International
Former President Mahama won the Ghanaian presidential elections with 56.55% of the vote
The former president and leader of the Ghanaian opposition, John Dramani Mahama (2012-2017), won the presidential elections last Saturday by achieving 56.55% of the votes, according to the results published this Monday by the Electoral Commission.
Mahama, leader of the center-left Democratic National Congress (NDC), prevailed over his main rival, the country’s vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP, center-right), who won 41.61% of the vote.
At an event in the capital, Accra, the president of the Electoral Commission, Jean Mensa, said that the results correspond to 267 of the country’s 276 electoral constituencies.
However, Mensa remarked that, even if Bawumia got all the votes in the remaining nine constituencies, that would not change the victory by an absolute majority of the former 66-year-old.
“We have carried out fair, credible, transparent and peaceful elections,” said the president, adding that participation stood at 60.9%.
Bawumia already admitted defeat in the elections on Sunday and congratulated the former president as the winner of elections marked by the country’s serious economic crisis.
“The data from our own internal compilation indicate that the former president, his excellency John Dramani Mahama, has won the elections decisively,” said the 61-year-old vice president in a message addressed to the nation.
Bawumia promised Mahama his “full support in the transition process” and indicated that the NDC has also won the parliamentary elections.
“I make this concession speech before the official announcement of the Electoral Commission to avoid more tensions and preserve the peace of our country. It is important that the global investment community continues to believe in the peaceful and democratic character of Ghana,” the vice president said.
Four-year term
About 18.7 million voters, out of a total population of about 35 million people, were called to elect the president and 276 members of the unicameral Parliament for a four-year term, in the ninth general elections since the country became a multiparty democracy in the 1990s.
The outgoing president, Nana Akufo-Addo, did not compete after completing the maximum of two terms allowed by the Constitution.
The day was generally spent in peace, with the exception of some isolated events, such as a shooting in the north of the country that caused one death and one injury by an electoral dispute.
Twelve candidates participated in the race for the presidency, but the competition really focused on Bawumia and Mahama.
Bawumia aspired to a victory with which the NPP would have achieved an unprecedented third consecutive term in the government, and to make history as Ghana’s first Muslim president.
Ghana, a major producer of gold and cocoa, is facing its worst economic crisis in years, with a very high public debt that has forced this West African country to apply for a loan of 3 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Bawumia, an economist by profession, blamed during the election campaign the covid-19 pandemic and the effects of the war between Russia and Ukraine as causes of the slowdown in the national economy, which was “going well” before 2020.
In the campaign, Mahama, who lost the 2016 and 2020 elections to Akufo-Addo, argued that economic challenges and high unemployment – especially among young people – show that “Ghana is at a crossroads and needs a restart.”
The vote of Ghana, one of the most stable democracies on the African continent, had electoral observation missions from international organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECEWAS).
In its preliminary report on the elections published on Monday, the AU mission concluded that “the electoral process in general was in accordance with regional and international standards, which reinforced Ghana’s democratic credentials.”
International
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.
In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.
The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.
Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.
The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.
This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.
Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.
AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.
International
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.
“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.
For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”
The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.
In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.
“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.
The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.
The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.
The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.
The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.
According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.
All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.
That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.
International
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.
The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.
According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”
Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.
“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.
He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.
It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.
In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.
Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.
Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.
Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.
The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.
Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.
It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).
Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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