On democracy in the United States and the chances of its collapse

The chances of democracy failing can be evaluated through public perception and the specific structural vulnerabilities cited by experts.

64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is in danger of failing, according to a June 2026 Reuters/Ipsos Poll. High public anxiety reflects deep partisan polarisation, though different sides blame different causes.

Concentration of power in the executive branch and non-compliance with judicial rulings. The primary mechanism of modern democratic decline is gradual legal and structural erosion by elected leaders, rather than a military coup. 

The "chances" of complete failure are mitigated by resilient checks. Independent federal courts continue to regularly block unlawful executive orders. There are also future election cycles that could stem the decline, or perhaps even turn things around.

Legal scholars generally emphasise that this decline is not inevitable or permanent. While the risk of moving toward an "illiberal democracy"—similar to developments seen in nations like Hungary under former Prime Minister Viktor Orban—is real, the presence of active public pushback, independent courts, and upcoming decentralised election cycles mean the system retains the capacity to correct itself.

I would like to be as optimistic as some of these said legal scholars are, but I cannot be. The events of January 6, 2021 hold me back in my thinking. I think what happened on that date, together with the presence today of heavily armed federal government agents on the streets under the pretext of immigration enforcement, provide for a foreboding outlook, which is more realistic than a mere armchair optimism premised on what was in the past normal or reasonable to expect.

These are unprecedented times, outcomes going forward are likely to be unprecedented also. I think the United States is well on its way to losing its democracy, and that this backsliding by the world's leading democracy will impact negatively on democracies around the world, and especially on the rule of law. 

Basically, the Russians can be said to have won. To destabilise, polarise, and weaken democracies from within by eroding trust in democratic institutions was always the primary, foundational goal of Russian Intelligence. 

Julian Assange asylum: Ecuador is right to stand up to the US

An excellent take on the Julian Assange asylum story.

Ecuador has now made its decision: to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. This comes in the wake of an incident that should dispel remaining doubts about the motives behind the UK/Swedish attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On Wednesday, the UK government made an unprecedented threat to invade Ecuador's embassy if Assange is not handed over. Such an assault would be so extreme in violating international law and diplomatic conventions that it is difficult to even find an example of a democratic government even making such a threat, let alone carrying it out. 

When Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño, in an angry and defiant response, released the written threats to the public, the UK government tried to backtrack and say it wasn't a threat to invade the embassy (which is another country's sovereign territory). But what else can we possibly make of this wording from a letter delivered by a British official?

"You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy. We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange's presence in your premises, this is an open option for us." 

Is there anyone in their right mind who believes that the UK government would make such an unprecedented threat if this were just about an ordinary foreign citizen wanted for questioning – not criminal charges or a trial – by a foreign government? 

Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to Assange was both predictable and reasonable. But it is also a ground-breaking case that has considerable historic significance. 

First, the merits of the case: Assange clearly has a well-founded fear of persecution if he were to be extradited to Sweden. It is pretty much acknowledged that he would be immediately thrown in jail. Since he is not charged with any crime, and the Swedish government has no legitimate reason to bring him to Sweden, this by itself is a form of persecution. 

We can infer that the Swedes have no legitimate reason for the extradition, since they were repeatedly offered the opportunity to question him in the UK, but rejected it, and have also refused to even put forth a reason for this refusal. A few weeks ago the Ecuadorian government offered to allow Assange to be questioned in its London embassy, where Assange has been residing since 19 June, but the Swedish government refused – again without offering a reason. This was an act of bad faith in the negotiating process that has taken place between governments to resolve the situation. 

Former Stockholm chief district prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem also made it clear that the Swedish government had no legitimate reason to seek Assange's extradition when he testified that the decision of the Swedish government to extradite Assange is "unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate", because he could be easily questioned in the UK. 

But, most importantly, the government of Ecuador agreed with Assange that he had a reasonable fear of a second extradition to the United States, and persecution here for his activities as a journalist. The evidence for this was strong. Some examples: an ongoing investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks in the US; evidence that an indictment had already been prepared; statements by important public officials such as Democratic senator Diane Feinstein that he should be prosecuted for espionage, which carries a potential death penalty or life imprisonment. 

Why is this case so significant? It is probably the first time that a citizen fleeing political persecution by the US has been granted political asylum by a democratic government seeking to uphold international human rights conventions. This is a pretty big deal, because for more than 60 years the US has portrayed itself as a proponent of human rights internationally – especially during the cold war. And many people have sought and received asylum in the US. 

The idea of the US government as a human rights defender, which was believed mostly in the US and allied countries, was premised on a disregard for the human rights of the victims of US wars and foreign policy, such as the 3 million Vietnamese or more than one million Iraqis who were killed, and millions of others displaced, wounded, or abused because of US actions. That idea – that the US should be judged only on what it does within its borders – is losing support as the world grows more multipolar economically and politically, Washington loses power and influence, and its wars, invasions, and occupations are seen by fewer people as legitimate. 

At the same time, over the past decade, the US's own human rights situation has deteriorated. Of course prior to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, millions of African-Americans in the southern states didn't have the right to vote, and lacked other civil rights – and the consequent international embarrassment was part of what allowed the civil rights movement to succeed. But at least by the end of that decade, the US could be seen as a positive example internally in terms of the rule of law, due process and the protection of civil rights and liberties. 

Today, the US claims the legal right to indefinitely detain its citizens; the president can order the assassination of a citizen without so much as even a hearing; the government can spy on its citizens without a court order; and its officials are immune from prosecution for war crimes. It doesn't help that the US has less than 5% of the world's population but almost a quarter of its prison inmates, many of them victims of a "war on drugs" that is rapidly losing legitimacy in the rest of the world. Assange's successful pursuit of asylum from the US is another blow to Washington's international reputation. At the same time, it shows how important it is to have democratic governments that are independent of the US and – unlike Sweden and the UK – will not collaborate in the persecution of a journalist for the sake of expediency. Hopefully other governments will let the UK know that threats to invade another country's embassy put them outside the bounds of law-abiding nations. 

It is interesting to watch pro-Washington journalists and their sources look for self-serving reasons that they can attribute to the government of Ecuador for granting asylum. Correa wants to portray himself as a champion of free speech, they say; or he wants to strike a blow to the US, or put himself forward as an international leader. But this is ridiculous. 

[Ecuador's President] Correa didn't want this mess and it has been a lose-lose situation for him from the beginning. He has suffered increased tension with three countries that are diplomatically important to Ecuador – the US, UK and Sweden. The US is Ecuador's largest trading partner and has several times threatened to cut off trade preferences that support thousands of Ecuadorian jobs. And since most of the major international media has been hostile to Assange from the beginning, they have used the asylum request to attack Ecuador, accusing the government of a "crackdown" on the media at home. As I have noted elsewhere, this is a gross exaggeration and misrepresentation of Ecuador, which has an uncensored media that is mostly opposed to the government. And for most of the world, these misleading news reports are all that they will hear or read about Ecuador for a long time. 

Correa made this decision because it was the only ethical thing to do. And any of the independent, democratic governments of South America would have done the same. If only the world's biggest media organisations had the same ethics and commitment to freedom of speech and the press. 

Now we will see if the UK government will respect international law and human rights conventions and allow Assange safe passage to Ecuador.

By Mark Weisbrot and appearing in The Guardian newspaper here

Foreign Aid and Homophobic African Governments

Recently came the news that homophobic countries in Africa are to have financial aid from Britain cut.

"In itself, such a move should be applauded. Countries where gay people are persecuted, imprisoned or even killed merely on account of their sexuality should be treated as pariah states. Giving money ostensibly to relieve need in places where such true human rights to life and liberty are routinely snuffed out like this is quite obscene," observes the UK's Daily Mail newspaper's Melanie Phillips.

While I welcome this move and think it is long overdue, I believe that the timing of the UK government's announcement is significant, coming just after a Conservative Party conference at which the Tories attempted to portray a compassionate image of their party - a move that has been widely scorned as being a stunt. After all, it is not only gay people who are being persecuted in many of these countries. Several other social groups also suffer abuse, as for example in Islamic countries, where women continue to suffer systematic oppression. Yet we hear of no plans to cut aid to those countries on their account.

I think this announcement might be a sweetener for those who have criticised the Cameron government for continuing to increase its foreign aid programme at a time when the same government is carrying out deep spending cuts at home. Prime Minister Cameron has famously stated that continuing to increase the aid programme at the time of austerity is a "sign of moral strength".

However, when one considers that the UK is having to borrow huge sums of cash from parts of the developing world, such as the Middle East and China just to stay afloat, but is at the same time doling out enormous sums in aid to poorer developing countries in Africa and Asia, one cannot but wonder whether the government's critics don't have a point. More so when the facts are that: although the budget for the UK's Department for International Development is set to increase from the current £8 billion per year to £11.5 billion by 2015, the Home Office budget, which pays for the Police and counter terrorism within the UK, has been cut over the same period, from £10.1 billion in the current financial year, to £8.3 billion in 2014/15. Yet, it is still the case that much of the aid given to poorer countries is not capable of being monitored as to how it is utilised.

Aid funds are manipulated by tyrants in order to oppress, enslave, suppress and even kill their own people and to prop up their brutal and corrupt regimes. (I will refrain from mentioning names, but to bear out this argument, there seems to be a correlation between those African countries most reliant on foreign aid, and those with the most brutally oppressive regimes). It has been argued (disingenuously in my view) that the problem of misapplication of aid funds is a thing of the past, and that aid budgets have now been made "rigorously accountable". But even the UK government-established Independent Commission on Aid Impact has stated that up to 27 per cent of the UK's aid budget goes directly to the recipient countries' governments to spend as they choose. A further one-third of official aid money goes to expert international bodies such as the World Bank and the United Nations. Only a relatively small amount is spent by the UK Government directly on humanitarian projects.

Therefore, governments that are recipients of foreign aid are free on the larger part, to do what they please with the money that they receive. This money is seen as easy pickings by those in power in those countries. And far from helping poor nations rise from destitution, foreign aid has encouraged dependency, fostered corruption and prevented the development of the free institutions of government and civil society, whose absence is the principal cause of the poverty in the first place. Also, to protect the rights of gay African people, it will not be nearly enough merely to force African countries to repeal or amend their anti-gay legislation. There must overall be changes in societal attitudes too, yet it is difficult for me to envisage how the withholding of foreign aid alone will bring those changes about.

In conclusion, I must express how strongly I feel about the fact that several decades after achieving independence from their former colonial masters, many African countries continue to rely so very heavily on financial aid from abroad, such that this aid has been allowed to become a whip with which African governments can be flogged into submission. This is another count in the long indictment against the leadership that the African people have had inflicted upon them.

Nigeria, Gabon in the UN Security Council

Nigeria and Gabon have both been elected to a United Nations Security Council non-permanent seat, following voting by the 192-member General Assembly.

Assembly President, Ali Treki, announced the results - 186 votes for Nigeria, 184 for Gabon, 183 for Bosnia, 182 for Brazil and 180 for Lebanon and declared the five countries elected to terms beginning 1st of January 2010.

In a press conference Nigerian Foreign minister Ojo Maduekwe expressed gratitude for the "solidarity of the entire African bloc" and hailed the election, saying preventive diplomacy will be central to Nigeria's approach to issues.

Nigeria has served three terms in a U.N. Security Council non-permanent seat, most recently between 1994 and 1995. This will be Gabon's first time serving on the council. Professor Kabir Mato, head of the political science department at the University of Abuja said in an interview with VOA News, that Nigeria worked very hard to reach this point. "It is quite a strategic achievement, and if properly used, I do believe that Nigeria will be able to impact positively by pushing through some very cogent economic and political issues that will not only affect Nigeria as a country, but above all Africa and the rest of the third world in general," he said.

"It's going to be an even stronger Security Council, I think, next year," Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers said in a statement. "We have two large countries in Brazil and Nigeria who carry the weight of being a regional power. We have two countries in Lebanon and Bosnia that have been through conflict and can bring their own national experiences to the Security Council," he added.

THISDAY reported that on the eve of Nigeria's election of Nigeria to the Council, Amnesty International released a 10-point agenda for the country to fulfil as a member of the Security Council. These included the following: complying with international and regional human rights obligations; preventing and prosecuting acts of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture or other ill treatment; adopting a moratorium on improving access to justice and protecting human rights in the Niger delta. The Amnesty International statement went on:

“In 12 months Nigeria will celebrate 50 years of independence. Following successive military regimes, efforts have been made by the Nigerian government to improve the human rights situation in the country."

“The Constitution that came into force in 1999 recognizes the right to life; prohibits torture and other ill treatment, and guarantees a fair trial; however, economic, social and cultural rights fall under the directive principles and are not justifable. In addition, a wide range of human rights concern remain.”

Ten of the Security Council's 15 seats are filled by regional groups for two-years, and five non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly every year. To win, candidates must get a two-thirds majority vote of the assembly members which is done by secret ballot.

The five other Security Council seats are occupied by its permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

Source: Africa the Good News

This G20 Summit

History teaches us that is it not very often when two or more countries agree on something that each country will act upon what was agreed on in exactly the same way. In the G20, there are 19 countries and the European Union, which itself is a political union of 27 member states, only four of which are represented independently in the G20. The way I see it, this is a hodge-podge of diverging interests and it seems clear that no form of consensus can ever be achieved in actuality, although on paper the final communique to be produced at the end of this summit will undoubtedly purport that there has in fact been consensus. Recent political history is replete with examples of agreements made on paper, on which are conferred as many different interpretations as there are signatories to the agreements.

The very nature of the G20 itself is such that there can and should be no disagreement. Yet, even before the meeting began it was well known, with regard to regulatory reform, that there was a split between the Anglo Saxon capitalist model of the UK and the USA on the one hand, and the more interventionist European model of Germany and France. Indeed, France's Monsieur Sarkozy even threatened to walk out if no firm measures were taken to rein in the banks and hedge funds.

Gordon Brown's brainwave of a fiscal stimulus, a major new initiative to kick start the various economies has come up against a solid roadblock. Angela Merkel, (and not her alone), has firmly indicated that she has no intention of letting the G20 write her national budget. Not to mention the recent cutting words of Brazil's Lula da Silva, blaming white blue-eyed males for the financial crisis. All in all, I expect little more than rhetoric from this summit, as opposed to solid and detailed figures. The rhetoric will lean towards highlighting the benefits of concerted international effort in dealing with the financial crisis, but few commitments will be had from governments, if at all.

Methinks that one positive outcome of this summit will be the formalisation of the shift of the balance of power from the traditional economic powers like the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, to the newer players like China and India. And particularly in relation to the issue of voting rights in the IMF, taking into account the fact that an enlarged role for the IMF inevitably carries a substantial price tag, a burden that the traditional powers will not be terribly keen to shoulder in the present economic situation.

While trying not to get bogged down with all this economic stuff that we have been bombarded with recently, most Londoners are basking in the limelight of Obamamania. Many know there are several heads of government in town, but everyone, including the almighty BBC, are following Obama around. It's almost like an Obama state visit. And Michelle, she's grabbing all the headlines.