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Chávez Calls for Unity After Victory in Venezuela

After President Hugo Chávez won the Venezuelan presidential election with 55 percent of the vote, he reportedly called his rival, Henrique Capriles Radonski, to appeal for “national unity.” They both mentioned their telephone conversation in Twitter posts, referring to “unity and mutual respect.” However, the exchange did not visibly ease relations between Chávez and the opposition.

William Neuman reports that “there was little indication of a warmer tone on display at a news conference held by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, a leader in Mr. Chávez’s party, who called the vote for Mr. Chávez “a resounding majority.” Additionally, a lot of uncertainty remains about the direction Chávez plans to lead Venezuela, as many are unclear about what his version of “‘21st century socialism,’” will mean.

Many economists believe that Chávez’s plan will be hindered “in the short term by a looming economic reckoning.” Ricardo Hausmann, the director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University warns that “‘they engineered an electoral year boomlet that is now going to fizzle...’”

Mr. Chávez’s health has also posed a major question for Venezuela’s political future. “Francisco Rodríguez, an economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, speculated that Mr. Chávez might propose changing the succession rules,” in order to ensure that he can appoint his successor.

While many are congratulating Venezuela on carrying out “peaceful elections,” the opposition party has expressed grievances. Ramón Guillermo Aveledo, a leader of the opposition coalition that backed Mr. Capriles argues that elections were “clean but not fair because, he said, Mr. Chávez had used vast state resources to promote his campaign.”

Winning Coalition in Georgia Demands Vote Recount

Georgia’s postelection calm has been “shaken” by triumphant members of the Georgian Dream Coalition who are challenging “a dozen regional vote counts in hopes of securing additional parliamentary seats.”

In response to the protest, some of which turned violent, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of the Georgian Dream coalition, is urging his followers “to end street protests and wait for change to come through legal means.”

Additionally, “a newspaper in Tbilisi published a full-page list of the names of guards and other officials at Gldani prison in Tbilisi, where a recent abuse scandal took place, in what seemed to be an invitation for revenge.” These events have heightened concerns about Georgia’s stability because the country has “no record of a peaceful transfer of power.”

Mr. Ivanishvili has “given mixed signals” about how he plans to re-structure the government. When “asked what would happen to Mr. Saakashvili and the half-dozen officials closest to him," he said, “’what awaits them is the court and the law.’”

Many fear that “Mr. Ivanishvili’s supporters have dangerously high expectations for the postelection period.” Human Rights experts—including Giorgi Gogia, a researcher for Human Rights Watch—,warn that “this new government needs to say very clearly that they should not be taking justice into their own hands.”

Grave Mistake to Downplay Landmark African Agreement

Former President Thabo Mbeki expresses excitement about the signing of the Sudan-South Sudan Co-operation Agreement, which he describes as “epoch-making in terms of the remaking of the African continent.”

The agreements define a slew of matters including economic, security, nationality and border issues all in the interest of creating and maintaining peace. “They determine that the conflict in this part of Africa has ceased to be a UN Charter Chapter VII threat to international peace and security.” These agreements “constitute the most comprehensive set of agreements determining relations between two African neighboring states...” Lastly, they are the “only” agreements in “which two independent African states enter into a binding agreement to work together for mutual benefit, to ensure each develops as a viable state.”

The “bulk” of African media “essentially ignored the signing of the Sudan-South Sudan Co-operation Agreement, treating this immensely important African development virtually as a non-event.” President Mbeki believes that is a “failure by the media to inform its readers, listeners and viewers about a matter vital to Africa’s future,” and will “inevitably feed the perception that Africa’s future” is defined by outside forces.

As Mbeki asserts, these historic agreement “sets a unique benchmark between two African sovereign states about how neighbors should construct relations, to give concrete reality to the objectives shared by the peoples of our continent of African integration, unity, solidarity and mutually beneficial co-operation.”

The implementation of this agreement could make the Sudanese people “pathfinders” or “pioneers” in achieving “the historic objective of African unity.”

The Burmese Odd Couple

In Bill Keller’s op-ed, “The Burmese Odd Couple,” he reflects on the relationship between the revered opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Thein Sein. They are “improbable partners,” says Keller, but they both share “an awareness that dictatorship has led their country close to utter ruin.”

Both have made noteworthy accomplishments in democratizing Burma. Suu Kyi has “brought her party into elections, even though she was allowed to contest only a fraction of the parliamentary seats.” Thein Sein has “managed a surprisingly swift, mercifully bloodless, top-down reformation,” and has, among other reforms, released hundreds of political prisoners and relaxed censorship.

Keller fears that some credit U.S. sanctions as the impetus for reform, instead of these two “Burmese patriots.” While the debate over the role of sanctions continues, Congress has begun to “slowly untangle the restrictions.” Many Burmese are in support of this decision, including Suu Kyi who responded by saying, “I think it’s time that we stood on our own feet.”