Democratic struggle roundup

There is so much going on in the world it is sometimes hard to keep up with it all.  I read at least one site that is trying, but even he is focusing on actions having to do with Democratic struggle.

So here’s my Publius pundit roundup.

Egypt just had a second round of elections to fill up their parliament.  This is significant because you can only run for president if your party has at least 65 members in that body.

Mubarak’s ruling party is still in a majority, but the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an extremist group, has 76 seats.  The other reformist parties have a combined 10. 

Kirk Sowell argues that we need to remove any aid or financing we give them and get tough.  That oppositions parties are having such a hard time is from the government suppressing opposition.  They MB election wins are because they are running as independents and not under the MB party banner (which was outlawed in Egypt).

They are having elections in Venezuela again too.  This time all the opposition parties pulled out of the election, leaving Hurricane Hugo’s party as the only game in town.  They did this out of protest of Chavez’s rigged election practices. 

There were also some riots and general mayhem around the country.

The election results in Bolivia are around the corner.  Evo Morales just might win the presidency, and Carlos Alberto Montaner argues that the drug trade will find a haven there, Brazil will be adversely affected, the state might actually break up, fall into civil war (and take Chile with it).  Either way, the possibility exists that if Morales wins, the South American continent will be shaken.

Alvaro Vargas Llosa argues that Bolivia is in this fix because of Bolivian petty dictators who nationalized their countries and refused to see the light on opening up their markets.  Underlying this is the “enabler.”  The US propped up these petty “tinpots” in the name of political stability.

Honduras just had elections, and the incumbent president was defeated.  More on Honduras later.
Costa Rica chooses free trade!

Argentina slides further off the economic deep end.  The left leaning president down there, Kirchner, fired off all the last moderate economic advisors he had and appointed Chavez-type leftists.

Elections are probably not on the level in Armenia, where opposition boycotted the constitutional vote, and Chechnya, where the winners were handpicked by Putin and lots of the voters look like Russian soldiers.