Bulgaria: Election Could Send Eight Parties to Parliament | Wall Street Journal

Bulgaria’s incoming parliament looked set to contain a record eight political parties late Sunday night after voting booths closed, further fragmenting the country’s disparate political scene and creating hurdles to the formation of a coalition government. The established right-leaning party, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, or GERB, took about one-third of all votes cast, according to preliminary results of the parliamentary election, falling short of securing an outright majority as several new parties passed the 4% threshold to move into parliament. GERB’s results were more than that of the two nearest parties combined. The Bulgarian Socialist Party, which led the coalition government from May 2013 till this August, took about 15.5% of the vote. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms, or DPS, a party comprised mostly of Bulgarians of Turkish ethnicity that was a junior member in the previous coalition, won some 15% of the vote. If eight political parties do enter the incoming parliament, it would be an all-time high.

Russia: Local elections: a sign of things to come in Russia? | The Washington Post

On Sept. 14, Russia held a spate of local elections. Thirty of 85 Russian regions held gubernatorial elections, residents of Crimea elected a new regional legislature, and Muscovites voted in municipal elections. These elections are interesting because they provide a bellwether for current protest sentiment levels and perhaps even an early preview of parliamentary elections that are due to take place in 2016. Furthermore, this is also the first time that Crimea has voted as part of Russia since being annexed in March. Gubernatorial elections were reinstated in 2012 as a major concession to a mass protest movement that for a time sent tremors through Russia’s political establishment in 2011-2012 and seemed to threaten the very stability of Vladimir Putin’s regime. The current round of elections confirms once again that the level of protest sentiment remains low across Russia and that the federal government is able to keep a firm lid on inter-elite conflict in the provinces, which back in the 1990s threatened the country’s territorial integrity. First, local elections failed to generate much public interest or discussion even in the country’s capital where many residents pay close attention to politics. Turnout was low—rarely exceeding 40 percent—and candidates nominated by the ruling United Russia party won in 28 of the 30 provinces that held gubernatorial elections (an independent won in Kirov oblast and a Communist in Orlov). Notably, incumbents won in all 30 provinces, and all of them won in the first round with levels of voter support ranging from 50.6 percent in Altai to Soviet-style 91.3 percent in Samara oblast. In other words, government candidates ran almost unopposed; all of them had been endorsed by president Putin personally shortly in the run up to the election.

Sweden: Social Democrat Leader Stefan Lofven Defeats Incumbent Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt | Wall Street Journal

Sweden’s Social Democrat Leader Stefan Lofven defeated incumbent Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in parliamentary elections on Sunday, signaling the return of a left-leaning government after eight years in opposition. The shift reflected concerns among the Swedish electorate that Mr. Reinfeldt’s pro-market policies have chipped away at the country’s cherished welfare state. Mr. Reinfeldt said he would resign as prime minister on Monday and as leader of his party by spring. Mr. Lofven, though, still faces tough negotiations with left-leaning allies over forming a coalition government after failing to secure an absolute majority. With nearly all votes counted, results from Sweden’s election authority showed the Social Democrats won 31.1% of the vote, largely unchanged from the last election in 2010, while Mr. Reinfeldt’s Moderate Party slumped to 23.2%, from 30.1% at the last election. Though the two parties won nearly the same amount of votes four years ago, Mr. Reinfeldt’s Moderates were then able to cobble together a larger center-right alliance of parties.

Egypt: Calls to delay parliamentary polls divide political figures | Ahram Online

A lawsuit asking to delay Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections has left the country’s political forces taken aback amid a scramble to form alliances before the expected polls. The suit – filed by former independent MP and businessman Hamdy El-Fakharany with Cairo’s Administrative Justice Court – argues that the polls, scheduled for later this year, must be delayed for a year or even more. “This one year delay is necessary until security forces are strong enough to safeguard candidates and election campaigns against any possible terrorist attacks,” said El-Fakharany’s lawsuit, adding that “the group of the Muslim Brotherhood … could exploit the polls to attack its arch rivals – including the candidates of political secular forces, non-Islamist independents and even the ultraconservative Nour Party – with the objective of dragging the country into a Syrian-style civil war.” In an interview with a private television channel last week, El-Fakharany said that “the number of candidates in the coming parliamentary polls could surge to as high as 60,000 and in which case the Muslim Brotherhood could exploit election campaigns and tours to explode bombs, mount acts of terrorism and sabotage and kill its political opponents.”

Ukraine: Election commission: Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to vote in parliamentary elections | Kyiv Post

Mykhaylo Okhendovsky, head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, says it’s important to provide an opportunity to vote for Ukrainian citizens living in Crimea, as well as in war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, during the Oct. 26 parliamentary election. These troubled regions are home to 20 percent of Ukraine’s 45 million people. “These elections are the first of its kind in our history,” Okhendovsky said during an Aug. 26 news briefing. “Previous early elections happened in 2007 under a proportional system, whereas currently we have a mixed system whereby 225 lawmakers will be elected according to the party lists and another 213 MPs – from their constituencies. Once the president signs a decree that officially dissolves the parliament, there will be 60 days for the election campaign.”  Ukraine used to have 225 deputies from the constituencies, but since Crimea and Sevastopol had as many as 12, the figure has been changed. However, this year’s elections will not happen there due to the peculiar status of the region outlined in the law “on the temporarily occupied territories” that came into effect on May 14.

Tunisia: Election date spells end for transition | Associated Press

Tunisia’s assembly on Wednesday set parliamentary and presidential elections for October and November of this year to complete the transition to democracy after its 2011 revolution. The assembly decided that the vote for the new parliament will be on Oct. 26 and the vote for a new president on Nov. 23. If no candidate for president wins a majority, there will be a runoff on Dec. 28. It means the newly chosen electoral commission has just four months to organize the parliamentary elections and update the electoral rolls to register the 3 million eligible voters that didn’t participate in the October 2011 elections for the interim assembly. Tunisia kicked off the region-wide pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring by overthrowing its dictator in January 2011.

Tunisia: Autumn elections eyed to anchor democracy | Reuters

Tunisia’s election authority has proposed a parliamentary vote on Oct. 26 and the first round of presidential polls a month later, marking the final step towards full democracy in the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Tunisia’s often turbulent political transition began after the popular revolt that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired revolutions across the region. The North African state has been run of late by aukbig caretaker government that saw through the adoption of a new constitution lauded as a model of democratic evolution in an unstable region.

Libya: U.N. chief urges Libya to hold June 25 elections as planned | Reuters

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged Libya to stick to its plan to hold parliamentary elections on June 25 and defended the United Nations’ goal of organizing a meeting to promote reconciliation among the North African country’s competing factions. “The secretary-general continues to follow closely the situation in Libya and stresses the importance of the peaceful and timely holding of elections on 25 June,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters. “He also commends UNSMIL’s (U.N. Support Mission in Libya) work in the areas of good offices and facilitation of dialogue, which it carries out with impartiality and openness to all national parties concerned,” he added.

Iraq: Premier Leads Vote, Faces Stalemate | Wall Street Journal

A coalition led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won the most seats in the country’s first parliamentary elections since U.S. troops left in 2011, setting the stage for a lengthy period of political wrangling amid the worst violence since the civil war. Mr. Maliki’s State of Law coalition won 92 out of 328 parliamentary seats in the elections held in late April, three more seats than it won in 2010, the Iraqi High Election Commission said Monday, putting the Iraqi leader in a strong position to secure a third term. The result left many Iraqis wondering whether another four years under Mr. Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, would deepen the sectarian rancor and extend a political stalemate that has left the government adrift. Western diplomats and analysts say that further instability would also add to the region’s political maelstrom; Syria’s civil war has spilled over into Iraq.

South Africa: Voting ends, counting starts | Associated Press

Polling stations closed Wednesday evening in elections in South Africa that are expected to see the ruling African National Congress (ANC) return to power despite a vigorous challenge from opposition parties seeking to capitalize on discontent with corruption and economic inequality. Voting in the fifth all-race polls in South Africa since the end of white minority rule in 1994 wrapped up at 9 p.m. and South Africa’s election commission said the first results were expected in the following hours. Officials will declare final results no earlier than Saturday, allowing time to address any objections to the process. The election commission said most voting went smoothly. About 25 million South Africans, roughly half the population, registered to vote in the parliamentary elections that will also determine the president. Some 22,000 voting stations opened at schools, places of worship, tribal authority sites and hospitals, and several dozen vehicles serving as mobile voting stations visited remote areas.

Editorials: India’s protracted election: Speed it up | The Economist

The sixth phase of India’s protracted general election took place on April 24th. Voters trooped to polling stations in 117 constituencies in various states including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. As with other rounds there was much to cheer: first-time voters, enthusiasm in cities and villages, determination to take part despite the heat. Momentum seems to be with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Narendra Modi. A late surge of support for the BJP is reported even in places—West Bengal, Odisha—where the party has traditionally not done well. If true, its prospects of forming the next government look stronger by the day. Three more rounds of voting are due, the last on May 12th, before results are published on May 16th. It constitutes a marathon election. The voting period is eight days longer than last time, in 2009. Count in all the official campaigning and India will have been busy with its general election for a whopping 72 days. The local devotion to voting looks more remarkable with each successive election. As the population grows, and so the electorate, the process will presumably get more protracted yet. The next national poll is likely in 2019, by when more days of voting, and further rounds, may be needed to accommodate many more tens of millions of new voters. Are long elections a problem? They can certainly grow tedious, as some rightly point out that other big countries hold elections much quicker. Brazil, Indonesia and America can all get it done in a single day. The European parliamentary elections next month, across the whole of the European Union, will wrap up within four days. One of the reasons Thailand’s recent general election was annulled was because of a failure to abide by its constitution and hold it in a single day.

Editorials: Iraqi elections: all talk, no walk | Al-Monitor

With the launch earlier this month of campaigns for the April 30 parliamentary elections, Iraq is back to debating the fact that none of the political blocs has put forward an electoral program or platform. The blocs, misunderstanding the concept of a political program, have instead reduced them to vague slogans. The Iraqi political forces competing in the elections justify the absence of real programs by asserting that Iraq remains in transition, so there are real differences over the basis of the political process — such as the Constitution, government formation, the decision-making process and the relationship between the central government and the provinces and the regions. They claim that this reality forces them to take positions on these particular issues, rather than presenting political programs. For example, some campaigns are sloganeering on amending the Constitution, while others’ slogans invoke government formation by the political majority, decentralization and the war on terror.

Maldives: Poll marred by Supreme Court verdict, vote buying: monitors | Xinhua

Election monitors observing Maldives parliamentary polls over the weekend have pointed to a ” violation of rules” by the Supreme Court, and noted voting was undermined by vote buying, reports released on Tuesday said. The Maldives parliamentary election was preceded by a controversial Supreme Court verdict that passed prison sentences on the Election Commission chief and his deputy. The verdict also removed them from their positions leaving a virtually headless Elections Commission to head the vote. The European Union (EU) observers and the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) have now released their interim reports.

Germany: Bid to give foreigners the vote fails | The Local

The smallest German state is the first to try to give the nation’s 2.6 million residents who are foreign-born EU citizens a say in regional politics. Generally, non-German EU citizens may vote in city or town municipal elections in any place where they have been living permanently for more than three months.

Iraq: Tensions Percolate Ahead of Iraqi Election | Wall Street Journal

Over the past four years, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has overseen a gridlocked Parliament, contended with renewed sectarian conflict and made a host of political enemies. But when Iraqis go to the polls on April 30 for the first parliamentary elections since U.S. forces left in late 2011, they are expected to reward the 63-year-old Shiite politician with a third four-year stint. Few here expect Mr. Maliki, who has been in office since 2006, to rein in his efforts to dominate the government, repair relations with the Kurds or end his suppression of Iraq’s Sunni minority—a religious group that has grown increasingly ostracized and radicalized. With an eye toward the premier’s re-election, “pretty soon, everyone is going to want to be Maliki’s friend,” said Michael Knights, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who recently visited the country. “Very little that’s happened over the last four years seems to matter” to Iraq’s voting public. With campaigning set to open on April 1, Mr. Maliki has been touting his populist credentials. In a speech last week, he blamed political opponents for difficulties including traffic and horrific violence, pledging to personally address each issue.

Indonesia: Campaigning for Indonesian parliamentary poll begins | ABC

Indonesia has kicked off a three-week campaign for parliamentary elections due on April 9. There are more than 6,600 candidates vying for 560 seats in the House of Representatives and 132 in the Upper House. Another 16,000 hopefuls are competing at the provincial and district levels, making it arguably the world’s largest single-day election process. Recent surveys put the PDI-P ahead with about 20 per cent of the vote, while the Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is struggling and expected to fare badly.

Slovakia: Incumbent Faces Presidential Election Battle – Runoff Vote Set for March 29 | Wall Street Journal

Slovakia’s serving prime minister won the first round of Slovakia’s presidential election Saturday but will have to fight hard ahead of the late-March runoff to persuade enough voters concerned that his ruling left-of-center party is taking too much power. If elected, Robert Fico, 49 years old, and his Smer-Social Democrats would gain control over the presidency, parliament, and government in this small euro-zone country of 5.4 million. No single political party has held all top elected offices in this ex-Communist country formed after a peaceful split of the former Czechoslovak federation in 1993. Mr. Fico won 28% of cast votes, which was well below the expected 35% support indicated by pre-election polls of voters’ preferences.

Serbia: Election Silence: Parties must wrap up campaigns by midnight | B92

Participants in early parliamentary elections in Serbia, to be held on March 16, are under legal obligation to end their campaigns by midnight tonight. This is when “election silence” begins – a period when all election propaganda, public rallies, and publishing of predictions of election results are prohibited. The ban will end on Sunday at 20:00 CET, when polling stations close. During this time, the media are allowed to report about the turnout and where the candidates had voted – but not broadcast any statements they made. The media can also provide information on where and when the citizens can vote.

Iraq: Iraq begins handing out elections ID cards in Baghdad as unrest rages on across country | Associated Press

Iraqi election officials began handing out new, computerized voter identification cards Saturday across the capital as the country prepares for its first nationwide election since the withdrawal of U.S. troops. But the more than $100 million push to modernize voting comes as officials can’t distribute cards in embattled Anbar province, where al-Qaida fighters seized control of parts of two cities, and as militant attacks rage on unabated, killing at least 14 people alone Saturday and wounding nearly two dozen. The new voter cards, which include a computer chip, will allow election officials to check a voter’s identity and try to halt fraud. Several Iraqi political blocs alleged that some people voted multiple times in the last vote in 2010, although the results of the election were not widely disputed.

Hungary: Parliamentary Election Date Set | Wall Street Journal

Hungary will hold parliamentary elections April 6, when the country’s combative Prime Minister Viktor Orban expects to win a second consecutive term in power. The sooner Hungary’s new government is in power, the smoother the country may continue to draw on vital European Union funds, President Janos Ader said in a release, in which he listed the reasons for setting the poll for the earliest date possible under the election law. The election will pit Mr. Orban against Socialist party head Attila Mesterhazy, whose candidacy is pending the undoubted seal of approval from a Socialist party congress Jan. 25. According to Mr. Orban, the election is about whether voters want to preserve the government’s massive utility price cuts in the face of strong objections and lobbying in Brussels by large multinational companies. Mr. Orban would most likely regard an election victory as a validation of his heavy-handed nationalist policy, which caused strains in relations with the EU in his first four-year term.

International: Election Year: More Than 44 Percent Of The World’s Population Will Have The Chance To Vote In 2014 | International Business News

The first democratically held election of this year, in Bangladesh, didn’t go so well. Only 22 percent of the voting-age population cast a vote, a steep decline from the last election’s voter turnout of 87 percent. Animosity between Bangladesh’s two primary political parties reached a peak, and one of the them, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, boycotted the vote as their demand for a nonpartisan government overseer was not met. Voting is under way in the second election of the year — a referendum in Egypt that will approve (or not) a revised constitution proposed by military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, as part of his bid for the presidency.

Bangladesh: U.S. Won’t Observe Bangladesh Vote as Political Violence Spreads | Businessweek

The U.S. expressed disappointment with Bangladesh’s political leaders and joined the European Union in declining to send observers for next month’s election amid growing violence in Asia’s fifth-most populous country. With more than half of the seats in the parliamentary election on Jan. 5 uncontested, Bangladesh’s main political parties should redouble efforts to find a peaceful way to settle their disputes, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement yesterday. The move by the U.S. follows a decision by the European Union last week to refrain from sending observers until conditions allow for a transparent, inclusive and credible election. “The people of Bangladesh deserve the opportunity to elect their national representatives in a climate free of violence and intimidation,” Psaki said. “The nation’s political leadership -– and those who aspire to lead -– must ensure law and order.”

Egypt: Presidency plans parliamentary electoral system with political parties | Egypt Independent

Presidential Constitutional Adviser Ali Awad held a meeting on Thursday with representatives of political groups including Wafd Party, Tamarod movement and National Salvation Front to agree on the new electoral system, according to which upcoming parliamentary elections will be held, ahead of issuing a law by Interim President Adly Mansour, sources said. Sources referred to a partial agreement on the mixed electoral system which allocates 80 percent of the seats to single-winners and 20 percent to the list-based system. The 444 seats will be divided among constituencies like before with two seats at each electoral district for the single-winner. Another 111 seats will be added to the parliament making the total 555 seats. Meanwhile, Ali Awad, the Constitutional Affairs Advisor to the President, denied in a press release that the presidency would approve allocating 80 precent of the seats to individual candidates and 20 precent to candidates’ lists.

India: Election Commission plans introducing downloadable ballot papers for forces | Business Standard

For the first time, lakhs of paramilitary soldiers may be able to download the ballot paper from the Internet, cast their vote and send it by post to the returning officer in the next Lok Sabha elections. At the initiative of the paramilitary forces like BSF and CRPF, the Election Commission is working on such a plan, which would make postal voting much easier for these force personnel who would be deployed in remote parts of the country. “This (downloadable ballot papers) is actually a suggestion, which we are right now looking at seriously for the defence personnel,” Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath said, adding that such a move would reduce the one way travel time of postal ballots during the elections.

Mali: Vote turnout weak following Islamist suicide bombing | AFP

Malians voted on Sunday in the second round of parliamentary elections intended to cap the nation’s return to democracy but overshadowed by the deaths of two UN peacekeepers in an Islamist attack. The polls marked the troubled west African nation’s first steps to recovery after it was upended by a military coup in March last year, finalising a process begun with the election of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August. “This second round establishes the recovery on a foundation of legitimacy in this country. It will give us more strength, more power to say ‘Mali’ and that’s what Mali needs,” Keita said after casting his ballot in the capital Bamako. “What has been done has put us in a position to say Mali everywhere with honour and dignity, without any hang-ups.”

Mali: Votes, Hopes, and Missing Faces | Foreign Policy

Just a few years ago, Timbuktu was still a popular destination for tourists. These days, by contrast, the town has the lugubrious air of many post-conflict zones around the world. White SUVs from the United Nations patrol its streets. Its citizens depend on handouts from international humanitarian organizations. The electricity supply is still spotty. The craftsmen and tour guides who used to live from the tourism trade now wait in vain for customers. The reasons for the decline in the city’s fortunes are all too apparent. In 2011, a Tuareg-dominated separatist group known as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), capitalizing on an influx of weapons from Libyan arsenals after the collapse of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi’s regime, stormed across northern Mali (an area the rebels saw as a Tuareg homeland they called “Azawad”). The poorly equipped and deeply demoralized Malian Army collapsed. The outside world took relatively little notice at first — but then the MNLA’s allies, jihadi groups such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), set out to hijack the rebellion. In Timbuktu, they declared their own brand of sharia rule, amputating the limbs of thieves and stoning alleged adulterers.

Mali: Mali battles voter fatigue ahead of parliamentary polls | eNCA

People in Mali are being urged to cast off election fatigue and vote Sunday in the fourth nationwide polls in less than six months, amid widespread apathy stoked by fears of Islamist violence. The second round of the country’s parliamentary elections comes three weeks after a poorly attended first, and follows two rounds of voting in July and August which saw Ibrahim Boubacar Keita take office as the troubled west African nation’s president. “There is a feeling that after the election of the president of the republic, it was game over. This is a mistake, but that’s how it is,” said Mamadou Samake, a sociologist and lecturer at the University of Bamako, who told AFP that Malians were “tired of going to vote”. Sunday’s polls, completing Mali’s return to democracy, come during an upsurge in violence by Al-Qaeda-linked rebels who stalk the vast northern desert, an ever-present danger to French and African troops who are tasked with providing security alongside the Malian army.

Guinea-Bissau: Elections postponed until next year | Business Standard

Guinea-Bissau said today it was postponing national elections which had been due to take place in nine days until March next year. “The presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on March 16, 2014,” the transitional regime said in a presidential decree, announcing that it would “immediately cancel the elections previously set for November 24, 2013”. The decree said the postponement was agreed by the transitional government, political parties and the electoral commission, but did not specify a reason for the decision. The polls were originally pencilled in for May but in January transitional president Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo said such a short time frame was “technically” impossible.

Hungary: Socialists call for international election observers | Politics.hu

The opposition Socialist Party has called on the government to request the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to send observers to ensure the transparency of Hungary’s general and European Parliamentary elections next spring. Socialist lawmaker Tibor Szanyi said his party suspected that the ruling Fidesz party was “ready to perpetrate election fraud in all 11,000 constituencies nationwide”. Szanyi insisted that at least 1,000 OSCE observers would be needed, one for every 10 polling stations.