Algeria: Elections look good abroad, bad at home | Associated Press

Algeria overturned the Arab Spring’s revolutionary narrative with elections that bolstered the longtime ruling party and dashed Islamists’ hopes of gaining power. The vote did something else, too: It burnished Algeria’s democratic image with Western allies who rely on it to fight terrorism and supply natural gas. Few people turned out to vote in last week’s elections, and the result did little to boost Algerian rulers’ legitimacy at home. But analysts say Algeria needed to hold elections to show it was at least somewhat democratic in the midst of a region-wide push for greater freedoms. “Algeria has satisfactory relations with Washington and Paris,” said Hugh Roberts, an expert on the country at Boston’s Tufts University. “It needs to do well enough (with reform) not to embarrass its Western partners, and that’s what it’s done.”

Lesotho: Keep calm and carry on voting – Lesotho’s elections look unusually competitive. That could spell trouble | The Economist

With barely a week to go before parliamentary elections in Lesotho on May 26th, there is no sign in the bustling capital of Maseru of the usual campaign paraphernalia: no posters, no cars emblazoned with party colours, no loudspeakers blaring political slogans, nothing to suggest that this mountain kingdom, surrounded by South Africa, was in the throes of its most hotly contested poll since independence from Britain nearly 50 years ago. This does not mean the Basotho, Lesotho’s 2m inhabitants, are unengaged. But the radio and party rallies are their preferred method of campaigning. Any of the country’s three main parties could win. The closeness of the race has people worried. Elections in Lesotho are generally deemed fair, but they have often been followed by violence. In 1998 Pakalitha Mosisili, leader of the newly elected Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), had to ask the Southern African Development Community, a 15-member regional club which includes Lesotho, to send in troops to end months of rioting, looting, burning and killing. Many fear that could happen again.

Algeria: Islamists fall to government party in election | KFVS12

Islamists suffered a surprising defeat in Algeria’s parliamentary elections, bucking a trend that saw them gain power across North Africa after Arab Spring uprisings. The three party Islamist “Green Alliance” claimed Friday the results were rigged to keep them out of power in a country that has experienced decades of violence between radical Islamist groups and security forces. The Green Alliance was widely expected to do well, but instead it was the pro-government National Liberation Front that has ruled the country for much of its history since independence from France that dominated the election. The FLN, as it is known by its French initials, took 220 seats out of 462, while a sister party, also packed with government figures, took another 68 seats, giving the two a comfortable majority. The Islamist alliance, which took just 48 seats, less than in the last election, said the results differed dramatically what their election observers had witnessed in polling stations.

Algeria: After improved turnout, Algeria awaits election results | DW.DE

Results of parliamentary elections in Algeria are expected Friday afternoon, after authorities announced better-than-expected turnout in the ballot. Still, fewer than half the potential voters made their voices heard. The government in Algiers reported relatively high turnout in parliamentary elections late on Thursday, a surprise after a campaign that appeared to be marred by voter mistrust and disinterest. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had billed the ballot as a piecemeal version of the rapid changes taking place in several regional neighbors, referring to it as an “Algerian Spring.” Election observers brought in by Bouteflika reported only minor negative incidents on voting day, while the government was able to announce greater voter interest than initially expected.

Algeria: Elections being called fairest in 2 decades, but little enthusiasm from voters | The Washington Post

As parliamentary elections unfolded across Algeria on Thursday, voting was light for much of day in the capital, despite these contests being billed the freest in 20 years. A coalition of Islamist parties is hoping to replicate the election successes of other Islamists across North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings of 2011, but they face stiff competition from two government parties with deeply entrenched networks. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika spent the past several months urging Algerians to come out and vote, alternating promises of bold new reforms after elections with warnings that foreign powers might invade Algeria if there is a low turnout. No party is expected to dominate the parliament, though the real question will be if there is a substantial turnout. Just hours before the polls closed, the government put the participation rate at 35 percent, suggesting it will be more than in 2007, but not by much.

Armenia: Armenians see election bringing stability at most | Reuters

Gurgen Badasyan has struggled to live on his Armenian state pension for years and holds out little hope that a parliamentary election on Sunday will improve his life in the mountainous South Caucasus state. The government raised his monthly teacher’s pension in January by a few dollars, to $82 from $75, but Badasyan says it is still almost impossible to get by. “If not for my son and my daughter, I would not survive,” the 68-year-old said, sipping his drink in a cafe in the landlocked former Soviet republic’s busy capital, Yerevan. Like many other Armenians, the most Badasyan is hoping for is a calm election that will reinforce stability in the tiny country of 3.3 million squeezed between Iran and Turkey. Above all he wants no repeat of the fraud and violence that marred a presidential election in 2008, when eight protesters and two police were killed in clashes. “My life will be the same after the election, but I don’t want to see blood and fighting in the street again,” he said.

Iran: Second round of parliamentary elections to be held in Iran | AFP

Iran will hold a second round of parliamentary elections on Friday to decide 65 seats still outstanding in its 290-member legislature following a March 2 first round. Conservative MPs of various stripes easily dominated in the first round, meaning the parliament’s political stance is unlikely to change significantly from the previous legislature. But with half of them new faces, it will take until after the inauguration of the next parliament, at the end of this month, to see how that conservative force is configured.

Greece: Protest by Greek Public Servants to Hamper May 6 polls | CRI

With six days to go before the snap general elections, Greek labor unions called local administration employees on Monday to join a week-long anti-austerity protest, threatening to short circuit the polls. Greece has reduced election spending for the upcoming contest by about 25 percent compared to the previous parliamentary elections held on October 2009, in the context of efforts to cut down on public expenses to counter an alarming debt crisis, according to Greek Interior Minister Tassos Giannitsis. It is estimated that Sunday’s ballots will cost the Greek state approximately 60 million euros (79.38 million U.S. dollars).

Afghanistan: Vote law change planned ‘to fight fraud’ | AFP

Afghanistan’s election commission has drafted proposed changes to the country’s election law in a bid to prevent fraud in future parliamentary votes, an official said Sunday. Afghanistan’s 2009 presidential election and the parliamentary election held a year later were both characterised by widespread electoral fraud. “We have used the previous election experiences to prepare the new draft to improve future elections,” Independent Election Commission spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told AFP. “In the new draft around 50 percent of the electoral law will be changed.”

Algeria: Abstaining Algerian voters warned: God will punish you | Reuters

A prominent Muslim cleric in Algeria has issued a religious decree saying God will punish anyone who does not vote in a May 10 parliamentary election, a warning aimed at the large numbers planning to abstain from a vote they view as irrelevant. Algeria’s authorities, under pressure to reform after last year’s “Arab Spring” revolts in neighbouring countries, say the vote will be more free and transparent than ever before. This though is met with scepticism by many ordinary Algerians. Sheikh Chemseddine Bouroubi, a well-known imam who follows a mainstream Algerian school of Islam, said people should vote to prevent foreign powers – who he said included Zionists – from fomenting a violent revolution in Algeria. “Algerians must vote because it is about Algeria’s stability, and it is about preserving our country from any foreign interference,” the imam told Reuters on Wednesday in a telephone interview. Allah will punish those who do not vote… Voting is a religious obligation,” said the cleric, who runs a charity organisation in the capital Algiers.

France: Elections 2012: ‘It’s All About Emotion’ | Huffington Post

Like Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy swept to power on a wave of hope for change. Sarkozy’s wave crashed on the global financial crisis and his own failings. On Sunday, the French leader faces a tough fight against nine challengers in presidential elections awash in fear and anger. This has been a race of negative emotion and nostalgia for a more protected past: One of the world’s top tourist destinations and biggest economies, France is feeling down about its debts, its immigrants, its stagnant paychecks, and above all its future. To voters, the conservative Sarkozy gets much of the blame. While he’s likely to make it past Sunday’s first-round voting and into the decisive second round May 6, polls show his support waning. They predict another man will trounce Sarkozy in the runoff and take over the Elysee Palace: Socialist Francois Hollande.

Editorials: How An Election In Greece Could Cause Europe To Crumble | Yannis Palaiologos/The New Republic

Anyone anxiously waiting for the European Union’s death knell could do worse than circle May 6 on his calendar. That’s when Greece, a nation brought to its knees by an unprecedented economic crisis, is scheduled to hold what promises to be a turbulent parliamentary election. It’s an open question whether Europe’s fragile political balance—and Greece’s tenuous hold on membership in the Eurozone—will survive the subsequent aftershocks. What’s already clear is that life in Greece will never quite be the same. To gauge the extent of the tumult engulfing Greek politics, consider this: Since 1981, when the socialist party PASOK first won power, its combined share of the vote in national elections with the conservative Nea Demokratia, its main rival, has never fallen below 77 percent, and it often exceeded 85 percent. Recent polls for the coming contest give the two parties a joint percentage that lies between 33 and 40 percent. After the last general election, in October 2009, the two parties controlled between them 251 out of the 300 seats in parliament. Now, if the polls are to be believed, they may struggle to get to the 151 seats needed to form a viable coalition government.

South Korea: High squid prices test South Korea’s politicians | Financial Times

As he sells his squid at the Jagalchi fish market in the southern port of Busan, Chang Ho-bin is happy to explain why he will be voting against South Korea’s ruling party in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections. The 33-year-old fishmonger says the government has promoted policies that have helped big companies such as Samsung but driven up living costs for ordinary consumers who cannot afford to buy his squid, which costs Won45,000 ($40) a box, more than double its price from two years ago. “President Lee Myung-bak and the ruling conservatives did not manage the economy properly,” he grumbles as a woman nearby returns an escaping red octopus to its bucket. “They supported big conglomerates but forgot small business. Prices have got too high for people on lower incomes.”

South Korea: Twitter generation may give liberals upset win | euronews

South Korea’s liberal opposition, bolstered by the under-40s and power of social media, could spring a surprise win in this week’s parliamentary elections despite opinion polls that show it tied with the ruling conservatives. Experts say traditional pollsters base their projections on owners of fixed telephone lines, whereas people in their 20s and 30s, who form 37 percent of the voting population in the world’s most wired country, rarely use them. The young, more likely to carry a Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPhone in their pockets, are mostly liberal and their views are expressed and spread online, often by their smartphones.

South Korea: North Korean refugee stands for parliament in the South | Reuters

By the time Pyongyang’s rubber stamp parliament meets on April 13 to anoint Kim Jong-un as the third of his line to rule the impoverished state, 53-year old Cho Myung-chul will likely have become the first North Korean to win a free election. The rub is that Cho, once part of North Korea’s elite who defected in 1994 during the 17-year rule of Kim Jong-il, is standing in parliamentary elections in South Korea April 11 – the first defector to do so. “When I first came to Seoul I was filled with rage and pure hatred for Kim Jong-il’s government,” Cho told Reuters in a cafe in the heart of Seoul’s bustling commercial centre. Cho studied at and later joined the faculty of Kim Il Sung University, named after the founder of North Korea and reserved for regime loyalists.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Georgia says Russian military exercise interferes with election | Democracy & Freedom Watch

Georgia once more expresses concern about a military exercise Russia plans to conduct on Georgia’s occupied territories. Russia regularly holds exercises in the North Caucasus, but this year’s Kavkaz 2012 will for the first time include Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway republics currently occupied by Russia. Georgia has informed international organizations about the plans, and considers it a source of concern that the exercise is planned for September, just one month before the parliamentary elections in Georgia. “It won’t be coincidental if our neighbor decides to start a large military exercise in the second part of September, a few days before the election. Aside from this, it will use all possible means to discredit these elections, frighten Georgians through the use of force on one hand, and on the other hand buy Georgian voters by the money flow from that country,” Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili said while meeting with a delegation from the European People’s Party.

Syria: Syrian Parliament Calls on Assad to Postpone Elections | RIA Novosti

The Syrian parliament, the People’s Assembly, appealed on Monday to President Bashar al-Assad to postpone parliamentary elections set for May 7, Syrian official SANA news agency said. The elections were announced under a new constitution passed last month. The Syrian opposition said the vote would be rigged and signaled that it would boycott the poll. “The Assembly appealed to the President of the Republic to consider delaying the elections so that the comprehensive reforms are consolidated, waiting for the outcome of the comprehensive national dialogue and empowering the licensed parties in light of the new parties law,” SANA said.

Iran: Election of Kurdish MPs in Iran Raises Questions | Rudaw

Kurdish candidates in the western Iranian provinces of Urumiya and Naghada secured most of the votes in the parliamentary elections held earlier this month. This came despite some Kurdish candidates boycotting the elections and Kurdish dissident groups condemning them. Rostam Jahangiri, a politburo member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (KDPI), believes Iranian authorities deliberately let the Kurdish candidates win the elections in those areas. “Most of the Kurds in Urumiya boycotted the elections, but the Iranian authorities changed the results, allowing the Kurdish nominees to win,” he told Rudaw.

Algeria: Islamist alliance may boycott parliamentary elections | People’s Daily

An Algerian Islamist alliance said on Sunday that it would boycott the upcoming parliamentary elections should there be evidence of fraud, the official APS news agency reported. At a press conference, Hamlaoui Akkouchi, chief of the member party El-Islah (Reform), said The Green Algeria Alliance will withdraw from the elections, slated for May 10, if fraud is found to have occurred.

Iran: Parliamentary run-off election set for May 4 | Tehran Times

Iran’s run-off parliamentary election will be held on May 4, an official at the election headquarters of the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday. The second round of the ninth Majlis election will be held in Tehran and 32 other constituencies on May 4, Hassan Ali Nouri told the Persian service of ISNA. Two hundred and twenty five parliamentary seats were decided in the first round of the parliamentary election on March 2, and a run-off election will be held to decide the remaining 65 seats.

Iran: Iran to hold run-off parliamentary election on May 4 | Tehran Times

Iran’s run-off parliamentary election will be held on May 4, an official at the election headquarters of the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday. The second round of the ninth Majlis election will be held in Tehran and 32 other constituencies on May 4, Hassan Ali Nouri told the Persian service of ISNA. Two hundred and twenty five parliamentary seats were decided in the first round of the parliamentary election on March 2, and a run-off election will be held to decide the remaining 65 seats.

Algeria: Islamist Parties in pole position in Algerian parliamentary elections | Newstime Africa

More than 30 political parties and around 100 independent lists with a total of more than 10,000 candidates will compete for the 462 seats in the National People’s Assembly. As the Algerian Parliament that comes out of next legislative elections in May 10 will have 73 additional seats, passing from today’s 389 to 462, what is new in the Algerian political landscape ,it is considered to be a harbinger to constituent assembly demanded by opposition parties. The Algerian government which explains the increasing in number of Parliament’s seats by the will to reinforce women’s presence in parliament is far of being credible among the civil society for its way of ruling the country. This may lead to the possibility of Islamist election victory as was the case in 1991. Concern among some politicians and political experts over the capacity of Islamists to grab the majority of seats in the next assembly are currently mounting in Algeria that could seemingly be contaminated by the Tunisian and Egyptian syndrome. Following in  the footsteps of their fellow Islamists,  in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, three Algerian Islamist parties, the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP),  El Islah  and Ennahda, decided to officially form a new coalition called “Alliance of  green Algeria.”

Syria: Assad sets parliamentary poll date | Al Jazeera

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has issued a decree stating that parliamentary elections will be held on May 7, even as Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, awaited a response from Damascus on “concrete proposals” he put forward to end the conflict raging in the country. Assad’s move on Tuesday was part of a raft of reforms that he had unveiled to calm a year-long uprising against his rule. His reforms have, however, failed to quell the anti-government protests and not eased in any way the mounting pressure on him to quit. It was unclear whether parliamentary elections were also part of the six-point peace plan presented by Annan during his recent visit to the country.

Iran: U.N. questions Iranian elections | UPI.com

There are “serious concerns” about how the Iranian government vetted the candidates for recent parliamentary elections, a U.N. rights official said. Supporters of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gained the upper hand in March 4 parliamentary elections, the first election since the divisive 2009 presidential contest. Khamenei had said Iran would be governed better by a parliamentary system.

Slovakia: Left emerges triumphant from the ashes of the right | guardian.co.uk

There was a startling life-imitates-politics moment during Saturday’s parliamentary elections in Slovakia, when the Krásna Hôrka castle, a national monument, burned to a smoking ruin. With the centre-right government also in flames, social networks quivered with a horrified question: how bad could this get? For the right wing – historically bad. For the first time in its 18-year history, Slovakia will be ruled by a single party, the social-democratic Smer (Direction) led by lawyer Robert Fico. With 44% of the vote, Fico captured 83 of 150 seats, and is now picking ministers ahead of a swift transfer of power. As impressive as the left’s victory was, Fico arguably had little to do with it. Last autumn, the four government parties quarrelled over the euro bailout scheme, and then petulantly refused to make up. The result was early elections, less than two years after the coalition took office, and an electorate fed up with such arrant folly. In rural countries, let it be said, rightwing governments should consider themselves lucky.

Georgia (Sakartvelo): Abkhazia election: Breakaway Georgia region votes | BBC News

Parliamentary elections are being held in the separatist territory of Abkhazia, which broke away from Georgia in a bloody war in the 1990s. Today there is a fragile ceasefire between Abkhazia and Georgia but some worry that signs of instability are growing in the region again. A burning car and a road strewn with machine guns and cartridges – that was the scene a few weeks ago, after Abkhazia’s President Alexander Ankvab was attacked in an ambush. He was on his way to work when a bomb blew up his car and men hidden behind the trees started firing with machine-guns. The president survived but his two bodyguards were killed. Mr Ankvab, who became president in August, says his main aim is to fight corruption. But in this region, that can be a risky undertaking.

Iran: Iran claims high turnout in elections – but there’s no way to verify | guardian.co.uk

High turnout was everything that mattered for the Iranian leaders in parliamentary election on Friday. They were desperate to portray a country united against western pressure, predicted high turnout and announced more than 64% voted in the election, higher than 57% parliamentary vote in 2008. In absence of independent observers and opinion polls, it is impossible to say whether the official figures are correct. The opposition had largely boycotted the vote and was quick to find contradictory signs. They pointed to a gaffe made on live TV by Seyed Solat Mortazavi, the head of election centre at the interior ministry. On state television, Mortazavi quoted the interior minister, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, as saying that the turnout was almost 34%, but instantly corrected to 64%. The other blunder came from the Mehr news agency, which had reported 373,000 people eligible for voting in the province of Ilam. The same agency reported 380,000 had voted there. Mehr later amended the figure on its website to 280,000.

Iran: Khamenei loyalists trounce Ahmadinejad in Iran election | JPost

Loyalists of Iran’s paramount clerical leader have won over 75 percent of seats in parliamentary elections, a near-complete count showed, largely reducing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a lame duck in a contest between conservative hardline factions. The outcome of Friday’s vote, largely shunned by reformists whose leaders are under house arrest, will have no major impact on Iran’s foreign policy including its nuclear dispute with the West. But it will give Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s camp a significant edge in the 2013 presidential election. The widespread defeat of Ahmadinejad’s supporters was likely to erode the authority of the president, under fire from Khamenei’s allies for challenging the utmost authority of the supreme leader in Iran’s multi-layered ruling hierarchy.

Iran: Second round needed in Iran election | FT.com

Early results of Friday’s parliamentary elections in Iran show fundamentalists critical of president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad in the lead. Analysts, however, are cautious in calling this a major defeat for Iran’s president, and stress his political weight in the next 290-seat parliament remains unclear. In more than 30 constituencies, including the capital Tehran, some candidates failed to attract more than 25 per cent of the vote, the minimum needed to win a race. Second-round elections will be held for each of these seats.

Iran: Iran election results show Ahmadinejad rivals making gains | The National

Conservative rivals of Iran’s hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were leading the race for seats in parliament, according to initial results yesterday from Friday’s elections that the reformist movement shunned as a sham. The trend, if confirmed by final official results, will leave the president facing a more hostile house during his remaining 18 months in office. Analysts had predicted a strong showing by Mr Ahmadinejad’s hardline opponents. They are loyal to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been locked in a power struggle with the unruly president he once championed. Mr Ahmadinejad had hoped a robust performance by his candidates would give him a political lifeline and a say in who succeeds him in the presidential election next year when his second term ends.