Afghanistan: Taliban’s Onslaught to Disrupt Presidential Elections Has Failed to Curb Voter Enthusiasm | Wall Street Journal

Lining up behind hundreds of fellow Afghans, Ghazanfar spent up to six hours each day over the past week waiting to register for Saturday’s elections. “Sun and rain, none of that has been a problem for me,” said Mr. Ghazanfar, a 46-year-old laborer in Kabul, who like many Afghans has only one name. “I am here to support a better future for Afghanistan.” The Taliban have launched a violent onslaught on Kabul and other Afghan cities in recent days, trying to disrupt the historic election. But, so far, the Taliban intimidation has failed to tamp down the enthusiasm of ordinary Afghans like Mr. Ghazanfar for the election, in which the country will pick a new leader after 13 years under President Hamid Karzai. Notwithstanding occasional violence and bureaucratic weakness that requires such registration waits, the country has gone through a full-fledged campaign, with crowded, nationwide rallies by the main candidates, and lively televised debates.

Czech Republic: Minister proposes foreigners’ vote in local elections | Prague Monitor

Foreigners from the countries outside the EU and with a long-term stay in the Czech Republic may be perhaps granted the right to vote in local elections, Human Rights Minister Jiri Dienstbier (Social Democrats, CSSD) told CTK Friday. Immigrants’ participation in the decision-making process in their place of residence would contribute to their integration, Dienstbier said. He said he wanted to open a debate on the voting right to immigrants and amendments to election laws. At the end of last year, some 441,500 foreigners had a legal stay in the Czech Republic, 238,900 of whom a permanent one.

Hungary: Socialists request written guarantee on election-tabulating software | Politics.hu

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) has asked for a written guarantee that the software which will aggregate the results of next weekend’s election is safe from any outside tampering. According to HVG, party MP Ferenc Baja put forward the request on Wednesday, when the National Elections Office (NVI) gave a closed-door briefing on the functioning of the software. NVI director Ilona Pálffy promised to present the results of an audited test of the system on Tuesday. The portal also noted that the NVI had planned to hold a public demonstration of the software the previous Friday, which apparently failed to take place. Members of the opposition have repeatedly voiced concerns in recent weeks about the software, pointing out that under previous Socialist-Liberal (MSZP-SZDSZ) governments the was in place and subject to public demonstrations 90 days before elections.

Indonesia: Overseas-vote counting will take place on Election Day | The Jakarta Post

Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) head Wahid Supriyadi has confirmed that ballots cast by registered Indonesian voters living overseas will be counted on April 9 concurrently with the legislative election in Indonesia. “The counting of votes cast for the legislative election at overseas polling stations will be carried out at PPLN offices in those countries at the same time as the votes are being counted in polling stations in Indonesia,” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday, as quoted by Antara news agency. As of Monday, voting for the legislative election had taken place in five countries: Brazil, Chile, China, Denmark and Hong Kong. Votes were cast at six PPLN offices in Beijing, Brazil, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Santiago and Shanghai.

Editorials: The Turkish Ballot-Box Revolt That Wasn’t | Sohrab Ahmari/Wall Street Journal

The winding streets and alleys that surround Istanbul’s Taksim Square are lined with designer-clothing stores and fashionable nightclubs and bars. The area is popular with the city’s college students and young professionals, and although a high-stakes municipal vote loomed the next day, on Saturday night it was still teeming with Turkish men in tight jeans and young women in dangerously high heels. My guide to this scene was Onur Dedeoglu, a 27-year-old information-systems manager and Istanbul native whom I’d met earlier that day at an election rally for the Republican People’s Party. Known as CHP, it is the main group opposed to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist and increasingly authoritarian government. You could call them the Gezi generation: It was these young people who last summer took to the streets to protest the government’s plan to raze Gezi, a park near Taksim Square, to make way for a commercial development. The protest movement politically awakened the Gezi generation, and on Sunday they would be joining the estimated 2.5 million young Turks voting for the first time—in local elections across the country that were widely considered a test of strength for the movement and for Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

Ukraine: Electoral hopes ride on nation’s ‘Willy Wonka’ | New York Times

After a leading contender dropped out of Ukraine’s presidential race Saturday, the hopes of many Ukrainians and their Western supporters are now on a man known as the Willy Wonka of Ukraine, the billionaire owner of a chocolate-candy company. Petro Olekseyevich Poroshenko, 48, was the highest-profile Ukrainian industrialist to support the protests that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych last month, and he has for several weeks led in polls for the May 25 presidential election. Known as a centrist who had previously worked for both pro-Western and pro-Russian governments, he became a strong advocate of integration with Europe after Russia banned imports of his chocolate. On Saturday, the candidate who had been running second in polls, the former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, withdrew from the race, throwing his support behind Poroshenko and solidifying his lead.