Foreign Digest: Armenia, Italy, Spain and Russia

Armenia

            Armenia is in the midst of a peaceful quasi-revolution that is taking place within the constitutional framework.  The President, who was constitutionally term-limited, was appointed Prime Minister by the Parliament a few weeks ago to circumvent the provision, as there are no term limits for premier and the move was coupled with a weakening of the presidency and corresponding increase the power of the Prime Minister.  After mass peaceful protests, the premier resigned last week and his ruling party permitted the opposition leader to be nominated for Prime Minister and implied it would allow him to become premier.  The former Soviet Republic is not a fully free state, although it is tolerant of peaceful assembly. The Armenian Government, although not hostile to the West and maintains a relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is pro-Russian.  Because the opposition leader has stated there will be no foreign policy changes, the Russian Federation is not openly attempting to thwart the democratic uprising, at least for now. 

Italy

            The attempt to form a government between the populist party, which was the individual party that won the most votes and seats in the Italian parliamentary elections in March, and the main center-left party, which came in a distant second, has failed.  This attempt, which came from an exploratory mandate from the President of the Italian Republic last week, followed the failure of a similar mandate to form a government between the populists and the right-wing bloc the week before, which together won the most votes and seats.  The President will hold another set of consultations this week to attempt to resolve the two-month impasse by exploring whether some other combination of parties can obtain a majority to win the required vote of confidence.  Both the populists and the far-right leader of the largest party within the right-wing bloc have called for new elections in June. 

The far-right leader of the anti-immigrant party, who would be premier if his bloc wins a majority, has suggested an amendment to the current election law to award a bonus of seats to the party that gains a plurality.  Late last week, he again called for a coalition government between the right wing bloc and the populists, but this time for only one of limited duration—until December, in order to amend the election law, and to oppose the sales tax increase and the European Union budget.  However, other parties are typically reluctant to changes in the law in a way that would be perceived to benefit a rival party.  As expected, the populists have already rejected the proposal that would likely prevent them from governing and, therefore, reject also the call for such a time-limited government.  Today, they issued a counter offer of a government between the two parties with a third person as premier, but without the main conservative party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Spain

            The Basque separatist terrorist organization, which has long since abandoned violence, is disbanding as an organization.  The organization, which killed several hundred people from the 1960s to the 2000s, was active in Spain and France.  The Spanish Government intends to continue to investigate and prosecute the organization’s leaders.  The Basque Country of Spain enjoys a degree of autonomy. 

Russia 

           There was another wave of protests across the Russian Federation late last week against the authoritarian, oligarchical rule of Vladimir Putin.  The regime arrested thousands of peaceful protestors, including again the main democratic opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and several journalists.  Basic freedoms are not tolerated by the Putin regime and elections in Russia are hardly free and fair.