Current Analysis Youth in Turkey’s 2015 Elections On June 7, Turkish citizens went to the polls [http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/election/default.htmlhttp://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/election/default.html] to elect the 550 members of the Grand National Assembly. Although the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 41 percent of the vote, it Aydin Özipek • 3 min read
Current Analysis Sisiphus Over three days in late May, ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, the retired field marshal and former head of military intelligence, was elected president of Egypt with 96 percent of the vote. This tally was far higher than the 51.34 percent recorded in 2012 by the man Sisi helped to depose, Muhammad Mursi, and Gennaro Gervasio, Vivienne Matthies-Boon, Andrea Teti • 12 min read
Current Analysis Iran, the Twenty-First-Century Island of Stability Iran’s 1979 revolution, in helping to push out Jimmy Carter and bring in Ronald Reagan, offered up one of the few instances in the latter half of the twentieth century where domestic politics in a Third World country affected domestic politics in the United States more than the other way around. Aya Kevan Harris • 4 min read
Current Analysis An "Electoral Uprising" in Iran “Last night I sat in traffic with my wife and daughters for three hours,” a Tehran office manager recounted, “and the car did not move one meter.” The day before, Iranians had chosen Hassan Rouhani as the Islamic Republic’s seventh president. “All the cars honked their horns, and people danced and c Kevan Harris • 16 min read
Current Analysis Wrapped in Surprise, Stuffed with Politics Many Iranians are pinching themselves and smiling uncontrollably after Hassan Rowhani’s victory in the June 14 presidential election. The purple-clad campaigners for Rowhani (or Mohammad Reza Aref, who stepped aside for Rowhani a few days before the balloting) still taste the bitterness of 2009, whe Arang Keshavarzian • 3 min read
Current Analysis Israel’s Rightward Shift Leaves Palestinian Citizens Out in the Cold Shortly before polling day in Israel’s January general election, the Arab League issued a statement urging Israel’s large Palestinian minority, a fifth of the country’s population, to turn out en masse to vote. The League’s unprecedented intervention -- reportedly at the instigation of the League’s Jonathan Cook • 25 min read
Current Analysis The Jordanian State Buys Itself Time For months prior to Jordan’s parliamentary elections, concluded on January 23, both the state apparatus and the opposition had been building up the contests as a moment of truth. The state presented the polls as a critical juncture in the execution of its strategy of gradual political reform; the op Nicholas Seeley • 14 min read
Current Analysis Sudanese Echoes In Egypt’s constitutional crisis today, there are echoes of the rise of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan. Khalid Mustafa Medani • 4 min read
Current Analysis Romney's Remnants In Egypt, popular sentiment runs high against those dubbed fuloul (leftovers or dregs), the epithet for politicians and former officials associated with the immense corruption and despotism of the Mubarak regime. Anti-fuloul sentiment ultimately doomed Mubarak’s final prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, t Steve Niva • 5 min read
Current Analysis Nays and Yeas in Charlotte The kerfuffle over the initial non-mention of Jerusalem in the Democratic Party platform throws into particularly sharp relief just how disconnected are discourse and reality when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Egyptian Politics Upended When he took office on June 30, President Muhammad Mursi of Egypt looked to have been handed a poisoned chalice. The ruling generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) had tolerated a clean presidential election but then had hollowed out the presidency, saddling Mursi with an executiv Mona El-Ghobashy • 18 min read
Current Analysis Ordering Egypt's Chaos To the left of a makeshift stage in a Cairo five-star hotel, the waiting continued. Ahmad Shafiq, the last prime minister of the deposed Husni Mubarak and one of two remaining candidates in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential race, was three hours late. Fewer than 60 hours were left until voting Joshua Stacher • 12 min read
