2021 which the world welcomed with the wish that it turns out the exact opposite of 2020 is sending disturbing signals across the world in its first one week. Not only is the United States sprawling on the ground as democracy in the country came crashing down from the Olympian standards associated with it, China, the rising great power, is recording a new wave of Covid-19. Such signs and how the Chinese authorities respond to it cannot be ignored because China’s abilities and inabilities are currently perceived to be the best measures of how well or not the world is coping with the pandemic.
A Reuters pix as used in Time showing suspected supporters of President Donald Trump climbing the walls at the U.S. Capitol the bid to annul the 2020 U.S. presidential election January 6, 2021.
From Africa comes story of parliamentary anarchy in Ghana as the country tries to elect the Speaker for the national legislature. And from Nigeria is a confusing situation over electricity tariff which the Federal Government has denied but a denial which the major central labour organisation says is only a language game and is threatening fire and brimstone to block.
The only exception so far from the point of view of global ethics is what seems to be the beginning of the end of nightmare for Venezuela, the oil super rich Latin American country experiencing the usual oil related instability. In what appears to be the winding down of hegemonic pressure on it, the European Union, (EU) has withdrawn recognition for the Mr. Juan Guaido who has been presenting himself as leader of opposition. He suffered an electoral rout in the hands of members of President Nicolas Maduro’s camp last month. Although protests have greeted the December elections which saw his loss, the EU’s move might be the most normative delegitimation of any claims he may have ever had to power beyond foreign interests believed to be propping him.
A scene from Ghana
Unfortunately, that is not the stuff from the other ‘Third World’ country in the news. Agency reports said clashes preceded inauguration of the parliament billed for today as political opponents engaged each other as to lead to troops having to restore ‘democracy’. This must have a sent a worrisome signal to observers, coming from Ghana whose elite are rated to be very good in behind-the-scene consensus politics in the past few decades and, therefore, hardly going near a cliff position, much less throwing the country over.
Trouble is said to have started when things degenerated to where a particular legislator tried to take control of the ballot box in the course of the election. The clashes that developed subsequently required the intervention of Ghanaian troops.
The major question would include why the incumbent could not win so convincingly as for the election of the Speaker to be hitch-free. Right now, all two leading parties have equal strength in the legislature.
The question is what sort of year this might be. Could it be the democracy crease in the US will intensify or pave way for restoration? Away from the US, is the military intervention to restore ‘democracy’ in the national legislature in the democracy and consensus star in Africa mere part of the process or a manifestation of the perceived unraveling of democracy globally? The chick that will grow into a giant cock can be known in the morning of creation day is an abridged version of an age-old wisdom. Is that what the world seeing of 2021 or the year is trying to quickly exhaust its stock of few bad news before it starts unfolding the good stories for the rest of the months?
