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Crucial Elections in Turkey

Note from LeftEast editors: This article was first published in Mašina, we publish it here in English as part of a collaboration within ELMO – The Eastern European Left Media Outlet. Turkey goes to the polls on 14 May for presidential and parliamentary elections. Opinion polls suggest that the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Parti (AKP) […]

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Internationalised Power Struggle in Venezuela

On January 10th, Nicolás Maduro commenced his third term as Venezuelan President. At that time, the oppositional president of the parliament, Juan Guaidó called on the military forces to stage a coup d’etat.  A few days later, he declared himself to be the president. Within less than half an hour, he was recognised by the […]

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After Erdoğan’s Narrow Victory

Update: Since the time of writing of this article, over three weeks ago, the Turkish lirahas lost over 25% of its value against the US dollar and inflation is rapidly catching up on this figure. A significant factor in this devaluation has been the diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the United States over the former’s […]

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Turkey: Voting under the State of Emergency

In Turkey, the government of the nationalist-religious Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi—AKP) called early presidential and parliamentary elections for the 24 June. It was aware that its electoral base is gradually eroding, particularly in the big metropolitan areas like Istanbul. Therefore, it did everything in order to enhance the chances of being […]

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Ahead of a Hot Italian Summer

Disenchantment with the euro had been growing in Italy for many years. After the last elections, this disenchantment proved to be the basis for the formation of a coalition between the far-right wing Lega and the diffuse Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Stars Movement). While the two parties differed on many economic and social issues, they […]

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Nationalism at a Crossroads: the Turkish Intervention in Syria

Late last month, Turkish military forces invaded Afrin, an autonomous Kurdish area in Syria. This is a further step of escalating the involvement of the Turkish AKP government in the Syrian war and in its conflict with the Kurds. In the wake of the so-called Arab spring, the nationalist-religious AKP government decided, after some hesitation, […]

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The Austrian Anti-Social Coalition

The new government of the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) and FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) in Austria opens the way towards radicalised neo-liberal economic and social policies. As in some other EU countries, such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark and Finland, a traditional liberal-conservative party has formed a coalition with or at least achieved the tolerance […]

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Agrokor – oligarchic crisis in Croatia

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article was originally published in Slovak in the newspaper Pravda. We republish the piece in English with the kind permission of the author. The blue sea and summer holidays – that is what people usually associate with Croatia. However, there is a vast inland too. And tourism is not […]