On this episode, we begin by discussing China’s diplomatic blitz, having brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomacy and Xi’s visit to Russia to meet with Putin and promote its 12-point peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war.
We move on to the elections in Africa’s largest democracy, Nigeria, and what the controversial elections say about the state of democracy in the country.
Finally, we look to the world’s largest democracy, India, and consider the steady rise of authoritarianism there.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
China’s Global Diplomacy Blitz
Nigerian Elections
India’s BJP and Modi Eroding Democracy
Follow Us
On this episode, we begin by discussing China’s diplomatic blitz, having brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomacy and Xi’s visit to Russia to meet with Putin and promote its 12-point peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war.
We move on to the elections in Africa’s largest democracy, Nigeria, and what the controversial elections say about the state of democracy in the country.
Finally, we look to the world’s largest democracy, India, and consider the steady rise of authoritarianism there.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
China’s Global Diplomacy Blitz
Nigerian Elections
India’s BJP and Modi Eroding Democracy
Follow Us
Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in US foreign policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relation scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my co-host, Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy.
Ryan Kellogg: Thanks, and glad to be back. So, this is episode 31 and we're recording this on March 26th, 2023.
Anita Kellogg: On this episode, we begin by discussing China's diplomatic blitz, having brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomacy as well as she's visit to Russia to meet with Putin and promote China's 12-point peace plan for the Russia, Ukraine.
We move on to the elections in Africa's largest democracy in Nigeria, and what the controversial elections say about the state of democracy in the country. Finally, we look to the world's largest [00:01:00] democracy India and consider the steady rise of authoritarianism there. So we just got back from India, which means that we are now experts on India.
We spent two weeks there. We talked to our tour guide and a taxi driver and, and a Tuck-Tuck driver and, well, that's what I meant. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So this makes us the Tom Friedman level of experts on the country.
Ryan Kellogg: Oh yeah, yeah. No, we were totally qualified to write a column in the New York Times.
Basically just defining what US policy should be towards India now
Anita Kellogg: based on those two conversations. Yeah.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. That's plenty. That's plenty. We talk politics, we talk moody, we talk political parties.
Anita Kellogg: I learned that Moody is very popular based on two sets of data.
Ryan Kellogg: Yes. The two people we talked to, he was very popular with.
Yeah. My conversation, particularly with the Tuck Tuck driver, he was a huge fan, appreciated the economic growth that Modi was delivering, particularly to [00:02:00] Delhi, a tour guide. I guess he is a little bit more. Balanced or attempted to be a little bit more balanced, but just a little bit. Well, compared to the Tuck Tuck driver,
Anita Kellogg: we'll have to get a little bit more into that.
But what else about our trip to India? What was your favorite part?
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, there's so much. I mean, we did so much in those two weeks. It was easily the most jam-packed. Trip I think we've ever done together. Maybe short of our, our little trip to Beijing when we first met. But I think like a lot of people, I, I, I didn't expect this, but I did enjoy the nature aspects mm-hmm.
Of the interaction with the elephants. And the tiger safari that we did. Those are probably the, the two biggest highlights for me.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, and it was unexpected. I mean, I saw like, oh, you know, national Park Tiger Reserve, but I didn't think that we'd see tigers like that close to our Jeep and rear leopard siding.
And [00:03:00] yeah, it was, it was really fantastic. Yeah. So, what was your second favorite?
Ryan Kellogg: It's hard to point. I mean, obviously the wedding mm-hmm. Was a, certainly a spectacle. Um, I think I keep going back to that word just because it was, it was very over the top, which most Indian weddings are. And then given the fact that this was held at a converted palace and Uday poor, which was, as we learned home of the various Maharaja.
During the, uh, the pre British period, and it was pretty unbelievable. You know, we narrowly pulled off our, our dance for the Sangeet. So, the first day of the wedding festivities. What are you talking about? Well, we, we met the minimum that we needed to do in terms of not being the worst and. I felt, honestly, because Rebecca and I were talking about it last night, I feel like we were a solid, like second or third best dance routine out of the six or so.
Because [00:04:00] some people repeated dances. I felt like we were second or third.
Anita Kellogg: I do too, I think not crediting us in any way. Yeah. Because we, no, I
Ryan Kellogg: was in definitely not me. I was in the back. You guys are in the front kind of carrying the Kellogg family
Anita Kellogg: I think overall we had a good, it was very well choreographed.
Mm-hmm. And we stayed with that choreography. Like that's, that was the important part. Yes. Is we didn't have the same natural dancers that the bride's family had. You know, there were a couple, they had one or two. Yeah, yeah. Um, who really stood out in their dancing skills and they're obviously used to doing Indian weddings.
But yeah, I think. We did a really good, we did good. Yeah. Job for having never done anything like that before. Yeah. And again, maybe not our dancing skills, but in general
Ryan Kellogg: the group. Yeah. Well, what about you? What, what kind of stood out for you?
Anita Kellogg: I mean, one of the things I've always wanted to do was participate in a Hindu wedding.
I mean, it was like strange thing to want to do, I suppose. Cause we didn't know anyone, but it was a [00:05:00] spectacle. But I think. That word can be negative. And I wouldn't say that the negative connotation of it, it was something that's just, I learned that you cannot be too bedazzled. Like that first night, I realized you could not have enough jewelry, you could not have enough Right.
Bedazzle, um, in any part of the wedding. And I think, you know, obviously the Tiger Reserve elephants, but my overall impress. It's just how colorful India is and even, you know, in the poor areas that we saw, everyone still wears these like really bright colors and Yeah. The women. Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of lifts the landscape a bit.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it does. It does
Anita Kellogg: for sure. Yeah, so I mean, I think that was an impression, maybe more than a specific experience, and I'm glad I got to see the Taj Mahal that was, I know you weren't as impressed as I was, but it was just something that is iconic in photos and then [00:06:00] seeing the person you get a little bit more, the symmetry of it and why that is so impressive about the building.
Like seeing it in person gave me more of a, made it more beautiful to me.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I mean I think it's just one of those things. It's like, well, everybody goes to India. Yeah. Goes to see the touch hall. So it's a little bit of a, but it was impressive. It is massive in scale, so you don't really get that until you get up close and then considering Yeah, the time period was built in.
Yeah. It's a major architectural accomplishment. Not that like a big appreciator of that. Yeah. But it was amazing engineering and architectural feat for its era for.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, it was really architecture's art I thought. Mm-hmm. And yeah, I was impressed by that. I think our other experiences, as they tend to do visiting a lot of forts and palaces, they kind of just all tend to blend together.
But, oh, you had seen one first, but I did finally get to see a snake drummer. Yeah. Yeah. And one of our [00:07:00] companions, like he made her sit down next to him and hold the snake and like you can just see her like shaking. That was
Ryan Kellogg: def defended, right? That was the deal. Must the snakes are defending.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. It must have been.
Yeah. I hadn't really thought about that until you said it, but.
Ryan Kellogg: No. Somebody said that I did. I don't think I made that up. I believe you. I assume they don't want the tourists getting, getting bitten by poisonous cobras. I was looking at the
Anita Kellogg: video I took, I mean, just the way they handled them so casually.
Yeah. They're like no fear whatsoever that the snakes could do anything to them. So yeah. Anyway, so it was really, really interesting. Yeah, for sure. I loved it. I miss it. I mean, it was exhausting.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it was very exhausting. Our entire party. Multiple illnesses. Uh, we all initially got covid without knowing it, thinking it was a cold, but later finding out and then various gastrointestinal issues.
We won't go in the details,
Anita Kellogg: but yeah, it was extra exhausting because I was [00:08:00] really sick. I mean, not like. Where I couldn't function but sicker than I had been since pre covid times. Yeah, I haven't, I haven't had a cold or anything, so I thought that's just why I couldn't sleep cause I was coughing so much.
And so we had, it was hard to know the, between the exhaustion of just the pace that we were going
Ryan Kellogg: at and the jet lag and the wedding versus the fatigue caused by covid. So yeah, it
Anita Kellogg: was a bit overwhelming at. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk more about how we became experts and what our
Ryan Kellogg: conclusions.
That's right. And in our last segment, you'll see the expertise in full display. Exactly.
Anita Kellogg: Exactly. So going to our first story, one thing that happened while we were gone that has been well started to happen while we were gone was China's global diplomacy that it employed. One of the really big events that happened was China brokering a deal between Iran and [00:09:00] Saudi Arabia to restore their diplomatic relations.
I think it's a big deal. You were, you were less convinced by that, but I think it was a real show of. Carving
Ryan Kellogg: influence. Yeah, I think of nothing else symbolically. It shows that China's looking to have a position in the region more than just an economic mm-hmm. Partnership. Mm-hmm. That it wants to have a political role and that just that signaling alone, you know, regardless of the substance behind it is, uh, is significant.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean one that is sort of China's MO is to turn its economic might into political might. Yeah. And of course, that makes complete sense. The thing that is kind of notable, you know, when we talked to Jonathan Fulton, you know, there's this. Definitely in the sense like US influence isn't going away, right?
The sort of security relationships aren't going away, but China's finding a way to [00:10:00] have influence. It doesn't have to just be, well, we can't replace the us, but is finding areas that the US isn't in or can't do. I mean, one of the notable things about this is the US could never have possibly brokered this deal, right?
They don't have relationships, no violence with Iran. Yeah. Yep. So, I think to me that's really notable. China did something that the. Could not do.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. They're finding these gaps now. I mean, as your interview with Fulton kind of covered, I mean true when it comes down to hard power.
So in terms of like military ties, in terms of the economic ties and investment, and probably most importantly, Oil trade being priced and petro dollars in terms of that sort of power. I mean, the US is pretty firmly entrenched, but yeah, around these areas, and obviously Iran is a keystone to stability within the region given the Shia Sunni split.
And you're right, [00:11:00] only especially with the falling part of the nuclear deal. Under the Trump administration, China is only one that can kind of play this role in terms of, of brokering this sort of deal.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I want to wish back on one thing that you said, that US economic investments outweigh China. I mean, China's put substantial investments in into Saudi Arabia and other countries, and I don't know.
US' economic dominance is going to be unchallenged by China.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I guess I, I mean, I'm waiting. The defense purchases and that aspect of the relationship probably combined with what future economic opportunities may be open through normalization or relationship with Israel. Israel being the economic powerhouse of the region.
Obviously these countries would benefit a lot, but that's not going to be without us buy-in, in concessions. You know, for normalization. I, we've already seen, obviously normalization with some of the Gulf states, but then to [00:12:00] push forward with, with Saudi Arabia. So I guess it's kind of that economic aspect.
But you know, you're right. I mean definitely probably in terms of the scale and the oil, the energy purchases because of relative direct US energy. Independence and in a certain extent in terms of domestic production, the actual sales from Saudi Arabia, far less than China. Mm-hmm.
Anita Kellogg: Another point to what you said is that, not that anything seriously has been done, but there are talks, Saudi Arabia has had talks with China about potentially pricing the oil.
It sells to China and China's currency,
Ryan Kellogg: the Beyond. Yeah. They've had talks, but they haven't made any sort of substantial. But that would be, that would be a, that would be a big deal. Yeah, that would be a big deal. But, um, yeah, so going into the, the details of the deal itself, so it was announced on March 10th and the deal basically restores full diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.[00:13:00]
And the first key step in this will be the reopening of their embassies, which they've committed to within a couple months. So represented a because there was a break essentially in relations for the last seven years. And this was after the ransack of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran following the execution of a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, which kind of surprised me.
I thought the break was really kind of round the, the ye. Proxy war, but this actually preceded this. And I think the biggest thing and, and is a benefit to. All parties, including potentially the US and even Israel is mm-hmm. If this offers a pathway to a formal end of this proxy war mm-hmm. In Yemen, that that could, uh, actually offer a lot of opportunities.
And in fact, Axios reported that Israel does see this as a pathway for improved US Saudi [00:14:00] relations due to the potential end of. Conflict in Yemen and that these improved relations would make it more likely that the normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia could be promoted. So I thought that was, I thought that was an interesting take.
Seeing what on surface just looks like. A power play, clear benefit of, of Chinese power, and maybe alienating Israel to an extent, we're making it less likely that Saudi Arabia would back any sort of military strike on Aran. Mm-hmm. To where it's being interpreted as well. This is a pathway to improve relationships.
Between the US and Saudi Arabia since that was a big sticking point. And, you know, something that the US has gradually withdrawn as Saudi Arabia became more and more brutal again, using US equipment to mm-hmm. You know, conduct these atrocities, that this could actually be a pathway to improve those relationships.
And then allowing for, for normal. [00:15:00]
Anita Kellogg: I think ending the war in Yemen is incredibly important and that benefit to everyone. I'm not sure necessarily that it improves us Saudi Arabia relations, at least not in the near term. I honestly don't think Biden administration could get any deal with Saudi Arabia.
Ryan Kellogg: There're many steps away from one ending. Formally ending the Yemeni war, but I think following that, I mean, it seems possible. But that being said, I mean, Saudi Arabia has asked for a number of concessions in order for that to happen, including support for commercial nuclear. Energy. So, there's just a number of, of sticking points, but I think if you get rid of, of this one, at least Israel sees it as a potential path.
I thought there's, um, there were other interesting tanks or interesting takes from the Atlantic Council in terms of what [00:16:00] additional steps you may see China take. And I thought the, the most interesting one, I don't see this happening, but it would be interesting. If China were to seize upon it, but for them, To take the lead in forcing Iran essentially back to the table.
But I don't know if China actually has that leverage with Iran or it's in Iran's interest to go back. But that would put the US in a pretty awkward position in terms of, because obviously that's something the Biden administration has fully supported and tried to salvage and has been unsuccessful. China was able to come in and get Iran to come back to the table.
I mean, that would be a much bigger deal. This brokering of relationships between Saudi and
Anita Kellogg: Iran. Yeah, and it depends on what role that China maybe continues to play in increasing the ties between the two countries. You know, it also might help the war in Syria, which is divided. Mm-hmm. Um, along these lines as well, what [00:17:00] I think another takeaway is, The discussion around this goal has been mostly been a zero sum, like China did this, and so this shows weakening American influence.
Mm-hmm. Whereas maybe we need, or I think this is a net benefit for us, I think we need to be happy about that to some degree instead of just looking at through the lens of, oh, China's gaining influence, but look, this is something that's a benefit to the region, a benefit to our own. And not everything China does is counted to our interest.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, that's why it is interesting to see even Israel has more to lose from a. Weakening of the animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran, that even they see the opportunity in this to, to strengthen their position and, and kind of their objective. And I think there are a lot of good points on Iran [00:18:00] itself.
I mean, the big part of this is, Iran has not been a good partner around previous peace deals. There's been kind of an ebb and flow, but ultimately there's good points being made that Iran's strategy for the region hasn't changed nor has Iran's incentive for having a nuclear weapon, which it clearly sees as critical to its security.
And you know, honestly, based on US actions and the region over the last 20 years is a good interpretation of that. So, How, in terms of normalization of this relationship, it doesn't seem like it'll be long before Iran has to back away or goes against this deal or does something counter to this. So I don't think there's a high trust level at all of this leading to anything greater than these embassies opening and maybe, maybe a pathway to.
Ending the conflict in in Yemen, which is has, you know, obviously dried died down quite a bit over the last nine, nine months a [00:19:00] year.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, the atrocities in the war in Yemen are hard to state that what has happened to the Yemeni is terrible and has not got enough attention in Saudi Arabia's role in that, I think has not gotten enough attention, and I've spoken about that before.
It would be really a big deal if they could get a permanent ceasefire between the two sides. Mm-hmm. And that itself would be a really huge benefit. But anyway, something to see. I think it's, no matter where this goes, it's a really important action by China that they were able to broker this deal.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. It is symbolically of nothing else that they are more than economic player in the region.
Anita Kellogg: So this week I also saw. China's president Xi going to Russia to meet with Putin for a three day meeting, and this caused a lot of he rigging and consternation in, in the west. There is, [00:20:00] you know, it may be notable about some of the things that didn't happen.
One thing that really stood out to me was the fact that Putin didn't hardily endorse the 12 point peace plan. Okay? Even though there's a lot of things that favor Russia in it, and you could have a meeting this big and not have Putin really fully endorse, that was a notable thing that didn't happen.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, that definitely stood out because there's certainly a, a window of opportunity if Russia had chosen to seize it, to lock in its current gains. Its current territorial gains. But I've seen other analysts interpret that they still have maximalist goals mm-hmm. For Ukraine and because the peace plan does talk about respect for sovereign.
Territory of nations. I don't know if that part kind of tweaked, but the fact that they didn't take up the opportunity to declare a ceasefire mm-hmm. And say [00:21:00] Russia's all for peace and the commitment to ending this war and for them to lock in, uh, one sixth of Ukraine's territory mm-hmm. Permanently seems like a missed opportunity for Russia.
At least position itself with the global south, particularly as seeking peace. Mm-hmm. And ending the damaging economic and inflationary environment caused by the war.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to the fact that Putin has never acted all that logically when it comes to this war, right? It never made sense to kind of have this maximalist go after Kyiv, rather than just taking.
The territory that was already disputed by, indirectly by Russian forces. So that's why we were surprised by it. And I think, again, this is something totally illogical because Russia has the chance, like you said, it wins over probably the global [00:22:00] South by looking like. Really intent towards peace.
Mm-hmm. And Putin didn't take that opportunity, which is, I guess, more consistent with the puzzle of going after all of Ukraine, but especially now when it looks like Russia has suffered the losses that it has. Right,
Ryan Kellogg: right. So I think the other, not really surprising thing, but certainly the way that it was pushed in the media, here is no statement.
For change in Chinese policy around military support. I mean, I think China has continued to have a policy of essentially towing the line of making sure that doesn't cross any sort of red lines with the West to trigger sanctions. So no. Greater public support for providing military aid to the Russian military.
I mean, there are reports that specifically they're providing small arms and some limited ammunition, maybe even being funneled through North Korea, but nothing to the scale of what [00:23:00] Russia has requested. So, nothing
Anita Kellogg: that there's actually proof of. Right. Here's my pet peeve on this. From the beginning of this meeting, it was, oh, China's going there to announce this military support.
Right. And I feel like. China's done a lot of things that hurt American interest and we should acknowledge that, but we should also judge China by its actions. And I think too much we judge China about what we will fear that it will do and not by what actually China is doing. And anyway, it's not a surprise to me at all that they did not announce this military support.
It would've been more surprising I think if they did. And I can always be wrong because I am sometimes, but occasionally I know. I occasionally,
Ryan Kellogg: yeah. Ok. Than I That's, that's, I was wrong too. That's what step forward.
Anita Kellogg: But yeah. This has been an annoyance to me that we keep acting like China's already done it.
And like you said, I don't see it in China's interest. And unlike Putin, China doesn't go against its own interest because it doesn't [00:24:00] want to run a foul of larger economic sanctions against it, and it wants to look like it's brooking
Ryan Kellogg: peace. Yeah, I think this dovetailed really nicely with the announcement of the Iran Saudi Arabia normalization.
You basically had this one week later, and yeah, you're coming out as, again, China's goal is to build an alternative to the us. LED world order and to offer a model to the global south of, Hey, we're not going to interfere with your domestic sovereign affairs. We don't care about human rights and all of these Western values.
We're here for economic growth and prosperity and, and peace. So I think this dovetails nicely. That overall message that China is bringing this 12 point peace plan, it's similar to the around Saudi Arabia. It's the only credible partner that can come in and talk with both sides, although Zelensky has expressed interest in talking to she, [00:25:00] but that has yet to be scheduled.
We have a phone call scheduled. Is that scheduled now? I think so. Okay. Okay, so that'll, again, that'll be interesting. Obviously there's just non-starters right now in the plane and sort of locking in rushing gains. Again, a mystery why Russia wouldn't accept and fully the Chinese peace plan. But you know, it's a non-starter for Zelensky.
But it'd be interesting to see how that conversation goes and how much China, I think it
Anita Kellogg: won't be that productive, but I don't think so either. But it's, it is really good for China in the sense of like they have this peace plan that they're promoting. No one else is promoting a peace plan. And so, They get a lot of credit for it.
The PR
Ryan Kellogg: of it, again, the battle being with the global south Right. Is looks good.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And I think that along with Saudi Arabia is sort of like, look, the US isn't the only country that can have this influence on peace and international affairs. And look, we're able to do that in a way that is appealing to a lot of the [00:26:00] global south.
Mm-hmm. So it's been a real huge positive for China this past couple weeks.
Ryan Kellogg: Definitely from, from that perspective. I think so, yeah. It's a diplomatic win for them, for the audience that they're targeting both domestically and the global
Anita Kellogg: south. Yeah, and on a minor note, it's a busy week for she too, because he has the president in Brazil, Lulu coming to visit for a state visit.
He has Macron coming this week for state visit, and I believe it's this week, and then also scheduled a meeting with Spain's. And I guess the notice, we'll think about that, is Spain is going to be leading the EU council.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So clearly they, they haven't given up on their strategy around Europe and then breaking off parts of Europe that are more sympathetic.
We're more economically dependent on China than other parts. So yeah, you can just see that. Somewhat lack of unit, not that, although I'm a little [00:27:00] surprised, Macron kind of a full state visit to Beijing during this time period. It's a little surprising. Spain, I see Brazil, I totally get. Mm-hmm. But France has always been, France has always been independent in terms of its diplomatic policy and obviously he's maintained that, that those phone calls with Putin probably the only window that the West has.
There's ineffective phone calls to Putin.
Anita Kellogg: That's true. Very. So onto our next topic, which are the elections that are recently occurred in Nigeria?
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, so Nigeria is Africa's largest democracy, and they held in the past month both, uh, national presidential elections and state elections, and Nigeria, we have to remember, is still a very young democracy.
I always have to remind myself that military rule only ended in 1999. Because I spent a little bit of time working in Nigeria
Anita Kellogg: and also you an expert now in Nigeria, right?
Ryan Kellogg: Well, yeah, [00:28:00] definitely. I was there for, for weeks. So that's, that's, that's a global expert. I should be on CNN with that sort of experience.
But anyway, so it was, it was a democracy that was only eight years old when I spent some time there. And honestly, the stories and themes in terms of the, the country's function really hasn't changed that much since that time period, sadly. And it's, it's just been burdened by very deeply corrupt elite that essentially used the country's considerable oil.
As a private bank account. Now that being said, what's a little bit tragic is Nigeria has like immense potential. I mean, it's the most populous country in Africa. The largest economy in Africa. Over half of the population is actually 18 years or younger. So unlike, you know, parts of the West and Asia, it's very young and dynamic, but, In terms of [00:29:00] opportunities, it's just been really starred by this corruption.
So there's a lot of frustration that existed heading into these elections. For instance, youth unemployment currently runs at 42%, which is just staggering. And since the last national election and 2015, Nigerian's, G D P per capita has actually. Since that time, and you have 60 million within the country that are surviving on less than $2 a day, but there was hope heading into the election, so it was headed up by three different parties.
You had kind of the two dominant. Parties that had kind of exchanged rule over the last 20 years or so. But there was an outsider by the name of Peter Obey, who is the leader of the newly formed Labor Party and a former state governor, and really appeared to offer some hope for reform, particularly [00:30:00] among younger Nigerians.
And he's a, a banker by background. And I think what, it wasn't so much the policies because all Nigerian politicians. Very vague on any sort of policy solutions to the number of problems that the country faces, but it was rather his style, unlike. Current national leaders who act more or less like kings and have full entourages and are pretty arrogant.
EU is known for a very humble style, a real focus on frugality, which is, again, it's more the display of ostentatious wealth that, that you would see amongst the elite. So it was a real, it was seen as, Kind of a fresh air and, and the focus to, again, combating corruption and trying to focus on economic growth and development.
And in fact, I mean, Obi was leading, heading into the election in late February in a number of polls, but in a surprise, it was Ebola Tin Tibu, who's part of the incumbent ruling [00:31:00] party, the p c that won the presidential election. So Tibu took over 37% of the. Followed by the other major party Abu Kar, who took 29% and then Obi kind of the insurgent coming up with only 25%.
Now because of this difference in the polls and also the fact that Nigeria moved to a electronic voting system, which I think, you know, we saw something similar in in Kenya when we talked about that election and an earlier episode. But there was just a number. The, the vote was marred by a number of reported attacks by armed men vote, buying snatching of ballot boxes and ballot burning.
And then you had very low turnout, which I think is really indicative of the level of trust and faith within the democratic system is the fact you only had 25% of registered voters cast a ballot, and that was down from 35. Again, pretty low numbers for mm-hmm. A [00:32:00] young democracy. By contrast, I mean the US has been trending upward as probably close to 60 some percent I think in national elections now.
So the country is really braced for a repeat of the 2011 elections where 800 people were, were killed. But I think ultimately, The positive signs in the Washington Post editorial board mm-hmm. Actually had, you know, a lot of praise for I know I, how the election went, disagree with them, you know, given a list of reasons that we kind of went through, was a little bit shaky, but a little bit, yeah.
I was a little, I was a little surprised by it. I mean, so the, I didn't agree with it at all. Yeah. Do you want to, you want to go into,
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, so they say that they largely praise the election, deciding that the candidates, the losing candidates are pursuing their appeals in court rather than insurrection, which I guess is true.
I don't know that that's an [00:33:00] improvement over previous elections in Nigeria. The military stated on the sidelines as they have for the last 20. Plus years. They called it the most competitive election in Nigeria's history with state's votes split among multiple candidates. That's true. They say, and here's where I disagree with them a lot.
The voting issues appear mostly related to technical issues with the electronic system, not fraud, and the US and others have accepted the results in here. I, I have contend on several points. One, nothing that I read said mostly it was technical issues. The problems with the election included a lot of violence, burning of ballots, vote buying.
I mean, when you have only 25% of people come out, which also is something that I think they don't take into account well. I mean, probably fear of violence, right? Not only lack of trust in the system, but fear [00:34:00] of violence, and that's not a sign of a healthy democracy. Yes, the US and others have accepted the results, but international observers also said that Nigerians deserved better and have certainly not, it was not been a ringy endorsement of a fair and free election system.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I think that's, that is what, yes. Surprised me. Given the wide scale reports, and this is also because there was youth excitement about Obi, you know, there were a lot of coverage on social media, a lot of people reporting from polling places that the results. That were, were reported and recorded at the local level were different than what ended up kind of in the national election database.
Obviously. Yeah. The, the Widescale volume, which is, you know, has been a common occurrence in Nigeria elections, but shouldn't be a point of, I guess, praise by the Washington Post editorial board. The biggest thing is [00:35:00] the Nigerian people deserve better than this. I mean, the ultimate winner, Tibu was actually accused by the US of illicit activities back in the nineties of drug sales.
I think eventually they reached agreement, but then his closest opponents, so the Abu Bakar. Was also accused of money laundering, essentially a 40 million transfer to US bank accounts that was seen as illicit re ill-gotten gains. So neither one of these individuals and, and OB himself had more minor kind of accusations of corruption.
Anita Kellogg: But I mean, they deserve a better election process. They deserve, they
Ryan Kellogg: deserve better candidates too. Right. But let's
Anita Kellogg: just start with the democratic process, which is limited. It's not a. Democracy in terms of how we think of democracy, right? Freedom House calls it partially free, and that has to do with the electoral [00:36:00] system, the judicial system being free of government influence and freedom of the press, all things that Nigeria scores not very well on.
Right? Right. So as we're going to talk about in the next segment, when we call these countries a democracy, They're not necessarily democracies or certainly depends on how you define democracy, because if you look at the indicators that like political scientists look at when we are coding whether a country is a democracy or not, B is probably one of the most popular in it lists both Nigeria and India, which we're going to be talking about as electoral autocracies, which means there are elections, but it is not a fair and free democracy.
Freedom House calls them partially free, which sort of reflects the same, same sentiment. So I think sometimes I question a little bit about the way we use the word democracy.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. [00:37:00] That it's more than the presence of elections, that it's an entire system and it goes with press freedom, academic freedom, independence of the judiciary, independence of the legislature, entire kind of ecosystem.
That has to exist for, for democracy to function beyond just elections. But the
Anita Kellogg: one positive thing I would say about Nigeria compared to what we're going to be talking about in a minute, is that there is a real strong opposition that they're not just jailing opposition candidates.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, there is, but there's.
I'd say probably even a higher degree of collusion amongst elites on the agreement that regardless of who wins, that we get to essentially extract resources. Yeah. For our personal gain. Yeah. Corruption. Think that's the, the corruptions greater Yeah. Than, than what you see in India, which I think, and, and I think this will tie to our next.
Topic as well and is something that came up in our trip to [00:38:00] India and ties into China's alternative model of development is, does democracy hold back developing countries? Do you actually need a stronger. Non-democratic illiberal government in order to have economic growth and prosperity for your people.
I mean, you could. China would point to Nigeria and say, look at this chaos. Look at this. This is insane. There's so much
Anita Kellogg: corruption, but that's not because of, it's a democracy. In fact, authoritarian governments usually rank much higher on corruption than democratic. I
Ryan Kellogg: mean, that would be the counter. It wasn't like, although honestly, maybe Nigeria relative to other countries.
During the military rule was probably better off than this period under democracy. That's what China would point to. I think
Anita Kellogg: it's really a false argument. Certainly Nigerian, what we call democracy in Nigeria, has declined over the years. At the same time, economic development has declined, so [00:39:00] increasing some authoritarian measures have not produced economic growth in Nigeria.
I think it's a false
Ryan Kellogg: argument. Well, but this is the, this is the argument that the US and the West have to counter if they hope to break off or not allow for the diplomatic blitz in the global south that China is now undertaking. How is the Western model better than the Chinese model of development?
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And then we talked about the surveys in Africa. How. Survey wise people had a lot of support for democracy while also supporting China's economic development model. So it's not in the global south, it's not an either or. We try to make it either or, but it certainly hasn't decreased. The union for democracy, they want both and they don't see like that.
They can't have democracy and economic growth. I don't think people will see.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, no, and you're, you're absolutely right with the Afro Bram, and that wasn't [00:40:00] universal across countries, but Nigeria was one of the strongest ones who had very positive feelings, both for the United States and China. And I think the reaction that you saw online with Nigerians, with the Nigerian dysphoria, you know, some of them kind of symbolically ripping their passports up, you know, there is a strong commit.
To democracy within the country. Although, you know, you look at the participation rates and go, well, how strong is that?
Anita Kellogg: But that may not be, that may be indicative of the electoral process rather than, I mean, if there's armed
Ryan Kellogg: dangers, the, so probably the polls made for a better indicator of commitment to democracy rather than, yeah, because there's, you're right, the violence and also its of shenanigans going on.
Anita Kellogg: I mean, I can't imagine what it's like to live in Nigeria, but I could definitely see that being as a reason why not
Ryan Kellogg: to go to the po. Yeah. Yeah.
Anita Kellogg: So [00:41:00] on a more depressing note about democracy is India, and I don't think I had
Ryan Kellogg: more depressing.
Anita Kellogg: Well, I don't, I didn't realize, I knew there was growing authoritarianism under Modi, but I don't think I realized how bad it really was.
So one of the things we noted by the couple of people we talked to, that's also confirmed by articles that we have read is the popularity of Modi. And under him, we've seen a lot of measures that have further deteriorated India's democracy. So it's also ranked as partially free and there's an electoral autocracy, which is just kind of shocking to me.
Like I said, I knew it was trending in that direction, but I didn't realize till we were on the plane and kind of reading the magazine about Indian politics, I don't think I realized how. Week the democracy was there and one element of it, I think is when you can. [00:42:00] Jail, your opponents. That gives you a lot of power.
And I know we're going to talk about one case of that, but also for me, Modi is popular because he's developed economic growth. Mm-hmm. He's put in the infrastructure that he's promised, and India is seeing a lot of economic growth. Now, some of that I don't think is, can all be attributed to Modi because India is also just kind of at the right time right now when people are looking to move out of China for the cost of labor as well as.
Geopolitical reasons, and I think India is in the moment where he gets to take advantage of that. But I think the infrastructure helps, and as long as Modi can deliver on those goods, I don't think anything can truly challenge his power and the way that he's bringing the country into a more authoritarian direction.
Mm-hmm. That's why I think
Ryan Kellogg: it's depress. I completely agree with that overall trajectory. And part of this is to blame. I mean, yes, he's definitely [00:43:00] benefiting from timing to a certain extent, but you had near total control of the country for generations by the Indian National Congress, and they failed to deliver on basic infrastructure improvements and.
We didn't talk about in, in the trip, but that stood out to me the most. We traveled through Raja Stan, one of the poorest states within India, and I was shocked. I was shocked by just how abysmal most of the infrastructure, the one exception being electricity, where the country has 95% coverage. But that apparently, again, something that the Modi government had focused on, but even things basic as toilets.
So even. Toilets were not common prior to Modi in these regions that had been ignored by the Indian National Congress. So I can totally see if the government comes in from a party that [00:44:00] did not deliver these basic goods and services. To its people for 30, 40 years. They come in and they're able to deliver this within 10 years and make real material impact on these areas and regions.
I totally get why they, they're extremely popular. So it's like that aspect of it. I, I get, I get why, but obviously BJP and Modi are also locking in unnecessarily. Because I think they can win free and free elections just based on what they've been able to accomplish economically. But instead, they're using their power to disassemble democracy over time.
And I think we, we saw two incidences of that while we were in India that really spoke to this. So the, the most recent one that happened was the, Leader of the India Congress party. Rahul Gandhi was removed from his seat of parliament [00:45:00] following a conviction of criminal defamation charge from a 2019 comment on the political trail at the time, and it essentially was just a joke.
So it's one shocking that he was, he was convicted, but it was kind of interesting that the law is actually a legacy of British colonial speech restrictions that was upheld by the India Supreme Court in 2016. Again, I don't know how much that is influenced by BJ p appointees, but it represented a giant blow to a family legacy because this is, Same Gandhi, he's the grandson of Indira Gandhi, who is the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977, and then later served in the eighties before she was assassinated, but she in turn was the daughter of Nehru, who is India's first prime minister. And I think that's the other shocking thing. It's not, not only is this the leader of the opposition, but [00:46:00] this is the political, the leader of a political dynasty essentially taken out based on a joke, using a extremely strict interpretation of a colonial law.
Anita Kellogg: And the joke was that he compared.
Modi to Thieves or something like
Ryan Kellogg: that. Yeah. There was two other, I guess, known people with the same last name. Yeah. And essentially saying, yeah, you can't trust these Modi guys are all thieves. I mean, that was like the extent of the joke in 2019. But then conveniently, it wasn't pursued as a legal case until Gandhi was getting traction.
In recent weeks and months linking Modi to the scandal around the Adani group, which is one of India's wealthiest businessmen and, and wealthiest corporations, which has been mired in charges of just like massive. Hundreds of billions of dollars of stock manipulation and accounting fraud. So this is actually a real sensitive area for Modi.
[00:47:00] So it's just convenient that as soon as he was getting traction linking that they pursued this 2019 case against him.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So when you can get rid of your opponent using this law for such a minor offense and you can just get rid of him. Yeah. Um, they booted him immediately from the parliament.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah.
Yeah. They didn't wait for appeals or anything.
Anita Kellogg: Then, I mean, you can do pretty much anything. You eliminate a real opposition. You know, you talk about like Modi’s popularity when you know he is not a lot of threat to his power. But even winning is sometimes not enough for these leaders. They want to make constitutional changes, which Modi has made.
They want to lock in authoritarianism and increase their power over all aspects of state control. India. It's kind of a federated system because it also has a lot of states. Yeah. Which have their own politics. Mm-hmm. And independent [00:48:00] policy that they can carry out. So this is really, really troubling. It was really troubling to me and I think we have to consider, how long will you call India Democracy.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, no, I think, yeah, definitely the, the labeling is one aspect, but you know, regardless of the label, the fact is, and you, you brought this up, the timing for India, given the desire in the West to have this alternative kind of on the manufacturing side and trade side to China, as well as a valuable defense partner means.
There's not going to be any international implications you can label, you know, academics can label India whatever it wants, but in terms of actual sanctions or censure against India and its government, that's not going to happen.
Anita Kellogg: That's why the west will keep calling it a democracy, because it's convenient for them, even though India [00:49:00] is definitely moving away from that.
And it's questionable how true to that label is if it's convenient for the west to call it a democracy. For these leaders as they're working with it. Yeah.
Ryan Kellogg: I think particularly with the, the framing, which Biden administration has backed off on, but this democracy versus autocracy and of course India itself, its entire brand or a big part of its brand internationally is being the world's largest democracy.
Right. And obviously, motive fully embraces that and say, yes, we're a hundred percent a democracy. So it's in everybody's interest it seems like. To continue to call India democracy, even if its institutions are kind of rotted away over time.
Anita Kellogg: Some other indications. So when we mentioned there were two opposition members mm-hmm.
There was another one who is also thrown in jail, very complex scandal related to liquor store licensing. And I read like 500 articles and I would not be
Ryan Kellogg: able to, don't understand some of that. Yeah,
Anita Kellogg: yeah. Um, but that is really hard [00:50:00] to determine how much that is true or not true. Also because of that, there is very little press freedom in the country, particularly amongst Muslim reporters.
So you have to also say again, too, that there is a lot of increasing Hindu nationalism, which is basically as our to guide, put it, that we're not asking people to accept Hinduism as their religion, but the values of Hinduism. Is the foundation of India. And so, but this has led to a lot of attacks on Muslims, a lot of violence toward Muslims, as well as eroding their rights.
And also when they are journalists and academics, you also have. Press such as the B BBC was rated following the airing of a documentary critical of Modi. You have international organizations like Amnesty International and Oxfam who were also rated for similar reasons, and I think [00:51:00] I was reading that they don't operate in India anymore, so this.
This lack of freedom of information essentially is one of the court of democracies. So having press freedom and then of course academic freedom goes along with that. You can't have a democracy without it because you have to be able to hold people accountable. And if you don't have any voices that you can trust that can be critical of Modi or his actions or his government, then again, people are only going to see the information that they're given, right?
That's, that's why China controls information so much. So that really deteriorates the idea that you can be a democracy. So for that reason, we've talked a little bit. Freedom House has concluded that security defamation, sedition. Oh. So there's also, as I read through this list, there been a high increase of people who have been accused of sedition.
And again, this seems largely along political lines. [00:52:00] Anyone who has some sort of opposition against Modi hate speech laws, again, there's just been a lot of ways that they've been able to attack oppositional voices.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, on, on the one hand you understand, you know, given the failure of the party, uh, the Indian National Congress to deliver on results, but then the fact that Modi has used the success and the fortuitous timing of India in the geopolitical realm in terms of economic gain and, and growth that they've been able to realize to.
Very systematically. I mean, this is a very disciplined approach to dissembling oppositional parties over time. And now, I mean, just these two bold actions around both Gandhi and Sisodia. The person at the center of the, uh, the Liquor Gate scandal [00:53:00] to do this so boldly to take out your opponents, just shows that he's reached a level of comfort.
Knowing that there's going to be no blow back. And, and this isn't the end of it. I mean, I was reading that there are other, because anybody that gets any sort of national exposure retraction that could potentially one day be a threat to snuff them out from political life as soon as possible. It's, it is very systematic and, and chilling in that way.
Anita Kellogg: Right. So I think it's understandable why they're labeled in electoral autocracy. Basically means, we also call it competitive authoritarianism when there are elections, but those elections are not fair and free because of press freedom or your opposition not being jailed for reasons and such. So it was depressing to me to find out how bad India is.
Stated democracy is, and then knowing that things are not going to get better, it's [00:54:00] just going to continue to deteriorate. And I think, I mean, like we said, we call it the world's largest democracy because of its population lives. And so to see this trend there is particularly troubling. Okay. Do you have anything else to add?
Ryan Kellogg: No, I think that's, I think that's an.
Anita Kellogg: All right. Well that brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics. You can visit our website at www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and follow us on Twitter @GlobalKellogg or me @arkellogg.
Ryan Kellogg: You can also reach us by email, so anita@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and myself, ryan@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com.
And as always, please see the show notes for the articles we discussed in this episode. And if you like the show, please take time. Tell your friends. Shared on social sites. It's a simple, quick, and free way to support the show. Thanks everyone. Thanks. [00:55:00] Bye.