2000 - Political Events

Political Events

Serbian paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovik, 47, dies January 13 after being shot in the left eye by masked gunmen in the lobby of Belgrade's Intercontinental Hotel. Also known as Arkan, Raznatovik has been wanted on war crimes charges; his bodyguard and an associate are also killed, but his wife and children are unharmed. No arrests are made. Yugoslav defense minister Pavle Bulatovic, 51, is shot dead by unidentified gunmen February 7 while dining at a Zagreb football (soccer) club.

Croats elect Stipe Mesic, 65, to succeed the late Franjo Tudjman as president February 8. Prime Minister Ivica Racan has moved to soften nationalist policies since taking office January 27, freeing the media, supporting democratic and human rights, and promoting economic discipline. Serbian constitutional law professor and democratic opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica, 56, wins a clear majority in elections held September 24, President Slobodan Milosevic's electoral commission claims that Kostunica has won only 48 percent of the vote and schedules an October 8 runoff election, the Serbian Orthodox Church and foreign political leaders demand that Milosevic step down, his police use tear gas to quell demonstrations at Belgrade but they permit rioters to take over the state broadcasting offices and set fire to the parliament building, the Yugoslav Constitutional Court annuls the September 24 election results October 5 and declares Kostunica the winner, Milosevic finally concedes defeat and resigns October 7 after a week of civil disobedience in which students, coal miners, and factory workers have shut down the country, but more than 12 years of Milosevic rule have left Yugoslavia in dire economic straits, with average per-capita income down 90 percent and inflation out of control (see Milosevic, 2001).

Russian forces enter Chechnya's capital of Grozny January 18 (see 1999). Chechen rebel forces abandon the ruined city but continue to harass the Russians with guerrilla raids. Russian authorities order Grozny residents to leave February 14 and seal off the city. Both sides have nuclear weapons and threaten to use them, creating anxiety worldwide (see 2002).

Russia's presidential election March 26 gives victory to acting president Vladimir V. Putin, who receives about 53 percent of the popular vote to 30 percent for Communist Party leader Gennadi A. Zyuganov. An increase in oil and gas prices has boosted the Russian economy, enabling the government to resume payment of salaries and pensions, but Putin's prestige suffers a setback when internal explosions send the 5-year-old nuclear-powered Russian submarine Kursk plunging more than 300 feet down to the seabed of the Bering Sea August 13 with 118 men. She has no pressurized escape chambers, the Russians wait too long before accepting British and Norwegian rescue offers, and all aboard are lost. When Norwegian divers enter the craft in late October they find a chilling note in the 27-year-old officer's pocket stating that he and 22 other men reached the Kursk's rear compartment but, "None of us can get out."

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary chairman of the opposition Christian Democratic Party January 18 after being accused by the party leadership of "violating his duties" in refusing to reveal who gave him more than $1 million while in office (see 1998). The party's finance officer Wolfang Hüllen hangs himself in his Berlin apartment January 20 at age 49, leaving two children and a suicide note as the scandal widens.

Austria alienates other European countries and the United States in February by forming a coalition government with members of the Freedom Party holding half the cabinet seats. Heading the party (but absent from the cabinet) is immigration opponent Jörg Haider, 50, who has been making remarks sympathetic to the Nazis since 1990. About 600 neo-Nazis have recently marched under the Brandenburg Gate to protest plans for a Holocaust monument, and hundreds of thousands of Austrians march in protest against his right-wing proposals, but Austria has been providing refuge since the early 1990s to Croatians, Bosnians, and other eastern Europeans, they have taken jobs coveted by Austrians, and many agree that immigration must be stemmed.

Former Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi dies of a heart attack in Tunisia January 14 at age 65; East German spymaster Erich Mielke of Stasi notoriety at his native Berlin May 21 at age 92; British World War II spymaster Vera Atkins at Hastings, Sussex, June 24 at age 92.

Hopes for peace in Ulster gain support May 6 as the Irish Republican Army offers to open its secret weapons arsenal to international inspection as a means of meeting peace negotiators that it has put its arms "completely and verifiably" beyond use (see 1999), but even as the peace process moves forward there are paramilitary organizations on both sides that continue to administer vigilante justice in Northern Ireland, running protection rackets and controlling the drug trade.

Iran's pro-reform president Mohammad Khatami wins overwhelming support for his programs in mid-February elections as hard liners lose seats in the nation's parliament (see 1999), but the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has kept many moderate and reform-minded candidates from running on grounds that they were not Islamic enough. Many young Iranians rebel against the theocratic society by engaging in crime, drug abuse, Internet surfing, prostitution, rock music listening, and defiance of dress codes.

Bahrain's emir Sheik Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa dies of a heart attack at Manama March 6 at age 65 after a 38-year reign in which he was king for the first 10 years. As a member of the ruling Sunni minority that has ruled since 1783, the emir has in recent years employed a security force made up mostly of mercenaries and commanded by a former British police officer to suppress the Shiite majority, violence has claimed more than 40 lives, many Western firms have relocated to Dubai, and hundreds of Bahraini Shiites have been arrested, but the emir's 48-year-old son Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa succeeds to power, suspends the law that has allowed prisoners to be held without charge for up to 3 years, empties the jails of political dissidents, and promises to hold free elections in 2002 with women as well as men being allowed to vote. Some leaders of the uprising will be held under house arrest until 2001, the new emir promises to turn oil-rich Bahrain into a "people's kingdom," but it is not clear how much power the new parliament will have (see 2002).

Former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba dies at his native Monastir April 6 at age 96, having put in place policies in the 1950s and 1960s that make the country far more successful economically than other Islamic nations.

Israeli troops unilaterally withdraw from southern Lebanon May 23 to the internationally recognized border after 22 years in which they have occupied a demilitarized zone. "The 18-year tragedy is over," says Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a reference to the 1982 Israeli invasion that took over the "buffer zone" to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah (Party of God) guerrillas, who now ride through the zone in triumph; dismissing claims that his troops have been chased out (a Lebanese anchorwoman has spoken gleefully of the "slinking, servile withdrawal of Israel"), Barak claims that Israel has regained the initiative in peace talks, most Israelis support proposals to give Christians, Jews, and Muslims joint sovereignty over Jerusalem, but although PLO chairman Yasir Arafat meets with Barak and President Clinton at Camp David, and Barak proposes turning 92 percent of the West Bank into a Palestinian state plus allowing Palestinian sovereignty over the Christian and Muslim quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, the two leaders do not come to terms.

Syria's president Hafez al-Assad dies of a heart attack at Damascus June 10 at age 69 after a 30-year dictatorship in which he has transformed his backward country into a regional power broker; he is succeeded by his 34-year-old ophthalmologist son Bashar, who is promptly promoted from colonel to lieutenant general.

Resolution 1310 approved by the United Nations July 27 confirms that Israel has "withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 425," but delays in establishing a promised Palestinian homeland frustrate Arabs, as does continued discrimination against them in what they regard as their own country.

Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits Jerusalem's Harem esh-Sharif (Jews call it the Temple Mount) with 1,000 security police September 28, touching off the worst violence seen in years. Now 72, hardliner Sharon claims that he visited the Old City to show that Arabs and Jews can live peacefully together; critics suggest that he was acting to dissuade the government from making any concessions to Muslims or positioning himself to run against Barak in new elections, but many on both sides want to derail the peace process and they succeed. Palestinians lynch two Israeli soldiers at Ramallah on the West Bank October 12, Israel retaliates by sending helicopter gunships to fire rockets on targeted sites in Ramallah and Gaza City. Barak, Arafat, Clinton, and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak meet for 28 hours at the Egyptian seaside resort Sharm El-Sheik October 16 to 17, Arafat and Barak promise efforts to stop the violence, but Arafat cannot restrain the Arabs, animosities remain intense, and the violence continues (see 2001).

The U.S. destroyer Cole docks at Aden for refueling October 12 and is heavily damaged by explosives that kill 17 of those aboard and injure 38 others in the first such attack on a U.S. warship. Suspicions fall on rogue Arab terrorists, who may or may not have acted to protest U.S. support of Israel; it will eventually be determined that the terrorist responsible was al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has urged his followers to kill infidel Westerners.

Burmese guerrillas led by a pair of cigar-smoking 12-year-old twins seize a Thai hospital at Ratchaburi 75 miles west of Bangkok January 24, taking about 800 patients and staff members hostage. Fundamentalist Christians who call themselves God's Army, the guerrillas claim to have mystical powers which make them immune to bullets and land mines; they have hijacked a public bus and ride into the hospital compound firing automatic rifles; Thai security forces rescue the hostages after a 22-hour standoff but the guerrillas constitute just one of dozens of ethnic insurgent groups fighting Burma's central government.

Taiwan voters oust the Nationalist government that has ruled since 1949, electing Democratic Progressive Party leader Chen Shui-ban, 49. A former mayor of Taipei, he wins 39 percent of the vote March 18 in a bitter three-way race, but Chen has advocated independence, Beijing has expressed strong opposition to his candidacy, and although he has promised not to declare independence he has also said that he would not "let Taiwan become another Hong Kong or Macao." His victory creates dangerous new tensions that involve the United States.

Japan's prime minister Keizo Obuchi suffers a stroke April 2 and is replaced by Liberal Democratic Party secretary general Yoshiro Mori, 62. Obuchi dies at Tokyo May 14 without having regained consciousness, and Mori raises a furor soon afterward by calling Japan "a divine country with an emperor at its center," a summation of the racist official state Shintoism that propelled the country's Asian expansionism in the 1930s; the approval rating of his cabinet promptly falls to 19 percent. Former prime minister Noboru Takeshita dies at Tokyo June 19 at age 76, having picked the late Obuchi 2 years ago.

South Korea's president Kim Dae Jung returns to Seoul from meetings with North Korea's Kim Jong Il at Pyongyang June 15 following a banquet at which two leaders have sung "Our Wish Is Unification" after half a century of hostilities (see 1998); the two have eased restrictions on family visits between their two countries, and Washington eases sanctions against trade with North Korea June 19; neither China nor Japan looks favorably on the prospect of a reunited Korea, but Kim Dae Jung is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize October 13.

Former Sri Lankan prime minister Sirimavo Bendaranaike dies of heart failure at Colombo October 10 at age 84, having lived to see her daughter Chandrika be president.

Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe holds a referendum February 15 to let voters decide whether to accept a draft constitution which would increase the executive power and give the government the right to seize white-owned land without compensation. Whites number only about 70,000 out of a total population of 12.5 million and they dominate the nation's agriculture, but Mugabe's opponents win nearly 55 percent of the vote, soundly defeating the proposal. Mugabe wins a narrow victory in the June 25 presidential election, with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) taking 25 seats in parliament to Mugabe's 62, and many believe the MDC would have won had there not been widespread intimidation, especially in rural areas.

Rebels of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front kill seven members of a United Nations peacekeeping force May 3 and take 500 others hostage a few days later (see 1999). Bodyguards of rebel leader Foday Sankoh kill 19 demonstrators outside his compound at Freetown May 8 and Sankoh disappears, but he returns to his abandoned house May 17 and a neighbor reports his presence to an armed supporter of the government; shot in the leg and stripped naked, Sankoh is taken to a pro-government militia force, which turns him over to the government.

A Florida judge rules that Cuban refugee Elián González may remain in the United States, but Attorney General Janet Reno announces January 12 that the case is a federal matter and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service may return the boy to his father in Cuba (see 1999). The father comes to Washington, a U.S. district court rules that young Elián must remain in America pending a hearing, his great uncle says he will turn the boy over to his father but then reneges, INS officers acting on orders from Reno break down the great uncle's door early on the morning of April 22, seize the boy in less than 3 minutes, they reunite him with his father outside Washington, most Americans applaud the action, deploring the use of a 6-year-old child to score political points against Cuba's Castro regime and the Clinton administration. Emotions on the issue run high, and the necessary show of force employed in the operation brings predictable (albeit inapt) comparisons with Ruby Ridge (see 1992) and Waco (see 1993); many demand Reno's resignation, but thousands of people in Miami demonstrate May 6 in support of Reno's action and the incident actually weakens Little Havana's influence on U.S. policy toward Cuba, raising hopes of normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations. The boy's father takes him home to Cuba.

Chilean socialist Ricardo Lagos Escobar, 61, defeats his right-wing rival Joaquin Lavin, 46, in the January 16 presidential election, becoming the nation's first socialist head of state since the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende Gossens in 1973. Both candidates have campaigned on centrist platforms with almost no reference to questions of human rights, but judicial authorities and families of "the disappeared" succeed in having former dictator Augusto Pinochet, now 85, extradited from Britain for trial on charges relating to crimes committed while he was in office.

Peru's president Alberto Fujimori wins election to a third term in May, but Stanford University-educated opposition leader Alejandro Toledo has withdrawn, telling his followers that the voting would be rigged and to boycott polling places. Videotape evidence released by opposition leader Fernando Olivera and shown on television in September suggests that Fujimori's security chief Vladimiro Montesinos, 55, bribed a congressman, Fujimori announces September 16 that he is firing Montesinos and calling for immediate new elections, but Fujimori vows September 19 to stay in office until the summer of 2001. Montesinos flees to Panama September 24, it is announced that new elections will be held in March, Montesinos returns but remains out of sight, Fujimori visits Japan and sends a letter to Lima in late November announcing his resignation, Peru's congress rules November 21 that Fujimori is "morally unfit" to be president, and it selects centrist party leader Valentin Paniagua, 64, to succeed him on an interim basis. The war and rebellion that began in 1980 finally come to an end after thousands of human rights violations in which Maoist rebels and government troops have killed more than 69,000 people, three-fourths of them Quechua-speaking Indians (the 69,000 figure will be announced August 28, 2003, in a report by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will hold the Shining Path guerrilla organization responsible for 54 percent of the deaths, the nation's armed forces for 30 percent, and government-backed peasant militia for the rest).

Dominican opposition leader Hipólito Mejía wins election May 16; an agronomist and businessman, he heads the left-leaning Dominican Revolutionary Party, which ousts the ruling Dominican Liberation Party, whose privatization policies have helped to give the Dominican Republic Latin America's fastest growing economy but have alienated many voters.

Mexico's PRI party loses power after 71 years July 2 as state governor and former Coca-Cola executive Vicente Fox Quesada, 58, wins the presidency for the 62-year-old National Action Party (PAN), defeating the PRI candidate Francisco Labastida Ochoa, 57, who has promised more jobs, better salaries, and a crackdown on the corruption that has been endemic for more than 71 years. President Ernesto Zedillo's reforms have made possible the election of the six-foot-seven-inch cowboy-booted Fox, who has promised growth, a crackdown on crime, and more opportunity for small businesses; he wins by a landslide in what is generally considered the fairest election ever held in Mexico, although critics worry about the PAN's link to the Church, which has effectively been kept from political power since the 1850s, and cite Fox's 1996 proposal to privatize the state-owned oil company Pemex, which has been government owned since the state appropriated Standard Oil Co. fields in 1938. Fox takes office December 1 in the first peaceful transfer of power in Mexico's history.

Former Bahamas prime minister Lynden Pindling dies of prostate cancer at his Nassau home August 26 at age 70.

A Baton Rouge jury finds former governor Edwin W. Edwards guilty May 9 on 17 of 26 counts of fraud and conspiracy after a 4-month trial. Now 72, Edwards was tried in 1985 and 1986 but not convicted; United States attorney Eddie J. Jordan Jr., 47, has conducted a 4-year investigation, and his success shatters a lot of the cynicism that has been endemic in Louisiana politics; Edwards faces a sentence of life imprisonment.

The U.S. Justice Department announces September 10 that accused "atom spy" Wen Ho Lee will go free after pleading guilty to one of the 59 felony charges brought against him (see 1999).

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt (ret.) dies at Durham, N.C., January 2 at age 79 following chest surgery for malignant mesothelomia; longtime U.S. Communist Party leader Gus Hall dies at New York October 13 at age 90, having served 8 years in prison for his political views, run for president four times, and remained without apology true to his ideology.

The U.S. presidential election ends in an unprecedented dead heat. Republicans have nominated Texas Gov. George W. (Walker) Bush, 54, son of former president George H. W. Bush, at their national convention at Philadelphia August 3, being careful to keep House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Henry Hyde, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, and other prominent (but divisive) party leaders out of sight as they put on a great show of inclusion and party unity. Vice President Al Gore has selected Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, 58, of Connecticut as his running mate; the first Jewish U.S. vice-presidential candidate in history, Lieberman was the first U.S. senator to speak out against President Clinton's immorality in 1998 and has a record that offsets some of Gore's liberalism but is far less extreme than that of Bush's right-wing running mate, former secretary of defense Richard Cheney, now 58. Calling himself a "compassionate conservative" who will be a "uniter, not a divider," Bush favors a proposal by the 23-year-old Cato Institute to privatize Social Security. In debates with Gore he says, "I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, 'We do it this way, so should you . . . ' If we're an arrogant nation they'll resent us. I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building." Neither presidential candidate inspires much enthusiasm, turnout for the November 7 election is about 50.7 percent of eligible voters, only slightly higher than in 1996, and the balloting ends in a statistical tie, with Gore winning California, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Washington, D.C., and all of New England except New Hampshire, but with Florida and Oregon still in doubt pending tabulation of absentee ballots, Gore has a narrow majority of the popular vote. Oregon voters have all cast their ballot by mail, the state reports November 10 that it has gone for Gore, he has 267 electoral votes to Bush's 246, but the final election result remains in doubt. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, now 66, runs on the Green Party ticket, winning less than 3 percent of the popular vote but taking enough votes from Gore to make the difference in states like Florida and New Hampshire (whose four electoral votes would have made Gore the winner). Interest in the election becomes intense in the days following November 7 as eligible voters who did not cast their ballots realize how important even a single vote can be. Voting procedures in Florida and some other states vary from district to district, some poorer Florida election districts have antiquated machines that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters. Florida law requires hand counting of ballots where requested in counties where the result is in dispute, Gov. Bush appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court November 22 to intervene in the hand counting, Florida's secretary of state (and Republican campaign co-chair) Katherine Harris aborts hand counting November 26 with Bush ahead by 537 votes (out of 6 million votes cast) and certifies Bush as the winner of her state's 25 electoral votes, giving him the presidency. About $3 billion has been spent on electioneering, which has been going on for 4 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court remands the presidential election case to the Florida Supreme Court December 4, the Florida Supreme Court approves a resumption of hand counting December 8, but the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a 5-to-4 decision December 9 that the lack of an objective standard requires that the counting must stop immediately. A complex and unsigned ruling handed down by the Rehnquist court at 10 o'clock on the evening of December 12 remands the case to the Florida Supreme Court with instructions that bar hand-counted ballots because time is running out. Four associate justices take exception, with David Souter saying that "there is no justification for denying the state the opportunity to try to count all the disputed ballots now." Two other justices join John Paul Stevens in a more sharply-worded dissent: "It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Vice President Gore concedes defeat December 13, Gov. Bush is proclaimed the winner, but Gore has won the popular vote by 539,947 votes (Kennedy beat Nixon by 118,574 votes in 1960, Nixon beat Humphrey by 510,314 votes in 1968), the 5-week struggle has embittered partisans on both sides, and the Supreme Court's action creates troubling legitimacy questions both for the Bush victory and for the court itself.

New York's mayor Rudolf Giuliani announces in May that he has prostate cancer and will not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Republicans nominate Long Island congressman Rick Lazio to run for the Senate, Democrats nominate First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; she campaigns hard upstate and wins with 55 percent of the popular vote, becoming the first woman to serve as first lady and then to win elective office and giving Democrats 50 of the Senate's 100 seats, but Republicans retain their narrow majority in the House of Representatives.

Haitians reelect former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide November 26 after his Lavalas Party wins 17 of the 18 Senate seats at stake and 80 percent of the House Assembly (see 1995), but all major parties have boycotted the presidential election, charging fraud in the May elections, and many of Haiti's 4 million registered voters have stayed away from the polls for fear of violence. The United States, Canada, and the European Union have refused to monitor the presidential election. Now 47, the former priest will try to revive the fortunes of his impoverished country (see 2004).

Canada's prime minister Jean Chrétien wins a snap election November 27, easily defeating right-wing challenger Stockwell Day, 50, after a contest that has taken only the legally allowed 36 days and cost scarcely $16 million. Former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau has died of prostate cancer at Montreal September 28 at age 80 (he has suffered from Parkinson's disease). Canadian Alliance Party leader Day is an evangelical Christian who believes in creationism and holds that dinosaurs and human coexisted in prehistoric times; he opposes abortion rights, gay rights, and Canada's new gun-registration laws (views shared by many below the 49th parallel). The talcum-tongued college drop-out has promised to reduce taxes; he wins only in the western provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Chrétien, now 66, has robbed Day of his chief issue; his government has announced the largest tax cut in Canadian history.