It's been awhile
Ukraine, Russia, and elections in 2024
I am back, after a long hiatus. I have been wanting to restart this for a while, but things (mostly my day job) just kept getting in the way.
The newsletters will still primarily focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but I want to broaden the scope a little. I also want to focus on elections. Not just the upcoming U.S. presidential election, but elections around the world. This is the “year of elections”. There are elections in approximately 64 countries this year, comprising 49% of the world’s population. Some important ones have already happened, such as in Taiwan and Indonesia, as well as Putin’s re-coronation in Russia.
While I want to discuss the elections in their own right, I’m also extremely interested in connections to the invasion of Ukraine, and how (if at all) that issue plays a role in these elections.
So, in this reboot, you can expect a newsletter once a week on Saturday morning. There will be a section on events surrounding the invasion of Ukraine, and a section focused on elections: looking at what has happened and what will happen.
If that sounds like something you are interested in, great. If not, unsubscribe. If it sounds like something your family and friends might be interested in, feel free to share it with them.
A full post will be coming on Saturday, but I wanted to start this reboot in January so all the elections could be covered. I will discuss the Russian “election” in more depth in the Saturday post, but I want to highlight one aspect of the election in Indonesia, which occurred in February 2024. Indonesia is the third largest democracy in the world by population and the world’s largest Muslim democracy, making it one of the more influential elections in 2024.
The winner of the Indonesian presidential election was Prabowo Subianto. He won easily with close to 59% of the vote. What makes this interesting is that he is a former military leader who was accused of war crimes in the 1990s. He led attacks against civilians in East Timor (a breakaway region of Indonesia that gained independence in 1999) and targeted democracy activists and journalists in Indonesia. In fact, for a while, he was forbidden to enter the U.S. and Australia.
He won the election by rebranding himself as a kind, lovable grandfather. That is quite the rebranding. He was helped by TikTok videos of him awkwardly dancing. Below is his official campaign song, with people dancing like him and dressed like him. It is a good illustration of how image conscious and substance starved politics has become, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Passing off war criminals as loveable grandfathers is just one of the dangers.