Elections are so much more fun now that they are actual contests.
NICOSIA - The right-wing opposition won parliamentary polls in Cyprus on Sunday, denting the re-election chances of communist President Demetris Christofias who is handling complex reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots.
Since Turkey has no intention of giving up their half of the island, as useful an exercise as negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
Official results placed the opposition Democratic Rally in first place with 34.27 percent of the vote. Communist AKEL, the principal backer of Christofias, came in second place with 32.67 percent.
Cyprus has a presidential system, with general elections not due until February 2013. Analysts however believe gains by the opposition in parliament could put Christofias under greater pressure to play hardball, or retract concessions made to Turkish Cypriots in talks which have nevertheless made little headway since their launch in 2008.
"It could actually go two ways. He could decide to push for a breakthrough now, or decide to go more hardline to win back votes," said political analyst Hubert Faustmann.
Both AKEL and the Rally party made gains on the 2006 elections, though the spotlight was on defections from the junior governing coalition partner, the Democratic Party, suggesting it bore the brunt of its association with AKEL.
Democratic Party officials interpreted the result as discontent with Christofias's tactics in reunification talks. Analysts said their support for Christofias's re-election was not a given.
Christofias is engaged in peace talks with Turkish Cypriot rival Dervis Eroglu on finding a federal settlement to the conflict that is complicating Turkey's bid to join the EU. The United Nations has said it hopes for a deal by mid-2012, with both sides needing to speed up talks by then.
Christofias has been criticised for proposing the island's two communities share a rotating presidency under a weighted voting system. The Democratic Rally, previously seen as moderate, has become slightly more hardline in recent months.
The leftist coalition has also been criticised for slow economic growth and rising unemployment. Voting is compulsory in Cyprus, but the abstention rate was at a record high of 21 percent.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
05/23/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Spain held its regional elections on Sunday, with opposition Popular Party making significant gains in several regions and key cities.
Support for the Spanish Ruling Socialist Party has waned among its voters; a recent survey had already predicted their defeat, The poll came out when the country is struggling with staggering levels of unemployment-around 45% of Spanish youth are unemployment. 800.000 youngsters have voted for the first time in these elections.
824 deputies for regional governments have been elected today
The socialist party has lost power in a number of autonomous provinces, in Madrid the Popular Party won 46% and the socialists have lost regions such as Catalonia where it has governed for 30 years.
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Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"loses ground"? They were absolutely BLOWN OUT. They lost districts they have held since the days of Franco. They lost in virtually every race.
#5
The Popular Party is significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-US than the Socialists. They sent Spanish troops to fight in Iraq. Also much more pro-GWB.
Zapatero went out of his way to insult the US and George Bush whenever possible (Kind of like Obama only he's Spanish).
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/23/2011 11:58 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... party has suffered its worst state election results and blames it on the country's economic crisis, as the SPD and the Greens gain the people's votes, preliminary results show.
In the state election in Bremen, The Social Democratic Party (SDP) takes the lead by an overwhelming 38 percent followed by the Greens 23 percent. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) experienced its worst result in 52 years, as they only received 20 percent from the city-state.
"For the first time in the history of the German Federal Republic, we are ahead of the CDU in a regional election," said one of the Green federal leaders Claudia Roth, as reported by AFP.
The Greens' anti-nuclear stance has recently gained support thanks to Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
While Bremen has always lacked confidence in the CDU, Merkel and her party, have lost support in four other regional elections this year. The city state has been led by the left-wing SDP since the end of the Second World War.
The results were as expected for the indebted state, as the popularity of the CDU has been falling all over the European nation.
For the first time, voters as young as 16 were able to participate in the state election, thanks to the new law that was enforced last year in Bremen. Despite this, voter turnout had dropped to 54 percent.
There will be two more regional elections in the country this year, one of them in Berlin.
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Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
It's Bremen. Not a normal German city.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
05/23/2011 19:41 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
