In this alternate world, the PRD never formed and the PRI remained dominant throughout the 1990s, allowing Francisco Labastida to be elected President in 2000, defeating Vicente Fox and socialist Mexican People's Democratic Party (PDPM) leader Alberto Anaya, who became the most important left-wing politician in Mexico.

Labastida became one of the most unpopular presidents in Mexican history, because the cartel problem worsened significantly and the living conditions of poor Mexicans failed to improve. By 2006, Mexico had bucked the worldwide trend towards capitalism as Anaya became the frontrunner for the presidential election.

PRI dissidents led by AMLO formed the PP, a social democratic and left-wing populist party, and formed the "Union of the Mexican People", a coalition that called for a welfare state, criminal justice reforms to fight the cartels, and the reversal of the privatization of strategic sectors.

The PRI nominated Roberto Madrazo for President. Madrazo portrayed himself as the moderate, sensible candidate and Anaya as a dangerous left-wing extremist, but Anaya responded effectively by calling the PRI, with their corruption, authoritarianism and incompetence, the real extremists.

Fox mounted another run for the presidency, but Madrazo won over many right-wingers who had voted for him in 2000, and he failed to win over the middle class who had always voted for the PRI. Consequently, his support was reduced to partisan PAN voters who would vote for anybody the party nominated.

Anaya was the frontrunner throughout the entire race, and he ran a good campaign, allowing him to win the election with 45% of the vote versus 35% for Madrazo, 14% for Fox, 4% for Patricia Mercado, and 1% for Roberto Campa. Amaya's victory made him the most left-wing Mexican president since Lázaro Cárdenas. Hours after Anaya was elected, the Mexican Stock Exchange dropped by 25%.

As an interventionist who had fought against communism in the Congo War 40 years earlier, US President John McCain declared the socialist victory in Mexico to be a violation of the Monroe Doctrine and invaded the country on 1 December 2006, because the UN never existed, making wars of aggression less stigmatized.

In July 2000, FIFA held a vote in Zurich, Switzerland, to choose the host of the 2006 FIFA World Cup; the six bidding nations were Brazil, Greece, Germany, Russia, England and Morocco. Greece ended up being selected, defeating Russia in the final round of voting and becoming the first Balkan nation to host the world cup.

188 teams attempted to qualify for the world cup. The following teams qualified (Greece did so automatically):

- Imperial State of Iran

- Empire of Japan

- Saudi Arabia

- Kingdom of Iraq

- People's Republic of Angola

- Ghana

- Ivory Coast

- Togo

- Egypt

- Costa Rica

- Mexico

- Trindad and Tobago

- United States

- Argentina

- Ecuador

- Brazil

- Chile

- Australia

- Hungary

- Germany

- England

- France

- Greece (hosts)

- Netherlands

- Norway

- Portugal

- Yugoslavia

- Spain

- Sweden

- Switzerland

- Russia

In the knockout stage, Germany defeated Sweden, Argentina defeated Mexico, Italy defeated Australia, Russia defeated Switzerland, England defeated Ecuador, Portugal defeated the Netherlands, Brazil defeated Ghana, and France defeated Spain. In the quarterfinals, Argentina defeated Germany, Italy defeated Russia, Portugal defeated England, and France defeated Brazil. In the semifinals, France defeated Portugal and Argentina beat Italy.

The final was held in the Eleutherios Venizelos Olympic Stadium in Constantinople; all 75,145 seats were full, forcing many fans who wanted to personally watch it to content themselves with watching it through TV. France defeated Argentina 2–1, winning the FIFA world cup for the third time.

Without Israeli support, Idi Amin's 1971 coup failed and was crushed by Obote, who purged Amin and his followers from the Uganda Army and turned to the Free Socialist Republic of Germany for protection. Erich Mielke helped Obote and his cousin set up a pro-German police state in Uganda, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.

In June 1971, Obote expelled Uganda's Asian minority, claiming that he was giving Ugandan workers control over the economy. Asian properties were nationalized across the board. The expulsion was internationally condemned and did a lot of damage to Uganda's economy, forcing Obote to maintain power through force.

Furthermore, Uganda had tense relations with its neighbours Egypt, Free Belgium and Kenya, all of whom opposed Obote's socialist orientation. Another issue was that Free Belgium's leadership never forgot his support for the communist independence fighters in the Congo War.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Uganda was one of the poorest countries in the world. Most of its budget came from foreign, mostly German and Algerian, aid, and the majority of Ugandans, starved. If it wasn't for the support Obote received from the communist bloc, he would have been overthrown.

This almost happened in 1981, when Yoweri Museveni launched a rebellion with the stated goal of overthrowing Obote and installing a communist state in Uganda. Erich Mielke responded by airlifting $600 million on weapons and advisors to the Uganda Army, allowing it to emerge victorious.

On 26 March 1982, Ugandan Vice President John Babiiha died. Obote named his wife Miria as Babiiha's replacement, establishing the Obote dynasty. Obote increasingly entrusted security to his Lango ethnic group, whom he saw as more loyal and trustworthy than other Ugandan peoples.

Three years later, Obote's regime crushed the Rwenzururu movement and committed genocide against the Konjo and Amba peoples, the majority of whom were killed or fled Uganda by 1990. As time went on, Obote's popularity slowly increased because he, for all his faults, managed to eradicate illiteracy and modernize Uganda's healthcare system.

After the Revolutions of 2002, Obote abandoned his socialist economic policies and replaced them with a mixed economy. As his health declined, Miria increasingly took over the state's functions despite strong resistance from the military, which did not trust her.

When Obote died on 10 October 2005, Miria became the third President of Uganda. She only remained in office for a few months before the military overthrew her in a coup led by Aronda Nyakairima, who installed a military dictatorship.

Retcon: Manchukuo never voted to join China and remained a Japanese colony due to its large Japanese military presence and settler population. Despite controlling Manchuria, Japan was the poorest of great power, due to decades of sanctions and boycotts and the lack of economic reforms.

In May 2002, the Islamic Revolutionary Front (FRI), a Sunni fundamentalist group led by Abassi Madani, launched a revolution against Hachemi Chérif's communist regime. By the end of the month, the FRI was firmly in control of Algeria; on 1 June, Madani and Ali Benhadj proclaimed the Islamic Republic of Algeria (RIA), immediately enforced sharia, and launched a violent purge of the Communist regime's mostly Berber supporters.

Later in June, the Somali Democratic Republic collapsed into civil war. Somaliland took advantage of this to declare independence, while clans fought each other for control over the rest of Somalia, and there were revivals of maritime piracy and customary law. On 18 January 2004, the United States was forced to deploy a fleet to fight the Somali pirates.

By that point, Russia and China were powerful enough not to be US aligned. They became far more of a threat to US hegemony than Germany, but, in a significant change, these new rivalries were mostly commercial and technological rather than geopolitical or military.

The Revolutions of 2002 significantly boosted globalisation, because many countries that had been shut out of it due to communism became capitalist democracies. As an ultranationalist state, Russia remained out of globalization and did not integrate itself into the world market, preferring to remain ''fully sovereign''.

Now that Belgium and the Netherlands were no longer communist, the colonial governments-in-exile were dissolved, and the Congo and Suriname became independent under the leaderships of Jean-Pierre Bemba and Winston Jessurun, respectively.

Bemba ruled the Congo into a dictatorship and ran it to the benefit of himself, his cronies and the military. Suriname, on the other hand, became a stable and prosperous democracy after independence because Jessurun was more competent.

Rwanda and Burundi were still socialist dictatorships, as they had been for 40 years by that point. As their governments pursued inclusive, nonethnic nationalist policies, they did not suffer any genocides and had a much smaller amount of ethnic tensions than in real life, despite being very poor.