#elections

[The Star] There is little doubting that the Kenyan elections just passed went a whole lot better than the last ones, in 2007, that resulted in widespread violence and chaos. December 2007 and January 2008 saw bloodshed that some observers chalked up to simple tribal and ethnic clashes. But that simplistic assessment reduced complex political […]

The last time Zimbabwe made widespread international headlines occurred as the country descended into violence following the contested 2008 presidential elections. That chapter in Zimbabwean history ended with the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that split power between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The final conditions of […]

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest contributing piece by Jamshid Barzegar. Mr. Barzegar is a Senior Iran Analyst with the BBC Persian Service. Mr. Barzegar will be one of the participating guests in the upcoming FPA series on the Iranian elections:A Candid Discussion on Iran’s Presidential Elections   ____________________________________________________________________ by Jamshid Barzegar The recent […]

The eleventh Iranian presidential election is scheduled to be held this June. Local council elections will also take place at the same time as presidential elections. To take an analytic look at this year’s Iranian elections from a number of relevant angles, the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) will be discussing the elections with leading observers and […]

Siamak Dehghanpour is an Iranian-American journalist and television personality. He is the host of the “OFOGH”, a news television talk show program on the Voice of America (VOA) television’s Persian News Network (PNN). OFOGH (Horizon) covers a wide range of issues in Iranian affairs as well as geopolitics of the Middle East. Mr. Dehghanpour is […]

The upcoming presidential elections in Iran is scheduled for June 14, 2013. Iran’s 2009 presidential election was fraught with accusations of fraud and irregularities. While the elections inside Iran received significant international media attention, the results of Iran’s out-of-country voting (external vote) in 2009 did not receive a well-deserved scrutiny. With Iran’s preparations to hold […]

On the heels of South Korea‘s recent election, Japan has chosen new leadership as well. Well, not completely new. Shinzo Abe–who was prime minister for a brief term in 2006-7–of the Liberal Democratic Party will lead what he termed “a crisis breakthrough cabinet.” Described and right-wing, nationalist, hawkish, and outspoken, Abe has vowed to shore […]

President Obama’s election victory last month proposed many new policy changes for the next four years. One of the most important policy relationships may be the one between the United States and Mexico. This past Saturday, Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico’s new President. With policy challenges for Nieto tied greatly to Mexico’s […]

Reminiscent of the carefully-choreographed 2008 Beijing Olympics, China’s unveiling on Thursday of the lineup of the new Politburo Standing Committee, its highest leadership body, took every precaution to ensure an orderly transfer of power. Security in Beijing was tightened, shops were ordered to remove fruit knives from their shelves, hotels opened and inspected all stored […]

When two of the world’s largest superpowers undergo political transitions at the same time, contrasts are inevitable.  One of the best comparisons comes from the above cartoon, which contrasts the bombardment of information from the American press with the deafening silence from China’s new leadership.  While many Americans are sick and tired of the relentless […]

With our third and final electoral pageantry behind us, Americans can now gorge on a spate of lucid and provocative articulations of global security in the 21st century.  That is, for those bothering to read below the fold.  For most of us, our interest peaked with the morning headlines whose typographic excess was reserved for […]

In their sole debate before the election, Vice President Joe Biden and GOP challenger Congressman Paul Ryan sparred for 90 minutes on the direction of U.S. policy, both for foreign and domestic.  Last night’s debate was a stark contrast to last week’s meeting between the two men at the top of the tickets, with Biden […]