Writer: Karoli Ssemogerere. PHOTO/FILE
Early in October, when I stopped by the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas, I decided with my company to have a picture taken, in the backdrop of a rather early Christmas tree. We asked two Canadian women who were wearing T-shirts with an expletive directed at their Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Mr Trudeau, lost his parliamentary majority earlier this year when the New Democratic Party withdrew their support of the ruling party liberals forcing him into a minority government, with 156 members of Parliament out of 338 members in the lower chamber. In the United Kingdom, a number of interesting things have happened. Labour’s huge parliamentary majority with just 35 percent of the popular vote is feeling some pressure.
Labour cut fuel subsidies to the seniors, and an early winter has soured on Labour. Three million voters recently petitioned Parliament dissatisfied with government’s performance, one third of the 10 million votes that put Labour in power. This month, a sharply divided Parliament in which Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his predecessor voted on a private member’s motion for legalizing assisted dying, while the Health Secretary and Leader of Opposition Kemi Badenoch voted against.
In Africa, Labour is negotiating a final treaty to exit the Chagos islands, cede them to Mauritius that house a US cross-ocean base Diego Garcia. Smelling blood, the former ruling Conservatives have ganged up with the winner of the Mauritius elections to slow-ball the deal. Residents of the Chagos islands uprooted in the colonial era, have reached the end of their legal claims in the United Kingdom, seeking reparations for being forcibly uprooted. Any extension of British sovereignty keeps these claims alive.
You remember, the claims by ex-British servicemen in Uganda, something of the sort. In the United States, outgoing president Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, fully from all federal claims shortly before he was going to be sentenced on tax evasion charges. The elder Mr. Biden’s walk back from earlier committals, was spectacular, but the wind will blow away. The presidential pardon power is one of the absolute powers, the American president and other presidents enjoy without any scope of judicial review.
In Uganda, this pardon power is managed by the Ministry of Justice, and exercised by the president, who has used this power more often than before especially to pardon political opponents. The biggest winter shock came from Korea, home to the world’s 11th largest economy, South Korea and one of the biggest “smaller” nuclear powers, North Korea. South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor who narrowly won the 2022 presidential election declared martial law, before being overridden 190-0 in a parliamentary vote. He now faces impeachment and removal from office.
Martial law has not been used in South Korea in decades, even by the standards of a fairly turbulent political system that has routinely sent former presidents to jail, a culture that South Koreans have been trying to water down. In 2018, Park Gyun-he, daughter of General Park Chung Hee a former president too was sentenced to 24 years in prison after being found guilty of abuse of power and coercion.
An appeals court enhanced the sentence to 25 years. She went to jail after a high-profile visit to Uganda in 2017. President Yoon thinks, North Korean “AI” has infiltrated the political system. Under martial law, media would go under state control and political activities would be banned. Protesters camped outside parliament and the opposition leader of the Democratic Party recorded himself climbing over the fence to attend the parliamentary vote. Interesting, the ruling party in South Korea is called the “People Power” party.
My memories of South Korea are now fading after living a whole year in this country more than twenty years ago. Seoul the capital is just 30 minutes from the border with North Korea and in event of military conflict, it is taken for granted, North Koreans would overrun their Southern neighbour up to 50 km, before they can be stopped by the American backed military.
In South Africa, it's not winter. The Government of National Unity with 10 parties, leftist ANC and centre right Democratic Alliance is doing well, catching up on years of malaise. But the drama in parliament continues. Former President Jacob Zuma’s party Umkhonto wa Sizwe is now leading the official opposition ahead of the Economic Freedom Fighters. Investors are cheering on, and voters are cheering on South Africa’s progress, in November, marking 100 days of no-load shedding cheering up voters.
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law
and an Advocate. [email protected]
