Electoral type events

[politicus]

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

[politicus]

Is Islam Karimov the most loathsome specimen in the CIS?

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

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

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.  

[politicus]

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

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.

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

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%

[politicus]

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).

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

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

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

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.

[politicus]

Got two of those this week-end:

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

[politicus]

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

"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."

[politicus]

@: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?