vote rigging

Tadic Calls for Closer Monitoring in Serbian Runoff Vote | Businessweek

May 152012

Serbia’s ruling Democratic Party asked local and foreign watchdogs to step up scrutiny of the presidential runoff vote after the opposition claimed election fraud during May 6 balloting. The party, led by incumbent President Boris Tadic, urged the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy to deploy more observers during the May 20 second round between Tadic and Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the opposition Serbian Progressive Party. “It is in our deep interest that we have fair and regular elections and that the legitimacy of elected institutions is not in question,” the Democrats said in the e-mailed statement. The outcome of the presidential elections may determine whether Serbia keeps striving for European Union membership under Tadic or turns east for political and economic ties under Nikolic’s leadership. Tadic won the first round, while his party finished second in a concurrent parliamentary race, giving it six seats less than the Progressive Party’s 73 in the 250-member assembly. The Progressive Party claimed vote rigging on May 10, a day after the second-place Democrats and the third-ranking Socialist Party of former strongman Slobodan Milosevic agreed to stay in a coalition, leaving Nikolic’s party in opposition. Read More »

Arrest Calls Fair Elections Into Question | NYTimes.com

Apr 172012

In making the optimistic case for the development of democracy here, American officials typically point to the 2010 parliamentary elections, which were judged largely free and fair by international monitors including the United Nations. But with the arrest of the head of Iraq’s election commission, the prospect for fair elections has been thrown into question. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, center, in March. He has been seeking to consolidate control over the electoral commission. Faraj al-Haidari, chief of the Independent High Electoral Commission, spent most of the weekend in a jail cell after being arrested on corruption charges on Thursday. He was released on Sunday afternoon after posting bail of $12,500. Read More »

Electoral body throws out fraud complaints | Reuters

Mar 302012

Guinea Bissau’s election commission on Wednesday rejected opposition complaints of fraud during a March 18 first-round presidential vote in the West African state, and set a decisive run-off for April 22. The election to replace Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in a Paris hospital in January after a long illness, was meant to usher in stability to the coup-prone country, which has become a transhipment point for Latin American cocaine bound for Europe. Former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior, who fell just short of an outright majority in the first round, is meant to face rival Kumba Yala in the run-off, but Yala has said he will boycott the vote in protest over alleged first-round rigging. Yala and four other opposition leaders filed a formal complaint with the national election commission last week, saying that Gomes Junior orchestrated “massive fraud” that included widespread double-voting. Read More »

Presidential elections: How easy is it to commit electoral fraud? | Metro.co.uk

Mar 212012

Two questions were asked after the recent Russian elections. Firstly, were Vladimir Putin’s tears real? And secondly, was the election rigged? According to the experts, there are several ways of cheating to win an election. ‘It all depends on how you define electoral fraud,’ said Dr Sarah Birch, reader in politics at Essex University. ‘There are so many rules and regulations that to violate one of those is fairly easy, whether it’s a candidate in a local election overspending on their campaign by £5, or someone going to the polling station and saying they’re someone else. ‘It can also be the manipulation of voters – such as media campaigns that are overtly biased in favour of one contestant, as we found in Russia, where the media gave much more attention to Putin than to the other candidates. Alternatively, there’s manipulation of the vote, such as vote buying or intimidation.’ Read More »

Putin's Russia: What I saw as an election observer | CSMonitor.com

Mar 172012

Moscow-based journalist Anna Arutunyan was a volunteer election observer for Russia’s March 4 presidential election. This is her account of the events at a polling station in the town of Nizhneye Myachkovo. It was past midnight on election night in a snow-covered village polling station 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) southeast of Moscow, and five local officials were trying to ignore the protests of five election observers as the officials tallied up the ballots for Russia’s paramount leader of 12 years, Vladimir Putin. The complaint was minor: The officials weren’t letting the observers see each ballot they counted. But combined with the other violations noticed at this polling station, the process left observers with a sense that the very legitimacy of the vote had been compromised. Anton Dugin, a tall, young local official who was in charge of the polling station, called for a vote among the poll workers: Should they change the way they were counting the ballots at the observers’ insistence they follow the law? Read More »

Less Than Half of Russians Say Presidential Election Could Be Trusted | WSJ

Mar 162012

Less than half of Russians consider March 4 presidential election trustworthy, a drop from previous elections that reflects a negative assessment of the ballot by the European Parliament. A poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, or Vtsiom, published Thursday shows the number of Russians who see the election as trustworthy is at 44%, down from 53% after the presidential election in 2004 and 2008. Vladimir Putin claimed victory, and 64% of the vote, in the election this year and is set to take the office of president on May 7 amid widespread criticism by the opposition, which cited mass irregularities, lack of real competition, and abuse of state resources in securing victory for Mr. Putin. Read More »

Russia’s election cameras: what next? | FT.com

Mar 142012

A telecommunications specialist mounts e

Cameras set up at polling booths provided endless hours of amusement on Russian election day earlier this month. Now Rostelecom, the Russian phone company, is looking to get more mileage out of the video surveillance system it helped install. As Rostelecom announced today, the Rb13bn ($440m) video surveillance project will live on, helping to transmit classroom lessons via the web and provide more security in schools. While many poo-pooed Vladimir Putin’s December proposal for video surveillance in polling booths – arguing that the cameras would not actually detect or prevent fraud – the fact that the surveillance system was implemented so fast, and went off without a hitch, is likely to make it a gold standard for Russian infrastructure projects. Read More »

How a mysterious change to voting tallies boosted Putin at St Petersburg polling station: a citizen observer reports | Telegraph

Mar 122012

After Russia’s parliamentary elections in December, it was impossible for anyone in my country not to know that there had been electoral fraud on a massive scale. But I am a historian and obsessed with verifying information for myself. For that reason I joined the more than 3,000 citizens in St Petersburg who committed themselves to monitoring last week’s presidential election. In training sessions, lawyers explained the kinds of irregularities that might occur and how to avert – or at least to record – them. They lectured us on the relevant laws and regulations. They told us how to prevent ballot stuffing and how to detect “carousel voting”, when people vote more than once. ”But remember,” they warned on several occasions. “The members of the electoral commission are not your enemies: think positively about them and don’t forget the presumption of innocence.” Read More »

Election Protests: Police Arrest Dozens As Fraud Allegations Grow | AP

Mar 062012

An attempt by Vladimir Putin’s foes to protest his presidential election victory by occupying a Moscow square ended Monday with riot police quickly dispersing and detaining hundreds of demonstrators – a stark reminder of the challenges faced by Russia’s opposition. The harsh crackdown could fuel opposition anger and bring even bigger protests of Putin’s 12 years in power and election to another six, but it also underlined the authorities’ readiness to use force to crush such demonstrations. The rally marked a change of tactics for the opposition, which has been looking for ways to maintain the momentum of its demonstrations that flared in December. Alexei Navalny, a popular blogger and one of the most charismatic protest leaders, was the first to suggest that supporters remain on Moscow’s streets and squares to turn up the heat on Putin. For Putin, the opposition move raised the specter of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where demonstrators camped on Kiev’s main square in massive protests that forced officials to throw out a fraud-tainted election victory by the Kremlin-backed candidate. Read More »

Election 'clearly skewed' for Putin: OSCE | BBC

Mar 052012

Russia’s presidential elections were “clearly skewed” in favour of the winner, Vladimir Putin, monitors with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have said. Preliminary results showed that Mr Putin, who is currently prime minister, won more than 63% of votes. There have been widespread claims of fraud and vote violations, and the OSCE said the result was “never in doubt”. Opposition groups have called for mass protests against Mr Putin’s win. In a statement, the OSCE said while all candidates had been able to campaign freely, there had been “serious problems” from the start, conditions were “clearly skewed in favour of one of the contestants, current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin”. Read More »

Putin set to reclaim the Kremlin in Russian vote | The Star

Mar 052012

Sailor casts his ballot as his colleagues queue to vote during presidential elections at a polling station in the far eastern city of Vladivostok

Vladimir Putin is almost certain to win a third presidential term in an election that began on Sunday in Russia’s far east, though opponents have challenged the legitimacy of a vote they say is skewed in his favor. Putin’s aides hope a strong win will take the sting out of an urban protest movement that casts the former KGB spy as an authoritarian leader who rules by allowing a corrupt elite to siphon off the wealth from the world’s biggest energy producer. In interviews from the Arctic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, Russians gave a mixed picture: some expressed anger at being offered no real choice while others said Putin had proved he was a leader who could rule Russia. Read More »

Voting Fraud Allegations Mar Putin's Win | Huffington Post

Mar 052012

A few days before Russia’s presidential election, Sergei Smirnov received a phone call from a man who called himself Mikhail and told him the terms of the deal: you will vote for Vladimir Putin four times and receive 2,000 roubles ($70) in return. The sum was promised to dozens of other young men and women who met on Sunday outside a popular fast food joint on the southwest fringe of Moscow, waiting to be taken to various polling stations in the province that rings the capital. Smirnov, a journalist, said he found the group a few weeks prior to the election through a friend. Mikhail, whom he met at Moscow’s Yugo-Zapadnaya (Southwest) metro station on Sunday morning, gave him final instructions. ”He said we should vote for Vladimir Putin, photograph the ballot, and send him the photograph by phone,” Smirnov said. Read More »

Complaints in Russian election mount | AP

Mar 052012

Opposition leaders and Russian observers say they are seeing widespread violations in elections that are expected to return Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin. Putin, who was president in 2000-2008, is expected to easily win the Sunday election against four challengers. But if credible evidence of vote manipulation emerges, it would bolster the determination of opposition forces to continue the unprecedented wave of protests that arose in December. Lilia Shibanova of the independent elections watchdog agency Golos said her organization is receiving reports of so-called “carousel voting,” in which busloads of voters are driven around to cast ballots multiple times. Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Putin’s first prime minister and later went into opposition, said “These elections are not free … we will not recognize the president as legitimate.” Read More »

Election Watchdog: Putin supporters 'using illegal methods to ensure victory' | Telegraph

Mar 022012

Supporters of Vladimir Putin are using a raft of underhand and illegal methods to ensure his victory in Russia’s presidential poll, according to a report by the country’s top independent election watchdog. Golos said campaigning for the vote on Sunday, and for municipal elections in Moscow and other regions on the same day, was riddled with violations of electoral law. Monitors from the organisation reported that opposition figures had been intimidated, factory workers were being forced to vote under tight control at their place of work and Putin, Russia’s prime minister, had made widespread use of “administrative resources” to underwrite his own campaign. Golos said that public sector workers such as doctors and teachers were being pressured into casting their ballot for Putin. Read More »

Putin may win the election but for Russia political stability is over | guardian.co.uk

Mar 022012

Supporters of Vladimir Putin are treating his win of the presidential election on 4 March as a foregone conclusion – and they’re probably right. Yet as the old adage goes: “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Even as the opposition’s protest movement in Russia continues unabated, Putin remains the most popular politician in the country. He has no strong competitor in this election – according to the latest data from the Levada-Center, Russia’s largest independent polling agency, 63 to 66% of voters who say they are coming to the polls will cast their ballot for Putin. Putin himself has warned that protest rallies following the elections could turn dangerous, because provocateurs from abroad are looking for a “sacrificial lamb” among the famous opposition members. None of this – the numbers, Putin’s own view of the situation – is all that surprising. But what makes for genuine news is that whichever way you cut it, Putin’s third term in the Kremlin is going to be difficult in an unprecedented way; because this much is clear – his government faces an inevitable decline. Read More »

Putin Warns Opposition, Talks Of Conspiracy Theory Ahead Of Vote | Huffington Post

Mar 012012

Russia's Prime Minister and presidential

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin strongly warned his opponents against unsactioned protests after Sunday’s presidential election, in which he is all but certain to regain the presidency. In a statement reflecting heightening tensions four days before the vote, he also alleged Wednesday that his foes may kill a prominent opposition figure in order to fuel public outrage against the government. ”They are looking among well-known people for a sacrificial victim,” he said, according to Russian news reports. “They could, I’m sorry, knock someone off and then blame the authorities for that.” Putin criticized the opposition plans for rallies over what it fears will be a fraudulent election, saying Wednesday it is “unacceptable” to prejudge the vote. ”We will respect any viewpoint but are calling on everyone to act within the framework of law and use only legitimate means,” he said at a meeting with his campaign activists. Read More »

Russia will stand up to Putin, says jailed former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky | World news | The Guardian

Feb 272012

The Arab spring has inspired Russians to stand up to Vladimir Putin, and sweeping political change is possible if voters reject him at the ballot box in next weekend’s presidential elections, according to Putin’s jailed opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Writing for the Guardian from his prison cell in the far north of Russia, Khodorkovsky says the leadership around Putin is already quietly caving in to demands for a more open, democratic politics in the wake of the mass protest movement that welled up after questionable elections in early December. He adds that the burgeoning middle class – which will constitute a majority within 10 years – will no longer accept Putin’s “managed democracy” as suitable for governing their country. Khodorkovsky’s intervention comes as thousands of protesters turned out in Moscow on Sunday wearing white scarves and ribbons and carrying white balloons and flowers, the colour and symbols of the protest movement calling for Putin’s removal from power. Read More »

Thousands of Russians Ring Moscow to Protest Putin | International Business Times

Feb 272012

Thousands of Russians joined hands to form a human chain around the Moscow city center Sunday in protest against Vladimir Putin’s likely return as president in the election next week. Opposition supporters take part in a protest called The White Ring by forming a human chain along the Garden Ring road in Moscow, February 26, 2012. Thousands of Russians joined hands Sunday in protest against Vladimir Putin’s likely return as president in an election next week. The protesters stood side by side around the wide 10-mile Moscow Garden Ring Road in gently falling snow, many of them wearing the white ribbons that symbolize the biggest opposition protests since Putin rose to power 12 years ago. The mood was festive as protesters, some chanting “Russia without Putin,” waved at cars which hooted back in support. Some held blown-up condoms – mocking Putin for saying he mistook the white ribbons they pin to their coats for contraceptives. Read More »

Elections to come, result already known | Investment Europe

Feb 242012

Russia’s presidential election, or what could be the first round of it, takes place on March 4, but although the poll is still to come, the final result appears to be known: Vladimir Putin will be Russia’s new President. Following a general election in December, where opposition protests spread through the main cities alongside persistent charges of electoral fraud, Putin is clearly relishing the presidential poll battle. At a rally held on the Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland in Moscow, he stepped up his rhetoric, evoking iconic Russian poets and military history, and pledging to defend the country against “outside interference”. Earlier he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Among Moscow’s increasingly sophisticated, social media savvy voters, already deeply sceptical of the All Russia party win in December,such rampant patriotism was not universally admired. Many felt uneasy at the emotive manipulation of both past history and present politics. But Putin’s victory seems assured. Read More »

Paul backers, campaign cry foul over GOP caucus tally | The Kennebec Journal

Feb 132012

The campaign of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and his supporters say the libertarian-leaning Texan was robbed of victory Saturday night when Mitt Romney was declared the winner of the Maine Republican Party’s presidential caucuses. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul tosses balloons to supporters Saturday night at the Seasons Event and Conference Center in Portland. His supporters and the Paul campaign say the cancellation of a local caucus meeting in Washington County robbed Paul of a victory over Mitt Romney. The Paul campaign says a local caucus meeting in Washington County that was canceled Saturday afternoon because of a snowstorm would have provided the margin of victory over Romney. But Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster is standing behind the results showing that Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, won the nonbinding presidential straw poll by 194 votes. Read More »

Russians stage rival protests over Putin | Reuters

Feb 062012

A portrait of Russian PM Putin with the word "sacked" is seen taped on a protester's bag during a demonstration for fair elections in Moscow

Tens of thousands of Russians defied bitter cold in Moscow on Saturday to demand fair elections in a march against Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule, and supporters of the prime minister staged a rival rally drawing comparable numbers. Opposition protesters also organized smaller protests in other cities across the vast country, trying to maintain pressure on Putin one month before a March 4 presidential election he is expected to win. Their breath turning to white vapor clouds in the frigid Moscow air, tens of thousands of protesters marched within sight of the red-brick Kremlin walls and towers, chanting “Russia without Putin!” and “Give us back the elections!” Read More »

Putin Warns Against Election Dirty Tricks | RIA Novosti

Feb 022012

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned against the use of “dishonest” political tricks ahead of the March presidential elections. “It’s very important to fight against dishonest methods of political combat, especially when the elections are already labeled unfair and illegitimate before they even took place,” Putin said during a meeting with young lawyers in Moscow. Putin, who held the presidential post from 2000 to 2008, is widely predicted to win the March vote, however, analysts suggest growing discontent could see him forced into a runoff. Claims of vote rigging during December’s parliamentary elections sparked mass street protests against the prime minister and his United Russia party. Read More »

Vladimir Putin rejects poll review | BBC

Feb 012012

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has dismissed calls for a review of disputed parliamentary election results and has accused protesters of lacking clear aims. He was speaking to his supporters in the All Russia People’s Front. His comments follow the latest mass protests on Saturday over the 4 December poll, which his opponents say was rigged. Mr Putin is the front runner in presidential elections due in March. Read More »

Chad holds first local elections | AFP

Jan 302012

Voters in Chad went to the polls last Sunday for the first local elections in the central African country’s history, after the ballot had been rescheduled several times. Mayors were previously appointed directly by the central government.
Around one million people were eligible to cast their ballots, and voting appeared to be calm after polling booths opened at 7:30 am (0830 GMT). President Idriss Deby Itno voted in district No. 1 Djamabal Ngat, where some 50 voters were awaiting their turn. Read More »

Congo’s presidential coalition leading parliament race; call to annul votes in 7 districts | The Washington Post

Jan 282012

Two months after voters went to polls in a chaotic election, the electoral commission announced Friday that parties supporting Congo’s president won two-thirds of legislative seats. The commission also indefinitely postponed provincial elections that were scheduled for March. Electoral officials said they also want to annul results of the legislative elections in seven of Congo’s 169 voting districts and prosecute a dozen candidates accused of introducing irregularities and violence. Local and international observers have already said the Nov. 28 elections for the president and 500 national assembly seats were too flawed to be legitimate. It was only the second democratic election Congo has ever held, with the stability of the mineral-rich African nation at stake. Critics say any election results are unreliable because millions of voters were unable to cast ballots, hundreds of thousands of ballots have been tampered with and 1.3 million completed ballots went missing. Read More »

OSCE Raps State Duma Elections in Report | Moscow Times

Jan 172012

State Duma elections failed to meet democratic standards and were fraught with violations, Europe’s main elections watchdog said in a final assessment published Thursday. The report by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, mentions violations like “serious indications of ballot box-stuffing”, so-called group-voting and obstructions for observers. It also reiterates criticism of United Russia from the organization’s mission chief, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, that the electoral “contest was slanted in favor of the ruling party.” ”The distinction between the state and the governing party was frequently blurred by state and local officials,” said the report’s executive summary. Read More »

Report on Russian Duma elections says contest ‘slanted in favour of the ruling party’ | OSCE/ODIHR

Jan 162012

A report released by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on 12 January 2012 said that, although December’s Russian State Duma elections were technically well-administered, the contest was marked by the convergence of the state and the governing party. Citing concerns over the roles played by state authorities and the media, as well as the narrowing of political competition resulting from the denial of registration to certain political parties, the final report of the ODIHR Election Observation Mission describes the contest as “slanted in favour of the ruling party.” Read More »

Congolese Have Lost Confidence in the Electoral Commission, Catholic Bishops Say | Congo Planet

Jan 142012

nicolas_djomo_conference_episcopale_nationale_congo_cenco

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for the members of the Independent National Electoral Commission to change their practices or resign following the mismanagement of last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. In a declaration released on Thursday after a three-day meeting in Kinshasa, the bishops said that they “believe the electoral process was marred by serious flaws that call into question the credibility of the results published” by the electoral commission. Read More »

Duma to question Election Commission head on vote rigging | RT

Jan 142012

The head of the Election Commission is to explain himself in parliament over allegations of vote rigging. Vladimir Churov is not the only one called to account in investigations into the December vote. Among other officials held responsible for mass violations are the prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, the minister of the interior, Rashid Nurgaliev, and the chairman of the Investigation Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. Read More »

Inside Turkmenistan's Surreal Presidential Election | The Atlantic

Jan 092012

Next month, Turkmenistan, Central Asia’s most closed society, will hold an election for president. There’s no secret who will win—current tyrant Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov—but the field of candidates has grown unexpectedly large. Is an exciting election in the works?

Probably not. Of the candidates currently running against Berdimuhamedov, none look likely to garner even statistically relevant support or votes. Berdimuhamedov, a dentist by trade, was swept to power after Turkmenistan’s previous president, Sapurmurat Niyazov, died. That death sparked some truly bizarre commentary in the west, including speculation that the country would collapse violently as elites battled for control of limited resources. There was no clear succession plan, even if the head of the Parliament was meant to be the interim president. Read More »

Voters head to polls again in parliament vote | Reuters

Jan 032012

Supporters of Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak shout slogans outside the police academy in Cairo

Egyptians vote Tuesday in the third round of a parliamentary election that has so far handed Islamists the biggest share of seats in an assembly that will be central in the transition from army rule. Islamist groups came late to the uprising that unseated president Hosni Mubarak in February, but were well placed to seize the moment when Egyptians were handed the first chance in six decades to choose their representatives freely.

The run-up to the third round has been overshadowed by the deaths of 17 people last month in clashes between the army and protesters demanding the military step aside immediately. But the ruling generals have insisted the election process will not be derailed by violence. Monitors mostly praised the first two rounds as free of the ballot stuffing, thuggery and vote rigging that once guaranteed landslide wins for Mubarak’s party.

But police raids on pro-democracy and rights groups last week have disrupted the work of leading Western-backed election monitors and drew accusations that the army was deliberately trying to weaken oversight of the vote and silence critics. Read More »

Moscow protest: Thousands rally against Vladimir Putin | BBC

Dec 262011

Tens of thousands of people have rallied in central Moscow in a show of anger at alleged electoral fraud. They passed a resolution “not to give a single vote to Vladimir Putin” at next year’s presidential election.

Protest leader Alexei Navalny told the crowd to loud applause that Russians would no longer tolerate corruption. ”I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet,” he said.

Demonstrators say parliamentary elections on 4 December, which were won by Mr Putin’s party, were rigged. The government denies the accusation. Read More »

Kremlin nervous as protesters return to streets | The Guardian

Dec 242011

Tens of thousands of Russians are expected to take to the streets on Saturday despite Kremlin efforts to ease tensions over disputed elections and Vladimir Putin’s expected return to the presidency. More than 50,000 people have indicated their intention to attend a protest on Moscow’s Sakharov Prospect, named after the late leading Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Thousands more have signed up via social networking sites for protests in more than 80 Russian cities.

The protesters are hoping to capitalise on the momentum launched earlier this month, when up to 50,000 people turned out in Moscow alone demanding the Kremlin overturn parliamentary election results that saw Putin’s United Russia take a majority in the Duma despite widespread accusations of fraud.

The former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the novelist Boris Akunin, the anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak, the Russian “It Girl” and daughter of Putin’s mentor, are among those expected to address the crowd. Protesters will don white ribbons to symbolise their opposition to the election results, which they say are a sign of their country’s lack of democracy. The oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who is running against Putin, also said he would address the rally. Read More »

Election results cancelled at some Russian polling stations | RT

Dec 212011

The results of Russia’s December 4 parliamentary election have been cancelled at 21 polling stations, according to the deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Leonid Ivlev. Overall, 39,000 people cast their votes at the named ballot stations, which were scattered across the country, he said during a meeting of the Public Chamber on Tuesday.

“Those responsible for the election process there will be held accountable. I think they will be banned from working in the election system,” Ivlev stated.

The official added that so far, the Central Election Commission has received 1,686 reports and complaints of violations. All of them have been studied, and 124 cases have been forwarded to either the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Interior Ministry or the Investigative Committee. “Most complaints have not been confirmed,” Ivlev reported. He also commented on amateur videos of alleged violations circulating on the Internet. Read More »

Opposition leader seeks army backing | Al Jazeera

Dec 202011

Congo’s top opposition figure has urged the armed forces to obey him after losing elections he says were fraudulent. Etienne Tshisekedi said on Sunday he would offer a “great prize” to anyone who captured President Joseph Kabila.

A close aide to Kabila dismissed Tshisekedi’s comments as showmanship and said the opposition leader had made similar calls against former President Mobutu Sese Seko that had been ignored by the people. However, the veteran politician’s comments do threaten to escalate a row over the results of a November 28 presidential contest, which international observers say lacked credibility.

“I call on all of you to look for [Kabila] wherever he is in the country and bring him here alive,” Tshisekedi said in his first news conference since official figures showed he was soundly beaten by Kabila. ”If you bring Kabila here to me you’ll receive a great prize,” he said, urging the armed forces to obey the country’s “legitimate authority”. Read More »

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vote rigging

Tadic Calls for Closer Monitoring in Serbian Runoff Vote | Businessweek

Arrest Calls Fair Elections Into Question | NYTimes.com

Electoral body throws out fraud complaints | Reuters

Presidential elections: How easy is it to commit electoral fraud? | Metro.co.uk

Putin's Russia: What I saw as an election observer | CSMonitor.com

Less Than Half of Russians Say Presidential Election Could Be Trusted | WSJ

Russia’s election cameras: what next? | FT.com

How a mysterious change to voting tallies boosted Putin at St Petersburg polling station: a citizen observer reports | Telegraph

Election Protests: Police Arrest Dozens As Fraud Allegations Grow | AP

Election 'clearly skewed' for Putin: OSCE | BBC

Putin set to reclaim the Kremlin in Russian vote | The Star

Voting Fraud Allegations Mar Putin's Win | Huffington Post

Complaints in Russian election mount | AP

Election Watchdog: Putin supporters 'using illegal methods to ensure victory' | Telegraph

Putin may win the election but for Russia political stability is over | guardian.co.uk

Putin Warns Opposition, Talks Of Conspiracy Theory Ahead Of Vote | Huffington Post

Russia will stand up to Putin, says jailed former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky | World news | The Guardian

Thousands of Russians Ring Moscow to Protest Putin | International Business Times

Elections to come, result already known | Investment Europe

Paul backers, campaign cry foul over GOP caucus tally | The Kennebec Journal

Russians stage rival protests over Putin | Reuters

Putin Warns Against Election Dirty Tricks | RIA Novosti

Vladimir Putin rejects poll review | BBC

Chad holds first local elections | AFP

Congo’s presidential coalition leading parliament race; call to annul votes in 7 districts | The Washington Post

OSCE Raps State Duma Elections in Report | Moscow Times

Report on Russian Duma elections says contest ‘slanted in favour of the ruling party’ | OSCE/ODIHR

Congolese Have Lost Confidence in the Electoral Commission, Catholic Bishops Say | Congo Planet

Duma to question Election Commission head on vote rigging | RT

Inside Turkmenistan's Surreal Presidential Election | The Atlantic

Voters head to polls again in parliament vote | Reuters

Moscow protest: Thousands rally against Vladimir Putin | BBC

Kremlin nervous as protesters return to streets | The Guardian

Election results cancelled at some Russian polling stations | RT

Opposition leader seeks army backing | Al Jazeera

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