At a Crossroads: Discussing the Important Trends Shaping the Decisions of Tomorrow

On April 21, 2021, Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was found guilty by a jury of all three charges in causing the death of George Floyd. The reaction to the verdict that emerged from this contentious trial was varied. Some celebrated the verdict, while others were more circumspect and thought that it was the sustained unrest, peaceful or otherwise, that got them to this point. Indeed, in the aftermath of the verdict, there were calls that such demonstrations continue in other cases of alleged misconduct against the black American community and that they should be sustained until certain structural reforms, like defunding the police, are enacted. There are, however, questions that arise as to whether the public outrage unduly affected the thinking of the jury in this case and whether the rule of law in America could be sustained in the face of this pressure. The central controversy of this whole trial was about whether an erosion of due process occurred and what this portends for the future. In other words, the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" has been the ideological foundation of the judicial system since its inception. Regardless of Chauvin's guilt or lack thereof, the public reaction to the trial threatens to undermine judicial independence and risks creating a society that defines its legal justice by the feelings and desires of the masses.

The venue of the trial as set in Minneapolis, the scene of George Floyd’s death, is an issue at play in whether due process was afforded to Chauvin. Minneapolis was not spared from the protests and riots that occurred over the summer that were sparked by his tragic death. The trauma of the rioting was not lost on one alternate juror who commented that at the onset of the trial, she did not want to relive that whole experience again and was concerned that a mob would show up at her home if they were unhappy with the verdict.

This revelation raised questions on whether these feelings persisted throughout the trial for her, as well as for the other members of the jury. In other words, did the fear of violent consequences cloud their deliberations? This fear was magnified by the fact that days before the deliberations on the verdict, the city again combusted into rioting over the death of Daunte Wright by a policewoman. Furthermore, it should be noted that at least one of member of the jury lived in the neighborhood where Wright was shot while other members had connections to that neighborhood.

The behavior of the media and politicians during the trial itself presented another issue. The judge of the trial sternly reproached the media for trying to read the notes of the defense and prosecution as well as for their “completely irresponsible” posting of details of the security where the trial was taking place. There was also a mismatch between what was revealed in court versus how the media narrated the event of Floyd’s death. While the factor of race was brought up time and again in the media’s narrative of events, the topic of race never arose during the court proceedings itself. Within the context of the court, no evidence of Chauvin having a racial animus toward blacks was given nor was the point even argued to the ire of some outside observers. Indeed, when the Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, was asked by the press why he did not charge Chauvin with a hate crime, Ellison replied, “If we’d had a witness that told us that Derek Chauvin made a racial reference, we might have charged him with a hate crime…We didn't have … [a witness].”

In addition to the press’s narrative of this being a racial crime, there was no shortage of politicians chiming in on what the verdict should be. One notable case was Congresswoman Maxine Waters, in the aftermath of the Wright shooting, demanding that the protesters stay in the streets and get more confrontational if the jury does not deliver a guilty verdict on charges against Chauvin. This particular incident provoked the judge to state that comments like that disrespected the rule of law and the function and independence of the judicial branch. The judge went further and told the defence that Waters’ comments may be grounds to overturn the trial on appeal.

Yet, this plea for politicians to not comment on the righteousness of one side during an ongoing trial seemed to fall on deaf ears. At a press conference, the Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey exclaimed, “Regardless of the decision made by the jury, there is one true reality, which is that George Floyd was killed at the hands of the police.” President Joe Biden from the Oval Office informed the public after the jury was sequestered that he was praying that the jury would reach the right verdict in the face of what he deemed to be overwhelming evidence.

Other problems in this trial included vandals leaving a pig’s head at the former residence of a use-of-force expert for the defense and that early on two jurors were dismissed due to their reactions to the news of a record $27 million settlement between the city of Minneapolis and the family of Floyd. In the latter case, the judge commented that he wished that the “city officials would stop talking about this case so much.” All of these factors from overt or latent fears over continued violence, undue political influence, the media’s sensationalism of this case, and the untimely releases of prejudicial information, call into question just how independent a jury can be in the face of such concentrated public pressure to convict. The short duration of the jury’s deliberations only heightens this concern.

Such things do not bode well for the health of the rule of law in the United States, especially in politically charged cases. The media has clearly endorsed a cause here and has constructed a narrative surrounding it, while glossing over the violence committed in this cause’s name with the phrase “mostly peaceful protests” as well as even providing a platform to those who defend the use of looting as legitimate tactic. Other institutional forces, such as public health officials, that should remain neutral in such matters, have also given these protests their stamp of approval in the name of social justice, while disapproving of anti-lockdown protests. Politicians have latched onto this narrative in order to advance their own pet projects and their careers.

Ultimately, the message here is that so long as certain forces agree with a cause, they can spin a narrative even when it stands at odds with what was argued in a court of law. In the face of such overwhelming public pressure that is set, prior to, during, and after a trial, calls into question if a dispassionate verdict can be achieved, given the politically charged nature of the proceedings. Irrespective of Chauvin’s guilt or innocence, this tactic has now been shown to be successful and what is rewarded tends to be replicated. The effect of this imbalance in how things are covered, in turn, risks the foundation of impartial and blind justice. It remains to be seen just how the judicial system can deal with these challenges.

On the 31st of October 2020, the people of Ivory Coast went to the ballot box to elect their president. Following the death of Gon Coulibaly, a key favorite in the race, in July 2020, the election was thrown into uncertainty. The ruling party, Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), decided to replace Coulibaly with a familiar face in Ivorian politics, Alassane Dramane Ouattara. In the 2020 elections, Ouattara won a controversial third term, after receiving 94% of the total vote count, amid the opposition parties’ boycott. Ouattara insisted that the new constitution of 2016 allowed him to seek another term, after Ouattara changed the Ivorian constitution for the third time in Ivory Coast's history (allowing him to run again), while the opposition claimed that a third term is illegal, because it violates the Ivorian constitution, which forbids a candidate who has already served two terms. More than 40 people have been killed and thousands have fled the country since Ouattara announced he would run again, with police patrolling on every corner amid outbreaks of violent clashes, mostly in the south-west region of the country. This new upheaval is reminiscent of the crisis of the 2010 elections, which saw more than 3,000 people losing their lives and 1.3 million fleeing the country.

The 2010-2011 crisis was created by the refusal of former President Laurent Gbagbo to acknowledge his electoral defeat at the hands of the current president Ouattara. Since gaining its independence in 1960, Ivory Coast's political arena has been monopolized by the same political figures from the south for roughly five decades, despite the fact that the northern region of the country has a larger population. To prevent political competition, southern leaders amended the constitution, by creating the term Ivorite (the idea of being a “true” Ivorian). This amendment of 1995 required a presidential candidate to have two Ivorian parents, questioning the Ivorian identity of many citizens from the north, Ouattara included, (whose father was alleged to be born in Burkina Faso, although he disputes this). Since many residents of the north came originally from Mali, Burkina Faso and other neighboring countries, this term left thousands of Ivorians feeling humiliated and marginalized, and the law had other very real implications for northern citizens as well. Northerners were unable to obtain identity cards due to a strict enforcement of an identity requirement. This enforcement was possible because, typically, regional area, ethnic group and religion can all be identified by hearing an Ivorians' last name.

This Ivorite rule, preventing Ouattara from being eligible to run in the presidential elections was changed in April of 2007, in a compromise between leaders from the north and south called the Ouagadougou peace agreement, that sought to bridge the national divide by ending the enforcement of this controversial identity requirement and allowing free elections. Finally, after decades of political domination from the South, a northern political candidate (Ouattara) was able to participate and subsequently won the elections for President in 2010. However, the outgoing president at the time, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to hand over power and challenged the legitimacy of the vote count. After fighting between the two sides erupted, the French military intervened and removed Gbagbo from power and Ouattara was sworn into office in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan shortly after.

Once in office, Ouattara pledged to eradicate the use of the term Ivorite and bring back the policies of political inclusion, which defined the legacy of the first Ivorian president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He also set up a truth and reconciliation commission to try and unify the country, following years of division between the north and south. Though Ouattara asked people to forgive the abuses of the 2010 electoral crises, the mistrust remains between Ouattara’s regime and the opposition, which views the government as illegitimate, even creating an alternative government, leading to waves of arrests by Ouattara’s orders. However, Ouattara later released hundreds of prisoners who were jailed on charges related to the 2020 elections in an effort to appease the southerners and heal the national divide. This effort, along with other appeasement moves made by Ouattara in an attempt to appease the south, has angered many victims of the 2010 civil war who are still largely unsatisfied with the measures taken by the government to hold the perpetrators accountable.

The distrust between the two sides has been deepened even further in recent months when Hamed Bakayoko, Ouattara’s political deputy and considered by many as his political successor, became ill and died on March 10th of 2021. When his replacement, Patrick Achi, became ill and was hospitalized this past month, it strengthened the credibility of the potential for foul play, an idea many Ivoirians believe was created by the south. There was a perception that Ouattara had a hand in them becoming ill, because he wanted to eliminate threats to his power. However, Achi was released from the hospital a few weeks ago and reassured anxious Ivorians that he was fine and returned home, though suspicions remain.

Today there are three challenges for Ivory Coast to overcome to create a better future that works for all Ivorians. The first is building back trust and reconciliation between the various Ivorian ethnic groups from the north and south to ensure political stability in the future. It won't be an easy task for both sides to forget the atrocities, abuses and human rights violations committed against one another in recent years, but political stability is a necessary condition to economic growth, which would be beneficial to all Ivorians. To achieve this, Houphouet Boigny's policy of inclusion should be continued but adapted to new and different circumstances. While there needs to be accountability for the crimes of the south against northern citizens, Ouattara must be careful not to hold everyone from the south accountable, or his goal of unity will fall apart. Similarly, it would be unwise for him to not pursue any justice for the northern victims of the previous conflicts, because that is his main source of support amongst Ivorians. He will have to balance the needs of both sides quite carefully if he wants to achieve his goal to bridge the divide between the north and south.

The second challenge that must be overcome is the problem of corruption. Though corruption is not a unique phenomenon pertaining to the Ivory Coast or Africa for that matter, it's a big problem in the Ivory Coast specifically, and its politicians must be held accountable to the people they are supposed to serve. Ouattra’s predecessor Gbago, was accused of stealing large amounts of money from the cocoa industry and other money meant for government use, for himself. This isn't only a Gbago issue. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index 2019 (CPI - 2019), the Ivory Coast was ranked 106 highest out of the 180 countries measured in 2019, with over ⅓ of Ivorians (34%) surveyed, reporting a need to pay a bribe to use public services. To guarantee political stability in the future, Ouattara and his government will need to build back people’s trust in the government’s legitimacy by having strict and impartial ways for making sure this type of behavior isn't tolerated.

Finally, Ivory Coast needs some new and preferably younger leadership. Ivory Coast's political arena has been dominated by the same faces for decades. Each of these faces come with their own political baggage and history of worsening this divide. To truly unleash our nation's economic and human potential and to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past decades, Ivorians should look to new leadership to buy into Houphouet Boigny’s ideal to "unite and reconcile" and to end the division that has for so long plagued the country. If Ivorians can find a way to put the past to rest and come together, the nation's future will be bright.

When Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was asked how the 2020 US Presidential election will impact Iranian policy towards the US, in his response, Khamenei insisted that “It does not matter to us who comes and goes.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is difficult to believe that the difference between the Biden and Trump administrations’ approaches in dealing with the problem of Iranian nuclear capability were merely semantics to Tehran. While it’s true that both Trump and Biden shared a similar philosophical goal, to improve on the JCPOA (aka the Iran deal) and get a “better deal”, the two leaders had very different paradigms on achieving this goal.

The Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA, imposed heavy sanctions on Iran, killed the leader of the elite Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, backed Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, and even considered military options to strike Iran in the final months of his presidency, only to be talked off the ledge by his senior military advisors. In contrast, Biden has made his intentions to revive the JCPOA quite clear, even if it can’t be improved. Despite Biden’s overtures towards the Iranians that the US is interested in returning to the Iran deal, the Iranians have refused to return to their enrichment commitments, unless the US lifts sanctions first. This Iranian demand to see the US make the first concession, was thought to have been a sticking point, but recently there were rumours that the US was considering lifting sanctions it had imposed on Khamenei as a trust building step in the negotiations.

Biden’s eagerness to re-join the JCPOA hasn’t been lost on the Iranians, including their President Ebrahaim Raisi, who warned that, “time is running out for a deal” for the US. Indeed, time is not on America’s side when it comes to the progress of Iran’s enrichment program. Currently, estimates of a timetable for Iran to achieve 90% enrichment purity (the number needed for a nuke), are as short as a couple of months. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a return to the JCPOA is wise, particularly President Biden’s alleged consideration of acquiescing to the Iranian demand for an American first step.

The JCPOA has three major issues that necessitate its renegotiation for a more comprehensive deal. The first is its so-called sunset provisions which allow Iran to keep its nuclear infrastructure, allowing it to enrich uranium rapidly once the deal would expire. Another issue is that the deal doesn’t cover Iran’s developments in ballistic missile technology, which would allow Iran to continue working on its delivery methods and ICBMs (Inter-continental ballistic missiles), while it bides its time until the deal ends. This is a component of nuclear technology that must be addressed in any deal, because every state seeking nuclear weapons must achieve two technological developments: the uranium enrichment necessary (90%) and the integration of the weapons-grade uranium into its means of delivery. Thus, Iran could bide its time and focus on continuing to develop its missiles to be ready for the last day of the agreement, after which it could be a matter of months or even weeks until it has all the ingredients necessary for weaponized capacity. The third flaw of the deal is that it doesn’t cover Iran’s funding of terrorist proxies, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militias in Iraq who are a growing threat to US forces in Iraq. Removing the sanctions that would be necessary to revive the JCPOA would be an economic boon for Iran and give far more resources to the Iranian Government to support their allies.

Any arguments against the JCPOA are often met with the idea that there isn’t a better alternative, aside from US military action against Iran, and, at least, it postpones the immediate threat of Iranian nuclear capability. In reality, a better alternative may be continuing its sanctions, particularly against government entities, strengthening and increasing its sabotage efforts on nuclear sites and if relevant, arming Iranian dissidents. The wave of civil protests in 2019-2020 in Iran, known as the Bloody November has shown that economic frustration can be an effective agent to weaken the Iranian government’s domestic standing further. The recent poor turnout (under 50%) for the Iranian presidential elections this year, underscores that the Iranian Government has already seen an erosion of public support. If sanctions were continued and even strengthened, Iran’s economy would likely implode, increasing the chances for further unrest and even regime change, pressuring the Iranian Government economically and domestically and thus gaining leverage for a more comprehensive and improved Iran deal. In the event of an uprising against Iran’s government, the US would arm and support the dissidents.

In the near future, the US has to consider its stance towards Iran carefully. War with Iran is a serious thing to contemplate, but is it preferable for Iran to possess the ultimate weapon? The US could pursue its policy of continued sanctions, and redouble its covert actions against Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The covert war waged by the Mossad for the last few decades has more than shown that clandestine efforts to sabotage and delay Iranian progress on its nuclear program can be effective in buying time for a permanent solution to this issue.

A military air strike should be only used as a last resort, only undertaken if Iran is a week or two away from a completing the enrichment purity necessary. If the Biden Administration decides to reinstate the JCPOA and leave the problem for a future US president who will be in office when the deal expires, it would be a dangerous decision. That president would have to consider whether to go to war with the Islamic Republic or allow it to get nuclear weapons, while facing an emboldened Iran that has the means of delivering the bomb and far better economic resources to fund its defense.

This week, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) published its programs of policies it will enact, if elected to power in the September elections in Germany. The CDU program is very vague in many areas. For example, it demands the implementation and expansion of pro-climate protection measures, but does not set any concrete goals for practical implementation of these measures. Its economic aspects are particularly ambiguous, perhaps to leave room for negotiations in future coalition talks, as well as to appeal to a broader voting demographic. However, in some key issues, its program is more concrete, as in its details of the importance it attaches to the special relationship and friendship with Israel, which the CDU sees as a key value for Germany's post-WW2 identity and foreign policy.

The publication of the CDU’s program is of particular importance for Germany's largest party, because it defines the future direction of the party's political values. Furthermore, the significance of the recent publication of the CDU's policy program is even greater since Angela Merkel will no longer be leading Germany and the CDU. After 16 years of leadership, Merkel will retire and not run again for chancellor, so her personality will no longer be a key factor in the CDU’s victories and therefore there is a heightened importance for the party to create a good policy program to clarify its future policies and strengthen its appeal to voters. There is now an open question of what the CDU will stand for in the coming elections and the ambiguity of its election program reflects the compromises that will be necessary for CDU’s post-Merkel future.

The CDU’s post-Merkel identity crisis was already brewing since 2018, when Merkel stepped down from the party leadership. Traditionally, in the CDU when the party has the chancellery, the chancellor is also the chairman or chairwoman of the party. Merkel, however, wanted to groom a successor to the chancellery, so she supported Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, German’s current defense minister and former prime minister of the state of Saarland, to the post of the party chairwoman. Kramp-Karrenbauer was viewed as a symbol of continuation of Merkel’s policies and failed to establish her own profile on the strength of her credentials. She was elected in 2018 by the party's leadership and became the chairwoman of the party, however she later stepped down in 2020 from her leadership of the party, after her approval rating fell and subsequently her standing within the party. Kramp-Karrenbauer´s national approval ratings were unusually low, with only 6% of voters approving of her (after 39% in 2018), and she was quite unpopular with the party’s base.

Armin Laschet, acting prime minister of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, was elected as CDU party chairman as her replacement. Though Laschet is generally considered to be continuing Merkel´s legacy, he also has his own national profile. Laschet has a reputation of being a unifier, including a broad range of people in his political circle, which is crucial in a party with deep internal divisions. For example, well-known conservative CDU politician and former rival for the leadership of the party, Friedrich Merz supports Laschet, as well as the more left-wing CDU prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Günther, highlighting Laschet’s ability to bring together both the right- and left-wing parts of the CDU.

In general, the CDU has been very successful over the decades by refraining from adoption of any strong ideology or political position, instead, the CDU’s modus operandi has been defined by a combination of conservative and progressive opinions. Merkel’s approach, often called “asymmetrical demobilization”, was to adopt many positions of center-left parties, so that left wing voters do not see a big difference between the CDU and their party and consequently are not motivated to vote in the elections.

However, this strategy led to a feeling of alienation amongst conservatives over the direction of the party towards the center left, even though they still vote for the party en masse. The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is not an alternative for most German conservatives, because the AfD is considered too far to the right. Furthermore, as long as the CDU won elections with high margins, this discomfort was mollified. Nevertheless, some say that the conservative critics of the CDU have led to the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. They contend that this exodus from the CDU was fueled by unpopular progressive decisions taken by CDU-led administrations. These include the shutdown of all nuclear energy plants and the process of cutting coal production, which caused Germany to have the highest electric energy prices in Europe.

Another factor contributing to conservatives feeling alienated from the CDU was Merkel’s controversial decision to allow the immigration of millions of unregistered refugees to Germany. This was also the main criticism by the AfD toward the CDU government, while all left-wing parties generally supported the idea to allow immigration of refugees into Germany.

The passions that the immigration debate evoked in Germany caused the murder of Walter Lübcke. Lübcke was the president of a governmental district and a local CDU politician who spoke out publicly to support a controlled and value-based immigration to Germany. His views on immigration led to a surge of hate messages from AfD supporters, and on 2nd June 2019 , he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist. This was the first murder of a politician in Germany since the 1970s and served to demonstrate the high tensions the topic of immigration has evoked.

Since the rise of the AfD, the CDU has been divided into one camp that strongly supports the center-left policies of Merkel, and another camp that urges the party to have more traditional conservative positions in order to win back voters from the AfD. The state elections of the last 2-3 years showed that both strategies had problems: In Bavaria´s last state election, the CDU´s sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) earned its worst result since 1950, while campaigning on a right-wing anti-Merkel program. After this, CSU’s chairman Markus Söder changed many of his policy positions to move towards the left, taking positions similar to Germany’s Green Party. On the other hand, CDU leaders promoting solely progressive positions did not achieve good results either. This can be seen in the case of a local branch of the CDU that performed unusually poorly, with electoral results of 13% this year, after gaining 21% of the vote count in 2019, 33% of the votes in 2014 and 31% in 2009.

It seems that the best way forward for the CDU is its approach of adopting centrist positions and thus continuing its role as “the people's party”, in other words, an amalgam of political interests and beliefs. The CDU’s strategy of continuing to be an umbrella party for both conservative and progressive positions, has led to an improvement of the CDU’s image amongst the public in recent weeks. When there was public in-fighting between the progressive and the conservative wings of the party, the CDU performed poorly at the polls. After Laschet united both wings by including key figures from both camps in his leadership of the party, such as Friedrich Merz (a more conservative figure) and Norbert Röttgen (a more progressive oriented politician), the CDU has found a way to work together, which could be a reason for the recent improvement in the CDU’s poll numbers. This improvement at the polls for the CDU has occurred even amongst younger voters, who tend to vote for progressive and leftist parties. The polls showed that the CDU was on track to getting the lion’s share of the youth vote in this year's September national elections.

Just a few weeks ago, the parliamentary election in Sachsen-Anhalt brought a surprising result of 37% of the vote going to the CDU (which is 17% higher than the second highest party with 20%). The re-elected CDU prime minister of Sachsen-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, adopted more conservative positions, like rejecting an increase of mandatory TV fees and his support for the conservative CDU wing in the chancellor candidates’ debate, but he was careful to distance himself from the AfD, a party that includes extremist positions. The CDU's success in this election indicated that many voters appreciated the more conservative positions of Haseloff and provided voters in the region with a viable conservative alternative to the AfD.

The national election in September will determine how things will fare for the CDU and play a large role in determining the direction of the party’s overall political identity. If the CDU wins, the party will be unified in creating the government and the party’s wings will be satisfied with the strategy Laschet pursued. If the party performs poorly at the ballot box and the CDU is outperformed by left-wing parties, the infighting between the CDU’s more liberal and conservative wings may break out again, forcing it to choose a more defined political identity moving forward.