Democracy

200 million voters, 820,000 polling stations and 10,000 candidates: Indonesia’s massive election, by the numbers

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2024

There are three candidates running, alongside their vice presidential candidates.

Key Points: 
  • There are three candidates running, alongside their vice presidential candidates.
  • According to opinion polls, the favourite is Prabowo Subianto, leader of the Greater Indonesia Party (Gerindra), a populist and nationalist party he founded in 2008.
  • Prabowo is the frontrunner, but it’s unclear whether he will win an absolute majority of votes in the first round.

By the numbers


Voters are also casting votes in parliamentary elections, which include:
580 seats in the House of Representatives (DPR), with more than 9,900 candidates
152 seats in the Regional Representative Council (DPD), designed to represent the regions, with around 670 candidates
and local parliaments in each of the 38 provinces and 416 districts.
In total, there are over 2,700 separate electoral contests being held for around 20,500 seats. All are the responsibility of Indonesia’s independent election commission (the Komisi Pemilihan Umum, or simply KPU) to administer impartially and efficiently.

Logistical nightmare

  • The distance from Aceh in the west to Papua in the east is some 5,100 kilometres (3,200 miles), wider than the continental US.
  • Read more:
    Cute grandpa or authoritarian in waiting: who is Prabowo Subianto, the favourite to win Indonesia's presidential election?
  • To get an idea of the size of the task facing the KPU, let’s look at the presidential election first.
  • And they must also make choices for three other chambers – in addition to the presidential vote.

An unglamorous, but remarkable democratic achievement

  • So, how well has Indonesia done in this massive task of making democratic elections work?
  • In a world where democracy seems increasingly under pressure, Indonesia has managed five peaceful and democratic transfers of power.
  • In comparison to neighbouring states in Southeast Asia, where one-party dominance is widespread or democratic progress has been crushed under military coups, Indonesia stands out as a bastion of democratic politics.
  • Given the strains placed on the United States’ long-established democracy in recent years, Indonesia’s achievement in making elections work should not go unnoticed.


Stephen Sherlock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

2024 CanTrust Index reveals low trust in building affordable housing and falling trust in Artificial Intelligence

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2024

TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2024 CanTrust Index – one of the largest annual studies of trust in Canada, which examines trust in sources of information, institutions and more – shows high economic anxiety, little trust in building affordable housing and declining trust in Artificial Intelligence.

Key Points: 
  • TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2024 CanTrust Index – one of the largest annual studies of trust in Canada, which examines trust in sources of information, institutions and more – shows high economic anxiety, little trust in building affordable housing and declining trust in Artificial Intelligence.
  • Trust in Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh in 2024 is only slightly higher, with both tied at 32 per cent.
  • Equally low, provinces and municipalities are tied at only 23 per cent trust to operate affordable housing.
  • “In 2024, only 51 per cent of Canadians trust the federal and provincial governments to reach collective agreements.

Gas price shocks and euro area inflation

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Transfer, Person, Marques, OPEC, Interval (mathematics), Policy, NBER, Research Papers in Economics, The Economic Journal, Danmarks Nationalbank, Socialism, Energy transition, VIX, Canadian International Council, Paper, E30, Great, Macroeconomics, VAR, Central bank, Balke, Quarterly Journal, Q43, Census, Elasticity, USD, Projection, PMI, Social science, Hou, Bank of France, Topa, Fertilizer, Electricity, SSRN, University, A.5, Section 2, Natural gas, COVID-19, Swings, Overalls, Rotation, Journal of Monetary Economics, Harmonization, Title Transfer Facility, Pain, Ferrari, Uncertainty, Statistics, Medical classification, C50, Harper (publisher), Democracy, Shock, IMF, TTF, Fed, PPI, Power, European Central Bank, Monetary economics, Temperature, Section 3, E31, Nature, Food, Local, Joseph Schumpeter, Website, Energy economics, Speech, DeSantis, GDP, Rigidity, BVAR, Confidence interval, Money, Refinitiv, Bank, Baumeister, Pressure, Oil, Deutsche Bundesbank, International Energy Agency, Employment, Section 4, GIZ, C54, Sun, ECB, European Economic Association, Weather, A.9, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Exercise, HICP, Technical report, Attention, Literature, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Reproduction, International economics, Political economy, Absorption, Joseph Stiglitz, Unemployment, Journal, American Economic Review, Index, Section 5, Business, IP, Bachmann, Research, Federal Reserve Bank, Government, PDF, IWH, Complexity, Failure, Energy Information Administration, Explosive

We document

Key Points: 
    • We document
      how gas price fluctuations have a heterogeneous pass-through to euro area prices
      depending on the underlying shock driving them.
    • How do gas price shocks feed through to euro area
      inflation, and is the pass-through shock-dependent?
    • We analyse the importance of gas price shocks
      for euro area inflation in two steps.
    • We identify three structural shocks driving European gas prices,
      inspired by the literature on oil but tailored to the European gas market: (i) a gas supply
      shock, which reduces the supply of natural gas to the European market, increases the
      gas price and lowers gas inventories; (ii) an economic activity shock, which lifts demand
      for gas due to higher economic production, and finally (iii) a shock to gas inventories,
      when gas prices are driven by precautionary demand by gas companies.
    • First, all three identified shocks are
      important drivers of gas price dynamics, but they differ in how persistently they push

      ECB Working Paper Series No 2905

      2

      up gas prices.

    • The effect on euro area HICP of a shock to gas supply is more
      persistent and somewhat higher than when gas prices are driven by economic activity
      shocks.
    • A final key finding is that the pass-through of gas market shocks to euro area inflation
      appears non-linear.
    • The unprecedented volatility of gas prices
      contributed to the inflation problem in the euro area, with the gas price shocks feeding
      through producer prices, wages and persistently lifting core inflation.
    • More expensive
      energy contributed substantially to the rise in inflation in Europe during 2022.2

      Figure 1: Gas price and euro area Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices.

    • How do gas price shocks feed through to euro area
      inflation, and is the pass-through shock-dependent?
    • For instance, about 75% of gas imports to the euro area arrives
      through pipelines, making gas imports difficult to substitute and gas markets subject to
      3

      See for example the evidence by Rubaszek and Uddin (2020) for the US economy.

    • We analyse the importance of gas price shocks for
      euro area inflation in two steps.
    • We identify three structural shocks driving European gas prices,
      inspired by the literature on oil but tailored to the European gas market: (i) a gas supply
      shock, which reduces the supply of natural gas to the European market, increases the
      gas price and lowers gas inventories; (ii) an economic activity shock, which lifts demand
      for gas due to higher economic production, and finally (iii) a shock to gas inventories,
      when gas prices are driven by precautionary demand by gas companies.
    • First, all three identified shocks are
      important drivers of gas price dynamics, but they differ in how persistently they push
      up gas prices.
    • But when gas prices are driven by
      inventory demand shocks, the price effect typically dies out within one quarter.
    • A final key finding is that the pass-through of gas market shocks to euro area inflation appears non-linear.
    • The unprecedented volatility of gas prices
      contributed to the inflation problem in the euro area, with the gas price shocks feeding
      through producer prices, wages and persistently lifting core inflation.
    • (2022) and Alessandri and Gazzani (2023) identify gas supply shocks using VAR models,
      finding that gas price shocks lead to persistent increases in headline inflation.14 Ba?bura
      et al.
    • (2023) find positive effects of gas price shocks on core inflation in a BVAR for
      the euro area that includes one type of gas shock along a longer list of macroeconomic
      shocks.
    • 3.1

      Data

      For the gas market BVAR model, we use gas quantities, gas prices, gas inventories and
      euro area industrial production, as displayed in Figure 2.

    • (2015) to optimize

      ECB Working Paper Series No 2905

      13

      the posterior distribution.16 The vector Y includes the European gas quantity proxy, gas
      inventories, the European gas price benchmark and euro area industrial production.

    • As demand for gas increases, the gas price also rises
      while inventories fall as agents use gas in storage to partially satisfy higher demand.
    • Shocks to gas
      quantities driven by gas supply or inventory shocks tend to revert to pre-shock levels after
      around five to seven months, while economic activity shocks lead to a more long-lived
      increase in gas demand.19 Dynamics in gas inventories are more similar across shocks.
    • 3.4

      Historical events in the European gas market

      Before analysing the transmission of the different types of gas shocks to euro area prices,
      we show how the model interprets the unprecedented gas price rise in 2022 in terms of
      driving factors, and compare it with previous historical episodes of heightened gas price
      volatility as a way of validating the model.

    • Inventory shocks play a
      slightly smaller role, accounting for 17% of gas quantity and 23% of gas price fluctuations
      while the residual component (i.e.
    • 4

      Pass-through of gas price shocks to consumer prices

      The pass-through of gas price shocks to inflation is likely to be multi-faceted.

    • We first consider four outcome variables y: the European gas price, euro area HICP,
      core HICP and energy HICP.
    • Third, depending on the driving factor, gas price increases can pass through to core
      inflation in the euro area.
    • The results underline that gas price shocks can have important implications for inflation in the euro area ? depending on the driving factor of higher gas prices.
    • Casoli, C., Manera, M., and Valenti, D. ?Energy shocks in the euro area: disentangling
      the pass-through from oil and gas prices to inflation?.

Amici Support NCLA’s Stance at Supreme Court in Major Social Media Censorship Injunction Case

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

NCLA is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a preliminary injunction granted by the Fifth U.S.

Key Points: 
  • NCLA is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a preliminary injunction granted by the Fifth U.S.
  • Circuit Court of Appeals that bars White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Surgeon General’s office officials from significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor lawful speech.
  • NCLA thanks amici for speaking out in defense of Americans’ First Amendment rights.
  • — Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, National Coalition Against Censorship, and First Amendment Lawyers Association
    “What makes this example of jawboning the most dangerous ever to reach the court is social media platforms’ social function.

Vote Run Lead Strengthens Political Team and Expands Vote Run Lead Action Arm in Preparation for 2024 Elections

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

These moves set the stage for the 2024 election cycle and what could be a paradigm-shifting political year.

Key Points: 
  • These moves set the stage for the 2024 election cycle and what could be a paradigm-shifting political year.
  • “Vote Run Lead, our educational arm, was founded in 2014 with a passion and purpose to invite, uplift and train women to run for office,” noted Sabrina Shulman, chief political officer for Vote Run Lead and Vote Run Lead Action.
  • “Vote Run Lead Action was born out of the need to provide deeper resources throughout the political journey.
  • As a nonpartisan, values-forward and mission-driven organization, Vote Run Lead Action recruits and trains women to run for their statehouses, drives the conversation on key issues affecting women’s equal representation in government, and promotes and defends democracy.

Pakistan election results in political instability when the country needed it least

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

Shock results in Pakistan’s national election threaten to see the country free-fall into political crisis.

Key Points: 
  • Shock results in Pakistan’s national election threaten to see the country free-fall into political crisis.
  • Days after the election, it remains unclear which party (or parties) will form a government and who the next prime minister will be.
  • Independent candidates affiliated to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice/PTI), the party of former prime minister, Imran Khan, won 95 of 264 seats.
  • The country has been under military rule for nearly as much time as it has been under a civilian government.

Close contest

  • Behind the scenes, Sharif and his PML-N is negotiating power-sharing with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People Party (PPP).
  • He is also hoping to co-opt some of Khan’s PTI-backed candidates, and is showing some success.
  • If he manages to put together a coalition, Sharif will come to power with much baggage.

Stability is unlikely

  • These results meant the Awami League had won an outright majority to govern the whole of Pakistan.
  • East Pakistan became Bangladesh and West Pakistan simply became Pakistan.
  • Over half a century later, it is unlikely that Khan will stay quiet if his party is denied power.

Pakistan’s economy is in crisis

  • The cost of essentials such as wheat, sugar and vegetables are now unaffordable for many ordinary people whose wages are being stretched to breaking point.
  • The number of people living in poverty in Pakistan has climbed to nearly 40%.
  • And price hikes for electricity and fuel in September 2023 led to protests, with thousands taking to the streets and burning their electricity bills.


Parveen Akhtar has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy.

AI ‘companions’ promise to combat loneliness, but history shows the dangers of one-way relationships

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

Loneliness can be as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a 2023 surgeon general’s report.

Key Points: 
  • Loneliness can be as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to a 2023 surgeon general’s report.
  • Democracy requires the capacity to feel connected to other citizens in order to work toward collective solutions.
  • The power of stories to both predict and influence human behavior has long been validated by scientific research.

Two tales

  • The first story, typically told by software designers and AI companies, urges people to say “I do” to AI and embrace bespoke friendship programmed on your behalf.
  • AI company Replika, for instance, promises that it can provide everyone with a “companion who cares.
  • Blockbuster films like “The Matrix” and the “The Terminator” have depicted hellscapes where humans are enslaved by sentient AI.

One reality

  • From this perspective it seems like a good thing that marketing messages about AI are guiding people toward the sunny side of the futuristic street.
  • Chattel slavery in the U.S. was a brutal system designed to extract labor through violent and dehumanizing means.
  • In his 1845 autobiography, Frederick Douglass described a tragic occasion when an enslaved man, asked about his situation, honestly replied that he was ill-treated.
  • The plantation owner, confronted with testimony about the harm he was inflicting, sold the truth-teller down the river.

History lesson

  • There is little danger that AI companions will courageously tell us truths that we would rather not hear.
  • My concern is not that people will harm sentient robots.
  • Diminishing the humanities risks denying people access to their own history.


Anna Mae Duane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Important Orders for Safeture's Platform

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

LUND, Sweden, Feb. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Exlog Global, a leading security and risk management partner of Safeture, has signed four new multi-year agreements with global organizations leveraging Safeture's platform.

Key Points: 
  • LUND, Sweden, Feb. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Exlog Global, a leading security and risk management partner of Safeture, has signed four new multi-year agreements with global organizations leveraging Safeture's platform.
  • The agreement will help the organizations to protect what matters most - their people.
  • The deals signed by Exlog Global are another important milestone for Safeture into the American market.
  • These clients benefit from the Safeture platform and Exlog's security assistance, expert advisory, and client success.

Important Orders for Safeture's Platform

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

LUND, Sweden, Feb. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Exlog Global, a leading security and risk management partner of Safeture, has signed four new multi-year agreements with global organizations leveraging Safeture's platform.

Key Points: 
  • LUND, Sweden, Feb. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Exlog Global, a leading security and risk management partner of Safeture, has signed four new multi-year agreements with global organizations leveraging Safeture's platform.
  • The agreement will help the organizations to protect what matters most - their people.
  • The deals signed by Exlog Global are another important milestone for Safeture into the American market.
  • These clients benefit from the Safeture platform and Exlog's security assistance, expert advisory, and client success.

Pakistan’s post-election crisis – how anti-army vote may deliver an unstable government that falls into the military’s hands

Retrieved on: 
Monday, February 12, 2024

But several days later, it remains unclear what the result of the vote will yield.

Key Points: 
  • But several days later, it remains unclear what the result of the vote will yield.
  • Both of the leading contenders have claimed victory, amid allegations of vote rigging and disputed ballots.

Is it clear who will govern Pakistan next?

  • The results as they stand mean that no party is in a position to form a government on its own.
  • The Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, secured 54 seats, placing it third.
  • This puts it in a position to help another party form a coalition at the federal level.

With the most seats, is the PTI the front-runner to lead a coalition?

  • Even before the final election results became known, the PTI claimed it had won 170 or so seats – enough for it to be able to form a government.
  • This suggests the PTI isn’t ready to accept that it did not get enough votes to form a government outright.

That doesn’t sound very stable. Is it?

  • Pakistan is now entering an uncertain scenario, which is, in effect, a post-election political crisis.
  • The country may need another national vote before too long to secure a more stable and workable government.

The election has been called flawed in the West. Is that fair?

  • There was a terrible attack in the restive province of Baluchistan on the eve of the election that killed 28 people.
  • But fears of widespread violence on the day of the election did not materialize.
  • The country is a military-dominated state, with generals that have long been involved in the country’s politics – and elections.
  • There has been a great deal of criticism in the West about cellphones and mobile internet services being blocked on election day.

Will anyone be pleased with the election result?

  • A split national assembly and weak government plays into the military’s hands.
  • Should the PMLN govern as the major party in a coalition, it will be in a position of relative weakness and will need the army’s support, especially if the PTI engages in widespread protests against the election results.

Are there any positives from the election?

  • But the negatives are seen by most to outweigh the positives and the 2024 elections are being viewed as equally – if not more – manipulated and controlled than the 2018 exercise.
  • The turnout this time around is estimated to be around 48%, which is lower than in 2018 when it was 51%.
  • But what they helped deliver may only help continue Pakistan’s political malaise as it heads into a new, uncertain period.


Ayesha Jalal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.