Hello! I hope you have a great weekend ahead. This week, we’re exploring the presidential election victory of Bongbong Marcos, the son of a dictator, in the Philippines. We’re also looking at how Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to justify his country’s invasion of Ukraine at Victory Day Parade, Sri Lanka’s new prime minister, the United Kingdom signing mutual security pacts with Finland and Sweden as the Scandinavian nations move towards joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and what North Korea claims as its first COVID-19 cases. Let’s get started.
This day that year
1969: Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was rocked by Sino-Malay sectarian violence in the aftermath of the general election. Official death toll stands at more than 190, but some suggest nearly 600 people were killed. It’s now called the ‘May 13 Incident’.
1846: The United States declared war on Mexico after a dispute over the American annexation of the Republic of Texas.
A Marcos returns
If you grew up in the 1960s-1980s, chances are that you may remember the name Ferdinand Marcos. He was the dictator of the Philippines who ruled under martial law. This week, his son and namesake Ferdinand Marcos Jr., nicknamed “Bongbong”, won the country’s presidency with an astonishing margin.
I can’t think of any other political dynasty in modern history, anywhere in the world, where the next generation was able to stage a successful political comeback and retake the position of power after the dictator’s having been ousted by a popular uprising. If you can think of such an example, comment below.
The official result has not been released yet, but Marcos Jr. has won almost 59 percent of the votes — more than double his main rival, outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo. This is a historic moment for the Marcos family, marking their return to the Southeast Asian nation’s seat of power. After all, a Marcos will now return to the Malacañang presidential palace after 36 years. But it’s not a very sweet story for many in the Philippines — especially for the survivors of the Marcos Sr.’s violent regime.
Read more: Torture survivors from Marcos era in shock after son’s win
Bongbong has been a senator, a member of the House of Representatives and the governor of the northern Ilocos Norte province. The 64-year-old had contested the vice-presidential election in 2016, but had lost to Robredo. But he has been convicted of tax evasion in the past, has been accused of deliberately trying to conceal facts about his father’s oppressive regime and, according to Oxford University, has lied about his academic degree.
The Marcos family
Ferdinand Marcos Sr., ruled the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. This included a violent dictatorial rule under martial law for more than 10 years. Many of the draconian laws, meant to retain an iron grip over the country’s political structure, remained in use until he was ousted in the People Power Revolution in 1986 wherein citizens protested against electoral fraud and regime violence. Marcos Sr.’s regime carried out abductions, torture, massacres, systematic oppression of political opponents under what has been described as “constitutional authoritarianism”, and the family has been accused of being involved in widespread corruption (the numbers are staggering) and promoting kleptocracy. For decades, the country has been trying to recover billions that were stolen.
The family fled the Philippines amid the People Power Revolution in 1986 and sought refuge in Hawaii, the United States where Marcos Sr. later died of illness. His wife Imelda and children returned to the Philippines a few years later. Imelda, later convicted of corruption charges, unsuccessfully contested the 1992 presidential election and became a lawmaker. Bongbong and his elder sister also entered politics and served at various governance levels over the next three decades.
Watch: ‘The Mystery of a Dictator’s Missing $10 Billion Fortune’ by Bloomberg Quicktake: Originals
Bongbong’s campaign was long and carefully crafted. The campaign targeted young voters through social media platforms such as TikTok and through YouTube videos meant to show the family’s softer side. The central idea of the campaign was to convince young voters — who never lived through or experienced the Marcos Sr.’ violent reign — that the situation was better back then.
Bongbong himself ran his campaign around the theme of “unity” or unifying a politically divided nation. But he didn’t participate in candidate debates and rarely gave television interviews — effectively sidestepping questions of his father’s brutal regime and the cases of corruption against him and his family. It worked. The Marcos family managed to garner tremendous support — as seen by the election result. There are voters who were convinced that Marcos Sr.’s regime wasn’t all that bad and even if it was, Bongbong doesn’t have the same authoritarian tendencies that his father had.
Read more: A Short History of His Family’s Rise, Fall, and Rise Again
Bongbong’s victory is also being seen as a turning point in the country’s political scene. The Marcos family is dominant in the northern regions of the country. The family of outgoing president Rodrigo Duterte has its base in the south. By allying himself with Sara Duterte (the daughter of Rodrigo who ran as Bongbong’s vice-presidential running mate), Marcos Jr. has created a formidable political force that will be difficult for the opposition to challenge. Rodrigo himself provided an indirect endorsement to Bongbong. After all, the outgoing president needs Marcos’ backing so that authorities don’t go after him over some serious human rights abuse cases he is facing, after he loses his presidential immunity.
Duterte was seen as being close to China even though the two nations are involved in the South China Sea dispute. But the Philippines and the US are treaty allies. Manila is expected to play an important role in the security situation currently developing in the South China Sea region and the wider Indo-Pacific as regional powers try to counter China’s rise. Bongbong, who is evading a $353-million contempt judgement from an American court, will have to balance his foreign policy between Beijing and Washington DC.
Read more: The Man Who Could Ruin the Philippines Forever (Opinion)
Pin it on the map
Time for some head scratching: This satellite image shows a naval base. While all of the Ukrainian land held by Russia is considered illegally occupied today, at least until 2014, this little part of Ukraine was — dare I say — controlled by the Russians officially and with Ukrainian consent. It has always been strategically important to Russia, as has been proved by the ongoing war there. What place is this?
The answer is at the bottom.
What else?
Sri Lanka’s new PM
Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed Sri Lanka’s new prime minister by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on May 12. Wickremesinghe replaced Gotabaya’s brother Mahinda who reluctantly resigned as the prime minister earlier in the week after the Rajapaksa family’s supporters allegedly attacked peaceful anti-government protesters.
Wickremesinghe, 73, has held the position four times before. He will be leading a “unity government” amid the nation’s worst economic crisis.
Violence has continued for days. At least nine people have died and hundreds have been injured so far. Houses belonging to the Rajapaksas, ministers and their supporters have been attacked and set on fire. The government has responded by deploying the armed forces with shoot-on-sight orders to bring the violence under control. On May 10, Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family were evacuated from Temple Trees — the prime minister’s official residence — by Sri Lankan troops following a siege and are now believed to be at the Trincomalee naval base. The Indian High Commission in Colombo denied social media rumours that Mahinda and his family had fled to India and a Sri Lankan court has now barred Mahinda, his son Namal and 15 others from leaving the country.
Visuals from outside Sri Lankan prime minister’s official residence (from May 9):
Sri Lanka is currently negotiating massive bailouts from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. With the political backing of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well as the Opposition, Wickremesinghe’s task will be to secure the bailouts and heal the divided island nation.
Putin tries to justify the war
Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 9 attempted to paint his country’s invasion of Ukraine as a necessary move against what he described was external “aggression”. Addressing an annual military parade at Moscow’s Red Square marking the victory in the Second World War, the Russian president tried to draw parallels between the Soviet Red Army’s fight against Nazi Germany and Russia’s invasion — or what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” — of Ukraine.
Putin claimed the Russian military’s “pre-emptive response” in Ukraine were needed to ward off “a threat that was absolutely unacceptable” which, he suggested had been “methodically created next to our borders”.
Observers had suggested in recent weeks that Russia was forced to change its objectives and was now focussing on capturing a larger chunk of eastern Ukraine so that Putin could declare some sort of victory during this address. Clearly, as his speech showed, there was no victory for Putin to declare just yet.
UK signs mutual security pacts with Finland, Sweden
The United Kingdom signed mutual security pacts with Finland and Sweden this week. Helsinki and Stockholm are believed to be working towards joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In fact, on May 12, the Finnish president and the prime minister publicly announced their support for joining NATO “without delay” — effectively ending Finland’s neutrality (read: Finland’s de-Finlandisation). But they would not be covered by NATO’s Article 5 common defence clause during the period between them formally applying and actually joining the military alliance. This would open up possibilities for aggression against them by Russia, which has threatened to take “retaliatory steps”. So, the mutual security pacts with the UK are particularly important for Finland and Sweden as they would provide support until the two Scandinavian countries formally join the military alliance (could take months).
North Korea’s ‘first’ COVID-19 cases
North Korea has gone into a full-fledged nationwide lockdown after confirming what it claims to be its first wave of COVID-19 infections, in capital Pyongyang. The state broadcaster didn’t mention how many cases had been confirmed but said that 187,000 people were isolating and being treated for fever. Six people have died so far. For more than two years since the pandemic began, the country tried to block the spread of the disease by sealing its borders. Officially, the country never confirmed any COVID-19 case before this. But it’s widely believed that the novel coronavirus has circulated there.
This is important because the country has so far refused to vaccinate its nearly 26 million citizens against COVID-19. The population may have low immunity against the virus. The country’s healthcare infrastructure is also known to be in shambles and it's unclear if the system would be able to cope with a high case load if the infections were to spread quickly.
Interesting stuff
“Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s neo-fascism has proven to be robust. Much of Europe, however, is in danger of repeating its traumatic history of weakness before its own would-be strongmen.” Pankaj Mishra writes in Bloomberg about how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pariah status isn’t slowing his copycats across Europe. Read the full opinion piece here.
You may have read or heard a lot about the politics of Northern Ireland in recent weeks. This is a good explainer by Bloomberg on why Northern Ireland keeps Europe and the UK at odds.
‘Pin it on the map’ answer: Sevastopol Naval Base on the Crimean Peninsula. It’s the home base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Russia and Ukraine signed the Partition Treaty in 1997 which formally divided the Soviet Union’s Black Sea Fleet and the bases in the region between them. As part of this treaty, Ukraine leased parts of the naval base in Sevastopol to Russia until 2017. The arrangement was extended till 2042 as per the Kharkiv Pact signed in 2010. With the Russian annexation of the city of Sevastopol and all of Crimea in 2014, the arrangement was unilaterally terminated by Moscow.
•
Before you go… If you haven’t already, do ‘follow’ us on Twitter and Instagram. That’s where all the mid-week updates go.
I always look forward to your feedback. You can also send a quick email to untwinednewsletter@gmail.com (I really read and respond to all of them).