Shuffled 2025-05

I'm experimenting with a format change this week. As regular readers will have noticed, there's often a lot of shuffling to cover each week, and while some people like my attempts at comprehensiveness, there have been a few suggestions that I concentrate on a few key stories. I'm keen to hear what others think on that front, but for now I'm going to steer somewhere in-between by trying to order everything roughly by shenaninganness. This doesn't mean that the later entries aren't actually interesting; usually it just means I've been unable to find the stories that explain what's really going on. In those cases I'm always very happy to be educated by you all, and maybe even include a follow-up later. As for this week, there’s no shortage of goings-on:

• 🇵🇪 Peru: Cabinet ministers tend not to stay in office very long in Peru these days. This week saw President Boluarte make her seventh reshuffle since taking office just over two years ago, with Julio Demartini—the last person to have retained office throughout that entire period—finally out. This seems to be a result of the Qali Warma (aka Wasi Mikuna) scandal where a social program set up to feed schoolchildren had a few poisoning-related problems, and was also found to have been using “100% beef” product that was more accurately “60% horse”. Fingers were pointed. Procurement corruption allegations were made. Then the head of the company involved turned up dead in a hotel room. Then it turned out that the hotel was co-owned by a senior Qali Warma official. Now Demartini has filed a criminal complaint against the journalists who broke the story. I suspect this is far from over, but for now 🐇🕳🚨🏃‍➡️

• 🇳🇮 Nicaragua: Outsider becomes president, then loses re-election, but later returns in triumph, and goes on to become increasingly autocratic. I'm sure I've seen that story somewhere before. Daniel Ortega has given it an interesting twist this week though, by not only extending the term length of the presidency but also its reach, by explicitly abolishing the separation of powers and taking control of pretty much everything. Oh, and by creating a new Co-President role for Rosario Murillo. For added fun, that also makes Ortega now the First Gentleman too, as Murillo just happens to also be his wife.

• 🇹🇼 Taiwan: A couple of years ago PX Mart, the largest supermarket chain in Taiwan sought approval from the Fair Trade Commission to buy the RT Mart chain. As part of this process, it's alleged that one of the commissioners, Hong Tsai-lung, suggested that things might go more smoothly if PX Mart were to make a donation of, say, NT$300 million (approx. €9m) to various sporting events, and lo-and-behold a chunk of that made its way to the chess association Hong is involved with. This week the four commissioners came up for re-nomination, and this scandal cost not just Hong, but also FTC chair Lee May, their positions, when opposition members of the Legislative Yuan, who have a comfortable majority (because political system), rejected them.

• 🇨🇴 Colombia: When we last visited a few weeks ago, we were awaiting a new Foreign Minister. But then, in a story I missed last week, a new Transport Minister was also appointed, and this week the pace picked up further, when Mauricio Lizcano decided to resign as the Minister of Information and Communications Technology. Then, for good measure, on the same day that the new Foreign Minister and Finance Minister were sworn in, the Liberal Party announced it would also be leaving the governing coalition.

• 🇲🇲 Myanmar: How better to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the 2021 coup, than with a reshuffle? Three ministers were “granted retirement”, and some other key posts were rotated, including Yar Pyae and Tun Tun Naung swapping places as Home Affairs and Border Affairs ministers. Many of the changes seem to boil down to a relatively simple equation: commander of a region that's fairly peaceful=promotion; commander of a problem-filled region=do not collect your $200.

• 🇳🇴 Norway: Although famous for having a giant sovereign wealth fund due to its oil and gas revenues, most of its power comes from hydro, which they then also export to the EU. But that, coupled with Norway's EEA membership, brings all sorts of requirements around harmonisation of energy laws, and a recent rise in domestic electricity prices has led to a parallel rise in euro-scepticism. With echoes of a debate I'm sure I've heard elsewhere in recent years, the Centre Party have now pulled out of the government coalition stating that it's time for the country to take back control from the EU. With the next election due in September, the Labour Party will now try to hang on as a minority government until then, and have taken over the eight vacated ministerial positions, most notably with Jens Stoltenberg—former Prime Minister, and then NATO Secretary General—returning as Finance Minister.

• 🇧🇪 Belgium: After a gap of only 239 days since last June's elections—a far cry from previous governmentless heights—Flemish secessionist leader Bart De Wever finally managed to reach agreement amongst the so-called Arizona Coalition (the colours of the five parties who managed to find sufficient common ground collectively form the state flag) and was sworn in as the new Prime Minister.

• 🇸🇾 Syria: Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former head of the Syrian Salvation Government who has been the de facto leader of the wider country since Assad fled to Russia in December, has now had his facto jured, becoming President alongside the dissolution of the army, the parliament, the Ba'ath Party, and the former constitution. This is supposedly only for a transitional period until there's a new constitution and new elections, etc., but that seems likely to take several years.

• 🇲🇻 Maldives: Following the nepocurious Tourism Minister sacking from last week, this week Mohamed Muizzu has decided to get on-board the streamline train, and rather than announcing a replacement instead merged the Ministry of Tourism with the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment, and Energy. Thoriq Ibrahim, previously on the CCEE side, now finds himself as the head of the newly newly created Ministry of Tourism and Environment.

• 🇩🇿 Algeria: When I said earlier that sometimes I just can't find out what's really going on, this is exactly the sort of case I had in mind. This week the President replaced Finance Minister Laaziz Fayed, but I can't find any background or explanation to this anywhere. Though in what seems to be another interesting step along the path of moving the economy beyond oil and gas, he also appointed a new full-blown Minister for the Pharmaceutical Industry, which had previously been a more junior position within the Ministry of Industry.

• 🇰🇼 Kuwait: Similarly, I'm sure there's going to be an interesting story behind why Fahad Yusuf Al-Sabah has been replaced by Abdullah Ali Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah as Minister of Defence. It's not a complete ouster: he stays on as Interior Minister, having held both posts simultaneously since January last year, but you gotta assume something is going on when the Defence Minister gets removed.

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁮󠁩󠁲󠁿 Northern Ireland: With Economy Minister, and former UK MP, Conor Murphy moving south after being elected to the Irish Seanad, Sinn Féin get to play some musical chairs. Caoimhe Archibald has mirrored Murphy's former move from Finance to Economy, with John O’Dowd now taking her place, and new minister Liz Kimmins slotting into the gap that opens up in Infrastructure.

• 🇨🇷 Costa Rica: Just like we saw in Colombia a couple of weeks ago where the Foreign Minister had to resign now to meet not-recently-holding-office requirements of being able to run for President in a year's time, this week five senior Costa Rican figures, including four cabinet ministers, all have had to do likewise. (Aside: I'm assuming other countries also have a similar rule to this, but I'm struggling to find much information about it. If anyone can point me to anything, that would be much appreciated.)

• 🇬🇭 Ghana: Last week we saw two sets of new ministers get approved by Parliament, and take office. This week, six more sector ministers plus eight regional ministers made it through. 31 down, 11 more to go.

• 🇲🇿 Mozambique: Remember last week, when there was only one remaining cabinet position unfilled? Well, this week Mateus da Cecilia Finiasse Saíze became the new Minister of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs, completing the full set. The new Secretaries of State of the provinces were also announced, with a few staying in place, but most being transferred around.

• 🇨🇦 Canada: some regional changes this week, with a couple of new Lieutenant-Governors taking office. In BC Janet Austin gave way to Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia, and in Saskatchewan Russ Mirasty handed over to Bernadette McIntyre

Next week

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