Developments in democracy

WHILE THE U.S. media continue their relentless focus on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, British papers today assess political reforms in the rest of the world. They basically like what they see in Ukraine but are less sure about Egypt and Turkey.

After promising a new start for corruption-ridden Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko dismissed his entire government Thursday. The Times calls the move expected and necessary, given that Yushchenko’s unending rivalries with members of his government made it difficult for him to pursue his Westward-leaning agenda. “He acted correctly,” the paper notes with characteristically British assurance. The Independent is harder on Yushchenko, saying “he has largely squandered this honeymoon” that followed his December election, but it still praises his decision to dismantle his government.

The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, reviews the Egyptian elections. While certainly “historic,” the paper notes, they can hardly be called democracy; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should “give proof of democratic intent by lifting the state of emergency imposed after Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981.”

And the left-leaning Guardian frets over liberal reforms in Turkey on the eve of its talks to join the European Union. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government “has made huge advances,” the paper says, including a ban on torture, but its prosecution of novelist Orhan Pamuk for denigrating Turkey is “regrettable.” In editorialese, as in diplomatic language, that translates into: We don’t like it, but we’ll tolerate it if we have to. Let the talks begin.

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Swati Pandey