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For Croatia, in May Fitch affirmed the BBB- rating and the stable outlook, which were backed by stable GDP per capita and human development. On the other hand, Croatia faces large short-term downside risks related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Fitch projects that Croatia’s economy will expand by 5.5% in 2021 thanks to the resilience of sectors such as construction and goods exports, and a gradual recovery in consumption.
“Our forecasts rest on an improved tourism sector outlook (at around two-thirds of 2019 levels), assuming a pick-up in sum- mer tourism as the health crisis in Europe continues to abate,” the rating agency noted.
Over the last decade, the average emerging market Long- Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating declined by 1.3 notches to ‘BB’.
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The Kremlin takes control of the internet in Russia’s Duma elections
Ben Aris in Berlin
Russian Duma elections are under way but the election is not about re-electing the ruling United Russia
Party but more about making sure that jailed anti- corruption activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s smart voting project is a total failure. The key to achieving that goal has been the Kremlin’s largely successful efforts to cut the opposition off from its main weapon: the internet.
The result of the election is a foregone conclusion. As of late afternoon on the second day of voting on September 18, 90% of the online votes offered in seven regions had been cast and a reported 17% of the physical votes, and preliminary official exit polls give United Russia 48% of the vote, enough to win a clear majority of seats.
Online voting is almost totally opaque and can be used to adjust the results to any outcome the Kremlin wants. It is a more elegant resource than was used in the 2011 vote – the dirtiest election to date that resulted in hundreds of thousands gathering to protest in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. As bne IntelliNews reported, in that election the
However, eight EM sovereigns gained net upgrades of two notches during the 10-year period. They include Georgia and Ser- bia from the emerging Europe region, as well as the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Jamaica, Peru, the Philippines and Vietnam.
“Of these, only Jamaica (both notches), Georgia (one notch) and Vietnam (one notch) reflected reversal of downgrades in the prior five years,” Fitch pointed out.
The emerging markets that have experienced the greatest net upgrades since Fitch initiated its rating coverage also include several from the region.
Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania have all been upgraded by a total of five notches; Kazakhstan, Poland, Peru and Slovakia by four notches; and Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Kuwait, Romania and Thailand by three notches. However, Fitch added that “the pace of improvement has slowed markedly since around 2008”.
Kremlin massively falsified the results in eight key regions, mostly in the Caucasus, to give United Russia up to 100%
of the vote so the cumulative nationwide tally was a clear majority for United Russia. The use of online voting means such crude methods as ballot stuffing can be avoided and the final result more elegantly massaged and spread across more regions, making such interference less obvious.
Given it is almost certain that United Russia will be swept to victory, the Kremlin’s goal appears to be to make sure smart voting doesn't overturn a single district and the candidates of the powers that be win every race where there is a smart voting contestant, in an effort to delegitimise the tactic.
“If the Kremlin does have a central focus in this election, it's making sure the @navalny/@leonidvolkov #SmartVoting project fails. And for the most part, the Kremlin is getting its way,” Sam Greene, a professor of politics at King's College London and the director of King's College Russia Institute, said in a tweet. “But everything we've seen thus far points to an equally important priority for Team Putin: Making
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