Foreign Digest: Spain, Cambodia and Niger

Spain: The results of the parliamentary elections in Spain a week ago were not decisive, as the conservatives won the most votes and seats in the Spanish Parliament, but fell short of a majority necessary to form a government in place of the ruling Socialists. The center-right conservative Spanish party suffered a blow to its hopes of gaining the majority through a coalition government because of its alliance with a far-right party that lost seats. As I have been posting the last several years, these far-right parties, which generally tend to be nationalistic to a bigoted degree, anti-migrant, anti-European integration, and are often pro-Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, have sometimes cost the center-right election victories, although sometimes conservatives have been able to win without an alliance with the far-right. At other times, the center-right has formed a coalition government with the far-right, only to result in a collapse of the government, such as in Austria, when the Russian support of the far-right party was revealed. The new government coalition in Finland has already suffered from controversy from the resignation of one cabinet minister with another under fire because of fascists statements. Both the Socialists and the conservatives will try to form a government, but another round of elections may be necessary. Cambodia: The elections last week in Cambodia, in which the son of the longtime dictator from the Communist era was elected President, were internationally recognized as a farce, as the opposition was persecuted and precluded from contesting the election. Niger: There was a military coup d-etat in Niger last week against the elected government of the African State. The motivation was ostensibly the same as I posted about a few years ago in Mali, which was dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the Nigerien Government’s anti-terrorism policy. Niger, like other States in the Sahel, has come under attack by militant Islamists. The United States and others have been aiding Niger and other African States against the violent jihadists. The U.S., the Economic Community of West African States, of which Niger is a member, and France, Niger’s former colonial ruler, are among those in the international community calling for a restoration to power of the elected government.