Taneti Mamau of the Opposition Tobwaan Kiribati Party (TKB) has been declared the island nation’s fifth President to replace Anote Tong. Wednesday’s election result showed that 16 island constituencies voted in favour of the President-elect’s Tobwaan Kiribati Party (TKB) while seven voted for Rimeta Beniamina’s Bautokaan te Koaua (BTK). A senior member of the coalition and a former president, Teburoro Tito, said ending the outgoing TBK party's 12-year reign was a positive step.
Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has named its candidates to be president, officially confirming that its leader Aung San Suu Kyi is not a contender. Ms Suu Kyi failed to persuade the military to allow a clause barring her from the presidency to be overruled. Under the clause she cannot be leader as her sons are British, not Burmese. But she has vowed to lead from the sidelines instead. The candidate thought most likely to become president, Htin Kyaw, is a close aide.
A set of primaries took place on another ''Super Tuesday'' as Republicans were voting in the 4 states of Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi and the Democrats were voting in Michigan and Mississippi. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz managed to secure 3 and 1 victories respectively, while Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each won 1 state. The victories for Donald Trump come at a good time as he has been targetted non-stop by anti-Trump campaigns, also by the Republican establishment itself. While Hillary Clinton got more delegates than Bernie Sanders, the latter did succeed in surprising the pollsters, as Bernie Sanders was projected to lose Michigan by far, the state it won. The next important primaries to watch are those on 15 March. During this date primaries will be held in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri.
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During an Eurogroup meeting it has been decided that Cyprus will formally exit the bailout program at the end of the month. The economic adjustment program has been in place since 2013. Cyprus was one of the two last countries still in a bailout program, together with Greece which still has a program running. Cyprus only needed €7,5 out of the €10 provided billion. The early exit is remarkable as Cyprus had one of the toughest conditions, as both bond holders and deposit holders had to incur losses. Capital controls had been put in place as well initially, at the time unprecedented for an Eurozone member. An agreement was difficult to be found at the time, after the Parliament rejected a deal earlier, leading to a near-bankruptcy of the country and to speculation of a possible exit from the Eurozone. The decisions means more good news for Cyprus as there also seems to be pace in the unification process and Cyprus has positive economic prospects as well, with expected growth forecasts of 1,5% in 2016 and 2% in 2017.
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After long talks on 7 March, the EU and Turkey managed to come up with a new deal with regards to the refugee crisis. The new deal includes first of all that all irregular migrants that travel to Greece by sea should be returned to Turkey. For every migrant sent back, the EU would resettle migrants directly from Turkey across the EU. The move is set to discourage illegal and dangerous travels by migrants across the sea. The deal furthermore included a speed up of transferring the earlier agreed 3 billion € to Turkey and to give another 3 billion €, therefore 6 billion € in total. Turkey would be granted visa-free travel as well before the end of the summer accession talks would be accelerated. While the new deal is considered as necessary, it is criticized as Turkey is becoming more authoritarian and less respectful of human rights. EU Member States still have to vote on the deal next week.
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The main opposition newspaper "Zaman" in Turkey that has been raided on Saturday 5 March has started to print pro-government content the day after. During the earlier raid water cannons and tear gas were used to enter the building, based on a court ruling that stated the newspaper should be put under administration, as protestors tried to prevent the takeover. The newspaper has a circulation of about 650.000 and has links to the Gülen Movement, a former ally of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The big move comes after earlier actions by the AKP government to crackdown on media that is not favourable to them as the regime in Turkey becomes more and more authoritarian. Meanwhile, EU national leaders have kept relatively silent, supposedly as they need the cooperation of Turkey in the refugee crisis.
Read More On 5 March - Super Saturday - and 6 March primaries and caucuses took place for both the Democrats and the Republicans in the states of Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska as well as in Puerto Rico, an US territory. Donald Trump managed to win 2 states while Ted Cruz managed to 2 states as well, showing the race to the nomination might become a race between just them two. Marco Rubio only won the small Puerto Rico. The victories follow an anti-Trump campaign as several members of the so called ''Republican establishment'' such as former Republican nominee Mitt Romney have started to attack Donald Trump in public, calling on voters to vote for other candidates. Looking at the Democrats, Bernie Sanders managed to win 3 states, while Hillary Clinton only won Louisiana, although the latter did get her more delegates then Sanders in total. While Sanders won more states, he seems to struggle to win the ''non-white vote''. The next important primary to held will be on 8 March, in the state of Michigan.
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Parliamentary elections took place in Slovakia on 5 March 2016. Robert Fico and his ''social-democrat'' party was expected to lose its majority, the losses turned out be be higher however then was previously prognosed. While it had won 44,4% of the votes during last Parliamentary Elections in 2012, it managed to win only 28,3% this time. Other centre-right and Eurosceptic parties made gains such as Freedom and Solidarity (Sas) and Ordinary People (OL'aNO-NOVA) rose from 5,9% and 8,5% to 12,1% and 11% respectively. More thrilling however was the rise of nationalist and neo-nazi parties of the Slovak National Party (SNS) and People's Party - Our Slovakia (L'SNS) that both for the first time passed the threshold in the Slovak Parliament by winning 8,6% and 8% respectively. The elections will make it difficult for a coalition to be formed. The elections were characterised by anti-immigration rhetoric from all parties, including Smer-SD, which seemed to have backfired as the right wing parties made huge gains. Social issues also played a huge role such as education. As Slovakia has the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU meetings in the second half year, the election outcome is considered awkward for the country.
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China will raise its defence spending by between 7-8% this year, a senior official has said, a smaller increase than the double-digit rises of the past as Beijing seeks a more efficient military. China’s budget will rise to around around 980bn yuan ($150bn) as the Beijing regime increases its military heft and asserts its territorial claims in the South China Sea, raising tensions with its neighbors and with Washington. Defence spending last year was budgeted to rise 10.1% to 886.9bn yuan ($135.39bn), which still only represents about one-quarter that of the United States. The US defence budget for 2016 is $573bn.
On 4 March 2016, former President Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil was detained shortly for corruption investigations. He was questioned for corruption allegations at the state oil company Petrobras. The investigations were part of a larger corruption investigation campaign called ''Aletheia''. His wife, children and the head of the Lula Institute are also suspected of corruption. It means yet another setback for current president Dilma Roussef, which is part of the same political party that has been the most important political party in Brazil since 2002. The country has enough problems already for which the President is blamed such as the economic problems as the country is in one of the worst recessions in decades and the Congress might attempt to impeach President Dilma Roussef who is said to have used funds of public banks to cover budgets gaps of the government. Most of the population has lost trust already in their president, with historically low approval ratings of around 10% as she fights for her political existence.
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