The Trump Effect: Anger at the US Fuels Leftist Advantage in Australian Elections
NEED TO KNOW
The Trump Effect: Anger at the US Fuels Leftist Advantage in Australian Elections
AUSTRALIA
A global trade war, threats from China and Russia, a United States that is now less engaged in its traditional alliances – these are the big issues, commentators say, facing the next Australian leader after the general election on May 3.
And yet, all the candidates want to do is talk about “minor tax tweaks,” complained the Guardian Australia’s editor, Lenore Taylor, in a recent opinion piece.
“(Lately), it’s an overwhelming stream of historic end-of-the-global-order-as-we-knew-it kind of news,” she fumed. “And then there’s the Australian election campaign, calmly engaging in a lackluster battle between a modest ongoing tax cut or a one-off tax rebate and a few dollars off the price of filling the car with fuel …”
“The parties need to offer nuts-and-bolts policies to address the cost-of-living crisis,” she added. “But will anyone also raise their sights to take in the frightening global picture?”
The legislative race pits incumbent Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of the left-leaning Labor party against the center-right Liberal-National Coalition headed by Peter Dutton, a former police detective and firebrand conservative who has been called “Trump-lite” and “Temu Trump” – a moniker that is intended to imply that he’s a “cheap version” of US President Donald Trump.
Until recently, it was a tightly contested election dominated by voters’ cost-of-living concerns.
Albanese has seen a decline in the polls since he took office in 2022 because of a struggling economy marked by post-pandemic inflation that he promised to fix. Australians have grappled with the high prices of groceries and other essentials, making it their top priority in the elections. As a result, the government last month pushed through $10 billion in tax cuts and other relief measures, a move the opposition called a “bribe.”
But Albanese disputed that. “Our government has chosen to face global challenges the Australian way – helping people under cost-of-living pressure while building for the future,” he said recently.
Still, it’s rare in Australia, observers say, for first-term incumbents to lose their reelection bids. And now, recent polls show Labor leading after a drop in support in April for the Coalition. Still, analysts say that with a large number of voters undecided, it could still be a close race for the majority of the 150 seats in Australia’s House of Representatives.
That’s because Albanese will be blamed for the inflation despite the tax relief package and even if he is personally liked – he is often described as “working-class hero,” competent and trustworthy, with an affable manner.
“For Albanese, the honeymoon is over,” wrote Pandanus Petter of Australian National University in the Conversation. “Unfortunately for Albanese, the dissatisfaction and stress about the cost of living haven’t gone away.”
Still, the prime minister presents a stark contrast to his pugnacious opponent, the leader of the scandal-prone Liberal-National Coalition, which he ousted after nine years in power.
Dutton, analysts add, has a major image problem with voters now.
He was already dogged by past actions, such as cracking down on protests while home minister in a manner that outraged many Australians. More recently, he was forced to walk back initiatives such as a “return to the office” mandate and a proposal to deport dual-nationals charged with serious crimes after a public backlash.
More recently, Dutton has campaigned on policies seen widely as emulating Trump and the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) the US president created and run by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. In January, Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as a shadow minister for government efficiency, a position inspired by Musk’s role, analysts said.
“With Australians sick of the wasteful spending that is out of control … Jacinta will be looking closely at how we can achieve a more efficient use of taxpayers’ money,” Dutton said after the appointment. Price, meanwhile, talked about how she wanted to “Make Australia Great Again.”
These initiatives haven’t been going over so well now with Australian voters, who are concerned about Trump’s policies, with Dutton’s approval ratings dropping. He’s now carrying the moniker, “DOGE-y Dutton.”
Aware of the dip in popularity, Dutton has stopped channeling Trump or even bringing him up at all after calling Trump “a big thinker” with “gravitas,” earlier this year and how he would eliminate all things “woke.”
Meanwhile, in recent days, members of the Trump administration have mocked Australia and said they are just trying to milk the country to pay down US debt, infuriating Aussies and further dragging down Dutton.
In fact, every time the Trump administration does something that upsets Australians, Labor’s polls increase, analysts said.
“Trump has emerged as the third candidate in this election campaign,” Mark Kenny, professor of politics at the Australian National University in Canberra, told Reuters. “He’s made it quite difficult for Peter Dutton to get his message across, and made it difficult for Dutton to be seen as an entirely independent figure in this election campaign.”
“(Australians) are not enjoying the turmoil and the capriciousness of the White House, and Dutton’s early enthusiasm along with other conservatives to celebrate Trump’s win has been pretty much lead in his saddlebags all the way through this campaign,” Kenny added. “That weight has just got heavier and heavier as Trump has become less and less popular.”
Meanwhile, even though Dutton has bragged that he could successfully negotiate with Trump, Albanese has, in the eyes of the Australian public, stood up to the US president after he targeted Australia’s pharmaceutical industry and also its steel and aluminum products. The US has a trade surplus with Australia.
The prime minister is now projecting a much tougher image than he once did. “The two conversations I’ve had with President Trump are ones in which I stand up for Australia’s national interest, and I will always do that,” Albanese said.
Labor has taken advantage, analysts said. “It’s hard to remember an Australian government being so publicly critical of an American president,” wrote the Australian Broadcasting Commission. “The gloves haven’t completely come off, but on the eve of an election, the decision to stop playing nice and start talking frankly gives an insight into how Labor reads the domestic public mood towards Trump.”
Dutton has no such advantage.
Still, while Labor is the favorite to win, most aren’t happy with the two top contenders but will have to choose – voting is mandatory in Australia for those over 18.
“Most voters think Australia is on the wrong track,” wrote the Council on Foreign Relations. “(But) …the Trump effect favors Albanese.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Former South Korean President’s Home Raided in Probe Involving Shaman
SOUTH KOREA
South Korean prosecutors on Wednesday raided the private residence of former President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee, as part of a corruption and influence-peddling probe involving the former first couple and a shaman, the South China Morning Post reported.
The raid marks the first court-authorized search of the former presidential couple’s residence and is unrelated to the ongoing criminal probe against Yoon’s Dec. 3 declaration of martial law that led to his impeachment.
Prosecutors said the investigation centers on allegations of influence-peddling involving Jeon Seong-bae, a well-known fortune teller who has been accused of acting as a fixer in multiple such cases involving the former first couple.
Authorities alleged that Jeon – known also as Monk Kujin – received numerous gifts, including a $45,000 diamond necklace and a luxury bag from a high-ranking official of the Unification Church.
The gifts were intended for the former first lady, but the shaman claimed that he had lost them and had never delivered them to Kim. Local media said prosecutors are still trying to “verify the authenticity of the alleged delivery of gifts” and whether Kim received them, Channel News Asia wrote.
Adding to the scandal, South Korean authorities discovered more than 50 million won – around $36,000 – in freshly minted banknotes at Jeon’s residence. These banknotes have intact Bank of Korea seals and are typically reserved for high-level government institutions.
Yoon was indicted for abuse of power, adding to the growing list of charges against the ousted leader, who is already on trial over an alleged attempt to stage an insurrection, Reuters reported Thursday.
Observers say the recent raids and indictments mark a turning point for prosecutorial independence in South Korea. Critics had previously accused prosecutors of avoiding investigations into Yoon while he was in office, citing his former role as prosecutor general.
South Korean authorities also reopened a stock manipulation and graft case against the former first lady dating from 2022. Hidden camera footage showed Kim accepting a $2,200 luxury handbag from a pastor and manipulating stocks in Deutsch Motors, a BMW dealer in South Korea.
In a separate investigation, authorities are probing allegations of abuse and financial misconduct at a long-term care facility in Namyangju City, operated by Yoon’s mother-in-law, Choi Eun-soon, and his brother-in-law.
Since he took office in 2022, the Yoon administration has been plagued by scandals involving his wife, controversial policies, and gaffes, all of which have contributed to plummeting public support and a stinging defeat for his People Power Party in the 2024 parliamentary election.
Fake It Until You Make It: Mali Abandons Elections
MALI
Mali’s junta leader, Assimi Goïta, will remain in power for five more years, after a national political conference recommended the extension this week, making Mali the third West African junta-led country to delay or abandon its promised return to civilian rule, Bloomberg reported.
Goïta, who has been Mali’s interim leader since a 2021 coup, should be appointed as president and be allowed to govern until “peace is restored,” the government said Tuesday after the two-day conference in the capital, Bamako.
The conference, organized by the junta, also recommended the dissolution of all political parties and the tightening of requirements for the creation of new ones, according to Reuters.
Mali has been led by a military junta since August 2020, one of numerous countries in the West and Central African “coup belt” to experience military takeovers after overthrowing governments, often democratically elected ones, Business Insider Africa noted.
Goïta, 41, as an army colonel, led coups in 2020 and 2021 before becoming the “President of the Transition” of Mali. In October 2024, he was promoted to five-star general.
Pressured by the United Nations Security Council, Mali’s junta had promised elections in February 2022 to transfer power to a civilian-led interim government. However, the deadline was repeatedly postponed until, eventually, the transition plan was abandoned completely.
Last year, the junta suspended all political party activities and “associations of a political nature” until July.
Similar to other countries in the Sahel region, such as Burkina Faso and Niger, Mali’s junta said it was taking over to restore security: These countries have seen a rise in deadly jihadist insurgencies over the past few years, usually linked to Islamic State or al Qaeda.
Mexican Election Season Begins, Along With Murders, As Mayoral Candidate Is Killed
MEXICO
Armed gunmen killed a mayoral candidate from Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, this week during an event on the first day of campaigning for municipal elections in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the Associated Press reported.
Anuar Valencia was killed in the small rural town of Coxquihui in east-central Mexico just after an event launching his campaign when more than two dozen gunmen started shooting at his campaign headquarters.
Before the shooting, state interior secretary Ricardo Ahued Bardahuil said that candidates from different parties had already filed 20 reports to the state prosecutor’s office over security issues.
Municipal elections will take place in Veracruz’s 212 municipalities on June 1.
Election violence has been a serious problem in Mexico, and attacks on politicians are on the rise, according to Reuters. Last year, dozens of candidates or aspiring candidates were killed in the runup to Mexican elections in June.
Analysts say municipal political candidates in Mexico are the most vulnerable to election violence due to organized crime groups’ attempts to control local governments and police.
Earlier this week, another local Mexican politician, Jose Luis Pereira, a senior member of the Teocaltiche city government, was shot and killed while dining at a restaurant in western Mexico’s troubled Jalisco state, CBS News reported.
The state’s municipal police chief was murdered on April 15.
DISCOVERIES
Hunting Moons
Jupiter briefly reigned as the “moon king” of the solar system.
Its crown is now gone again. Instead, a new study shows that Saturn is now taking up that mantle with a whopping 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined.
The discovery came after a team of astronomers identified 62 new Saturn moons with the Canada France Hawaii telescope. Identifying faint hints of possible even more moons, they kept looking.
“Sure enough, we found 128 new moons,” said lead researcher Edward Ashton in a statement. “Based on our projections, I don’t think Jupiter will ever catch up,” as there are 95 confirmed Jupiter moons as of now.
The team found the moons using the “shift and stack” method, where they captured sequential images of the moons’ paths across the sky, combining them to enhance the visibility of the fainter moons.
The 128 new moons discovered are all classified as “irregular moons” – potato-shaped objects just a few kilometers wide. The growing number of such discoveries raises questions about the definition of a moon and could spark future debates over what qualifies as one.
“I don’t think there’s a proper definition for what is classed as a moon. There should be,” said Ashton, adding that with current technology it is unlikely astronomers will find new moons around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Still, a closer study of these tiny moons could offer scientists insight into a chaotic period in the early solar system, when planets shifted through unstable orbits and collisions were frequent.
The new moons are grouped in clusters, hinting that many might be fragments of a smaller group of moons originally captured by Saturn’s gravity – meaning they were pulled in from elsewhere, such as from the outer solar system or passing asteroids or comets – and then shattered by violent collisions with other Saturnian moons or comets.
Understanding the dynamics of Saturn’s moons could provide clues about the origin of its rings, which scientists hypothesized may have formed from a moon torn apart by the planet’s gravity.
Meanwhile, the new Saturn moons have been formally recognized by the International Astronomical Union and have been assigned numbers and letters while waiting on names based on Gallic, Norse, and Canadian Inuit gods as per the conventions for Saturn’s moons, the Guardian explained.