World Review: Mexico’s New President, Modi’s Third Term, Biden’s Cease-Fire Plan
A brief synopsis of this week's show
Each Friday morning, I host a video podcast called “World Review with Ivo Daalder” where three journalists from major news outlets around the world join me in discussing the latest global news stories of the week.
This morning, June 7, I was joined by Deborah Amos of Princeton University, Bobby Ghosh of Bloomberg, and David Luhnow of the Wall Street Journal.
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While I encourage you to watch or listen to the episode (and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!), here are a couple of interesting things I took away from our discussion:
2024 is the year of elections, and this week we saw some big ones — with surprising results. In Mexico, the presidential favorite, Claudia Sheinbaum, not only cruised to victory but her party out-performed the polls by a significant margin, putting Moreno in firm control of the federal and many state governments. Sheinbaum is the anointed successor of the immensely popular outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and campaigned on continuing his policies and record. She is also Mexico’s first female president, notable in a country that prides itself on its machismo, and the first Jewish president. The big question, David asked, is whether once in power she will steer her own path or follow that of AMLO. There are reasons to think she may deviate from her predecessors in important ways. A climate scientists and political actor in her own right (she was mayor of Mexico City until recently), Sheinbaum may well return Mexico to the path of renewable energy production that AMLO abandoned and pursue a different course on dealing with the rising crime wave and violence, which AMLO was unable and unwilling to stem.
Another big election occurred in India, where Narendra Modi won a third term – but his party fell well short of the overall parliamentary majority it had expected to win. Bobby saw the outcome as a repudiation of Modi, both for his failure to address the rising inequality in the country and for his decision to make this election all about him. Ten years in power is a long time for anyone; only Jawaharlal Nehru served three terms as prime minister in India before now. The problem with being in power for a long time is that you can no longer promise change effectively and elections become referenda on the past rather than about the future. Dissatisfaction in India was growing, especially among the 600-800 million people still living in poverty, and also with minority groups and secular people who were put off by Modi’s increasingly strident Hindu nationalism. But will Modi change? Bobby surmised he wouldn’t. This is a populist who believes he knows best, and even an electoral setback of this magnitude will only work to reinforce his conviction in his own righteousness.
Finally, we looked at Israel and the political impact of President Biden’s proposed peace plan for Gaza. In announcing the plan a week ago, Biden emphasized that the proposal had been tabled by Israel and that the ball was now firmly in Hamas’s court to end the war. But while the Israeli war cabinet had endorsed the plan, the full cabinet had not. Biden’s unexpected public embrace of the plan caused a frenzy in Israel’s politics that, Deb suggested, would make it almost impossible for Israel to stand by the plan and ensure its implementation. Netanyahu, while never formally rejecting the plan, made clear that his goals had not changed: the release of all hostages and the destruction of Hamas. A ceasefire, followed by a permanent end to hostilities, might achieve the former but maybe not the latter. How Netanyahu crawls out of this dilemma is still to be seen — unless, of course, Hamas rejects the plan, giving the Israeli government the excuse to continue the war.
That’s it for my quick takes of this week’s episode here on America Abroad. To get the full flavor, please listen to the episode itself.