Australia: Minority government confirmed as critical by-election result announced | Reuters

Australia’s conservative government has lost its parliamentary majority after an independent candidate was on Monday confirmed the winner in a critical by-election. Voters in the wealthy seaside constituency of Wentworth, in Sydney’s east, went to the polls on Oct 20 to chose a replacement for former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who quit politics in August after he was ousted by his own party. Widespread voter anger at Turnbull’s demise saw the ruling Liberal party hemorrhage votes, though the race narrowed to come down to a several thousand postal votes.

Malawi: Zambia Offers Malawi a Lesson to Adopt 50-Plus-1 Electoral System – ‘To Avoid Govt Elected By Minority’ | allAfrica.com

Malawi goes to national polls in three years time but debate for change from the current first-past-the-post and adopts a 50 per cent plus one law to ensure that the winner of presidential elections enjoyed majority support is continuing to heighten as it gets closer with Zambia polls providing good lesson. Malawi’s interfaith organization, Public Affairs Committee (PAC) have recognised that 50 per cent plus one rule guarantees the leader acceptable, popular, majoritarian mandate. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leader Peter Mutharika was declared the winner of Malawi’s May 20, 2014 presidential election after defeating Joyce Banda. Mutharika, the brother of former president Bingu wa Mutharika, took 36.4 percent of the votes cast, Lazarus Chakwera of MCP garnered 27.8 percent of the vote and Banda’s 20.2 percent.

Australia: Election result still unknown but Coalition not predicted to win majority | The Guardian

The outcome of the federal election is still unknown despite electoral officials spending the day sifting and counting postal votes. The numbers were firming hourly on Tuesday evening, with different analysts projecting slightly different results, but the Coalition can now claim 68 seats in the House of Representatives, with the chance of picking up at least another four seats. The Coalition needs 76 seats to claim an outright majority. By 8pm on Tuesday, no analyst was projecting that to happen yet. It means a minority government is a strong possibility.