TWTW: The World This Week / Episode #11
Into the last week before America votes and we await results from three other countries … Brazil, Denmark, Israel … Germany and France still at odds … and our cartoon: Chinese voters’ Hobson’s choice.
This weekly feature for Andelman Unleashed, explores how the media of other nations are reporting and commenting on the United States, and how they are viewing the rest of the world.
This week coming to you from Paris….where, making good on the latest installment of our Unleashed pledge to follow every national election in the world, we have three—Brazil, Denmark, and Israel—in the next three days. Separately, we shall be covering the results of each of these elections as they unfold.
How Others See America
Barely a week to go on the hustings
Le Monde is focused on the role of Barack Obama, who the French daily’s Washington correspondent Piotr Smolar is bird-dogging from Atlanta to Michigan to Wisconsin. Obama, he observes, having finally emerged on the campaign trail, is beginning with a campaign stop for Senator Raphael Warnock and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, “sounding a general mobilization for democrats.”
As Smolar reports, “His dazzling smile, his rolled-up sleeves, his rhythmic diction, his good words that elicit laughter from the audience, his sophisticated phrases that demand attention. Friday, October 28 in Atlanta (Georgia), in an enthusiastic convention center, Barack Obama entered, eleven days before the ballot, campaigning for the mid-term elections.”
In its lead report, London’s weekly The Economist, under its rubric, “The United States: Anti-democratic front,” asks and answers, “Why the Republicans’ anti-democracy turn has become normalized. Post-Donald Trump’s presidency, the party isn’t post-Trump at all.”
The Economist begins with a visit to Pennsylvania, perhaps the ultimate toss-up state: “‘If you leave the press area, you will be physically removed,’ your correspondent is admonished by a campaign worker as he enters an American Legion hall in the town of Easton, Pennsylvania. Trips to the toilet and to get water are permissible with an escort. Some 200 people are assembled—many sporting red ‘Make America Great Again’ caps, one proudly wearing a shirt saying ‘ultra maga’. They are all here for Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in the state, and perhaps the most extreme candidate for governor running in this election cycle.”
The Israeli daily Ha’aretz is spotlighting a host of different elections to give readers a sense of the disparate forces at work in America and especially its Jewish community. “AIPAC, J Street take rival sides in tight congressional race in Nebraska,” correspondent Ben Samuels writes from Washington. “AIPAC is supporting incumbent Rep. Don Bacon, while J Street is backing his Democratic rival Tony Vargas. While both have pro-Israel bona fides, the GOP candidate has called for a nationwide abortion ban.” Samuels also notes the role Obama is beginning to play: “Pennsylvania election defined by far-right extremism draws Obama and Trump. The two former presidents will visit the Keystone State, where antisemitism and ties to white supremacists have become a major issue in the race for governor between Republican Doug Mastriano and Democrat Josh Shapiro.” Samuels is also focusing on “Ohio race set to provide rare phenomenon: A Republican Jewish lawmaker”; and Pennsylvania where “Pro-Israeli groups spend big in tight Senate race between Fetterman and Oz.”
How Others See the World
A new regime in Brazil?
The front page of Le Monde leads with a banner headline across its Saturday edition’s front page, “Brazil: an election with global repercussions.” The paper has its attention fixed on the Amazon, which incumbent Trump-clone Jair Bolsonaro has done his best to destroy during his first term in office. He is being challenged by former president Lula da Silva, who most polls say has a narrow edge in a runoff less than a month after the two eliminated a gaggle of other candidates and now, on Sunday, are going head-to-head.
Closer to home, neighboring Venezuela’s daily El Nacional headlines, “Trump call for a vote for Bolsonaro and calls Lula a lunatic.”
El Nacional, of course, is the paper deeply in opposition to Venezuela’s own home-grown dictator Nicolas Maduro, who is himself expected to stand for re-election in 2024. Last year, French television network France 24 highlighted “the seizure of the headquarters of the newspaper El Nacional, critic of the Maduro government, to cover the 13 million dollars in compensation that a court ordered it to pay to a senior [Maduro] official, following a libel suit.” Now back in business, El Nacional quotes Trump as saying in his Truth Social website, Bolsonaro “will never let you down!” The paper continues “the far-right president [Trump] describes as ‘a great and respected leader, who also happens to be a great guy with a big heart.’”
The fact is the world is watching and holding its breath for tomorrow’s vote. London’s The Economist notes “reports across Brazil tell of transport companies that plan to give drivers the election weekend off, but only if they plan to vote for Mr Bolsonaro [whose] campaign has received more than 86 million reals [$16.2 million] in private donations, compared with 1.7 million [$321,000] for Lula (who has got more public money because his party is bigger.)” Then the magazine concludes, “one of two maxims about Brazilian elections is bound to be upturned. Since the country’s return to democracy in 1985, the candidate who was ahead in the first round of the election has always gone on to win the run-off. But a sitting president has never lost.”
Germany’s Deutsche Welle is focusing on “Bolsonaro, Lula clash in final [150 minute] debate…full of personal attacks—[this] was Bolsonaro’s chance to sway undecided voters in his favor. But political analysts believe he has squandered the opportunity.” Then, getting into the substance, Deutsche Welle observes “the debate quickly deviated to personal attacks as the two argued about the minimum wage and corruption charges. ‘Brazilians know who the liar is,’ da Silva said….‘Lies, Lula! Do I have to perform an exorcism on you to get you to stop lying?’”
Two on Tuesday…first, Denmark
It’s a “snap general election” according to Euronews. Focusing heavily on immigration and security, it actually came to pass as a direct result of one action by “Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen [who] has headed a minority Social Democratic government since June 2019, but her popularity has slumped over the last few months due to her role in a pandemic-era decision to cull Denmark’s entire captive mink population…..
“…..A commission appointed by parliament harshly criticized Frederiksen's government for its decision to order the killing of millions of healthy mink at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to protect humans from a mutation of the virus. That saw one of the government’s centre-left allies, the Social Liberal Party, threaten a confidence vote unless Frederiksen promised to call an early election.” Well, okay then, 17 million minks are gone. And on Tuesday, voters will speak.
….then, Israel
The same day the Danes hold their snap elections, Israelis go back to the polls yet again with Benjamin Netanyahu counting on a host of forces to propel him back into power he lost just four months ago in a nation which has grown sadly accustomed to a revolving political door at the top. The French weekly Le Point, places Netanyahu “in pole position….charged with corruption, [he] is aiming for a return to power after the November 1 legislative elections, the fifth in less than four years in Israel, this time against a backdrop of push from the far right and division of the Arab vote. If Mr. Netanyahu fought his last electoral battles with the cap of ‘Rosh HaMemshela’, ‘Prime Minister’ in French, he is entering the ring this time in the position of leader of the opposition against the head of the outgoing government, Yaïr Lapid.”
There are a host of issues for voters to contemplate. At the top is security. And the most recent hotspot, the newly-negotiated maritime border between Israel and Lebanon which Al Jazeera describes as a “US-brokered maritime border deal….The two neighbours have no official relations, but a maritime agreement opens up the possibility for exploitation of reserves in the gas-rich Mediterranean Sea.”
At the same time, there is no shortage of recriminations from both sides—especially over the issue of whether the agreement explicitly or even implicitly represents each country recognizing the other. “Beirut has sought to avoid framing the agreement as normalisation with Israel,” Al Jazeera continues, “insisting that another annexed schedule signed by both sides at the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura [would] be signed in separate rooms. Lebanese president Michel] Aoun countered the Israeli claim that the deal meant that Lebanon had implicitly recognised Israel. ‘Demarcating the southern maritime border is technical work that has no political implications,’ Aoun said.”
Paris – Berlin
Neither side is very happy about the way the other is behaving—badly—these days. Even President Emmanuel Macron’s make-nice luncheon invitation to Chancellor Olaf Scholz didn’t go all that well. Even before it started, Scholz’s people let it be known that there’d be a joint press conference following the confab. Then the Elysée said there wouldn’t.
So on one side, Le Monde’s correspondent in Brussels, Virginie Malingre, and in Berlin Thomas Wieder, write “Behind the differences between Paris and Berlin, the isolation of Scholz's Germany….The chancellor is criticized in Europe for having taken important decisions without consultation with his partners. A dispute which reflects on the Franco-German couple….Beyond these tactical considerations, remains the diagnosis: that of a Germany which, by its positions, would show itself above all concerned with defending its own interests, at the expense of its European partners.”
From the other side, perhaps not so much sympathy as the chancellor might have hoped. “Berlin owes answers,” the columnist Michaela Wiegel observes in the leading national daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The Chancellor's trip to Paris should have been undertaken much earlier. In energy and military policy, Germany will have to pay more attention to France. Vladimir Putin's declared war goal is to split and weaken the European Union. In the past few days it has sometimes seemed as if he has managed to damage the Franco-German engine of the European integration process. In Brussels, Berlin and Paris demonstrated their disagreement. The more than three-hour debate in Paris between the Chancellor and the French President was overdue. It is significant that it was agreed that working groups would openly discuss the most important conflict issues relating to energy, armaments, security, but also innovation and growth, and that compromise approaches would be found.
As Germany’s ARD network’s Paris correspondent Sabine Wachs put it on the lead evening news broadcast Tagesschau: “Unfavorable starting conditions, small power games: Even after Chancellor Scholz's visit to Paris, Franco-German relations are not completely in order again. There is a lack of mutual understanding—the problems lie deeper. The Chancellor's black limousine stood in front of the gate of the Elysée Palace for a good five minutes before it could drive into the stately courtyard. Scholz was on time to the minute. But host Macron made him wait. This little power play on the French side is just another expression of the ugly kindergarten that is currently taking place in Franco-German relations.”
And then there’s Stellina….
Not surprisingly, the great Taiwanese cartoonist Stellina, is reflecting on electoral choices of her Chinese neighbors across the straits on the mainland.
Stellina draws for News Lens International and is a member of the Cartooning for Peace collective. And if you want to see what she really thinks of herself and her view of the world? Oh my.