#elections

Article VI of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution “mandates popular elections for president and parliament.” Four years after the controversial presidential election that kept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power, the Iranian people have elected a new leader. On June 13, Hassan Rouhani won more than 50 percent of 36.7 million votes cast and became Iran’s […]

PHNOM PENH — Sam Rainsy, the leader of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) returned to the country this past Friday, July 19th, after receiving a royal pardon from Cambodia’s monarch, King Norodom Sihamoni. The 64-year old opposition leader went into self-imposed exile in 2009 after an arrest warrant was issued for his involvement in […]

Perhaps Goethe put it best when he wrote that “the romance of politics is best used to numb and to quell the fears of the uninformed.” Maybe Mr. Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, is a romanticist in light of his recent comments warning of the “instability of war” if his ruling Cambodian People’s Party […]

At the sound of a whistle, a Cambodian policeman clad in a sweat stained, light blue uniform and gripping a flashing baton in his hand races out into an intersection to abruptly stop traffic in all directions. The identity of the entourage coming down the perpendicular boulevard — with a police escort of at least […]

Recently a peaceful election took place in Iran. While the moderate candidate won this past election and there was not a repeat of the protests that took place in 2009, the reality is that the moderate candidate was part of a group of chosen conservative candidates that were permitted to run by religious officials. The […]

In its 65 years of independence, this election year was the first time Pakistan managed to vest power from one democratically elected government to the next – this being the first time the process was not interrupted by a coup d’etat. This is also the first time Pakistan saw the advent of a strong third political party. […]

What does a country in the middle of collapse look like? This was the question filmmaker Lorie Conway attempted to answer in her new film on Zimbabwe, “Beatrice Mtetwa and the Rule of Law.” A recent showing by the United States Institute of Peace gave a venue for both the filmmaker and the film’s primary […]

Many Americans feel that their current system of government is unable to get anything done in any meaningful way. Conflicts between interests in the U.S. government has blocked essential legislation from being passed, and interest groups in the political system thrive off preventing the president from passing many of his key policy initiatives. While compromise […]

On Saturday’s parliamentary elections in Iceland, two center-right parties seized power from the incumbent Social Democrats. Iceland Review states that the Independence Party won a reported 28.5 percent of the vote, while the Progressive Party won 25.2 percent. What does this mean for Iceland’s Arctic strategy and the region at large? The EU dimension First of […]

  The new president will be puppeteered out of office quicker than he was put in  The election played out as many opposition supporters of Henrique Capriles supporters feared. Government candidate Nicolas Maduro won by a close margin — closer than expected actually. Capriles denounced the results, pointed out cases of fraud and intimidation and […]

I argued in an earlier post that much of Pakistan’s future direction will hinge on events unfolding this year.  The first of these are the national elections scheduled for May 11, which could be decided by a large number of first-time voters.  These voters are the product of one of the world’s largest youth bulges […]

Farideh Farhi on Iran’s Power Dynamics  Farideh Farhi is an Independent Scholar and Affiliate Graduate Faculty at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Dr. Farhi is a regular contributor to Lobe Log Foreign Policy, the U.S. foreign policy blog of the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS News), writing on U.S. and Iranian foreign policies and Iran’s internal […]