High turnout in Egypt, with new Islamist group taking 24%
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Russians appear to be falling out of love with former leader Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and turnout has been high, 62 percent, in Egyptian voting as parts of the country move into runoffs in a complex voting system.
Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has enjoyed almost unrivaled popularity for the past 10 years, but early election results appear to show a change of heart by voters, with the party’s majority in parliament disappearing.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, described by Business Week as “broad-based”, is expected to win the largest number of seats in the first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s long reign of power ended early in 2011. But the conservative, Islamist Salafi Nour party, a newcomer, secured 24 percent of early results, surprising observers with its strong showing. The country now faces runoffs in several voting areas; results from the country’s complex voting system will not be known until January 2012.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Business Week, Guardian, Reuters
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – An uneasy peace lies over Cairo and other parts of Egypt after the Egyptian army Thursday offered a public apology for the deaths that occurred earlier this week when protesters took to the streets. A truce between the two groups appears to be holding. Army leaders made it clear shortly after offering the apology that they do not intend to relinquish power in the short term.
Strong reactions at home and abroad have put pressure on the army after 38 people died. Aljazeera reports that 3,000 have been wounded in the fighting.
Army leaders promised that they will let elections go ahead as scheduled Monday.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Guardian, New York Times
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Organizers of protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in Egypt are calling for a million people to come out on the streets Tuesday 22 November to force military rulers to hand over power no matter what the results of next week’s elections. At least 25 people have died in fighting in the past four days as the protests turned violent. The civilian cabinet of the military rulers resigned late Monday, adding to the confusion. The military have been ruling since overthrowing Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship early in 2011.
Links to other sites: Al Arabiya, Aljazeera, BBC
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Italy’s Prime MinisterSilvio Berlusconi agreed late Tuesday 8 November to step down, but on condition that the parliament pass two key financial reforms. There were signs Wednesday that parliament would play his game, with the leader of the opposition party, Dario Franceschini, saying his party is ready to approve the law by the end of the week. But even this was not enough to contain borrowing costs and calm markets, reports the Financial Timesin the early afternoon: “The sell-off in the Italian bond market spread into equity and currency markets, with the Eurofirst 300 down more than 2 per cent and the euro down 1.5 per cent against the dollar at 1.3627.”
Reuters had written early Wednesday that markets were set to rally on the news of Berlusconi’s departure after some 20 years of colourfully marking Italian politics.
Berlusconi told his own TV station Canale 5 Wednesday that he will not run in 2012, when early elections are held. “I will resign as soon as the law is passed. Since I believe there is no other majority possible, I see elections being held at the beginning of February and I will not be a candidate in them,” reports Xinhuanet. He repeated his determination not to stand again to newspaper La Stampa.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Liberians are going to the poll Tuesday, reportedly quietly, after pre-polling clashes between police and some opposition groups Monday 6 November. Police closed three radio stations 6 November for airing what allAfrica calls “inflammatory material”. AP/Guardian reports that polling numbers are down, but allAfrica says turnout is varying widely from one area to another.
The country is voting in a runoff, following last months’ first round of voting, which major party CDC labelled fraudulent, pulling out of the election shortly before the vote. The CDC remains on the ballot, however, with officials saying it did not withdraw within the deadline. An editorial on Voice of America radio says the CDC is wrong, both about its claims and about pulling out.
The contest is between Winston Tubman and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Aljazeera reporting from Monrovia (see video link)
SPAIN – Spain’s justice minister, José Blanco, says the Basque pro-independence coalition, Amaiur, can participate in next month’s general elections as it has found no evidence of affiliation with terrorist separatist group ETA.
After 43 years, ETA announced last week it was giving up violence as a tool for achieving Basque independence.
Links to: Taiwan news online, Europapress (Spa)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The slight increase that Swiss political observers were forecasting for the strength of the right during Switzerland’s parliamentary elections failed to materialize as voters turned to new parties to strengthen the centre.
The UDC People’s Party and the Greens both lost significant ground to moderate parties with elements of their programs, rejecting the more strident anti-immigrant stance of the UDC and the leftist social focus of the Greens.
The centre’s recent role as a multi-party and therefore flexible and potentially unpredictable key group in the coalition government is stronger and will have an impact on the December election of the new Swiss government.
Background story: GenevaLunch
Guide to Swiss 23 October parliamentary elections
Swiss parliament in session Photo ©Swiss parliament
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss voters are voting Sunday 23 October to elect a new parliament. Headlines, especially outside Switzerland, have tried to build high drama into the voting session, where turnout is expected to be only around 40 to 45 percent, largely because the real drama comes in December, when the government is elected, say Swiss political specialists.
Last week goat mascots for the UDC (People’s Party) were stolen and found, covered in black paint, and much has been made of the colourful incident, abroad, of this plus the likelihood that the rightwing party is likely to gather the largest number of voters ever. The brouhaha over the rise of the right is the result of misperceptions about the UDC party’s true power and role in Swiss politics, says Ioannis Papadopoulos, professor of Swiss and public politics at the University of Lausanne’s Institut d’Etudes Politiques et Internationales.
The party is not more strongly against things such as immigration than it has been in the past, he argues, but it is more vocal and thus it appears to be moving further to the right. “What is happening now is that there is a tri-polar system” with homogeneity on the left and right but a very large and heterogeneous centre, he points out. The right will garner a few more votes in this election, he believes, but what really counts is the size and makeup of the complex, multi-party centre.
“This tripartate system makes it possible to rise above polarization and continues to make it governable,” he says.
GenevaLunch brings you this guide to the elections, which take place every four years, along with some cliché crunching about the often poorly understood political system of this nation famous for its direct democracy.
Who votes and on what
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Post is reminding citizens who vote by mail, 90 percent of them for federal elections, to mail in their ballots on time. Voters can use fast mail (A) up until Thursday 21 October and slower mail (B) until 18 October, observing collection times on mail collection boxes.
Swiss voters elect a new parliament 23 October, a political event that occurs every four years.
Parliament in Bern: Steady influx of foreigners could have impact on Swiss parliamentary elections 23 October
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The number of foreigners from European Union (EU) countries grew by 4 percent between the end of August 2010 and 2011, while other foreigners increased by 0.8 percent.
Foreigners now make up 22.3 percent of the Swiss population, new figures released 10 October by the Swiss Statistical Office show.
The new figure is one of the highest in Europe and is likely to play a role in parliamentary elections 23 October, with the right-wing UDC’s campaign “Stop massive immigration” running parallel to the elections. The issue of how to integrate foreigners and limit the number of immigrants is cropping up in other countries: David Cameron, UK prime minister, announced stiffer rules Monday 10 October, reviving the polemic in Britain.
The total number of resident foreigners in Switzerland 31 August was 1,751,301, with 1.3 million of those from the EU.
The greatest increases came from: Kosovo (+17,864), Germany (+14,395), Portugal (+9,816), France (+4,388) and Great Britain (+2m,365). The Kosovo jump is deceptive, however, since most of these were already in Switzerland but they became Kosovar citizens after the country became independent in February 2008. The shift is visible when the countries were numbers have fallen are counted: Serbia (-19,910), Bosnia-Herzegovinia (-1,079), Croatia (-977), Sri Lanka (-944) and Turkey (-264).
Italians remain the largest group of foreigners resident in Switzerland, followed closely by Germans and Portuguese.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Left in France over the weekend won control of the Senate, putting the brakes on President Sarkozy’s programmes and promising a tough fight for the 2012 presidential campaign. The latest in a series of strikes over economic reform measures comes Tuesday 27 September when teachers’ unions stage a walkout.
Primary school teachers who are striking must announce their participation 48 hours in advance and the rate varies between 20 and 54 percent, according to the unions, reports Le Monde (Fre).
French ministers are meeting Wednesday to review the 2012 budget, which includes cutting 14,000 teaching posts. If the job cuts go through it would bring to 80,000 the number of teachers lost from 2007 to 2012, while the number of students has steadily increased, points out the French daily.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a Sunday night television address to the country’s citizens that he has no intention of stepping aside under pressure from Western nations and the UN, but he promised reforms, including elections in February.
Reuters reports that the reluctance of the Gaza Strip’s Hamas organization, based in Damascus, Syria, to publicly show support for the Syrian government, has led to Iran pulling out its funding, leaving Hamas with a cash shortage. Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, counts on a mix of foreign aid and taxes collected in the Gaza Strip, but revenues from taxes have been “inconsistent” according to the news agency.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Silvio Berlusconi’s stronghold of Milan, his hometown, as well as Naples, appear to have elected leftist mayors in local elections, with a clear swing away from the centre-right that has been key to Berlusconi’s coalition government, in voting Sunday 29 May.
The first round of voting two weeks ago made it clear that the two cities might be lost to the prime minister, but Sunday’s voting, with the total not yet confirmed, appears to back this. Political analysts in Italy are scurrying to assess what this means for the leader and his party, but newspapers in neighbouring Italy are already focusing on Berlusconi’s trial for sex with an under-age prostitute, which resumes Tuesday 31 May.
Links to other sites: Corriere della Sera, CNN, Guardian,
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe appeared intent early in 2011 on holding elections later in the year, in a bid to end an unhappy coalition with Morgan Tsvangerai, but a number of factors are reported to be slowing down his drive, Zimbabwe news sites are reporting 28 April. His wife Grace’s poor health and possibly his own failing health, growing pressure from neighbouring countries to resolve Zimbabwe’s political situation, and splits within his Zanu PF party are cutting into the 87-year-old leader’s plans. But the oddest blow of all might be that thrown by the country’s finance minister, Tendai Biti, who says Zimbabwe can’t afford the $400,000 needed to hold a general election, with a deficit of $150 million and all revenue targets for the year missed, to date.
Links to other sites: allAfrica/The Standard, allAfrica/Daily Nation
The United Nations special envoy to Cote d’Ivoire, YJ Choi, says that Laurent Gbagbo has agreed to surrender and that reports about attacks on the presidential palace in Cote d’Ivoire are not true. Choi says, “All the generals who are fighting for Gbagbo have deserted him, it is over. There is no army, there is no fighting.”
Reports continue to come in that there is still fighting throughout the country, and the possibility of a peaceful transition of power hangs in the balance Tuesday night 5 April.
Links to other sites: allAfrica/Radio France International, Reuters background on Gbagbo and rival Ouattara
AlJazeera video interview with UN special envoy Y J Choi
Mikhael Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader whose meeting with US President Ronald Reagan in Geneva in 1985 led to the end of the Cold War, has sharply criticized current Russian leaders Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, calling them conceited for their remarks that they will decide between them who will run for president in 2012.
Putin, who stepped down after two terms and who helped his protege move into the job, is widely expected to run again. But Gorbachev says the Russian people should be deciding this and he is quoted by AP/Moscow Times as saying at a news conference that “It’s not Putin’s business. It must be decided by the nation in the elections, by those who would cast ballots.”
He also called for an investigation following remarks by a court spokesperson who says the judge had a verdict forced on him in the politically hot Khodorkovsky oil company case.
Voter turnout could be lowest on record
Portugal, fighting to deal with high unemployment and a heavy debt burden, has opted to keep its centre-right president in office. Anibal Cavaco Silva was elected 23 January to a second five-year term, but only 43 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. Socialist Manuel Alegre and left-wing groups failed to convince voters of a need for change.
Links to other sites: Euronews, The Portugal News
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two Geneva-based UN organizations, the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) say that refugees from Myanmar/Burma have been pouring into Thailand in the wake of Myanmar elections Sunday 7 November. The elections have been widely denounced by other countries as fraudulent, with citizens not having the freedom to vote correctly. Fighting has broken out in some areas.
The IOM says that “the fighting between the Myanmar military and an ethnic minority armed group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), following the Myanmar elections on Sunday, resulted in an estimated 12,000 people fleeing into Thailand at the Mae Sot and Three Pagoda Pass border crossing points. In Mae Sot [the IOM Monday] transported some 5,000 people from the Thai side of the Moei River to a safe former military compound designated by the Thai authorities. All the refugees came from the town of Miwaddy on the Myanmar side of the river.”
The Mae Sot refugee camp is designed to hold a maximum of 2,000 people.
The UNHCR says in addition to the Mae Sot area people it worked early this week with some 3,000 refugees in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok, at a school at Three Pagodas Pass.
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie visited Myanmar refugees in Thailand in March 2009 to draw attention to their plight: some have been living in refugee camps for over 20 years. New fighting in Myanmar is straining the existing camps (video link below)
UNHCR provides a first-hand description of the scramble by international organizations, working together Monday, to cope with the sudden influx of refugees in Thailand:
“Refugees started pouring across the border early in the morning on foot and on inner tubes across the Moei River. Some told our staff they felt their lives were at risk after their houses were attacked, while others said they fled the sound of fighting.
“Local people have been pitching in as well, and we have asked that they co-ordinate their efforts with us to make sure that those who are most in need get helped first. One man delivered 1,000 blankets to the new site, which we plan to distribute today to the most vulnerable.”
“Many collected their children from school and fled to Thailand with only the clothes on their back, some even barefoot.
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Swiss parliament in session Photo ©Swiss parliament
Election could create first European cabinet with women in majority
Complete coverage, Swiss Federal Council 2010 elections: background, Sommaruga win, Schneider-Ammann win
Update 09:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The world has a rare opportunity Wednesday 22 September to see what balance of power really means, as defined by the Swiss: parliament will elect two new councillors out of seven on the governing Federal Council, sometimes referred to in English as the cabinet. The parliamentary vote is the result of the resignation announced several weeks ago by two long-serving council members, Hans-Rudolf Merz in August and Moritz Leuenberger, in July. Both agreed to remain in office until new councillors were elected.
The Federal Council is at the heart of a political system that emphasizes continual balance and negotiation, with no one party holding the power. The seven members’ council debates are not public and they rule by consensus, so council decisions are announced only once they have come to an agreement on an issue or new law.
Collegiality, or not airing their differences, has been the norm for at least two decades, with occasional blips where one councillor is viewed by the others as stepping out of line. Christoph Blocher, member of the right-wing UDC party, upset the council with several public remarks in 2008 that were considered unrepresentative of the council’s stance on issues, and his failure to be re-elected sparked an ongoing Swiss debate over precisely how the main political parties should be represented on the council.
The election process and a solar bird overhead
The Federal Assembly, the body of both houses of parliament, will elect first a successor to Leuenberger, as the councillor who has served longer, then a successor to Merz.
Early results of the Rwandan presidential election shows Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, as the winner in a contest marred by arrests and killings that Commonwealth observers say lacked “critical opposition voices,” but lauded the polling as “transparent.”
African observers also have called the 9 August elections “democratic, peaceful and meeting international standards.”
See the story portrayed in allAfrica, and in CNN below.
Just two weeks after Kyrgystan was torn apart by violence and the flight of 400,000 Uzbeks to neighbouring Uzbekistan, the country has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new constitution that gives some legitimacy to the interim government led by Interim President Roza Otunbayeva. She will now form a caretaker government and elections will be held in October. The US, Russia and the UN had backed the new constitution.
Links to other sites: NPR, US, Ria Novosti, Russia
Belgium could end up with as many as eight parties in a coalition government, after the NVA Flemish Separatist party appears to have won at least 27 of 150 seats in parliament, 30 percent of the vote, as ballot counting draws to a close. The strong result gives the party more seats than any other, but outspoken NVA leader Bart de Wever looks likely to have to tone down his rhetoric to participate in a coalition government of several parties.
Gordon Brown will remain in office in Britain until a new government can be formed, if a hung Parliament is the outcome of voting Thursday 5 May in the UK, and this appears increasingly likely. The Conservative party, led by David Cameron, is ahead but even if it wins more seats than the other two parties it is not guaranteed Number 10 Downing Street: it would need a majority of 346 seats to reach that point. A hung Parliament will result in a scramble to form a coalition government. Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson, are two of the highest profile losers to date. Robinson‘s wife’s affair with a much younger man turned into a widely covered political scandal in 2009.
British voters today will elect 649 member of Parliament and more than 4,000 local council representatives. Polls opened at 07:00 Thursday 6 May and remain open until 22:00, UK time, with the first results expected an hour after the polls close. Attention outside the country has focused on the three men seeking the job of prime minister, which is traditionally awarded to the leader of the party that has a majority of the seats in Parliament. Current Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party appears to be slipping in the polls, with David Cameron’s Conservative Party moving ahead. Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats may well win enough seats to stop any party from having a majority, in which case negotiations would begin for a coalition government.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met opposition leaders in the last televised debate before the upcoming elections. Brown and his rivals discussed the state of the economy in Britain. The question today is who won the debate? According to polls released 30 April, Brown was the loser in this televised battle while David Cameron was the victor of the political debate.
Three main parties are at the forefront of the general election, set to take place on May 6.
Additional details: Channel 4 news, Associated Press, the Guardian
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologized after being caught on microphone naming 56-year-old grandmother and voter Gillian Duffy a “bigot.”
“That was a disaster – she was just a bigoted woman,” Brown commented after driving away in his car, unaware that he had a microphone still attached to him. Brown payed a visit to Gillian Duffy’s residence afterwards to apologize personally for the remark, which comes at a crucial time, with UK national elections 6 May.
Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years have put Omar al-Bashir, the president who won power in a coup 20 years ago, firmly in the seat of power. The semi-autonomous south of the country voted Salva Kiir into power there by a large vote. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of war crimes, of which he says he is innocent.
Iraq’s former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, appears to have won the presidential election in Iraq by just two votes but Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki says he will not accept the election results. Allawi has offered to form a government with Al-Maliki, but there is some confusion over how this fits in with Iraq’s constitution.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Business Week, NPR
