2023, the year of presidential trials and tribulations

Further north, in Scotland, the former First Minister of Scotland, Nicole Sturgeon was arrested for questioning into the handling of funds by her party, the Scottish National Party.

This week, Silvio Berlusconi, a symbol of excess in the Italian post-war political party system died at age 86. Each of these individuals embodied; big person, big media persona.  

Trump’s economy was about to hand him a second White House term until the Covid-19 pandemic, personal volatility sent him crashing out of the White House.

But not until, he put American democracy on trial, using tools honed by the American establishment for foreign countries, upsetting the declaration of the results of the American presidential election on January 6, 2021.

In one event, the United States lost moral authority to preach good governance and democracy worldwide. Authoritarian regimes worldwide began to feel emboldened to challenge Pax Americana.

Decades of events have come more closely into view. The CIA incursions and upsetting of young democracies during the cold war including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Also, the propagation of the Christian Democratic Parties in Italy, Germany in other countries threatened by the communists and advance of the iron curtain. 

The two wars in Iraq, overthrow of Muammar Gadhafi in Libya have all contributed to global instability and apprehension at American power.

The thought that Mr. Trump could have left the White House with a “soft” nuclear bomb in the form of classified materials and must have put the United States at the highest form of alert.

In the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, a protégé of the Conservatives who won them a landslide majority in the December 2019 general election, is complaining that the establishment did not forgive him for Brexit. 

Brexit is an emotional reaction to what some in the UK felt was humiliation the UK suffered when it entered the European Economic Community in 1973. Strapped for cash, partly abandoned by the United States, the UK entered the EU with the third lowest per capita income of the EEC.

After overtaking France to become Europe’s second biggest economy, the UK took a gamble and bolted out of the EU.

Bad timing and further realignments in the global economy have made it difficult for the UK delivering political instability and uncertainty as the economy teetered towards a recession and the promise of free trade, new trade agreements negotiated on their own quickly dissipated.

The United States, angry at Brexit, stated in 2016 it would not negotiate a free trade deal with the United Kingdom until one with the European Union was concluded.

Berlusconi and Sturgeon were both made for prime-time TV in different eras.

Fed up with the corruption of the post-WW II elite, Berlusconi came to power emphasizing his looks, and positive look into the future, big business, big money and affinity for women.

He failed to deliver much for Italy economically except political stability but remained relevant until he died at age 86.

His party is part of the ruling coalition in Italy. Sturgeon rose from the belief that Scotland was getting less than its fair share from London and deserved independence.

Defeated in 2014, she remained resilient until the smell of scandal forced her to resign from Holyrood.

Her arrest along with her husband leaves the SNP’s cause much in doubt, let alone a second drive for independence.

Mr Karoli Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]