* The elections in Africa's most populous countries can divide Nigeria into 2015, while elections in Europe can create more divisions. At the same time as right-wing populist parties are emerging, left-wing parties tend to gain power in both Spain and Greece.
* – I hope for a peace agreement with Putin, says Olga Vlasova to Ny Tid. Here is 2015. It looks like the world needs you more than in a long time.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
2015. The new year starts on Thursday, and 1. January goes into the Gregorian calendar's into the two thousand and fifteenth year. It is the fifteenth year of both the third millennium and 21. century, as well as the sixth year of the 2010 century.
2014 was the year when old ghosts from the Cold War were revived – the Cold War between Russia and NATO countries seems to have resurfaced in the struggle for power over Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. Also in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria and Mali we see that the power of the nation state is challenged by violent groups: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has taken over power in a belt from northern Syria at the border with Turkey and all the way down to Fallujah, near Baghdad. At the same time, right-wing populist or fascist-like parties are gaining increased support and power in Europe – from Hungary and Greece to central Europe and Sweden.
At the same time, demands for new nation states have come up, with independence referendums in both Scotland and Barcelona. Also in 2015, several of the current 192 nation states can be challenged, from the outside and inside. The first stop is Nigeria on February 14: There are elections in the country that in 2014, due to new calculation methods, became Africa's largest economy – after taking over the place from South Africa.
In the past year, Nigeria was also entered in the economic acronym MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey), as the next emerging economies after the more famous BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The February election will be exciting because the opposition in Africa's most populous country is for the first time gathered against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan (57), who is running for re-election for the People's Democratic Party (PDP). Jonathan's party has won every election since 1999.
– Unlike previous elections, we can expect it to be even, because there is now a united opposition to the PDP, says researcher at the Nordic Institute of Africa in Uppsala in Sweden, Henrik Angerbrandt, to Ny Tid.
– Probably more than one round of elections will be necessary, he thinks.
Several key politicians in Nigeria have announced a move to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). On Alfred Nobel's death, December 10, the party symbolically agreed to stand behind Muhammadu Buhari (71) as presidential candidate. Buhari led the military dictatorship in the country from 1983-85. On Tuesday, it was announced that a Nigerian human rights group is trying to get the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the presidential candidate. Thus, the electorate faces few clear humanist and solidarity-oriented choices.
Gathers Pentecostal friends and Islamists
"The Pattern Shakes" (Original Title: "Things Fall Apart") is called the novel by Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), often referred to as the world's most read African book. The 1959 book describes how the social "pattern is shaking" in the local Igbo community's encounter with British colonialism and the Christian mission.
The book was published just before the colonial empire extended beyond the 1960s. New post-colonial nations, such as Nigeria in 1960, were born to independence, but often they were still indirectly dependent on great powers and global institutions and businesses. Only in 2011 did Nigerian democracy experience what is referred to as a "free and independent election". It had been 12 years since the abolition of the military junta. "Democracy 1, Electoral Fraud 0" was the headline for The Economist about the 2011 election.
Much, or possibly little, has happened since 2011. Many Nigerians are disappointed with President Goodluck Jonathan (57) who was hailed by many after the election victory. He was to fight for eight specific issues, including – justice, better quality of schools and universities, health reforms, job creation for all Nigerians, the fight against corruption. But the editor of the Nigerian online newspaper The Cable, Fisayo Soyombo, sums up Jonathan's credentials after four years in a column published by Al-Jazeera recently: "Eight games, four years, no victories yet."
The International Organization for Migration recently reported over twice as many Nigerian refugees arriving across the Mediterranean to Italy this year.
At the same time, Nigeria has experienced increased fragmentation. Boko Haram's advance in the north, with the kidnapping of young schoolgirls as the most visible sign of terror, with increased insecurity, political discontent in the oil-rich Niger Delta and a president who has lost much support internationally after a contentious legislation against gays.
Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina emerged earlier this year as an open gay man. In response to the legislation, he spoke openly to Jonathan in The Guardian: "Your nation is polarized between militant Islamists and reactionary Pentecostals: What is the only problem they can agree on and unite around? Your financial miracle has stopped, your popularity is falling, and in desperation you not only create an anti-gay law, but you close your eyes to a wave of violence, beatings and whipping. ”
Editor Soyombo is gloomy in his predictions: "In 2015, Nigerians will be torn between the devil and the dark blue sea, between Jonathan – who promised, but failed to transform Nigeria – and the opposition, whose main selling point is to direct tirades against the president and his folk. It could not have been a worse time to be Nigerian. "
This is an excerpt from Ny Tid 19.12.2014.
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