca, 1,580 in Bornova and 1,250 in Bayraklı.

The DİSK and Genel-İş unions’ statements emphasize the need for an agreement without going on strike. Genel-İş has betrayed recent strike votes in many CHP-run municipalities; in many places, it helped impose raises well below even the official inflation rate.

Turkish-Greek tensions escalate amid NATO-Russia war

Ozan Özgür

After Greek coast guard boats fired warning shots at the Comoros-flagged merchant ship Anatolian on September 10 in international waters of the Aegean Sea, tensions between Athens and Ankara continue to escalate.

Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou visited the Aegean islands, including Kastellorizo, Rhodes and Carpathos, two kilometers from Turkey last week. “Greece seeks constructive relations with its neighbors according to international law,” she said at an event marking the 79th anniversary of Kastellorizo’s liberation during World War II. “However, if necessary, it will effectively defend its integrity and its sovereign rights,” she added.

Speaking at a symposium in Rhodes, Sakellaropoulou denounced Ankara’s claims, saying: “As Turkish provocations intensify in Rhodes and the Dodecanese Islands, making false and unsupported claims and questioning our country’s sovereign rights, scientific debate becomes even more important on the 40th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

The islands of Rhodes, Carpathos and Kastellorizo are supposed to be demilitarized according to the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. However, there are armored and infantry units, land and air bases on these islands, in addition to the law enforcement forces stipulated by the treaty.

“Greece’s rhetoric and provocative actions that have escalated tensions in the Sea of Islands and the Eastern Mediterranean have turned into a security threat for our country,” said Turkish Speaker of Parliament Mustafa Şentop.

In June, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu threatened to invade the islands, saying that “the sovereignty of these islands will be discussed” if Greece does not stop arming them. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also recently declared, “Your occupation of the islands does not bind us. We will do what is necessary when the time comes. As we say, we could come all of a sudden one night.”

The historical conflicts between the Turkish and Greek bourgeoisies, inherited from the 20th century, have intensified in recent months amid NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine.

Fearing the potential consequences for the Turkish bourgeoisie of NATO’s war aims in Ukraine (regime change in Moscow, the dismemberment of Russia and its subordination to the imperialist powers), Ankara is not participating in the sanctions against Russia. It has tried to mediate an end to the war. On the other hand, Ankara sees as a threat Greece’s role as an important military base for NATO against Russia, having developed strategic military ties with the United States and France.

NATO views Turkey’s growing commercial, energy and military ties with Russia as unacceptable for NATO. Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense system has led Washington to impose sanctions on Turkey. Moreover, in response to a possible US refusal to sell Turkey F-16 fighters, President Erdoğan recently said: “It is not only America that sells fighter jets in the world. England, France and Russia sell them. So it is possible to get them from everywhere.”

The possibility that Russia may be using Turkey to evade Western sanctions is increasingly alarming US and European powers. “The US and EU are stepping up pressure on Turkey to crack down on Russian sanctions evasion amid concerns that the country’s banking sector is a potential backdoor for illicit finance,” the Financial Times wrote on Thursday.

On the other hand, Greece received its first two F-16 military jets from the United States last week as part of a $1.5 billion program to modernize its fighter fleet. The AP wrote: “The two F-16s presented at the Tanagra airbase northwest of Athens are the first of 83 to be refitted with advanced electronics, radar and weapons capabilities by late 2027.”

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris earlier last week, said: “We respond to challenges with readiness, and to those who threaten us—and who say that they will descend upon our islands suddenly one night—we say that we are waiting for them in the light of day, where it will be visible who has International Law on their side.”

Emphasizing France’s full support for Greece, Macron said, “I would like to reiterate this despite the repeated provocations and the questioning of Greece’s sovereignty: Our support and determination here is full.”

Tensions have risen further since Mitsotakis’ speech to the US Congress last May. There, Mitsotakis said: “Greece extends the hand of friendship to its neighbors. But we will not tolerate violations of our sovereignty, violations of our sovereign rights and flights over Greek islands, which must stop immediately. I ask you, members of Congress, to take into account the danger of a new instability on NATO’s southeastern flank when making decisions on arms sales in the region.”

He added, “I ask you, members of Congress, not to forget a wound that Hellenism has suffered for 48 years and which is still not healed. I refer to the aggression in Cyprus and the violent division of the island. No one will ever accept two separate states in Cyprus.” Mitsotakis received a standing ovation at the US Congress.

Replying to Mitsotakis’ speech in Washington, Erdoğan said: “For me, there is no such person as Mitsotakis anymore. We go with politicians with personality and honor. Let Mitsotakis think from now on. The US will probably not make a decision based on his mouth.”

However, the US State Department announced the lifting of the arms embargo on Cyprus for the fiscal year 2023 on Friday. US military bases in Greece have grown in line with NATO’s military deployment against Russia, even as Ankara faced US sanctions over its military ties with Moscow.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry denounced the US sanctions decision, stating: “We strongly condemn the expansion of the scope of the decision taken by the US in September 2020 to lift the arms embargo towards the Greek Cypriot Administration. We fully support the reaction of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) authorities regarding the said decision.”

It continued: “This decision, which is in contradiction to the principle of equality of the two sides on the Island, and which will further strengthen the Greek Cypriot side’s intransigence, will negatively affect the efforts to resettle the Cyprus issue; and it will lead to an arms race on the Island, harming peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean. We call on the US to reconsider this decision and to pursue a balanced policy towards the two sides on the Island.”

The bourgeois press in both Greece and Turkey use nationalist rhetoric to promote the reactionary geopolitical interests of their own governments and to divide the working class. The possibility of this chauvinist demagogy escalating into a military confrontation between these two NATO member states is very real. NATO’s war on Russia in Ukraine and the surge of military tensions throughout the Balkans and Central Asia is pouring fuel on the fire.

African countries face double whammy of debt crisis and food crisis

Jean Shaoul

Earlier this year, the World Bank warned that “60 percent of the poorest countries were already in debt distress or at high risk of it”—mainly in Africa—and that up to a dozen risked default over the next 12 months.

The largest spate of debt crises in developing economies in a generation threatens a social and humanitarian catastrophe for a continent already reeling from plummeting prices for its export-based commodities, the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the criminal response of the ruling classes, taking their lead from the “let it rip” policies of the imperialist powers.

Africa has witnessed soaring prices for food, fuel and fertilisers, depleting foreign exchange reserves, in the wake of the US/NATO-led war against Russia in Ukraine. Twenty-three of Africa’s 54 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for more than half the imports of one of their staple goods. Some countries are even more reliant: Sudan, Egypt, Tanzania, Eritrea and Benin import 80 percent of their wheat and Algeria, Sudan and Tunisia more than 95 percent of sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine.

They are also seeing higher prices across the board, exacerbating hunger under conditions where ruling elites across the continent refuse to divert even the most meagre resources towards alleviating poverty and use brute force to impose mass suffering.

Herder Yusuf Abdullahi walks past the carcasses of his forty goats that died of hunger in Dertu, Wajir County, Kenya on Oct. 24, 2021. The aid agency Oxfam International warned Tuesday, March 22, 2022 that widespread hunger across East Africa could become "a catastrophe" without an injection of funds to the region's most vulnerable communities. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)

Global inflation has pushed millions into poverty. The World Bank has warned that the number of Africans living in extreme poverty is set to rise from 424 million before the pandemic in 2019 to 463 million this year, more than one third of the continent’s 1.2 billion population. Millions face starvation as the World Food Programme’s appeal for $24 billion—to reach 153 million people in 2022—is only half funded as the major powers divert resources to the war effort.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has seen prices rise by more than 20 percent while its currency, the naira, has fallen by 25 percent against the dollar since the start of the year, despite an increase of 250 basis points in interest rates since May. In Ethiopia, prices are up 32 percent and the birr’s value has fallen to about 82 against the dollar on the informal market, down from 60 at the beginning of June. In Ghana, prices are up 31 per and the currency is plunging while Accra has raised rates aggressively to stem the collapse.

Following a decade of rising debt, with Eurobond finance as the main element, that saw public borrowing in 65 developing countries rise by 18 percent of GDP and in sub-Saharan Africa by 27 percent of GDP, the pandemic increased total indebtedness of both so-called emerging markets and developing economies to their highest level in 50 years, equal to more than 250 percent of government revenues.

Nearly 60 percent of the poorest countries were already in debt distress or at high risk of it, while debt servicing levels in middle-income countries were at their highest levels in 30 years as charges tripled between 2010 and 2021.

Zambia defaulted on its debts in late 2020 and Mali in early 2022. Now larger African countries are viewed as unlikely to be able to make $21.5 billion in repayments of their Eurobonds, excluding the cost of servicing these loans. This includes Ghana, which owes more than $4 billion to bondholders between June 2022 and May 2027, Kenya, with a bond repayment bill of almost $3 billion for the next five years, and Ethiopia with a $1 billion Eurobond due in 2024, amid ongoing conflicts affecting several parts of the country. The ability to pay of Nigeria, which owes almost $2 billion in Eurobond repayments, is also in doubt.

With most of their loans coming from commercial creditors, as opposed to governments and the multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), their debts now involve variable interest rates which means their charges are set to rise as interest rates follow the rise in the US, European Central Bank and the United Kingdom. This is likely to precipitate significant capital outflows and force Africa’s central banks to raise interest rates, thereby plunging their economies into recession.

With much of their debt denominated in dollars, which have seen a sharp rise in value, debt servicing charges will rise even higher. This is forcing Sub-Saharan African nations to seek debt relief or restructure simply to repay their creditors, largely European and American.

US-China rivalry in Africa, which has become a key battleground of competing interests, is making it even more difficult for African countries to reschedule their debts. Washington has sought to portray the continent’s rising indebtedness as the result of China’s loans that are aimed at gaining political leverage and seizing African assets when states default as part of its increasingly bellicose stance towards Beijing.

While China’s lending expanded rapidly from the early 2000s to resource-rich African states, particularly to oil producers, after 2015 as commodity prices and growth rates fell, lending fell sharply from a high of $29.5 billion in 2016 to $7.6 billion in 2019 and has continued falling. Its loans were primarily for infrastructure projects to build and upgrade over 10,000 kilometres of railway, around 100,000 kilometres highway, 1,000 bridges and 100 ports, as well as power plants, hospitals and schools. China now accounts for about one-fifth of all lending to Africa.

As Debt Justice pointed out in a report last July drawing on World Bank data, African countries' Chinese loans, mainly from state-owned banks, are a third of their loans from non-Chinese private lenders, while interest rates are just over half (2.7 percent compared to 5 percent). It found that Chinese public and private lenders accounted for just 12 percent of the continent's $696 billion external debts in 2020, compared to the 35 percent owed to other private creditors.

The US government and the World Bank has sought to undermine China’s lending to Africa by categorising the China Development Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as “official creditors” or state institutions even though they lend at commercial rates. This makes them liable to debt freezes under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) and the Common Framework, schemes so fraught with restrictions that only Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia have applied, while the mostly Western private lenders are exempt from such restrictions.

The result has been to make it all but impossible for African states to obtain debt relief from the multilateral organisations, while enriching US creditors.

Zambia is a case in point. While earlier this month the IMF approved a $1.3 billion loan to Zambia, which defaulted in 2020 on its $17.3 billion of external debt, much of this will go to BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, which holds $220 million of Zambia’s debt bought at half their nominal value. According to Debt Justice, BlackRock stand to make 110 percent profit for itself and its clients if debt interest payments are paid in full.

The combined effect of the debt and cost of living crises in Africa’s impoverished countries, where 60 percent of its 1.2 billion population is under the age of 25 and nearly one billion are under the age of 35, leaves most struggling to eke out a living. The last months have seen mass protests and strikes in Sudan, Tunisia, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria expressing anger over social conditions and against the ruling elites that have imposed them.

Mine workers sing as they wait for the start of commemoration ceremonies near Marikana in Rustenburg, South Africa, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. South Africa marks on Tuesday 10 years since the Marikana massacre, where 44 people were killed during a mine strike at a platinum mine near Rustenburg, North West province in August 2012. [AP Photo/Themba Hadebe]

EU-ECOWAS Scholarships Programme on sustainable energy 2022

Application Deadline:

23rd September 2022 at 18.00 WAT.

Tell Me About Award:

The EU-ECOWAS Scholarship programme provides scholarships for masters’ degrees in the sustainable energy sector at specialised universities in West Africa (Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo) for the benefit of eligible students from ECOWAS member states involved in the energy sector.  

The programme aims to improve access to high-quality training in the sustainable energy sector in West Africa, enabling university graduates with a focus on young professionals (English, French and Portuguese speaking) in the ECOWAS member states to acquire the profile required to meet the growing demand for specialists at the highest level in the field of sustainable energy and to promote good governance of the sector in the region.  

What Type of Award is this?

Scholarship

How are Applicants Selected?

The EU-ECOWAS Scholarship application form collects responses from applicants who are interested to complete a master’s programme in the energy sector from shortlisted universities. The scholarship selection process will analyse the information collected through the application form against the following criteria: 

• Be nationals of a member state of ECOWAS or Mauritania and being resident in ECOWAS’ region or Mauritania  
• Have at least a bachelor’s degree with First Class or Second Class (Upper Division)  
• Have undertaken studies at least at bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, energy and environment (including renewable energy and energy efficiency), law, economics, finance and planning as deemed by the entry requirements of the chosen university
• Work experience in the energy sector in West Africa will be an added advantage  
• Hold (at least) provisional admission into an approved course of study at the time of scholarship approval 
• Scholarship is open to working and non-working candidates. Working candidates are required to provide letter of release from their employer to complete the course for the duration of the programme 
• Commitment to publish at least 1 practice-oriented research before the end of the programme 
• Commitment to start internships within the course of study.  

Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. If more candidates match the selection criteria than there are places available, they will be ranked according to the results of their last year of study and professional experience. 

Which Countries are Eligible?

African countries

How Many Positions will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Award?

The two types of scholarships available on the programme are: 

Mobile Scholarships;

Scholars are selected to complete their master’s program in higher education institutions located outside their country of residence. The scholarship will provide funding for tuition, subsistence, travel, research grant, insurance and visa.  

Stationary Scholarships;

Scholars are selected to complete their master’s program in higher education institutions located in their country of residence. The scholarship will take care of scholars’ tuition and research grant. A small stipend to contribute towards travel and subsistence will also be provided. 

Scholarships will be awarded on a limited number of best qualifying people, to meet budget restrictions. Applicants are encouraged to consider factors such as language, proximity, family, and opportunities for internship in your decision making when selecting your most preferred scholarship category.

How to Apply for Program?

Apply below

Visit Award Webpage for Details

UK: Fragmentation and Decline Under Conservative Rule

Graham Peebles

Image by A Perry.

After 12 bleak years of various Conservative governments, led by inadequate Prime Ministers, the UK is on its knees. Democracy is under attack like never before; the disaster of Brexit, which has resulted in a catalogue of negatives including social polarization, isolationism and rabid tribalism.

Years of grinding austerity, underinvestment in public services, frozen wages and staggering levels of incompetence have culminated in the unmitigated mess we see before us: A country in terminal decline, poverty growing, inequality entrenched, and to cap it all The Wicked Witch of the raving Right, Liz Truss, has now been elected leader of the Conservatives, and, as they are in office, the new Prime Minister. A totally undemocratic electoral process, but hey, ‘that’s the way it’s always been’.

She was voted in, in a country of around 69 million people, by 81,326 (57.4% of the total gaggle) Conservative members. A tiny group, overwhelmingly old, posh, white, male, anti-Europe, anti-immigrant, anti-environment – pro-fossil fuels, backward-looking nationalists. A crazy bunch operating within a dysfunctional system that, like much of the UK parliamentary structure and the primordial electoral model, desperately needs reforming.

The revolting campaign rhetoric spouted by Truss, was we hoped, just that, ranting rhetoric aimed solely at the conservative golf club nobs. Alas, in her first pronouncements as PM, surrounded by baying Tory sycophants, it was clear that Truss lives not in the real world at all, but in a crumbling castle for one, built on a foundation of Neo-Liberal doctrine, situated further to the right than any UK Prime-Minister in recent years.

Despite decades of disappointment, whenever a new PM/government takes office, naivety gives rise to a prickle of optimism: surely now things will improve, surely social justice will be prioritized, peace and environmental action imperatives. Well, PM Truss swiftly crushed any such childish hopes with her first speech in parliament and her wooden responses during Prime Minister’s Questions. Arrogance masquerading as certainty imbued every cruel statement of policy intent, and, as opposition parties shook their heads in disbelief, people around the country, millions of whom are struggling to pay rising energy bills and increased food prices, were again crushed.

Truss, her cabinet, and thanks to a purge of moderate voices undertaken by Boris Johnson to quieten dissent, most, if not all of the parliamentary party, is now firmly wedded to an extreme version of Neo-Liberalism and the failed doctrine of Trickle Down economics. After forty years of most boats being sunk by the rising tide, the Ideology of Injustice has been shown to deepen inequality, intensify poverty and further concentrate wealth in the pockets of The Already Wealthy.

In addition to economic plans designed to benefit corporations and, by her own admission, intensify inequality (‘I’m not interested in re-distribution’ she told the BBC), she plans to increase military spending, allow global energy companies to restart gas extraction in the North Sea, end the moratorium on fracking and abolish green levies, which are used to fund energy efficiency and renewable electricity. She despises labor rights and the Trades Union movement, peaceful public protest and immigrants, all of which she is threatening to criminalize or clutter with so much bureaucracy as to make such human rights unenforceable.

Her policies, dogmatism and the doctrine that underpin them are, in many ways, terrifying. And with the suspension of parliament and consequently, any form of scrutiny, resulting from the death of The Queen, there is a danger, or for her, an opportunity, that she attempts to introduce legislation under cover of national mourning. If Truss and her gang get their way, the limited form of democracy that exists in the UK will become a distant memory, rather as ethics and honesty in public office, compassion and honoring international commitments have in recent years.

Rising misery

The list of national crises that the Truss government inherits, most if not all of which she had a grubby hand in causing, is long, and growing. As is public anger. It is a list resulting from ideological obsession, gross incompetence and absenteeism.

The National Health Service (NHS) is in crisis – years of underfunding, lack of training and Brexit, which saw thousands of NHS workers from Europe leave the UK, have led to around 135,000 vacancies, including 40,000 nurses and over 8,000 doctors in England alone. The service has the longest waiting lists for routine treatments on record; if you dial 999 for and ambulance, it could be hours, or in extreme cases days before it arrives. Social care is dysfunctional; there is a housing crisis, property prices are sky high, rents are unaffordable, tenancies offer no security homelessness is increasing – according to Government figures, “between January to March 2022, 74,230 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness,” up 5.4% in the same period in 2021, a further 38,000 were regarded as at “risk of homelessness”.

Inflation is at 10.1% and rising, recession predicted, poverty booming. Thousands of people/families (many of whom are in full-time employment) rely on food banks for basic supplies – over two million people visited a food bank last year, and this doesn’t include independent providers – local charities, churches etc. Ten years ago food banks barely existed in the UK, now there are estimated to be 2,572, and constitute a growth area.

The privatization of utility companies including water in 1989 under Thatcher, has led to energy and water companies making huge profits for shareholders (£72bn in dividends), but neglecting consumers and failing to invest. Since water was privatized no new reservoirs have been commissioned (in 33 years), and, The Guardian reports,“2.4bn liters [of water] a day on current estimates have been allowed to leak away.” Airports including Heathrow, have had to limit the number of flights due to lack of staff; the airport authorities and airlines use the ‘It’s not us it’s Covid’ excuse, so loved by companies and government agencies who laid off too many employees during the pandemic and either haven’t re-hired enough, or employees refused to return unless wages and conditions improved.

The judiciary is in crisis, as is the prison system and the police, particularly in London; childcare and nursery education is shambolic, unaffordable for most, hard to find, limited places, particularly for those on average incomes; again due in part to lack of properly trained staff. It is, it seems an endless list, shameful and intensely depressing, There may however be a glimmer of light within the storm; a positive effect of this cacophony of chaos is a growing movement of resistance to economic injustice, and Trades Union industrial action.

Enough is Enough

Wages for most people in the UK have been effectively frozen for years; and now, with rising inflation income is reducing in value, economic hardship intensifying, fury rising. Unions, which have been greatly weakened in the last thirty years through restrictive legislation have rediscovered their courage and purpose, and in response to members demands have organised strikes in a number of areas. Most notably, railway and Transport for London workers have withdrawn their labor on a number of occasions in disputes over pay and conditions; refuse workers in Scotland have been on strike over pay; postal workers have also been striking; junior barristers are on indefinite strike over pay; workers at the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe recently withdrew their labour for eight days in another dispute about pay. Nurses and doctors working in the NHS are threatening industrial action, as are teachers.

The leader of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, who has emerged as a leading voice for the people, has suggested that, “unions are on the brink of calling for ‘synchronized’ strikes over widespread anger at how much soaring inflation is outpacing wages.” If such a positive step were taken it would be a powerful act of resistance against years of exploitation and injustice, and may further empower working people, who for years have been silenced.

In parallel with the workers revolt is a social movement of defiance. Initially triggered by high energy bills, rising costs and low wages, the scope of disquiet is expanding to include outrage at huge profits for energy companies and other corporations, increasing payments to shareholders whilst the majority struggle to feed themselves and their families, i.e. its about social injustice, exploitation and greed. Two movements of resistance and change have emerged from the widespread disquiet – ‘Don’t Pay’, which aims to empower people to not pay increased energy bills, and ‘Enough is Enough’, which is a broader social movement founded by union leaders and MPs.

The appearance of these groups is deeply encouraging and could prove to be a pivotal moment. Many people, the majority perhaps, are worn down, ashamed of where the country fins itself, and have had enough. Enough of being ignored and manipulated; of being told to ‘tighten their belts’ and ‘carry on’, whilst corporations, public/private companies including energy firms, pay out huge dividends and government ministers, spineless, unprincipled puppets, who live in the silk-lined pockets of big business, including most notably the media barons, lie and lie and lie again.

In the face of increasing levels of social injustice, government duplicity and economic hardship, eventually the people must unite and revolt. If after the endless pantomime of the Queen’s funeral people do come together, refuse to pay rising energy costs; refuse to work, refuse to be exploited and marginalized; refuse to stand by while the natural world is vandalised; if the unions do take coordinated action, and many of us would support such a progressive act, there is a chance, slim, but real, that years of frustration and anger, can be turned into empowerment and hope.

New Zealand: Auckland University of Technology sacks over 230 staff

John Braddock

The Auckland University of Technology (AUT), in New Zealand’s biggest city, has announced that over 230 jobs will be axed after a review of courses with low enrolments. About 150 full-time equivalent academic and 80 general professional staff positions will go, but counting part-timers the numbers will be much more. Administration and support roles have also been targeted.

Vice-chancellor Damon Salesa said costs had increased and international student numbers significantly reduced. There are also fewer domestic students because school leavers are choosing to work instead of study,  doubtless due to the deteriorating economic climate. 

Entrance to AUT South Campus [Photo by PlanningAUT]

Salesa told Radio NZ (RNZ): “We expect those challenges to continue into 2023 and beyond so it's not just the short-term challenge that we're facing, it’s clearly in the middle term and some of these changes have been evident from before COVID.” It will take years to rebuild foreign student enrolments and it is unlikely they would return to pre-COVID levels, Salesa said.

AUT has 4,354 staff and predicts a decline of at least 1,100 students. Salesa claimed AUT had “protected staff” during the COVID pandemic while other universities made cuts but would now reduce spending by $NZ21 million a year. AUT made a $12.8 million surplus last year, almost double the $6.8 million forecast.

The programmes being disestablished include Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees in Social Sciences, Conflict Resolution, Japanese Studies, Chinese Studies and Asian Studies, English and New Media, a Language teaching minor and a certificate in Science and Technology. Under review are “non-core” activities including an early childhood centre, drone lab, and a textile design lab.

Prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic international students, who pay much higher, unsubsidised fees, were used as cash cows to prop up the universities. Foreign student numbers fell from 28,150 in 2019 to 21,510 in 2020 and to 14,440 in 2021. Income from fees fell from $579.7 million in 2019 to $348.5m last year, a decline of 40 percent. While study applications are now said to be recovering with the borders reopened, they are running at only 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

In August, Massey University also proposed a restructure affecting a possible 150 jobs. The cuts at Massey and AUT add to some 700 jobs lost across seven of the eight universities in late 2020. Groups representing postgraduate students said universities also slashed the hours of thousands of people with casual lecturing and tutoring roles.

Shan, a student in his third year of the AUT Creative Writing program and president of the Creative Writing Club told the WSWS that AUT has “really gone down in the humanities even though record profits were made. Much of what I loved is now going or gone.” 

Shan said 7 or 8 papers are discontinued or not being held this semester for the BA in Creative Writing. “In the Prose/fiction papers, the club is disillusioned with AUT. Creative writing is the backbone of many students, and it's a shame to see it being picked apart,” he declared. There is now no place for a BA in Creative Writing at either AUT or Auckland University. “Many of my fellow club members are very unhappy with this trend,” he said, and students are considering mounting a petition to the faculty to restore the full program.

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) meanwhile is preparing to collaborate with the mass sackings. Speaking to RNZ, TEU national secretary Tina Smith put on a show of being “shocked and horrified by the depth of the cuts,” declaring that the numbers of AUT staff involved were “really horrific.” 

Smith made no mention however of any industrial and political program to oppose the cuts, but simply offered futile advice to the administration. Cutting courses and students was “short-term thinking and not the right approach,” she said. “Yes, it’s going to be a bit of a rocky time—but what you do in a rocky time is you stand together, you hold tight and you say “we’re going to take the long view’,” Smith advised.

AUT branch organiser Jill Jones declared staff were “bitterly disappointed” by the cuts and the union would “do everything” it could to oppose them. However, Jones admitted that the university had already instituted a “hiring freeze,” a “voluntary” leaving scheme and a travel ban, all with no sign of any resistance from the union.

Throughout years of funding cuts and attacks on jobs and wages, the TEU has collaborated in imposing the dictates of university administrations, governments and big business. Like all the unions, its perspective has been to isolate staff between institutions, suppress industrial action and call for “consultation” over how cuts are to be carried through.

The financial crisis of 2008 ushered in a period of intense university restructuring, with widespread layoffs, soaring student fees and debt, and cuts to admissions, courses and libraries. Average salaries have not kept up with inflation since 2007-8. The University of Auckland, the country’s biggest, saw salaries decline by 17 percent in real terms. The TEU collaborated with all these attacks, calling only for staff to be “brought along with the changes.”

The agenda of successive governments has been facilitated by the influence of petty bourgeois identity politics, in which the TEU is immersed. Salesa’s appointment as vice-chancellor in November 2021 was hailed as a significant event. Of Samoan descent, Salesa was the first Pacific Island Vice Chancellor at a New Zealand university. The TEU enthusiastically tweeted in response: “What a moment! We look forward to working with you.”

The TEU has preoccupied itself with gender and racial issues. Listed at the top of the “Campaigns” section of its website is a “Gender Equity Toolkit.” This provides information and support “to build collective action towards gender equity in your workplace,” including “tips, tricks, and resources to use in your union mahi [Maori for “work”]” and links to the TEU Women’s Network.

Under conditions where the unions have, for decades, collaborated with the assault on the social conditions of working people, an upper middle class layer in the unions and academia have promoted such programs to divide the working class along gender and ethnic lines. Their role has been to boost the career and remuneration prospects of a privileged elite—including within the TEU itself. The union’s 2022 Annual Report shows that with a small base of just 10,000 members, “staff related” costs amounted to $3,151,871, pointing to a well-heeled bureaucracy.

The TEU has also declared that it is “moving towards a Te Tiriti-led union,” meaning that the union’s constitution, rules and operations are being amended to embed the Treaty of Waitangi in “everything we do.” This has nothing to do with defending the jobs, wages and class interests of its members and the wider working class.

The treaty, signed by Maori chiefs and representatives of British imperialism in 1840, has been elevated to the status of a national founding document. It has for decades been used as a mechanism to elevate a section of Maori entrepreneurs, academics and public servants into the political establishment in order to contain anti-capitalist and opposition sentiment among the impoverished Maori population. 

The Labour government is currently restructuring the polytechnic system, merging 16 trades training institutions nationwide into a single entity, forecast to save $52 million per annum from 2023 and requiring the shedding of a large number of jobs. 

The TEU is, however, channeling members into a corporatist “consultation” process which involves making submissions on the organisation’s proposed “operating structure.” The first “principle” in the union’s submission is to “Honour the Treaty” by creating a “Māori partnership and equity space,” which will only benefit a privileged layer of cultural advisors and bureaucrats.