Page 2 - Elections

Azerbaijan holds election expected to retain president party's dominance

Azerbaijan on Sunday is holding a snap parliamentary election that is the first for the country since it regained full control of a former breakaway territory in a lightning offensive last year. Previous elections since independence from the Soviet Union have not been regarded as fully free or fair, and the vote for the Milli Mejlis parliament is not expected to bring significant changes to the body that is dominated by the New Azerbaijan party of President Ilham Aliyev. Under the constitution, the election would have been held in November, but Aliyev decreed it to take place two months early because the capital of Baku will host United Nations climate talks known as COP29 that same month. Aliyev and his late father, Heydar Aliyev, have led Azerbaijan with their heavy-handed rule since 1993, suppressing dissent as the country of almost 10 million people on the shores of the Caspian Sea basked in growing wealth from its huge oil and natural gas reserves. New Azerbaijan holds 69 of t

J&K polls: Senior BJP leader resigns, threatens to contest as independent

In yet another rebellion within the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir over ticket distribution for the assembly elections, senior party leader Chander Mohan Sharma Friday announced his resignation from the party and threatened to contest as an Independent. The BJP is facing resentment over its ticket distribution in the Union territory, with party leaders and workers protesting in several districts of the Jammu region. This has prompted the party to launch a damage control exercise, deploying several top leaders, including Union ministers, to defuse the situation. "There is immense resentment and anger among leaders and workers of the party over the unfair distribution of mandates. They are holding protests to express their discontent. Saddened by this, I, one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP, along with others, have resigned from the party," Sharma, the convenor of the 'Tawi Andolan', told reporters here. Advocate Sharma, who joined the BJP in the early 1970s, criticised the party ...

Cong shakes up Haryana strategy: Sitting MPs won't contest assembly polls

Haryana elections 2024: The decision has been reportedly taken to calm down internal differences between groups of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Lok Sabha MP from Sirsa, Kumari Selja

J&K Assembly elections Phase 1: 279 candidates in fray for 24 seats

J&K Assembly polls: The elections in Jammu and Kashmir are scheduled to be held in three phases on September 18, September 25, and October 1 and the counting of votes will take place on October 4

Will set up 768 offices across country, 563 ready: BJP president JP Nadda

The Bharatiya Janata Party planned to set up 768 offices of the party across the country of which 563 are ready, BJP president JP Nadda said on Saturday. Nadda, scheduled to attend the foundation stone laying ceremony of Goa BJP's headquarters near Panaji, addressed the function via video message. The foundation stone was laid by Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis. The headquarters will come up on the outskirts of Panaji near a highway connecting the capital city to Old Goa. The new building would be ready by December 2026, Sawant said. "After forming the government in Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah took various important decisions related to the government and also the party organisation," Nadda said. He said establishing BJP headquarters in every capital city and the party office in each district was one of the key decisions taken by Modi and Shah. "The party decided to construct 768 offices of w

Sri Lanka sets expenditure limits for prez election campaign for first time

For the first time, Sri Lanka's upcoming presidential election on September 21 will be subject to campaign finance regulations, following the introduction of the Regulation of Election Expenditure Act in January 2023. According to a gazette notification dated August 16 and published Monday, each candidate is allowed to spend a maximum of Rs 109 per elector for election campaigning activities, totalling Rs 1,868,298,586 (approx USD 5 million) per candidate. The expenditure limit per candidate has been set at 60 per cent of the total amount, while political party secretaries are allowed 40 per cent for their candidate's election campaign activities. The parties must submit expenditure reports to the Elections Commission within 21 days of the election results being declared, the notification stated. A record number of 39 candidates are in the fray for the upcoming presidential election. Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, the main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and the lea

Newly elected Thai PM Paetongtarn faces challenge of reviving economy

The fall of Srettha after less than a year in office will be a stark reminder of the kind of hostility Paetongtarn could face

Thai Parliament set to choose new PM, Thaksin's daughter likely nominee

Thailand's Parliament convened to select a new prime minister Friday with the youngest daughter of the divisive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra expected to be nominated. The vote would come two days after a court removed the last prime minister over an ethics violation. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 37, is the leader of the Pheu Thai party. She does not hold an elected office, which the law doesn't require of prime ministerial candidates. The parliament also does not require her to be present at the vote. If Paetongtarn is approved in Parliament's vote, she will become Thailand's second female prime minister and the country's third leader from the Shinawatra family, after her father and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. She will also become the country's youngest leader. Thaksin was the first Thai politician ever to win an overall majority of seats. He is one of Thailand's most popular but divisive political figures and was ousted by a military coup in 2006. He is widely seen as a de facto

Record number of candidates in fray for Sri Lankan presidential election

A total of 39 candidates, including three minority Tamils and two Buddhist monks, are in the fray for next month's presidential election in Sri Lanka, the election commission announced here on Thursday. However, there was not a single woman candidate among the 39 presidential aspirants for the September 21 election. In the last presidential election in 2019, there were 35 candidates while there were only six candidates in the first-ever presidential election held in October 1982. On the last day to file papers on Thursday, nominations were accepted from 9 am to 11 am local time after Wednesday's closure of paying deposits to the contest. There were 40 deposits paid but one of them has chosen not to file nominations. R M A L Rathnayake, the election commission chief, said there were three objections against three candidates, which were rejected by the commission. There were more than 17 million eligible voters in the 22 electoral districts throughout the island nation. Besides ..

Elections to 12 vacant Rajya Sabha seats from 9 states on September 3: EC

Elections to 12 vacant Rajya Sabha seats in nine states will be held on September 3, the Election Commission said on Wednesday. Ten Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant as the sitting members, including Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Sarbananda Sonowal and Jyotiraditya Scindia, were elected to the Lok Sabha. Bypolls are also being held for two seats in Telangana and Odisha. K Keshava Rao from Telangana resigned recently from the House after quitting the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to join the Congress while Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Mamata Mohanta resigned from her Rajya Sabha seat and primary membership of the party. Besides Goyal, Sonowal and Scindia, the other Rajya Sabha members who won the parliamentary polls and moved to the Lok Sabha are Kamakhya Prasad Tasa (BJP), Misha Bharti (RJD), Vivek Thakur (BJP), Deepender Singh Hooda (Congress), Udayanraje Bhosle (BJP), K C Venugopal (Congress) and Biplab Kumar Deb (BJP). The notification for the Rajya Sabha elections will be issued on Aug

Global voices express concern over arrests in Venezuela after election

Voices across the globe expressed concern Sunday over the growing number of arrests in Venezuela following last weekend's disputed elections. Pope Francis said Venezuela is "living a critical situation" in his traditional Sunday remarks at the Vatican, adding, I appeal to all parties to seek the truth, to avoid all kinds of violence. The remarks came hours after Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro announced Saturday that the government has arrested 2,000 opponents. At a rally in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, Maduro pledged to detain more people and send them to prison. U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told CBS program Face the Nation Sunday that the Biden administration is worried the arrests could spark wider unrest. We are concerned about the prospect of instability, should there continue to be these detentions, Finer said. And in a statement, the leaders of several European countries including France, Spain, Germany and Italy said the rights of all the Venezuela

UPSC aspirants hold election to select delegation for talks with officials

Civil services aspirants enrolled in various institutes on Thursday held a spot election in central Delhi's coaching hub of Old Rajinder Nagar to select a core committee to represent them in talks with authorities. However, the final selection was yet to be made amid commotion during the election process. A 10-15-member panel will be selected as the official delegation for negotiating with the authorities on the students' demands. A crowd of students gathered outside Rau's IAS Study Circle, where three civil services aspirants died after its basement was flooded on July 27, as the hopefuls pitched for their election to the committee. The audience voted for their preferred candidates by raising their hands. The candidates vying to become part of the delegation spoke about the issues that they would raise in the meetings. Their concerns included lopsided safety measures, poor living conditions and exorbitant rents, among others, affecting the daily lives of aspirants. "Due to the

EC issues instructions on transfer of officials in J&K ahead of elections

In a fresh indication that assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir are imminent, the Election Commission on Wednesday asked the Union Territory administration to transfer out officers posted in their home districts, an exercise it holds ahead of conducting elections. The commission has been following a consistent policy that officers directly connected with the conduct of elections in a poll-bound state or Union Territory are not posted in their home districts or places where they have served for a considerably long period. It has issued similar directions to the chief secretaries of Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. It said the terms of the existing legislative assemblies of Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra were up to November 3, 2024; January 5, 2025; and November 26, 2024, respectively, and elections in these states were due in 2024. "Further, the election to the legislative assembly of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is also due in the near future," it noted. It is us

Trump-friendly panel shapes Georgia's election rules at often chaotic meets

The Georgia State Election Board, which once toiled in relative obscurity, now hosts raucous meetings where public comment spans several hours and attendees regularly heckle its members. The shift highlights how election administration has become increasingly scrutinized and politicized, particularly in Georgia and other states that President Joe Biden flipped for Democrats in 2020. Former President Donald Trump continues to assert without proof that widespread fraud cost him the election in Georgia. Georgia's board, which has no direct role in determining election results, writes rules to ensure that elections run smoothly and hears complaints about alleged violations. Democrats and voting rights groups fear that a recently cemented majority of Republican partisans on the board could push the limits of state law with rules hindering the effective administration of elections and the swift certification of results. Democrats made important gains in the 2020 election cycle in Georgia

Voting for crucial legislative council elections in Maharashtra begins

Voting for the biennial elections to 11 seats in the Maharashtra Legislative Council began at the Vidhan Bhavan Complex here on Friday morning. Shiv Sena's Sanjay Gaikwad was the first to cast his vote through the secret ballot system. There are 12 candidates in the fray for 11 seats. Voting is scheduled to be held from 9 am to 4 pm, though Shiv Sena (UBT) has demanded that it be extended by an hour due to heavy rains in Mumbai. The 288-member legislative assembly is the electoral college for the polls and its current strength is 274. Each winning candidate would need a quota of 23 first-preference votes. Eleven members of the upper house of the state legislature are retiring on July 27 and these high-stakes polls are being held to fill the vacancies. The BJP has fielded five candidates, while its Mahayuti allies Shiv Sena and NCP have nominated two each. The Congress and Shiv Sena (UBT) have fielded one candidate each, while their Maha Vikas Aghadi partner NCP (SP) is backing t

South Sudan peace talks face collapse as it gears up for first election

South Sudan peace talks that almost reached completion faced a stumbling block with opposition groups demanding a newly passed bill allowing the detention of people without an arrest warrant scratched out in order to sign a proposed agreement. Kenya has been hosting the high-level meetings since May between government representatives and rebel opposition groups who were not part of a 2018 agreement that ended a five-year civil war, leaving about 400,000 people dead and millions displaced. Despite the agreement, violence often erupted in the country of 9 million. Pagan Amum Okiech, negotiating on behalf of the South Sudan Opposition Movement Alliance, told the Associated Press Tuesday night that it would be meaningless to sign any agreement if the draconian National Security Act is signed into law by the president." Last week, parliament voted in favour of the 2015 bill and President Salva Kiir will have to approve it within 30 days for it to become a law. This comes ahead of the ...

Poll for LS Speaker post sign of live, thriving democracy: Om Birla

An indication of a "live and thriving democracy" is how Om Birla described the rare election to the post of Lok Sabha speaker, which he won in a voice vote against opposition candidate K Suresh. The opposition had pushed for the poll by nominating Congress' Suresh against BJP's Birla, even as it did not press for a division of votes. In an interview with PTI, Birla took a dim view of disruptions in the Lok Sabha during its first session after the formation of the new government and said there has to be a difference between debates in Parliament and those on streets. On radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh and terror funding case accused Engineer Rashid being elected to the House as Independents from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib and J-K's Baramulla while in jail, the Lok Sabha speaker said the two members have been chosen by the people. "They have been chosen by the people and administered the oath as per the rules of procedure (of the Lok Sabha) and on orders of the courts," Birla told P

In first address, Iran's Prez-elect Pezeshkian vows to serve all Iranians

At the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian expressed his commitment to overcoming challenges and providing prosperity for all Iranians

Highlights: Will have your back, says Labour's Keir Starmer after victory

United Kingdom Labour Party highlights: Keir Starmer's Labour Party bagged the victory the UK general election by passing the magic number. Incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak retained his seat

Iran holds runoff presidential election to replace late President Raisi

Iranians began voting on Friday in a runoff election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last month, as public apathy has become pervasive in the Islamic Republic after years of economic woes, mass protests and tensions in the Middle East. Voters face a choice between the hard-line former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime parliament member who has allied himself with moderates and reformists within Iran's Shiite theocracy. An initial round of voting June 28 saw no candidate get over 50 per cent of the vote, forcing the runoff. It also saw the lowest turnout ever for an Iranian election, leaving turnout Friday a major question. There have been calls for a boycott, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, though potential voters in Iran appear to have made the decision not to participate last week on their own as there's no widely accepted opposition movement operating