Lefteast
Writing with our feet On August 10 eighty thousand people gathered in Bucharest’s Victoriei Square to protest the attempts of the Social-Democratic Party government to defuse the offensive of the powerful National Anti-corruption Directorate against PSD leaders. Many of the protesters were Romanians living abroad, who had returned especially for the occasion. The one thousand […]
From our “correspondents on the ground” we are publishing here an opinion piece on the situation in Turkey after the June elections. The analysis tries to make sense of the lasting stabilization which, despite its permanent weaknesses and shortcomings, the AKP regime seems to have achieved, both through its political appeal and its class alliances. In […]
Update: Since the time of writing of this article, over three weeks ago, the Turkish lirahas lost over 25% of its value against the US dollar and inflation is rapidly catching up on this figure. A significant factor in this devaluation has been the diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the United States over the former’s […]
The article was originally published in the portal of the Bulgarian left, New Left Perspectives. KOI’s 2018 report “The people” against welfare payments: or the art of making those in need ask for more restrictions against themselves authored by Vanya Grigorova is a follow-up of an earlier, 2016 report entitled Poor against poor. That previous report […]
The Serbian President’s rhetoric since July 2017 has been suggestive of a compromise deal – but, argues Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, the future is still uncertain. Last week, Kosovo’s authorities failed to publish their promised draft statute for the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) i.e. for the several tens of thousands of Serbs concentrated in north […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: days after The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (a.k.a. The Istanbul Convention) was declared “unconstitutional” by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court, the witch-hunt against the so-called “gender ideology” took its first symbolic victim. A project on gender equality nominated in the first […]
The debate over the ratification of the so called “Istanbul Convention” in Bulgaria, as in some other countries in the region, became a huge public scandal and probably the most important political matter of 2018. Originally intended to provide states with a framework for prevention and reduction of domestic violence against women, the document has […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: The Bulgarian media market is extremely concentrated and under immense pressure to contract still further. Several analytical outlets have recently shut down due to financial constraints. The lack of media pluralism and the severe ownership concentration have been reflected in the recent decision of Reporters Without Borders to downgrade the country’s […]
The article originally appeared in OpenDemocracy-Russia & Beyond. While popular opinion is dead against the Russian government’s continued neoliberal line in social policy, opposition groups are competing for influence and electorate. Translated from the original Russian by Thomas Campbell. Now that the State Duma has passed the first reading of draft legislation reforming Russia’s pension system, […]
Ilona Csécsei – Andrea Csengei – Mariann Dósa – Imre Kleiner – Magdolna Palotai – Ibolya Tünde Szakmáry – Zoltán Sziráki – Károly Szombathy – István Tompa – Éva Tessza Udvarhelyi – Nándor Wittmann (as known as “When is it time to act if not now?!” research group) “Something should be done, but I don’t […]