Talk Elections

Today on the first day of spring the population of Uzbekistan has the "choice" between four parties with no ideology or policy positions - and all supporting President Islam Karimov (76) - for 135 seats in their 150 member parliament. The remaining 15 seats are preallocated to the bizarrely named Ecologcal Movement, which is the Presidents own fanclub.

The parties are: Liberal Democratic Party, People's Democratic Party, Democratic Party of National Revival and Social Democratic Party - Justice. So all very democratic..

Turnout has already past 51% and the elections are thereby valid.

http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-election-/26754850.html (http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-election-/26754850.html)

Is Islam Karimov the most loathsome specimen in the CIS?

Possibly, but there is very stiff competition for that title.

As someone who literally had a number of political dissidents boiled alive (among other practicies), Karimov takes a gold in this already very stiff competition.

Result:

Liberal Democratic Party 47
People’s Democratic Party 21
Democratic Party of National Revival 28
Social Democratic Party - Justice 17

Run-off between the top two in January in 22 constituencies where no candidate got 1/3 of the votes or more.

Turnout 89%, dunno if the turnout is fake as well, but it might be unhealthy not to participate.

Wonder what happened to the Self-Sacrificers Party. They were the president's favorite party for a while before they got replaced by the Liberal Democrats. Still, didn't expect them to disappear entirely, the People's Democratic Party (former Communist) are still around, even though Karimov abandoned them around 2000.

He put his own daughter under house arrest (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26713383).

She deserves it.

I'd vote for the Social Democratic Party minus Justice, personally.

Yes, she does, but I doubt her brazenly criminal behavior was the motivating factor.

The second round saw an eight seat gain for the Democratic Party of National Revival, six extra seats to the People's Democratic Party, five more to the Liberal Democratic Party and three extra seats to the Justice Social Democratic Party.

In total it all adds up to a very neat five seat gain to National Revival/five seat loss to People's Democratic Party, one seat gain to the Justice Social Democratic Party/ one seat loss to the Liberal Democratic Party. So apparently Karimov likes symmetry.  

Official turnout for the Tajikistan parliamentary elections was 87.7%. President Emomali Rahmon's People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan won receiving 65.2% of the votes from his loyal underlings rewarding their leader since 1992 for his visionary rule and all the nice Russian troops he has brought into their country.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik-elections-rahmon-party-victory/26877105.html (http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik-elections-rahmon-party-victory/26877105.html)

The leader of the Communist Party leader has dismissed the election as a farce, so he is probably going to dissapear soon.

For the first time since Tajikistan gained independence in1991the Communists and the only legal Islamist option the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) failed to clear the 5% threshold. IRPT was a major player in Tajikistan's 1992-97 civil war, but relegalized after the peace agreement and has until now been allowed to stay in parliament. So two historic parties are out.

A senior international election observer said "an honest count could not be guaranteed" because of instances of ballot-box stuffing, multiple voting, and "disregard of counting procedures."

Despite this they do have an opposition:

The Agrarian Party, Economic Reform Party and Socialist Party all won seats, the latter gaining one of the 63 seats in the Majlisi Namoyandagon for the first time to act as the token leftists now that the Commies are out.

Unfortunantely the Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party (the only really vocal critics of the government) just fell short. So sad, but one day these hotheads will grow up and learn how to moderate and be token opposition and then who knows?

OSCE international observer mission: The parliamentary polls took place in a "restricted political space" and failed to provide a level playing field for candidates. Understatement of the year.

Result:

People's Democratic Party 65.2
Agrarian Party 11.8
Party of Economic Reforms 7.6  
Socialist Party 5.5
--------------
Communist Party 2.3
Democratic Party 1.7
Islamic Revival Party 1.5
Social Democratic Party 0.5

41 of the 63 seats are elected in a two round system - dunno when the second round is.

Also: Fugitive Tajik opposition politician and businessman Umarali Kuvatov was killed in Istanbul recently.

In a stunning upset the incumbent Islam Karimov from the Liberal Democrats won the March 29 Presidential elections in Uzbekistan with over 90% of the vote in a 91% turnout election. Dominating! His British namesakes could surely learn a thing or two about winning elections from this smooth operator.

Karimov's win gave him a fourth consecutive term as president. A streak dating back to 1990.

Islam Karimov    Liberal Democratic Party    17,122,577    90.4%
Akmal Saidov    National Revival Democratic Party    582,688    3.1%
Khatamjan Ketmanov    People's Democratic Party    552,309    2.9%
Nariman Umarov     Social Democratic Party - Justice    389,024    2.1%
Invalid/blank votes 1,5%

Registered voters/turnout    20,798,052    91.1%

Amusingly Karimov didn't even bother to invent a reason to explain away why he is blatantly breaking the term limits enshrined in the constitution.

I suppose the only thing to do is wonder who will secede him once he finally dies. I'm guessing it will be Rustam Inoyatov, who Karimov's vile daughter saw as her competitor. Karimov for all his terribleness knows how to play geopolitics, and he knows how to play with Washington, the Kremlin and Beijing simultaneously.

Central Asia is also vulnerable to the overspill of Islamic Extremism and returning ISIS lone wolves; while recession in Russia may force many young Uzbeks to migrate back to a homeland with not nearly enough work around.

Sudan will elect their President and lower house in the parliament - the National Assembly - on April 13-15.

Incumbent President Omar al-Bashir (71) has ruled Sudan since 1989 and was reselected as the presidential candidate of his (Islamist, Arabic Chauvinist and Conservative) National Congress Party (NCP) in October and no bookies offer odds on an al-Bashir win (if you find one, let me know..). Fifteen other guys are running and will get some votes, but none of them are well known figures.

The National Assembly was appointed in 2010 and reduced from 450 to 354 after South Sudan became independent in 2011. This reduced the only major opposition party SPLM from 99 to 8 seats, and SPLM-North has since been banned. National Congress has 316 of 354 seats and might let the opposition get a few more than their current 30 (the 8 former SPLM seats are vacant).

The opposition parties currently represented in the NA were mainly part of the now defunct National Democratic Alliance that made peace with the government in 2005 after the Second Sudanese Civil War.

People's Congress Party (PCP) is an Islamist splinter group from NC and mainly backed by West Sudanese refugees living in Khartoum's shanty towns. Their newspaper was banned in 2012, but it looks like they are allowed to run. They are in a strange alliance with the Communists and the National Umma Party (see below) called the National Consensus Forces.
   
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a Social Democratic, nationalist and secular party that ruled Sudan right after independence as NUP and again 1964-69 when the military couped them. They got the most votes in the last democratic election back in 1984 and allegedly still have significant popular support. Their leader Al-Sayyid Muhammad Othman Al-Mirghani is also the head of the Khatmiya Sufi order.

Various factions of the Umma Party (Federal Umma Party, Umma Party for Reform and Development, Umma Collective Leadership, National Umma Party (NUP) and Umma Party) are represented. It is a moderate Islamist party in favour of religious democracy with Islam as state religion and source of legislation a la Malaysia.
   
The Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has a single member of the current National Assembly, no info on whether they are allowed to run.

Sudanese Congress Party (SCoP) under Ibrahim al-Sheikh and the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) under Mohamed Mokhtar al-Khateeb are both semi-relevant.

People's Congress it the party of Hassan al-Turabi, who spearheaded the movement for Islamic law before it was fashionable. He was also largely responsible for bringing Osama bin Laden into the country.

In recent years though, especially since the government launched its various genocidal campaigns against dark skinned people, he has revamped himself as a defended of those dark skinned people. As well as a surprising moderate on issues of Islamic jurisprudence. He has come out against the death penalty for apostasy and in favor of Muslim women being able to marry non-Muslims.

Of course, a lot of this also has to do with his deteriorating relations with al-Bashir.

The main Umma Party is led by former PM Sadiq al-Mahdi, who as him name suggests, is the descendant of an anti-British rebel leader who claimed to be the Islamic messiah.

I would question whether there is such a thing a "main Umma party" at this point.

He is the leader of NUP, allied with al-Turabi and the Commies (+the local Baathists) in National Consensus Forces.

NCF and the Reform Now Movement (RNM) led by Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani will boycott the general elections. He is a former NCP leader, presidential adviser, majority whip etc. who left NCP in 2013 after the government shot droves of protesters when the Khartoum poors rioted because the subsidy on fuel was abolished over night.

Two wings of the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) (former) rebel group will run - one led by their SG Bahar Abu Garda and one led by their former military leader Tijani al-Sissi called National Liberation and Justice Movement (NLJM).NLJM has signed a partnership agreement with the ruling National Congress Party and represent the al-Sissi tribe, the Fur, and the Massalit.

The government has said they will allow the other parties to get 30% of the seats. So only the distribution of these is at stake.

Al-Bashir launched a national dialogue initiative back in January 2014 and urged both political opposition and rebel groups to join, but his call faced major setbacks after the NUP withdrew following a one month detention of al-Mahdi in May.

Rebel movements and various leftist forces refused to join the dialogue from the very beginning.

Al-Mahdi then signed the Paris Declaration with the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) in August 2014 pissing off al-Bashir.

The PD calls for a comprehensive solution involving all political forces including rebel groups. It further stresses the need to create "a conducive environment in order to hold a genuine national dialogue."

Al-Bashir claims Israel stands behind the Paris Declaration in an attempt to "dislodge the regime by force." He has said the deal aims to appoint al-Mahdi as interim president and move the Sudanese capital to El-Fasher in Darfur (sic)

In December NUP was among a number of Sudanese political and armed opposition forces and civil society organisations that signed the "Sudan Call" accord in Addis Ababa that appeals for ending the war, dismantle the one-party state, achievement of a comprehensive peace and democratic transition in the country.

The agreement infuriated Bashir who accused the signatories of being "mercenaries and agents of foreign powers", warning them against returning to the country.

Not sure exactly who else signed it. But PCP is the only major opposition party still participating in the dialogue, 18 of 21 opposition groups have left it. They want to delay the election until after the formation of a transitional government that would oversee a new constitution and organise for fair and free elections. Al-Bashir of course refuse that.

For a general status:
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article54453 (http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article54453)

This seems to be in the running for most pointless election of the year: Conflict zones (one district of Darfur and seven in South Kordofan) have been excluded from the vote and all important opposition parties are refusing to participate in the vote and are calling for a mass boycott of the poll.

President for 26 years Omar al-Bashir - wanted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide over his military campaign in Darfur - will win another landslide and continue his vain attempt at fighting insurgencies in the southern regions of the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where fighting erupted in 2011 when South Sudan seceded. As one analyst put it: "al-Bashir is not the strongest in Sudan, he is just the least weak."

Various protests by students - both in Khartoum and the north - protesting the election - and being beaten; up riot police besieging Dafuri dormitories. Women's organizations protesting - and being beaten up. Baathists launching peaceful sit-in in central Khartoum - and being beaten up. Several thousand people, but nothing threatening for the regime, but bigger protests may flare up later. All pretty dire and sad, as usual in Sudan.

http://eng.belta.by/presidential_election/Parliament-approves-11-October-2015-as-Belarus-president-election-date_i_82887.html

So, what are your types? Who will win?

If Lukashenka decides to run (which it looks like he's planning to) he will win easily. The only question would be whether he breaks 80% of the vote. The interesting things to watch would be 1) who comes in second, 2) whether mass protests break out when the results are announced as they did in 2006 and 2010, and 3) what group mainly participates in those protests (leftists? hard-core pro-Russians? right-wing Belarusian nationalists?)

Lukashenka has basically completely rewritten his agenda since taking office in the 90s from one of Russian integration to one of stubborn anti-Russian and anti-western Belarusian nationalism. And surprisingly, he has been a close ally of Poroshenko during the Donbass conflict. Yet, he maintains basically the same (largely pro-Russian) voting base, and it will be interesting to see how well they have accepted his about-face.

And yes, Belarus is an authoritarian country, and one should not look too much into the results as representing the country as a whole, but it's certainly much closer to Russia or Egypt in terms of democracy than North Korea or Zimbabwe. The results will be interesting to see, even if the conclusion is foregone.

Lukashenko is still pro-Russia, he just tries not to act like a total poodle. Remember that people used to say Yanukovych was turning against Russia at one point.

BUMP

We have had a couple of threads set up for specific ETEs (Burundi, Belarus). I would just like to remind you of this GD for elections with a foregone result.

Seven candidates for candidating are registered by Central Electoral Committee of Belarus. On Monday lists were closed and now candidates must collect 100 000 signatures of Belarusian citizens.

Candidates are:

Aleksandar Lukashenka (the best president ever)
Anatoly Lebedko (United Civic Party of Belarus, center-right)
Siarhiej Kaliakin (Belarusian Left Party "A Just World", eurocommies/left)
Sergei Gaidukevich [Liberal Democratic Party (Belarussian counterpart of Zhirinovsky party)
Viktor Tereshchenko (nonpartisan, economist)
Joanna (Жанна) Ramanouska (non-partisan, teacher)
Mikalay Uahovitch (non-partisan, Belarussian cossacks leader - lol)

I hope that Lukashenka will destroy those weaklings.

Lol. I can't imagine how horrifying they must be.

()


10/10

The best campaign ever.

Lukashenko gave few days ago first interview since like 14 or 15 years to the opposition media and there are some interesting things from the interview:
-candidate from previous presidential elections Mikola Statkevich may be reprieved from penal colony before presidential elections.
- he stated that Ukraine will keep Donbas
- he said that Belarusian airforces are strong enough and there is no need for Russian bases on Belarusian territory.
- he was sceptical about Russian current foreign policy ideas and expansionism
- he said that he now speaks more Belarusian with his youngest son :3

Which group did he talk to? I'd love to watch it.

http://www.svaboda.org/content/article/27170361.html
http://www.svaboda.org/content/article/27168922.html

Thanks!

Got two of those this week-end:

3/10 United Arab Emirates, Parliament
4/10 Kyrgyzstan, Parliament

Kyrgyzstan isn't an "electoral-type event"

Freedom House gives them a rating of 5, while that scrapes by as partly free those countries do generally not hold proper elections.

Egypt gets 5,5 and non-free by comparison. Of course you can be critical of Freedom House, but I generally trust them and an election in a 5 country with a non-freee press isnt going to be an actual election. There was massive fraud in 2009. They will allow a campaign, but they won't count remotely fairly. I will definitely put it below something like Guinea or your average West- or East African election. More Zimbabwe level, than Zambia, to make an African comparison.

Radio Free Europe agrees with you. though:

http://www.rferl.org/content/fact-sheet-kyrgyzstan-national-elections/27281859.html (http://www.rferl.org/content/fact-sheet-kyrgyzstan-national-elections/27281859.html)

"At least in terms of voter access to information, the electorate's ability to participate, and the ability of political parties and candidates to spread their message among voters, the process appears to be democratic."

But: "We need to see how voting goes on election day, whether the new biometric system proves reliable, and the tabulation of votes transparent and free of allegations of rigging."

@:Hash could you check my elections calendar in the "Elections coming up" thread and see if there are other elections I have listed as electoral type events, that you disagree with?

Here are Belarus's provisional results according to BelTA:

Alexander Lukashenko (Independent) - 83.49%
Tatiana Korotkevich (Social Democrat, opposition activist) - 4.42%
Sergei Gaidukevich (Zhirinovsky-type) - 3.32%
Nikolai Ulakhovich (?pro-capitalism?) - 1.67%
Other/NOTA - 7.10%

Did his kid get a ballot as well?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3L-yH8U0qU

The president of Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, has called a referendum for 25 October. Voters will be asked to approve a comprehensive constitutional reform. Among the provisions of the text put to referendum: the removal of the two-term limit for presidency; the abolition of the age limit of 70 for running for president; the reduction of the presidential term of office from 7 to 5 years; the creation of a post of prime minister to head the government (currently head by the president himself); various stuff about decentralization. Once passed the new constitution will enable Sassou-Nguesso, who is 73 years old and in office since 1997, to run the next year for a third consecutive term.

The date of the referendum was set on October 5 and the text of the new constitution was only released few days ago, thus leaving little time for the opposition to campaign.

According to numbers gave by the Congolese minister of Interior, the new Constitution has been approved with 92.96% of 'yes'. Turnout was officially 72.44% which totally contradicted reports by international journalists of a very low attendance in the polling stations. According to the leader of the main opposition party, turnout was even under 10%.

Congrats Nguesso