Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has just finished a two-day state visit to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The trip signifies growing ties between the two Black Sea states regarding joint energy and export projects. And as a token of this political rapprochement, Borisov was presented with honorary Georgian citizenship and a symbolic gesture of a Georgian passport.

But receiving Georgian citizenship isn't so easy for everybody. In October 2011, the government revoked the citizenship of billionaire and opposition leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, just days after he publically announced his plans to create a new political party for the October 2012 parliamentary elections. (Ivanishvili was granted Georgian citizenship in 2004, but, according to the government, it was revoked due to his acquisition of French citizenship afterwards.) Citizenship is required in order to run for public office and create a political party. Since then, he and President Mikheil Saakashvili have been locked in an on-going feud over legitimacy.  Members of Saakashavili's United National Movement have associated Ivanishvili (who made his fortune in Russia) as having close ties to the Kremlin.

In a Washington Post op-ed published on January 30, 2012, Ivanishvili referred to the government and its encroachment as having "a super-centralized, almost neo-Bolshevik style of governance." Throughout March 2012, the government has also been accused of intimidation against members of Ivanishvili's political group, "Georgian Dream," during a political financing investigation.

Ivanishvili challenged the loss of his citizenship in court, but the case was defeated in December 2011. He applied to reinstate his citizenship on January 5, 2012, and according to law, the authorities must respond within 3 months. The deadline expiring this week on Thursday, it's only a matter of time until we learn what's next in this Georgian (political) drama.

In the meantime, Ivanishvili (and the rest of us) might be forgiven for wondering what allows the prime minister of Bulgaria to fast-track through the citizenship process.

UPDATE: A letter from the Georgian Ambassador to the United States, Temuri Yakobashvili, has requested a correction in this story. The letter clarifies that Borisov "was handed a Georgian passport as a symbolic gesture while visiting one of our new Justice Halls. He was not granted Georgian citizenship."

The Danish daily newspaper Information has obtained classified documents about propaganda strategy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that would have been approved by top party leaders like President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. It's rare for foreign outlets to get a leak of this scale, with documents approved by figures of this importance within the party. The 60 pages of documents lay out a strategy of pretending to allow greater access to information while actually clamping down more harshly at home. From the article:

Among other things, the regime has insisted that it does not exercise any censorship. However, the official document outlines several instances of how the Chinese authorities should prevent people from getting in touch with "politically sensitive information". Such information must be either "blocked", "destroyed" or "cleansed" from the Internet, media and books, the order from the Central Committee to the lower levels of the state apparatus makes clear.…

The same line is repeated in other documents, including the one from the Party leadership in Beijing, which declares that "all illegal and harmful information on Chinese and foreign web sites should be completely blocked." And that people who disseminate such information should be "indicted and prosecuted quickly before a judge and be quickly convicted."

The contents of the leaks aren't themselves all that surprising; the crackdowns following the Jasmine Revolution made it clear that China wasn't liberalizing anytime soon. What is noteworthy is the fact that these were leaked at all, by someone who would be privy to very high-level Politburo decision-making. The takeover of the party by hard-liners hasn't been welcomed by everyone within the CCP. The People's Daily, the party's official paper, made waves in April and May with a spate of editorials with a remarkably liberal bent. Consider these passages, translated from the original editorials by University of Hong Kong's China Media Project (CMP):

Only in the midst of competition will the value of ideas be shown, and only through practice can they be tested. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This [quote from Voltaire] expresses a kind of openness, and even more a sense of confidence. The hurling of epithets and the yanking of pigtails, this way of thinking is fundamentally is a sign of weakness and narrow-mindedness, and it does not benefit the construction of social harmony or the creation of a healthy temperament. (People's Daily, April 28)

We are ushering in a "golden age" of expression, but there are still many voices that have not been heard. On the one hand, some voices have been submerged in the vastness of the field of voices, so that it is difficult for them to find the surface. On the other hand, there are some voices that only "speak, but in vain," that make their wishes known but find their problems unresolved. These can all be thought of as null expression, and some have called them "sunken voices." (People's Daily, May 26)

One might dismiss these editorials as empty propaganda. However, the CMP points out that the People's Daily has a long history as a forum for intraparty debates and that a number of liberal Chinese journalists commenting on Twitter were taking these editorials seriously.

The leaks emerge at a critical time. Preparations for the party's 90th-anniversary celebrations, taking place on July 1, have featured a mini-revival of Mao-era traditions like party songs and revolutionary propaganda. In the background, the party elections taking place in 2012 are expected to introduce major changes in China's leadership. The next 12 months will determine much about the fate of the CCP's liberal wing over the next 10 years. No doubt they hope there's more in their future than leaks to Danish dailies.

In 2008, Yu Keping, the head of China's Central Compilation and Translation Bureau and a professor at Peking University, published an attention-grabbing collection of essays called Democracy is a Good Thing. Coming from a Chinese Communist Party official said to be close to President Hu Jintao, Yu's bold assertion that "democracy is the best political system for humankind" was striking. But so was the fine print: Yu argued in the book that while "it is the inevitable trend for all nations of the world to move towards democracy ... the timing and speed of the development of democracy and the choice of the form and system of democracy are conditional." Among other things, he has resisted the idea that a multi-party political system would be appropriate for China. All of which is to say that Yu is something of a sphinx: As a New York Times profile observed last year, "Even China experts have a hard time determining whether Mr. Yu is a brave voice for change or simply a well-placed shill."

Which makes Yu -- who is in Washington this week -- a particularly interesting person to ask about the current moment in Chinese politics, in which the Communist Party is managing the transition from Hu to his presumed presidential successor, Vice President Xi Jinping, while watching the sudden explosion of anti-government, pro-democratic sentiment in the Arab world with palpable unease. The Chinese government began cracking down on human rights activists, artists, and writers in March, and barred another prominent writer from leaving the country this week.

Read on

As protesters overwhelmed former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's security forces in Tunis, the regional office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), the George W. Bush administration's signature democracy promotion organization, watched as its mandate was fulfilled in the most unlikely of places.

It is, to say the least, an awkward bit of symbolism. MEPI defines its mission as "develop[ing] more pluralistic, participatory, and prosperous societies." And in the country where it is based, the Tunisian people proved themselves to be uniquely and spectacularly unhappy with their regime.

But according to current and former democracy promotion advocates in the U.S. government, the decision to base MEPI's offices in Tunisia was made because the embassy had enough free space to accommodate its staff, and the country was thought to be stable enough to not interfere with the organization's sometimes controversial work.

Scott Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration who oversaw the creation of MEPI, said that the Ben Ali regime was "constantly paranoid" about the organization's presence in the country, and never allowed it to undertake significant democracy promotion programs. As a result, "we were doing a lot of stuff very, very quietly - not to say covert, but very quietly," Carpenter said.

The Ben Ali regime's hostility to any efforts to open up the political system was attested to by other Western diplomats who served in Tunis. Alan Goulty, who served as the British ambassador in the country from 2004 to 2008, said that the government would constantly raise the specter of terrorism to discourage any contact with Tunisian opposition figures.

"There was one explosion in 1987 of a bomb, where a British lady was wounded and lost her leg," Goulty said. "I lost count of the times that Tunisian officials, 15 years later, reminded me of that incident to justify their claims that the Tunisian opposition, whatever form it took, was terrorist."

In theory, the European Union should have had considerable economic and political leverage to convince the Ben Ali regime to liberalize. Trade between EU member states and Tunisia in 2009 was in excess of $20 billion - by comparison, total U.S. imports and exports to the country were valued at around $800 million. The EU association agreement with Tunisia also provided a ready-made avenue for discussion human rights and political liberalization. In practice, however, EU efforts in the country were anemic at best.

"Frankly, the EU always pulled its punches [on democracy promotion], because of the need to operate unanimously," said Goulty. "And a different approach was taken by [our] Mediterranean partners, principally France and Italy, who believed that the best way forward was to get close to the regime and further one's economic interests."

In fact, the primary contribution that the United States made to Tunisia's recent unrest was neglect. As U.S. relations with the other North African states improved over the past two decades, the relative importance of Tunisia as a U.S. ally in the region declined. U.S. diplomats may not have had much success promoting liberalization in the country, but the national security implications of the fall of Ben Ali's regime raised steadily fewer concerns in Washington.

David Mack, currently a scholar at the Middle East Institute, served as the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Tunisia from 1979 to 1982. "If you go back to the time when I was there, our relations were disappearing with Libya, we had poor relations with Algeria, and strained relationships in many parts of the Muslim world," he noted. "But the reality is that today Tunisia plays a smaller role overall in U.S. strategic political calculation."

However, diplomats insisted that Tunisia's apparent stability under Ben Ali did not cause them to underestimate the population's grievances with his regime. A prescient June 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks criticizes the "sclerotic" regime, which it says has "lost touch with the Tunisian people." The same memo complains that "make it exceptionally difficult for the US Mission to conduct business" and meet with regime opponents.

Those who spent time in the country seconded that assessment. "The place was so sterile -- you just feel people's fear, and the complete lack of dynamism in the society," said Carpenter. "Within the State Department we used to refer to it as ‘Syria with a smile.'"  

Over the course of the last month, the international community has thrown everything it's got at the Ivory Coast's refusing-to-leave-office president, Laurent Gbagbo. They've tried sanctions. They've sent envoys. They've vowed to increase the number of U.N. peacekeepers. And they've cut off all funds to the Gbagbo camp. Barack Obama offered Gbagbo a dignified exit with amnesty in the United States. Even the idea of a unity government was floated, in which the widely recognized winner of the presidential election, Alassane Ouattara, would join Gbagbo in a cabinet. Nothing has worked; and despite weeks of standoff, little has changed.

But the worse news is that the world is fast running out of plays to run.

The central conundrum isn't, in fact, tactical. It's strategic. Everyone from the African Union to Foggy Bottom to Beijing wants Gbagbo out and Ouattara in. That would be good news, except that the situation is dramatically different within the Ivory Coast. The population is actually quite divided. If Gbagbo were removed forcefully, it really could respark civil war.

So although the foreign powers have decided to get tough with Gbagbo, they really can't afford to get too tough. Not that military intervention is popular either; Ghana has said it won't be involved in such an action, and Nigeria is preparing for its own contentious elections at home -- hardly the time to engage in military adventures abroad. No Western power will intervene -- and the only one that cares enough about tiny Ivory Coast to do so is France, the country's much-distrusted colonial power. Paris couldn't touch the current situation without lighting it on fire.

Oxford economist Paul Collier had an idea this morning, as he wrote in the Guardian: to convince the military in the Ivory Coast to stop supporting Gbagbo. In theory that could work; Gbagbo is only able to remain in the presidential palace because of the military's support. But as I mentioned before, this isn't just about a few fringe supporters. Gbagbo's got 50 percent of Ivorians behind him.  

I have to say, I'm fresh out of ideas too. My favored tactic had been to recruit former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to knock a few heads together. He's a Big Man even among big men -- someone who doesn't even give you the option of disagreeing. But apparently the West African regional group ECOWAS had the same idea, to little avail. Obasanjo went to the Ivory Coast over the weekend and, well, Gbagbo is still in power. 

What I do know is that the country's people probably have the best sense of where this is going. And they are betting on the future with their feet. Yesterday, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that some 600 Ivorians are entering Liberia as refugees every day; there are some 25,000 in the neighboring country so far. And 16,000 more have fled their homes within the Ivory Coast. The U.N. is concerned enough about the influx to start building permanent camps.

If there's a larger lesson here, it's that ousting a strongman is never as easy as we'd like to think. It may be an obvious point, but in the particulars it's actually profound. Even if the entire world musters its political might, the Laurent Gbagbo's of the world -- Robert Mugabe, Than Shwe, Kim Jong Il -- would still be around. 

President Obama has gone beyond any simple congratulatory message for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, he's called for the Chinese to free him:

I welcome the Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Liu Xiaobo... By granting the prize to Mr. Liu, the Nobel Committee has chosen someone who has been an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the advance of universal values through peaceful and non-violent means, including his support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law...

Over the last 30 years, China has made dramatic progress in economic reform and improving the lives of its people, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. But this award reminds us that political reform has not kept pace, and that the basic human rights of every man, woman and child must be respected. We call on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu as soon as possible.

Surely, this won't go down well with the Chinese, who were already quite unhappy about the first Chinese winner being imprisoned for his pro-democracy work a criminal while also facing other U.S. pressures.

It's a big primary election day today here in the United States, but bear with me. Because I'm going to take you to another country with upcoming elections: Going to the polls is a tricky matter for a young democracy.

Let's take a trip to Guinea, a small country in West Africa that happens to be the world's largest bauxite exporter. The country's long-time strongman president died in 2008, and a coup followed. There was a somewhat miraculous transition to a civilian-led government, and now presidential elections are in the works. But Guinea had a serious bad-luck streak this week. On September 10, the country's courts jailed two top officials from the electoral commission for misconduct in the first round of polls in June. Violence broke out on the streets, leading the police to break up riots with tear gas. And now, one of the convicted officials has died. Nearly everyone suspects that this second round ballot is bound to be delayed.

But the political hooplah really isn't the only, or even the most important, reason that the vote will likely be delayed. It's because Guinea is utterly unprepared. There are no voter cards or ballots across much of the country. It's rainy season, and the country's dilapidated infrastructure has further thwarted efforts to get the supplies out. As AP nicely summed up: 

"even if the trucks carrying voting materials were to leave Guinea's capital first thing Tuesday, they most likely will not reach the rain-soaked interior of the country in time for Sunday's vote, where major towns are several days by road and some remote polling stations can only be reached on foot."

But here's the thing: There's really nothing unexpected or disgraceful about this. It's really really hard to hold elections. And it's a lot harder when you've never done it as a democracy. Ever. Rainy season is also nothing to scoff at in West Africa; good luck driving election materials over the pothole-laden roads on any sort of timeline. Even the best planning would have suffered setbacks. 

More broadly, what Guinea demonstrates is that democratic elections, however beneficial, are also risky for a volatile country just emerging from a long history of repressive politics. They open a lot of wounds. The two top candidates in Guinea, for example, are from historically clashing ethnic groups. Under the strongman rule of the former president, elections were always rigged; why should Guineans believe they won't be this time? And in a country (and region) where political power is wielded through patronage, most everyone believes the stakes are high. If their guy loses, it could mean a presidential term of poverty. This is not easy to stomach for a society that is divided and still recovering from conflict. Have elections too soon, and they risk doing as much harm as good. 

That's not to say that Guinea's vote, or any other, should not go forward. They should. There is something incredible about democracy that saw a 64 percent voter turnout at the polls on the first round. But this is a perfect example of how elections don't fix volatility; they often exacerbate it. The real solutions will have to come from whoever Guinea elects.

Stalin's postmortem downfall was (quite literally) on display last night in Gori, Georgia, where a statue of the Soviet leader was dismantled from its decades-old perch in the square of Uncle Joe's hometown. The unceremonious removal -- conducted without announcement or fanfare in the dead of night -- sounded strangely reminiscent of a criminal enterprise (albeit one carried out by amateur vandals). Stalin's unexpected departure, however, came at the directive of the city's parliament, which explained its decision as a necessary product of modernization. Even President Mikheil Saakashvili weighed in to express his approval: "A memorial to Stalin," he declared in televised remarks, "has no place in the Georgia of the 21st Century."

Saakashvili's assessment isn't as cantankerous as it may sound -- in fact, Stalin-bashers in Gori are by all measures behind the curve. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, rioters across the crumbling USSR eagerly demolished all signs of the former leader (à la Baghdad in 2003), but Georgians in Gori staunchly resisted the revisionist portrait of their homegrown hero: Hundreds of locals reportedly gathered to protect the statue against its would-be defilers. Stalin's corpse was removed from its original resting place inside Red Square in 1961, just a few years after its entombment; half a century later, what's thought to be the last remaining statue of the leader in its original locale has finally come down.  

Of course, these Georgians aren't merely catching up with a trend; they plan to take their protest one step further. In a not-so-subtle gesture to their neighbors, the now-ousted statue will be replaced by a memorial for Georgian soldiers who died in the country's 2008 war with Russia.

The now-dismantled Gori Stalin made FP's list of the world's ugliest statues in April.