Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon faces a number of complex tasks, which make maintaining a high degree of stability increasingly difficult.
Russia should not treat the post-2014 situation in Afghanistan as a potential disaster for its security in the south. Nevertheless, the coalition withdrawal from Afghanistan will force Russia to take more responsibility for regional security.
The June 3 Syrian vote is unlikely to radically change or improve the situation in the country. Rather, Bashar al-Assad’s re-election may only worsen it.
The most probable Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is actively exploiting Nasser’s legacy to establish his leadership. But whether he will be able to develop into a full-fledged national leader will become clear in the next few months.
Egypt’s Salafi Nour Party is looking to replace the Muslim Brotherhood as the leading Islamist political force, all the while trying to weather the backlash against Islamists.
The rising Sunni-Shiite divide in the Arab world is a prime example of how the demons of sectarianism can be roused by opportunistic leaders. But a stronger sense of national identity can eventually lay them to rest.
The crisis in Ukraine may lead to unpredictable consequences inside Russia—from another perestroika to complete collapse.
The Afghan presidential elections did take place. The traditional and arch-conservative Afghan society is gradually getting used to regular democratic political instruments, although the situation in Afghanistan remains unpredictable, and the national consensus is far out of reach.
Ukraine’s Jews are, for now, not a central part of the political drama, but the repeated use of anti-Semitism as a tool in the country’s full-contact politics sends a worrying signal nonetheless.
Kazakhstan’s new Prime Minister, Karim Massimov, is “the president’s most trusted man.” If his term lasts long enough, he may become a sort of political double for President Nursultan Nazarbayev.