Word: coups
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...starters, Burma (also known as Myanmar) is ruled by one of the world's longest-standing military dictatorships. An army-led coup in 1962 initially brought men in uniform to power, first the charismatic and superstitious Ne Win, now his rather less magnetic successor Than Shwe. The generals took control not only of the armed forces but all aspects of politics and the economy as well. In the decades since the takeover, Burma has evolved into a nation where "the military is the state," according to Burmese historian Thant Myint-U. "Army officers do everything. Normal government had withered away...
...Pakistan's Supreme Court considers the latest petitions contesting his re-election bid--it already dismissed three such cases in September--Musharraf promised the court he would step down as army chief if re-elected President. The general, who became head of state in a bloodless coup in 1999, was given a one-time exemption to the constitutional law, allowing him to retain both positions until the end of his current term...
...landowning oligarchy even sided with the rowdy Sandinista rebels, hoping that the overthrow of the dictatorship would allow them to reclaim lost power. But the Sandinistas had other ideas: After seizing power in the insurrection of 1979, they systematically dismantled the power of the oligarchy in subsequent years. The coup de grace, Nunez says, came last year when the Sandinistas formed a political alliance with the Catholic Church, the oligarchy's last institutional bastion...
...This week Musharraf, who overthrew Sharif in a bloodless coup eight years ago, plans to file nomination papers for another bid for the presidency, a five-year term that would keep a man the U.S. calls its best ally in the war on terror in power, but that also risks further destabilizing a nuclear-armed nation that is teetering on the edge of a militant Islamic insurgency. Elections will be held October 6 and will be conducted by an electoral college made up of the national and provincial assemblies...
...Musharraf's efforts to engineer a similar legal coup for his second term started to unravel last March when he attempted, and failed, to dismiss the increasingly independent supreme court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Since then his popularity, which was at record highs when he first took power from a Prime Minister widely seen as corrupt and out of touch, has plummeted to levels below that of Osama bin Laden (though still higher than U.S. President George W. Bush, according to a new poll). Last week, through his lawyer, Musharraf promised the Supreme Court that he would step down...