Change afoot in Turkmenistan

Once a week the Turkmenistan Project (part of George Soros's Open Society Institute) posts digests of the news from that Central Asian country. The news of late has been very positive, on a relative basis. Since the death at the end of last year of president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov and the inauguration and then "election" of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the country has already been opening up:

• Berdymukhammedov has abandoned daily recitation of the oath to the leader, which is now for special occasions only, and replaced the word "Turkmenbashi" with "President";
• The year of secondary schooling dropped under Niyazov has been readded, 23,000 teachers rehired, and foreign languages put back in the curriculum;
• Pensions which had been dropped to veterans, agricultural workers and others as well as maternity benefits are being restored;
• The Academy of Sciences will reopen;
• Health clinics outside Ashgabat (closed by Niyazov--actually by Berdymukhammedov when he was Health Minister under Niyazov, not that he had a choice) are to be reopened;
• Internet cafes have opened, and seem to be relatively free in terms of content, but are too expensive for most Turkmen;
• The president has restored communication with Azerbaijan after eight years of silence and is restoring ties with others as well.

While it is certainly more boring to read the digests than it was when Turkmenbashi was ruling, the Turkmen people have every reason to celebrate. The negatives: the blatantly rigged election (inevitable) and the detention of an opposition leader in Bulgaria after a Turkmen request to Interpol. The goal of Berdymukhammedov is probably to establish a stable authoritarianism as elsewhere in Central Asia, but really, who knows?

Price discrimination at Dodger Stadium

The L.A. Times reports on price discrimination in baseball:

The Dodgers sell tickets in the field box section for $20, $30, $35, $37, $40 and $45, depending on whether you buy on game day, before game day or as part of a full-season, partial-season or group ticket package.

What's the ticket price? The Dodgers offer you 104 answers in all.

Inevitable as prices climb higher. To put those higher prices in perspective, with some numbers from when I was tiny and not yet aware of baseball,

In 1987, the Angels sold tickets for $8, $7, $5 and $3 and the Dodgers for $7, $6 and $4, with every seat on the same level at the same price.

Hmm. If I count the Dodger increase as 500 percent ($7 to $35, $6 to $30, $4 to $20), that's 8 percent every year for 20 years. And they wonder why you can't get kids interested in baseball anymore... maybe if they could go to more than one game a year there'd be a better chance.

Québec: reactions

Well, to update my favorite story, in Sherbrooke it appears that the reason for Charest's speedy recovery was indeed the counting of the advance votes. In 2003 Charest won the advance votes by about 1,000 votes; it would appear that he won them by a similar or even greater margin this time, as he was trailing by up to 700 votes during the count, then recovered to win by over 1,000.

Reactions from the Canadian blogosphere include:

democraticSPACE reflects on where the projections went right, and wrong.

Paul Wells has much to say.

Antonio reflects from Quebec.

Calgary Grit last night, and on Boisclair--in particular, his statement that 2/3 for the opposition = PQ victory.

Red Tory the night of; on the aftermath; and on Dumont's "autonomism".

Notes on San Diego

As I mentioned a while back, I took a vacation to San Diego a couple of weeks ago. I figured a couple of comments were in order:

First, there is a light-rail system, called the Trolley. Started in 1981, the Trolley is now 51 miles long, but of course, since it's a transit system built into a preexisting city, and a spread-out one at that, its utility is limited. Some of the stations don't seem to be close to anything, in particular, and you can't get to the beach or airport by trolley. I had a difficult time understanding the termination of the Blue Line and Green Line at Old Town. The Blue Line comes north from San Ysidro and terminates at Old Town, while the Green Line runs east from Old Town to Santee. I'm sure there is some traffic-pattern reason for doing so, but I have no idea what it was, and it was inconvenient for me, thereby making it a bad thing...

According to the Wiki article, plans are underway to run a line up to La Jolla, which would have really cut down the time on our trip to the UCSD campus. We bought the four-day passes for $15, which were a decent value considering we stayed (relatively) close to a trolley station and the passes are also valid on the bus.

Part of the Old Town station.


The other comment I have is on Petco Park. We went on the tour (very entertaining and informative). My favorite feature of the park is the integration of the historic Western Metal Supply building... followed up by the fact that Padres owner John Moores (who got his start in software in Houston) owns pretty much all the buildings around it.


All in all, despite the needed improvements to the transit system, San Diego is a great city and I hope to be back sooner rather than later. (And hey, compared to Seattle or Houston, it's tough for me to really say anything negative about transit!)

Québec returns come in

Well, yesterday I was going to make the fearless prediction that Dumont's ADQ would beat one of the major parties in the vote percentages, but I didn't. Maybe I will look dumb for not doing so by the end of the night. With 11% of the votes in, it's neck-and-neck.

8:07 CT The CBC has already posted a "Charest reelected" article. Do they know something we don't? According to the returns so far, with about 15% of precincts reporting in Sherbrooke, Charest is trailing by 126 votes to the PQ candidate.

8:14 CT Well, they've pulled the article from the main site, and Charest still trails. Boisclair and Dumont, on the other hand, are leading comfortably. Wouldn't it be crazy if the PLQ emerged with the most seats but Charest lost his own riding?

8:25 CT ADQ and PLQ are still leading in 45 circonscriptions each with PQ behind holding 35. The popular vote is closer, PLQ first, ADQ just behind, PQ a couple percentage points back. Boisclair's probably done, and it's looking more and more like Charest really could lose Sherbrooke; he's trailing by over 300 votes and 30 percent of "bureaux de vote" (I know I shouldn't say "precincts") are reporting.

8:42 CT Charest's chances don't look too good. Not being able to watch Canadian TV in Texas, I have no idea what's being speculated. Who takes over if Charest falls in Sherbrooke? Deputy premier Jacques Dupuis? The PLQ is still leading the overall seat count...

8:43 CT And I'm resolving never to silence my own fearless prediction, ever again.

9:49 CT Interestingly, Charest is closing the gap late. With about 15% of polling stations left, he's back within 250 votes. Probably about 3,000 votes are still out, so it's certainly possible he could pull it off.

9:57 CT Whoa. The one polling station that just reported apparently had something like a 140-vote advantage for Charest, who's pulled within 110 votes in Sherbrooke. Meanwhile, yes, there is an election going on in 124 other ridings. About 94% of polling places have been counted, and somehow, first-second-third are the same in the vote totals as in seat totals, despite the total mess that has been created.

10:23 CT Huh?? Another three polling places have come in for Sherbrooke and Charest now leads by something like 700 votes. Apparently, everyone, their mom, and their dog here voted for Charest.

10:33 CT OK. Charest was trailing by 250 votes after 182 stations were counted. With another six stations in, he's now up by 915 votes. How, exactly, did he manage this? In 2003, he did not win a single polling place in Sherbrooke by a 200-vote margin--only a couple by a 100-vote margin (according to my very quick glance at the data) and now he's managed to make up over 1100 votes in six? Perhaps some reporting polling places hadn't counted all their votes?
It should be noted additionally, and should have been taken into account, that the PQ dominated the 2003 advance vote, probably by a 1300-1400-vote margin, which accounts for much of the early lead held by PQ candidate Forgues this time around if it held.
Not that I'm casting aspersions or anything, it would have just been a lot more interesting as an observer if Charest had lost, and I've got no personal stake in this. But there will certainly be enough action on the horizon regardless.

10:49 CT Anyhow, whatever the case, they say Charest won the riding by about 1300 votes (half his margin of 2600 from last time, and down from 47% of the vote to 37%). The overall results in the province, with over 99.5% of polling places in, show:

Liberals: 33.1%, 48 seats
ADQ: 30.8%, 41 seats
PQ: 28.3%, 36 seats

Boisclair may be done as PQ leader. Big surprise for the ADQ, which exceeded even the most optimistic polls. The Liberals, usually the party with the smallest "winners' bonus" due to their large margins of victory in anglophone ridings, have a relatively large margin this time with ADQ and PQ splitting lots of ridings. The big question is what this heralds for the provincial political scene--three parties? realignment of constituencies? all of which is beyond my abilities to look at tonight, but which will undoubtedly lead to some interesting consequences. And probably another election fairly soon.

lolcats

I generally don't comment on changes to my links, but... please welcome the newest addition to my "Other Links," I Can Has Cheezburger?

An example of their fine work:

Québec heads to the polls

Jean Charest's Liberal government (no relation to Stéphane Dion's federal Liberals) in Québec goes to the polls tomorrow to seek a renewed mandate. Polls make it a very close race between the usual second party, the separatist Parti Québécois, and the conservative Action démocratique du Québec, a third party for years, which has surged to within striking distance of the top two.

DemocraticSPACE projects a minority Liberal government, with the numbers being:
Liberals, 35.7%, 55 seats (of 125)
PQ, 29.6%, 47 seats
ADQ, 25.9%, 23 seats

ADQ emerges far weaker because its support is spread throughout the province. The PLQ is always somewhat disadvantaged (relative to its percentage of the vote) by winning supermajorities in anglophone West Montreal. Therefore, percentages don't generally translate neatly into seat totals.

Whatever the total, there are major shifts in the Québec political landscape underway, and this election will not be the end of the story.

Do Husky renovations make sense?

Washington AD Todd Turner has decided that he wants to pursue major renovations to Husky Stadium. Last December, renderings were released (see the Seattle Times) that show a brick-and-glass exterior. The Seattle P-I more recently reports that there are two options being presented to an ad hoc university committee: either (1) do the full renovation--probably $200 million or more, or (2) spend $70m on smaller projects to keep the stadium functioning. The project is more urgent right now because Sound Transit will be working on the light-rail line in the area and improvements to SR-520 from 2009 to the mid-2010s and it makes sense for all work to take place during the same timeframe.

Now, as much as I love the Dawgs... does it make any sense for public money to go to another great football stadium? Especially with the Sonics seeking public funding for a new arena as well? Husky Stadium being part of UW, it's my impression there won't be a whole lot of non-UW events taking place there... the renovations would eliminate the track... and Turner has admitted that a lot of fundraising has already been conducted for the new Legends Center, narrowing his base for the new renovations (not to mention, the team isn't too great these days).

I'd put the odds of success pretty low, and deservedly so. Still, I'd hope against hope they find a magnanimous donor who loves Husky football and hates academics (therefore ensuring that his/her football donations don't preempt academic donations)...

Parliamentarism in Africa: or, why not?

A dispute between Parliament and President João Bernardo Vieira in Guinea-Bissau appears as though it will boil over. The three main parties in parliament--the former only ruling party PAIGC, the main opposition PRS of former president Kumba Yalá, and the other opposition party PUSD--have agreed on some sort of "pact of national unity," the main point of which, undoubtedly, is to dismiss the PM Aristides Gomes, a Vieira ally, and impose their own candidate on Vieira, who does not have his own party.

While Guinea-Bissau has (for no really good reason) been a long-time special interest of mine, the question this dispute raises is broader: why on earth have so few African countries tried a parliamentary system? Even as the continent converted to democracy in the 1990s, very few chose a parliamentary system.

A bit of history: essentially all the former British colonies started as parliamentary systems. Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Mauritius, Botswana, the Seychelles--all adopted a Westminster-style system with first-past-the-post voting after independence. In almost all, the prime minister eventually decided he wanted to be president, the post of Governor-General was eliminated, and a parliamentary system became a presidential one, generally around the same time as opposition parties were also banned. This repeated over and over, from Nkrumah in Ghana to Kaunda in Zambia, Mugabe in Zimbabwe to Banda in Malawi to Kenyatta in Kenya. On the other hand, the former French colonies were presidential systems from the start, imitating the Fifth Republic.

And today, even as new constitutions have been drawn up or constitutions revised, parliamentarism remains untried except in a few cases. South Africa has adopted an essentially parliamentary system, as has Namibia; Botswana has retained its system since independence (though without a change in ruling party); Ethiopia has adopted parliamentarism, but its democratic credentials are very questionable, especially after 2005. The most notable attempted reform was Kenya, where Mwai Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition swept to power promising to establish a parliamentary system (President Kibaki promptly discarded most of the promise, and the watered-down constitutional amendments were rejected in a referendum).

More countries have adopted proportional representation, though most are presidential democracies. Many of the French-speaking former colonies, in particular, have proportional representation (a by no means complete list includes Senegal, Togo, Benin, Burkina, Mali, and Niger). SA and Namibia also adopted PR, and Burundi and Rwanda use PR. The rest (especially the ex-British colonies) have retained FPP.

It seems as though ethnic politics could be one key reason for the leaning toward FPP. Parties which can win, regionally, in FPP among their own ethnic group have no incentive to let broader-based parties emerge as competitors and may prefer their guarantees under the existing systems. This does not explain the tendency toward presidential systems, however. One would think the advantages of a parliamentary system--in particular, nonfixed government service that allows for non-confidence votes--would carry the day at least in some cases, were democracy to be the primary objective.

So then, the question is--Who wants a fixed, independent executive, and why? The existing elites may be the answer. Perhaps the fixed presidential term creates more perceived stability. Remember, too, that the president is therefore responsible for most patronage, especially distribution of foreign aid and top jobs--and with weak political parties, he can form personal coalitions in the legislature to support him. Therefore, support flows to the president, who dispenses patronage, and elites do not have to worry about the party that they support losing a parliamentary election; support is transferred to the new president, and things continue as before.

Secondly, many (though not all) transitions were begun by existing strongmen. Rawlings in Ghana, Kerekou in Benin, Diouf in Senegal, Kaunda in Zambia, Banda in Malawi, Moi in Kenya, Museveni in Uganda, Kagame in Rwanda, Chissano in Mozambique, and others all hoped to win reelection to their positions in the new, more open system. Abolishing the importance of their own job was not on the agenda. (Again, the exception was Ethiopia, but we see how the possible threat to Meles Zenawi's rule turned out...).

In South Africa and Namibia, where PR-parliamentary systems were adopted, there has been less risk to elites--the winners were clearly known in advance (the liberation movements, ANC and SWAPO, have dominated despite highly proportional systems). If presidentialism is the side effect (yet also cause) of instability, perhaps as democracy starts to take root in some countries, insecurity diminishes, and (not necessarily linked) economic institutions become more secure, we will see a push for parliamentarism or at least the adoption of PR in some countries where FPP is still in charge.

As for Guinea-Bissau, donors (who must be called upon for anything relevant to happen) are, not surprisingly, uneager to fund a new election, so it seems likely that some sort of solution will be worked out. If not, of course, the military could always step in again.