Shuffled 2025-06

A slightly late update this week, as I had to travel for a funeral. This also means I ran out of time to get into some of the sub-national goings-on in Indonesia, France, Japan, and Russia, but theres more than enough shenanigans here even without those…

• 🇹🇩 Chad: Way way back in 1990 Idriss Déby took power in a coup, supported by Gaddafi a few years after Libya’s defeat in the Toyota War. Over the next decades Déby won five successive presidential “elections”, but in 2021, just as it looked certain he’d win the sixth, he was killed in a battle with rebels. A Transitional Military Council headed by his son, Mahamat Déby swiftly took over, with arm-twisted-behind-their-back support from France. The following year this was replaced by a National Transitional Council with, surprise!, this Déby as Transitional President. As part of the reconciliation process, however, former opposition leader Succès Masra also returned from exile to become Prime Minister. The accompanying presidential elections were put back and back until May 2024, when, surprise!, Déby—who had originally promised not to stand—defeated Masra, who then resigned as Prime Minister. The follow-on parliamentary elections were held in December, notionally finishing the process of returning to constitutional rule, but in practice boycotted by the opposition, and likely cementing the next phase of Déby rule. This week the new Parliament met for the first time in over a decade, and the Prime Minister went through the formal dance of resignation and reinstatement in order for the new government to be installed. The next few years are likely to be interesting: with Wagner previously believed to be working with the opposition to destabilise the government, and possibly even assassinate the president, Déby has recently been leaning much more towards Moscow and has pushed the French troops out.

•  🇨🇴 Colombia: The chaos in the Colombian cabinet continued this week, initially with the departure of Culture Minister Juan David Correa, and then jumping straight to 11 when the President called for absolutely everyone else to also resign after ripping into them for five hours on live TV. The Agriculture, Defence, Education, Environment, Foreign, Interior, Justice, Labour, and Mining Ministers were all gone within the next couple of days. Many cited the recent controversial appointment of Armando Benedetti as the President’s Chief of Staff despite allegations of corruption and domestic abuse, as their key tipping point.

• 🇹🇳 Tunisia: On what seems to have been a management by wandering around tour of various ministries this week, President Saied shocked everyone by suddenly firing the Finance Minister, Sihem Boughdiri. She was swiftly replaced by Michkat Khaldi, a judge who was previously in charge of the pay-us-back-the-money-you-stole-and-we’ll-drop-the-charges Criminal Reconciliation Committee. The appointment continues to blur the lines between the judiciary and the executive after Saied, himself a former law professor, consolidated power in a self-coup several years ago.

• 🇻🇺 Vanuatu: Last November, Prime Minister Charlot Salwai asked the President to dissolve Parliament early to avoid yet another no-confidence vote. The Opposition, erm, opposed this, and appealed to the Supreme Court, where they promptly lost, and new elections were set for January. With December’s devastating earthquake still a very fresh memory and much of the capital city still under restricted access, these were also the first elections to be held under the new rules approved in last May’s constitutional referendum, where to try to bring some degree of sanity to a famously unstable political system all MPs must now be part of a political party, and will lose their seat if they change party. With 27 seats needed for a majority, no party reached double digits, and a 6-party coalition (not including Salwai’s RMC) was eventually formed. Jotham Napat, a former head of the National Disaster Committee became the new Prime Minister, and swiftly installed his new cabinet members. Despite her best endeavours, Marie Louise Milne, the country’s only female MP, was not one of them.

• 🇸🇸 South Sudan: President Salva Kiir’s latest shuffle sees two Vice Presidents, James Wani Igga and Hussein Abdelbagi, as well as Health Minister Yolanda Wel Deng ousted. Josephine Joseph Lagu has been promoted from Minister of Agriculture to VP, along with cabinet newcomer Benjamin Bol Mel — Kiir’s chief financial advisor who is under US sanctions for corruption. Although the government had previously denied any connection to Mel, this move is widely believed to be the first step towards him eventually taking over from Kiir.

• 🇭🇷 Croatia: Remember when Josip Dabro had to resign as Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister a few weeks ago when a video was leaked of him firing a semi-automatic out of a moving car? His replacement David Vlajčić was narrowly confirmed this week in a vote that had to be delayed when the absence of a single MP due to a family death looked like leaving the government one aye short.

• 🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan: On-again off-again Health Minister Alymkadyr Beishenaliev, who had been sacked in 2022 after being arrested for corruption in relation to having suspiciously bought way way way too many covid vaccines (real ones — not the poison he previously drank to show it was safe), but then reinstated after the case was dismissed for lack of evidence, was fired again this week. The reasons haven’t been quite so public this time around, but his successor, Erkin Checheybayev, promised during his confirmation hearings that he would focus on tackling the systemic corruption in the department.

• 🇬🇭 Ghana: Over the last few weeks we’ve seen all the new Ministers in new President John Mahama’s cabinet get approved by Parliament. This week the final slate were sworn in. The new Health Minister and Foreign Minister were particularly contentious, with MPs smashing up tables and microphones to try to stop the process.

• 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: A few weeks ago we watched as the long-serving Finance Minister was bumped to a Deputy PM; this week that position got filled by Labour Minister Sahil Babayev. The Deputy Labour Minister, Anar Aliyev, moves up in his place. (I can’t find any answer to the obvious question of whether he’s related to the other Aliyevs.) Meanwhile, Mukhtar Babayev, the former oil executive who had controversially been appointed President of COP29, has now been shunted from his position as Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources to being the President’s Special Representative for Climate Issues. No replacement has been announced yet.

• 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan: Most people would probably feel pretty good about presenting a report showing good growth, and revenue at 105.9% of budget with expenditure at 99.9%. But Finance Minister Serdar Jorayev seems to have found himself immediately out of a job afterwards, replaced by the Deputy Minister, Mammetguly Astangulov. Sources aren’t particularly clear on why, but then again, this is Turkmenistan, where they wrote a sequel to the Koran (and you can’t get your driving licence without passing a test on it), black cars are banned from the capital city, only men over 70 can have a beard, etc. Mährijemal Mämmedowa was also dismissed as Vice Prime Minister for Culture and Mass Media, but this time with more explicit presidential dissatisfaction.

• 🇱🇧 Lebanon: After the recent election of Joseph Aoun as President, this week saw Nawaf Salam—until recently the President of the International Court of Justice—take office as Prime Minister, after Parliament united around him, continuing the sidelining of Hezbollah. The make-up of the Cabinet is required to reflect the different sects equitably, so although the US attempted to draw a red line over Hezbollah inclusion, they were able to work with their ally Amal to choose four members, including the new Finance Minister.

• 🇪🇨 Ecuador: Last October Antonio Goncalves was forced to resign as Energy Minister following an electricity crisis that led him to announce power cuts of up to 10 hours a day. Environment Minister Inés Manzano was given this as an additional portfolio on an interim basis at the time, but this week was appointed to the Energy position full-time, with her former deputy María Cristina Recalde taking over at Environment.

• 🇨🇦 Canada: The exodus from Trudeau’s biding-time-til-the-election cabinet continues. This week it’s the turn of Tourism Minister, Soraya Martinez Ferrada, to make a run at becoming Mayor of Montreal instead. Pascale St-Onge will add her responsibilities on top of her existing Heritage Minister ones.

Next week: Austria, Colombia (ctd.), Ecuador, Romania, Turks and Caicos, and more. Subscribe for the full list every week.