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'Regime changes', ousters and protests: The year 2022 in review for politics
Had Russia not attacked Ukraine, the outgoing year in the political realm would have been relatively sedate compared to affairs in 2021 and 2020 as the world seemed to be in the final stages of the Covid-19 pandemic’s hangover and looked to be on the road to recovery.
As it was, and still is, with no signs of the war stopping anytime soon, the world stared down a nuclear barrel many times during the war and it is safe to say that quite no other political event in the outgoing year ever matched up to the bar set in February.
Nonetheless, that did not mean it was devoid of any noticeable political activity and indeed, Asia alone more than made up for the world’s quota of interesting political events, though much happened in Europe as well.
If there can be one theme identifiable in the more noticeable political events of 2022, it would be government change: regime changes, ousters, votes of no-confidence and so on.
‘Amreeki sazish’
This list could not have started any other way without mentioning the event that consumed the first half of the year and whose impact continues to reverberate in Pakistani society and politics.
Of course, we are talking about the chain of events that led up to a historic first in Pakistan’s politics: the successful ouster of a sitting prime minister through a vote of no confidence.
There were no-confidence motions previously but all of them failed in sailing through. Things turned out differently in 2022.
The joint opposition at the time submitted a no-confidence motion against then-prime minister Imran Khan with the National Assembly Secretariat on March 8. In the lead up to the move, Imran termed it a “foreign-funded US conspiracy”.
Before voting could commence on the motion in the April 3 NA session, the deputy speaker in a shock ruling, dismissed the no-trust motion, terming it contradictory to Article 5 of the Constitution, which mandates loyalty to the state. President Dr Arif Alvi later dissolved the NA as well.
However, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the issue and set aside the deputy speaker’s ruling and the subsequent dissolution of the lower house, ordering that voting on the no-trust motion be held on April 8.
Finally, the then-opposition’s no-trust motion against Imran succeeded an hour past midnight on April 9, with 174 members in the 342-strong house voting in favour of the resolution.
In the days to follow, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif was elected as the prime minister. The PTI, meanwhile, launched a demand for new general elections and the party chief increasingly began alleging that the establishment and former army chief Gen (R) Qamar Javed Bajwa were behind his government’s fall.
This winding saga had all the elements of a Robert Warren novel: populists, political machinations, intrigue and drama. Historians will study the events that culminated on the night of April 8 for years to come.
A dynasty’s fall
While Pakistan was dealing with the no-confidence ordeal, things were no less different, arguably even more turbulent in neighbouring in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankans suffered months of blackouts and dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines in the island’s worst economic crisis since independence, sparking weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government demonstrations. Things took a drastic turn when government supporters armed with sticks and clubs attacked protesters on May 9, injuring 78 people.
Former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned that same day but that was not enough to quell the turmoil as his brother, former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was soon to follow.
The protests escalated in intensity in the following months as hundreds of thousands of people took over government buildings in Colombo, stormed the president’s official residence and set fire to the prime minister’s home in Colombo.
The president was eventually compelled to flee the country in the wake of mounting anger and sent his resignation letter. Ranil Wickremesinghe was subsequently elected as the president and later swore in his political rival Dinesh Gunawardena as the country’s new prime minister.
Musical chairs at 10 Downing Street
Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson was no stranger to controversy, gaffes or scandals but reckless proclivities at the height of the pandemic proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back.
Revelations about partying and flouting Covid-19 standard operating procedures ignited a volley of criticism which led to key ministers resigning from their positions, ending in Johnson making an announcement on July 7 that he would step down as premier.
His successor, Elizabeth Truss, succeeded in a closely fought race with Rishi Sunak — the two were Johnson’s foreign secretary and chancellor of the exchequer, respectively — to become the UK’s third woman premier. However, Margaret Thatcher, she was not.
Soon after assuming office, she was forced to roll back her financial plans in a series of humiliating U-turns that put her job in jeopardy and also change her finance minister.
After only six weeks in office, she stepped down as the premier on October 20 and thus the game of musical chairs continued at 10 Downing Street as Sunak became the UK’s first Indian-origin prime minister on Oct 24 after other candidates quit the race.
The whole affair at once exhibited one of the strengths of the democratic order as well as its weaknesses.
During all this time, an institution of history itself, Queen Elizabeth II was also ailing and finally passed away on September 8 after a 70-year reign. King Charles was later officially proclaimed as Britain’s new monarch at the age of 73.
Israeli merry-go-round
After 15 years in office and being mired in a corruption trial, one would have thought Benjamin Netanyahu’s time as the Israeli prime minister had come to an ignoble end.
Indeed, that seemed to be the case when even more right-wing Naftali Bennett was sworn in as the premier on June 13, 2021. But, Israeli politics is fickle and fragile. Even Bennett had to rely on the support of an Arab party for his delicate coalition government.
Bennett himself was forced to step aside as he struggled to keep the coalition together and Yair Lapid became the new prime minister just 12 months after the former came into office.
Lapid’s own run was unceremoniously cut short as Netanyahu and his right-wing allies secured a clear victory and a majority in parliament in elections held in November 2022, paving the way for the veteran controversial politician to return to his long-held seat in what seemed a ride on the merry-go-round instead of getting off it.
Bye bye Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro coming to power as the Brazilian president in October 2018, the same general timeframe as former US president Donald Trump and Johnson, was widely seen by many analysts as a resurgence of right-wing politics.
Dubbed the “Tropical Trump”, he was a far-right congressman who vowed a fundamental change in direction for the giant Latin American country. He openly admired Brazil’s former military dictatorship and shocked many with his derogatory remarks on women, gays and blacks.
His rule was no less short of gaffes and blunders like fellow populists Trump and Johnson, and his most controversial policy was the downplaying of the Covid-19 pandemic while Brazil was a hotspot for the disease and his bungled response to the 2019 Amazon rainforest fire.
Perhaps it was only fitting then that he would follow in Trump’s footsteps a year after him and in the same year that saw Johnson bid farewell as well.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for “peace and unity” after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election on October 31, capping a remarkable political comeback even as Bolsonaro initially refused to accept defeat — another Trumpian trait.
In a situation which seemed to strike a bit close to home, his supporters called upon the Brazilian military to intervene and keep the right-wing president in power and staged protests. It remains to be seen how the situation in Brazil will further develop.
‘Emperor’ Xi
Arguably the most powerful man on the planet, Chinese President Xi Jinping clinched a third five-year leadership term in October as the Communist Party’s general secretary, breaking with precedent and solidifying his place as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, the founding leader of the People’s Republic of China.
Xi, 69, was also reappointed head of China’s Central Military Commission, keeping him in charge of the People’s Liberation Army.
He is now all but certain to sail through to a third term as the country’s president, due to be formally announced during the government’s annual legislative sessions in March.
In his wide-ranging acceptance speech, Xi had made signature remarks celebrating China’s rise as a global power and its success under his rule. “The world needs China,” Xi had said.
Further evidence of Xi’s global projection and might came last month when he scolded Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an on-camera dressing down at the G20 summit in an unusual public spat.
A possible challenge to his domestic might emerged with the eruption of protests across China’s cities against strict Covid-19 protocols but that threat was abated as the country moved to loosen restrictions and relax its stringent coronavirus standard operating procedures — albeit it did come at the cost of fast rising cases.
Iranian fury and fire
Since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, no other year or domestic event has posed the kind of challenge and crisis for the religious authorities that rule the country quite like the current protests rocking the nation.
Where did it all begin? With the September death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police enforcing strict hijab rules.
That started a cascade of events which led to protests across major cities of Iran, the deaths of more protesters and arrests in massive numbers. Protesters even torched the Islamic Republic’s late founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s home.
The demonstrations sparked by Amini’s death have become the most serious challenge to Iran’s clerical regime since the 1979 revolution.
With the protests in their fourth month now with no signs of abating, one cannot say what developments may occur between the time this piece is written and by the time it is published.
State authorities and international organisations have provided different figures on the death toll but at least 300 people have died in crackdowns on protests with Iran now carrying out executions as well.
International players have also jumped into the fray with sanctions against Iran and the country was expelled from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term.
Malaysia’s continuing political instability as a titan’s time comes to an end
Malaysia’s internal political turmoil may not be as exciting as some of the other entries on this list but it still merits a place here.
Emerging from the ravages of Covid-19 and a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal, former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaako dissolved parliament in October to clear the way for snap elections in a bid to restore political stability.
Malaysians went to the polls in November but the vote resulted in an unprecedented hung parliament, with neither opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim nor former premier Muhyiddin Yassin winning the simple majority needed to form a government.
The deadlock was ultimately resolved when Malaysia’s king, Sultan Abdullah Ahmad Shah, named Ibrahim as the prime minister.
Meanwhile, amid all this, the time of Malaysia’s political titan and leading figure in the Islamic world, Mahathir Mohamad, came to a likely end as the 97-year-old elder statesman lost his parliamentary seat in the polls in his first electoral defeat in more than half a century.
Shinzo Abe’s tragic assassination
A country already known for its strict gun laws, 2022 was the year when the ghost of gun violence visited Japan.
Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe, the country’s longest-serving leader, was pronounced dead on July 8 after he was shot at a campaign event.
Abe, 67, was delivering a stump speech with security present, but spectators were able to approach him fairly easily. The suspect opened fire on Abe from behind with an apparently homemade gun as he spoke at a drab traffic island in the western city of Nara.
Japanese people and world leaders expressed shock at the violence in a country in which political violence is rare and guns are tightly controlled. Japan has some of the world’s toughest gun-control laws, and annual deaths from firearms in the country of 125 million people are regularly in single figures.
Abe’s accused killer targeted the former leader believing he had ties to the Unification Church, which he resented over massive donations his mother had made to the sect.
The assassination prompted fresh scrutiny of the church and its fundraising, and uncomfortable questions for Japan’s political establishment, with the ruling party admitting around half its lawmakers had links to the religious organisation.
Prelude to World War Three?
As stated at the start, this list would be incomplete without THE seminal event of 2022, something in front of which every single development or incident mentioned absolutely pales in comparison — even our own no-confidence saga as it consumed the better first half of the year.
After all, it’s not every day or every decade a development occurs that brings to mind the proxy wars fought during the second half of the Cold War or could end up being a prelude to World War Three.
What is that event? Russia’s formal invasion of Ukraine on February 24 which kicked off a war between the two countries that has had wide-ranging global effects and ensnared a number of countries in the web of its butterfly effect.
At one point during the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine which US President Joe Biden said had brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis.
In November, the New York Times, citing unnamed US officials, reported that high-level Russian military leaders discussed when and how they might use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
It has now been 11 months to the war’s start and there are no signs of it stopping or slowing down anytime soon despite US pressure on Ukraine to agree to talks or even the Kremlin admitting that a diplomatic solution is needed.
With no peace talks in sight, Ukrainian defence chiefs on December 15 predicted Russia would launch a new all-out offensive early next year that could include a second attempt to take Kyiv, which it tried and failed to capture early this year.
A new assault could happen as soon as January, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, General Valery Zaluzhniy and General Oleksandr Syrskiy were quoted as saying in interviews with The Economist magazine.
Compiled by Syed Talal Ahsan
Header illustration by Mushba Said
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