Germany: Zeitenwende Zukunft
Also: Mauritius, Somalia, Yemen, Ukraine, and Russia.
In today’s dispatch, the scene is set for German elections in February, but how will moves to ban the far-right play into the vote? Elsewhere, the anti-incumbent wave becomes a tsunami in Mauritius, where the opposition wins every seat in parliament. To the Indian Ocean’s north, an election in Somaliland meanwhile threatens to cause more stability and across the Gulf of Aden, the Houthis issue another cry for attention. Finally, Ukraine and Russia are playing up broader anxieties in a bid to gain negotiating leverage.
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Michael Feller, Chief Strategist
Geopolitical Dispatch is the daily client briefing of Geopolitical Strategy, a specialist advisory firm helping companies map, monitor and manage geopolitical risk.
GERMANY. Zeitenwende Zukunft
The countdown for a change in government begins.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Christian Democrats (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz agreed Tuesday on a timeline for elections in February. Far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) said it would bring forward its national conference to January.
INTELLIGENCE. Elections will be held on 23 February, after a vote of (no) confidence to trigger the process on 16 December. Unless the result is conclusive, coalition talks could take weeks (in 2021 it took 73 days), and for that reason, the CDU is as keen as others in the political mainstream to press for a ban on the AfD, which has taken votes from all segments of German society on a populist, Eurosceptic, and – prosecutors claim – neo-Nazi platform.
FOR BUSINESS. Banning the AfD may not be enough. Another populist from the left, Sahra Wagenknecht, has won votes with similar anti-migrant and pro-Russian views. The same factors that delivered a second term for Donald Trump are at play in Germany. By moving to the right, the CDU hopes to leverage this dynamic, but it’s unlikely to be sufficient for a majority. He could thus face an insidious choice between the AfD, Wagenknecht or Scholz for supply.
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MAURITIUS. Cyclone
The opposition wins every seat in parliament.
Mauritius's election commission said Tuesday the opposition Alliance of Change (AdC) had won 62.6% of Sunday's vote, picking up 60 of 62 elected seats, with the smaller opposition party Rodrigues People's Organisation taking two.
INTELLIGENCE. The AdC's Navin Ramgoolam has become prime minister for a third time. The coalition of his predecessor Pravind Jugnauth will