Shuffled 2025.02

With eighty-eight gazillion stories elsewhere about the transfer of power in the US, we can safely ignore that here, and look instead at which political offices have been changing hands in the rest of the world. After a relatively quiet beginning to the year, this week the pace picks up significantly:

• 🇦🇫 Afghanistan: The Taliban's Minister of Refugees, Khalil Haqqani, was killed by a Islamic State suicide bomber in December. Abdul Kabir has now taken over the position.

• 🇦🇹 Austria: Attempts to form a government have been on-going since September's election, in which the far-right FPÖ won 31% of seats, the previously-leading liberal-conservative ÖVP fell to 28%, and the Social Democrats (SPÖ) got 22%. Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) finally admitted defeat in his attempts to form a coalition with the SPÖ, and stepped down this week as the head of government. Alexander Schallenberg (also ÖVP), the current Foreign Minister, and previously Chancellor for two months in 2021, has taken over again as interim Chancellor, as the FPÖ begin their stint of trying to form a governing coalition. If this fails, a new general election is the most likely next step.

• 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: After almost 20 years as Finance Minister, Samir Sharifov has been either pro- or de- moted (YMMV) to Deputy Prime Minister. No replacement has been announced yet.

• 🇧🇾 Belarus: There are two new faces around the Cabinet table this week, as Permapresident Lukashenko has promoted former deputy ministers Artur Karpovich and Dmitry Kiyko to be Minister of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, and Minister of Taxes and Duties. The outgoing ministers, Bogdanov and Nalivaiko are off to Kazakhstan and Mogilev respectively.

• 🇧🇷 Brazil: Advertising executive and publicist, Sidônio Palmeira, who worked on Lula's election campaigns and various behind-the-scenes roles since, has been given an official position as the new Head of the Social Communication Secretariat, ousting Paulo Pimenta.

• 🇨🇱 Chile: After last week's story about the botched purchase of Salvador Allende's former house, Francisco Figueroa has now been appointed as the new Minister of National Assets.

• 🇨🇬 Congo-Brazzaville (RoC): President Denis Sassou Nguesso has reshuffled his cabinet. Faced with a recent cash-shortage that meant civil servants couldn't be paid, the main new face is Christian Yoka as Minister of Finance, but there were also swaps in Health, Transport, State Control, Scientific Research, Urban Sanitation, and the River Economy.

• 🇨🇷 Costa Rica: Last year Marta Esquivel, head of the Social Security Fund, was arrested on charges of corruption in awarding health contracts. Now President Chaves has given her de facto immunity by appointing her to the Cabinet, as Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy.

• 🇫🇯 Fiji: After a initially complicated coalition-forming process and various ongoingly complicated coalition-maintaining difficulties Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has now engaged in a newly complicated manoeuver of uncertain constitutional status to try to pad out his razor-thin coalition majority. This week he created three new Minister-level, and three new Assistant Minister-level positions, and appointed six members of the opposition "Group of Nine" to them.

• 🇬🇹 Guatemala: At the end of November the Minister of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing, Félix Alvarado, as well as two deputy ministers in the department, resigned, citing differences of opinion with President Arévalo. Alvarado had been in the position less than six months after taking over from Jazmín de la Vega, who had also only lasted five months after her surprise return to the political front-line. Next to have a go is retired colonel Miguel Ángel Díaz.

• 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan: Justice Minister Azamat Yeskarayev has been dismissed, for unstated reasons, but widely believed to again be connected to the 15-year-long Stati saga. Yerlan Sarsembayev has been appointed as the new Minister.

• 🇱🇧 Lebanon: Bringing an end to the multi-year stalemate, army chief Joseph Aoun has been elected President with support from Saudi Arabia, France, and the US, after the Hezbollah-preferred candidate withdrew.

• 🇲🇨 Monaco: With Prime Minister Didier Guillaume hospitalised for scheduled treatment, Isabelle Berro-Amadeï was appointed to take over the role on an interim basis. (Note from the future: Guillaume, who had previously also been a former French government minister, and senator, died during this hospital stay, seemingly from a new separate illness.)

• 🇳🇨 New Caledonia: Unlike all those other places where the Head of Government chooses the Ministers, the New Caledonians do it the other way around. Here Congress picks a proportional Cabinet, and its members in turn choose their President. (This isn't necessarily a speedy affair: last time around, in 2021, it took five months to get agreement.) This year's first choice was Philippe Dunoyer, but less than an hour later, he resigned. The following day Alcide Ponga was elected instead.

• 🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe: On Monday, President Vila Nova controversially fired the Prime Minister, Patrice Trovoada, and dissolved the government, in a move that Trovoada claims was clearly unconstitutional. The ADI then chose Helio Almeida as his replacement, but the President rejected this, and instead picked former Justice Minister Ilza Amado Vaz. By Sunday, however, she had resigned, after the ADI leaked her cabinet proposals early, prompting accusations of attempting to interfere in the formation of the government. The Governor of the Central Bank, Américo Ramos, then became the third Prime Minister in a week.

• 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: It's never a good look for your anti-corruption minister to be named in court documents for being involved in embezzling billions of pounds in another country, so despite a full-blown round of "full-confidence" claims in her, Tulip Siddiq has inevitably resigned, to be replaced in this role by Emma Reynolds, despite questions of her history of lobbying for Chinese businesses.

• 🇻🇪 Venezuela: The inauguration of Nicolás Maduro went ahead this week, despite an ongoing controversy over the result. The US, EU, UK, and Canada all announced new sanctions, and the US upped their reward to twenty-five million dollars for anyone who manages to pull off Maduro's arrest. Losing — or winning, depending on your point of view — candidate Edmundo González, has fled to Spain.

Parliamentary picks:

• 🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda: Rawdon Turner won the by-election called to fill the seat vacated after November's murder of Asot Michael.

• 🇦🇼 Aruba: After early elections triggered by the fall of the government in September, the new members have now been sworn in.

• 🇧🇪 Belgium: Simon Bekaert and Stephanie Vanden Eede take over in the Flemish Parliament from Pablo Annys and Karim Bachar, who prefer to hold city-level office in Bruges and Antwerp respectively instead.

• 🇧🇷 Brazil: With Paulo Pimenta out of his SECOM role (see above), he returns to the Chamber of Deputies, replacing his alternate, Reginete Bispo.

• 🇨🇿 Czechia: Former deputy Transport Minister, and serving member of the Chamber of Deputies Milan Feranec has died; Bohuslav Hudec takes his place.

• 🇫🇷 France: After holding positions in the short-lived Barnier government, Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée has returned to the Senate, and Maud Bregeon to the National Assembly.

• 🇩🇪 Germany:

  • Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: following the death of Bernd Lange at the end of December (NB: not that one), his Landtag seat has now passed to Grit Schmelzer.

  • Thuringia: With Marcus Malsch becoming State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, he has to resign his Landtag seat. Thomas Gottweiss is taking his place.

• 🇮🇹 Italy: after the death of Francesco Castiello at the end of December, the Five Star Movement (NB: not that one) have appointed Felicia Gaudiano to return to the Senate in his place.

• 🇲🇾 Malaysia: Rosni Sohar and Shamsuddin Abd Ghaffar have been appointed as Senators. I’ve been completely unable to find any interesting back-story here. Please get in touch if you know of any!

• 🇲🇿 Mozambique: 210 of the 250 deputies elected in October have been sworn in as the new parliament begins. Opposition parties boycotted the ceremony, disputing the election results. Margarida Talapa has been elected Speaker.

• 🇳🇱 Netherlands: Former Minister of Health Edith Schippers has resigned from the Senate after becoming CEO of pharmaceutical wholesaler Mosadex. Marjolein van der Linden, an executive at RTL Nederland, has replaced her.

• 🇸🇪 Sweden: After falling down the stairs and needing back surgery, Åsa Karlsson has taken leave from the Riksdag, and will be replaced by Fredrik Stenberg until her return. Anna-Lena Hedberg is also on leave, replaced by the ever-colourful (and first member born in the 2000s) Daniel Lönn. Meanwhile, Camilla Brunsberg has returned from her sick leave, displacing her alternate, Åsa Coenraads.

Catch-up:

• 🇬🇪 Georgia: One change I missed last week was the split on January 1st of the former Ministry of Culture and Sport into, natch, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Sport, with separate ministers for each. Tinatin Rukhadze keeps the Culture half, and Shalva Gogoladze takes over as Sports Minister.

Next week:

Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Martinique, New Zealand, Palau, Poland, Saint-Barthélemy, Samoa, Suriname, Wallonia, and more. Subscribe to get the full list every week.