Discovering MENA and other thoughts

On Nov. 22, Bahrain held a first round of legislative and local elections. Similar to what has happened with the majority of events that have taken place in the country throughout the last few years, few in the media refer to both the vote itself and the circumstances surrounding it. Bahrain sets itself as a privileged stage in the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the support Gulf states have provided to the discredited monarchy just reminds us of how overlapping junctures are in this part of the world. The Bahrain vote will be the first to be held since the 2011 uprising, already discussed in  Discovering MENA . At first, the uprising did not call for the overthrow of the king, but to democratic reforms promised for years by the king himself. Reconciliation talks between the royal family –  Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa  continues to be hugely popular amongst his subjects – and the opposition were actually revived earlier this year before ...

Syria officially opened its presidential campaign on Sunday May 11th, and the cities and towns under the regime's control are filled with billboards and posters presenting portraits of President Bashar Al-Assad. Others, such as the ones hung in Thawra Street in the center of the capital, show either his portrait dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt or the Syrian flag overlaid with the word "together" and the President's signature. In Damascu's Sabaa Bahrat neighbourhood, one billboard proclaims: "We won't close our eyes until we have said yes to the ophthalmologist" - Assad is an eye specialist by training - "We vote for you, 2014". Elsewhere, posters read "our Bashar, we will not accept a president other than you. We have chosen you, you have our loyalty". The campaign is also flooding online media with messages of support for Assad - by the first morning, the Facebook account had garnered 65,000 likes and the Twit...

Link in Spanish: Miradas de Internacional There is no doubt about it. A presidential election will be held on June 3rd in Syria and Bashar Al Assad is going to win. The only question is by how much. Regardless of byzantine debates about whether this vote should take place or not, the truth is that the electoral scenario in Syria could be compared, with a pinch of salt, with the scenario in Egypt. The regime is perfectly capable of rigging the results, but it won’t need to, as a sizable majority of the population is looking forward to seeing the strong man elected.

On 28 September, Guinea held its first democratic parliamentary vote since the country's independence from France in 1958. The election was held two years overdue and was due to complete the long-delayed transition back to civilian rule following a 2008 military coup. Indeed, the vote was meant to have been held within six months of the inauguration of President Alpha Conde in 2010, but was delayed many times. The main reason behind those delays were disagreements amongst the main stakeholders hinging on how the poll should be organized (one of the fundamental points of disagreement between the two camps was the electoral register, the opposition suspected of being "inflated" in favor of power in areas considered to be pro-establishment and reduced in areas considered strongholds of the opposition). During these two years, the role of parliament was left to be played by an unelected National Transitional Council. What were in principle political skirmishes turned into ...