Lefteast
Note from LeftEast editors: this post was first commissioned by French Left publication Contretemps, and you can read it on their website in the translation of Celine Cantat. To update the discussion on Zagreb je Naš/Možemo!, in the local elections held on 16 May 2021, the left-green coalition won 40.8% of the votes and 23 […]
First published in Viento Sur. Translated from the original French by International Viewpoint. After its overwhelming victory in the early parliamentary elections held on 13 February 2021 in Kosovo (1.8 million inhabitants, 90% Albanian), the Vetëvendosje (VV) party – the name means “Self-determination” – completed the consolidation of its institutional powers on Sunday 4 April 2021. Winning […]
Bulgaria held inconclusive general elections on April 4, 2021. The hitherto center-right ruling party GERB won them but with a result preventing it from forming a government. A nascent anti-GERB coalition is shaping up in Parliament, led by “There is such a people”: a new formation headed by a famous Bulgarian TV host.
The candidacy of Elton Debreshi – a mineworker from a peripheral town north of the country – in the upcoming general elections in Albania could be genuinely considered as an unwarranted intrusion into politics as usual. Thirty years after the collapse of the old regime, the political scenery has crystalized into the systemic rule of […]
With local elections due to be held in Croatia on 16 May 2021, a left-green political platform Zagreb je Naš (Zagreb is Ours – henceforth ZjN) stands on the brink of a historic achievement.[1] Its candidate for mayor, Tomislav Tomašević, holds a strong lead in the race and is predicted to defeat by a large […]
It is these conditions that prompt the need for a reliable and hopeful alternative. Elton Debreshi is such an alternative. A figure with the potential to challenge the hegemony of the corrupt power and bring hope to all the marginalized social groups. It is not his political ambition that pushes him to the podium of the parliament, but the historical demand of miners and citizens for a real and honest representation. A representation intact from the influence of criminal groups, violence and dubious businesses. Elton Debreshi has, for many years, sustained through his work the system that produces goods, on behalf of the oligarchs. Now it is time to seek on behalf of the city of Bulqiza the fair share of those people who work and live on a rich land, blessed with chromium, but spend their lives in poverty.
LVV wants to end the endless dialogue (that is neither helpful for Kosova or Serbia). The technical dialogue is in the way of any principled dialogue based on shared premises. On the other hand, throughout the campaign, LVV has shown that its priority remains the dialogue with the Kosovo Serbs and other national minorities on social and economic issues. There is no doubt that only through a will for collective political change can the difficult journey for a radical transformation of the economic and political structures of the country begin.
Note from LeftEast editors: this article is published in cooperation with the web portal Bilten.Org. On September 23rd, the Parliament of Montenegro had its first, quite uncertain post-election session, which saw Aleksa Bečić, a leader of the opposition, elected as its president. The session, as well as its outcome, was mired in uncertainty due to […]
Although Belarus is often referred to as a repressive state, the familiar ‘Parisian arsenal’ of tear gas canisters, water cannons, rubber bullets, and stun grenades was used here on a mass scale for the first time. Western technologies of violence were complemented by traditional post-Soviet police brutality: beating and detention of random people, torture, humiliation, and sometimes threats of rape in jail, the hunting down of journalists, etc.
None of the opposition leaders joined the crowd or made radical statements. The opposition movement turned out to be on the whole amorphous, without clear leadership at the top and any leaders from below. At the same time, the ruling elite showed no signs of a split, the security apparatus and the bureaucracy generally remained loyal, although there have been signs of hesitation at the lower and regional levels (with several state media journalists and police officers resigning).
Only one day after the Polish National Electoral Commission announced the incumbent president Andrzej Duda as the winner of the close runoff elections, a queer activist was arrested in Warsaw. According to witnesses, Margot’s arrest looked more like a kidnapping because ununiformed police officers handcuffed her with the use of force and dragged her out of her friend’s flat. (…) Queers have become public enemy number one in Poland.