The World Today for June 07, 2023

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Musical Chairs

SOUTH AFRICA

Apartheid, or legal segregation based on race, ended in South Africa almost 30 years ago. Yet anyone walking around Johannesburg could be forgiven for believing the hateful policy was still in place, according to Catalyst, a free-market-oriented news publication. The deeply segregated city is only 12 percent white.

White families abandoning South Africa’s largest city is one problem that has gone unaddressed in Johannesburg in recent years. Power outages, water shortages, crumbling roads, dilapidated buildings, poverty, and other problems are also endemic there.

Dysfunctional local politics are at the root of these challenges.

“I care deeply for Johannesburg but feel let down by the city, its officials, the voters and politics,” wrote David Potter, who served on the Johannesburg municipal council for 12 years until the end of May. “Many ward councilors are at the end of their tethers. Joburg is likely simply too far gone. I don’t need to tell you that – it is visible everywhere.”

Because voters keep refusing to give a single political party more than half the votes in the city, Johannesburg politicians have needed to form precarious coalitions that often fail to remain together long enough as a mayoral administration that could fix the city’s serious problems. The country’s most popular party, the African National Congress, for example, lost its majority in the city in 2016.

Johannesburg recently swore in its sixth mayor in less than 22 months, the New York Times reported. The Africa Report likened the string of leaders to a “clown car.” The newest mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, is a first-term city councilman whose political party won 1 percent of the vote in municipal elections. Gwamanda’s rivals are already accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme involving a funeral insurance scam. He’s countered that the charges are politically motivated.

“I am an indigenous child of the soil and I possess the intelligence necessary to lead my people in the direction that is required,” Gwamanda told Eyewitness News. “So, I will not be deterred by political ploys from whichever direction it’s coming from.”

The new mayor needs to be focusing on bread-and-butter issues like ending the mismanagement, corruption, and even sabotage that has become commonplace in South Africa’s energy system, for example, as the BBC discussed. He must also focus on improving city services like sewage maintenance and trash collection, added News24, or else residents could lose confidence in the city administration completely.

But, if the past is any precedent, someone else will inherit these problems before the current mayor can do much to change things.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

Coups and Convenience

KYRGYZSTAN

Kyrgyz authorities arrested more than 30 people Tuesday over allegations of attempting to oust President Sadyr Japarov, Euronews reported.

Officials said the group – made up of opposition members – was planning to seize power through riots and protests.

The detentions came a few days after European Council President Charles Michel visited Kyrgyzstan to attend the second summit of the leaders of Central Asia and the European Union, Agence France-Presse noted.

Michel met Japarov to mark 30 years of EU-Kyrgyzstan cooperation, saying the bloc is “strongly” committed to the region. The Kyrgyz leader pledged his “readiness to work hand in hand with the European Union.”

The Central Asian country remains important to the EU because of its ties to China and Russia.

Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, it has seen three presidents resign over political crises sparked by allegations of corruption, nepotism, and disputed elections.

The incumbent Japarov has recently come under criticism for cracking down on the opposition and local media.

A Winning Streak

MEXICO

Mexico’s ruling party won Sunday’s gubernatorial elections in the country’s most populous state, a victory that observers describe as a key test ahead of next year’s general polls, the Financial Times reported.

Delfina Gómez Álvarez, the candidate for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, secured more than 52 percent of the vote in the State of Mexico elections. Her opponent, Alejandra del Moral of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), won 44.3 percent.

The results were a major loss for the PRI, which had held control of the state for nearly a century. Even so, the party still secured a win in the elections of Coahuila state, which borders Texas.

While winning the State of Mexico – with a population of almost 17 million – does not translate into a national victory, analysts noted that it showed a clear advantage for López Obrador’s party ahead of the 2024 elections.

They added that the state poll was a referendum on López Obrador, a leftist populist leader who has maintained strong support since his term began in December 2018. Many of his supporters cite his social programs aimed at the elderly and the rural population, as well as his corruption-free image.

Still, the president has attracted controversy in recent months after pushing for a legal package that slashed the budget of Mexico’s electoral commission. The move sparked mass protests across the country, with critics lamenting that the decision would impact the institution’s integrity ahead of the national polls.

The Supreme Court struck down part of the package, prompting López Obrador to criticize the judiciary and the media for derailing his agenda.

Despite his popularity, the constitution does not allow the incumbent to run for another six-year term and the race to find his replacement has been underway for months.

Meanwhile, the alliance between the PRI and the center-right National Action Party has struggled to select a candidate to challenge the Morena party.

Going to the Corner

POLAND

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled this week that Poland violated EU law with its controversial judicial reform, saying that the changes endangered the independence of the member state’s judiciary, Politico reported.

In its verdict, the court sided with the European Commission which claimed that Poland violated EU law after introducing a 2019 reform that prevented judges from questioning the appointments of other judges.

The changes also allowed the now-liquidated Disciplinary Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court to penalize judges for their verdicts.

The bloc’s top court said that EU nations must ensure that “any regression of their laws on the organization of justice is prevented, by refraining from adopting rules which would undermine the independence of judges.”

It added that the changes implemented by Poland “are incompatible with the guarantees of access to an independent and impartial tribunal.”

Legal analysts and lawyers welcomed the verdict, saying that it might help restore the independence of Poland’s judiciary. But the Polish government swiftly criticized the ruling and accused the court of overstepping its powers, according to France 24.

The case is part of a long-running series of disputes between the EU and Poland regarding rule-of-law violations and concerns about the country’s democratic backsliding.

This week’s verdict concludes the years-long case that has cost Poland around $588 million in fines: In October 2021, the court began fining Warsaw more than $1 million per day for ignoring a ruling ordering it to suspend the disciplinary chamber.

The fines were halved in April following a series of partial reforms to restore the judiciary’s independence.

While the new decision ends the fines, the top court noted that it “does not affect Poland’s obligation to make the daily penalty payments due in respect of the past.”

DISCOVERIES

The Sense of Music

Scholars have tried to understand why people enjoy sad music, even though they don’t necessarily like feeling sad. Some theories suggest that these tunes help individuals experience catharsis. Others say they promote evolutionary advantages.

In a new study, researcher Joshua Knobe and his colleagues wanted to explore what lies behind these songs and their appeal, the New York Times reported.

In their two-part experiment, they gave more than 400 participants one of four song descriptions, ranging from emotionally deep but technically flawed to technically flawless but lacking emotion. Participants rated how well each song “embodies what music is all about” on a seven-point scale.

The results showed that emotionally deep songs – even with technical flaws – were considered to best represent the essence of music. Emotional expression was valued more than technical proficiency, the team noted.

In the second part of the experiment, the researchers gave 450 new participants descriptions of emotional songs that expressed various feelings including “contempt,” “narcissism, and “lustfulness.” They also provided participants with prompts that described interactions in which someone expressed their feelings.

The authors found the emotions that participants felt were strongly linked to what music represents, and fostered a sense of connection in conversations.

The findings suggested that people listen to music for the sense of connection it provides, not the emotional reaction it causes. That also seems to be the case with sad music, the authors explained.

Knobe’s team acknowledged that there were so many questions from the study, such as who are the listeners connecting to when they listen to the sad tunes.

Still, they concluded that their results felt right, even if they couldn’t fully explain the phenomenon.

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