· January, 2012

Stories about Elections from January, 2012

Myanmar (Burma): Betwixt and Between

  27 January 2012

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi this week addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, urging further support from the international community in Myanmar. Such engagement will be particularly important for refugees and internally displaced people.

Questions for China’s democracy opponents

  27 January 2012

David Bandurski from China Media Project introduced a discussion among mainland Chinese public opinion leaders on the Taiwan presidential election and translated a Weibo post which raised a series of questions for China's democracy opponents.

Sierra Leone: Top 5 Revolutionary Election Songs

  26 January 2012

This is Switmot's list of Sierra Leone’s top 5 revolutionary election songs: “In 10 months Sierra Leoneans will head to the polls to exercise their right to vote…In the last elections, music played an important role in creating political awareness and also to mobilize supporters for the SLPP, and the...

Bermuda: Re-Registering to Vote

  25 January 2012

Respice Finem contends that the proposal for voter re-registration “seems a not very subtle attempt to take away the vote of working class people.”

Romania: “I, the Citizen”

  25 January 2012

Street protests in Romania have been going on for over a week now. The protesters are demanding early elections; they do not yet have a leader, but they nevertheless have a powerful voice. Oana Maria Dan reports.

Russia: Community of Election Observers Launched

RuNet Echo  24 January 2012

Creators of popular citizen crowdsourcing projects RosYama and RosPil Alexey Navalny and Georgiy Alburov launch a new project RosVybory [ru], a community of election observers. Users submit their data to the website, then project moderators apply for the necessary observer documents and send registered users to the nearby voting ballots.

Unhappy Hong Kong Envious of Taiwan's Democracy

  19 January 2012

Having witnessed Taiwan's 2012 presidential election, Derrick Tao, a Hong Kong photographer, made a video (with English subtitles) to contrast democratic development of the two societies. As a prosperous but undemocratic city state, “Hong Kong could either join Taiwan as pioneers of freedom and democracy in the Chinese societies”, or...

Bahamas: A Belief in Democracy

  19 January 2012

“To date, my country has not put in place anything to serve and build me; to every politician who has served in parliament in the time I have been voting, people like me have been invisible. In our democracy, we do not count”: Hence the reason Blogworld puts forward her...

Russia: Kremlin Crisis Management

  19 January 2012

Ania Viver of Foreign Policy Blogs posts an interesting analysis on the Kremlin's attempts at calming down popular protests against the Russian leadership, and tries to explain why they fail in their crisis management.

Slovakia: TV Show on Corruption Cancelled

  19 January 2012

The Slovak public TV channel STV cancelled [sk] a scheduled live talk show on the alleged widespread corruption of 2005-2006 [en], which involved many of the country's past and present politicians. Head of RTVS (Radio and TV Slovakia) said [sk] that broadcasting such a program, produced by an external producer...

Bolivia: New Judges Face Systemic Challenges

  17 January 2012

The 56 judges elected during the October 2011 judicial election in Bolivia were sworn in on January 3, 2012. Emily Achtenberg, from the NACLA blog Rebel Currents, writes about the election process and the obstacles the new judges will face.

Russia: Making A Run For It

  17 January 2012

Andy Young of Siberian Light reports that opposition politicians Mikhail Prokhorov and Grigory Yavlinsky have now collected the two million signatures needed for running for Russia's presidency in the upcoming 4 March elections, and portrays the complexities of collecting signatures in support of a candidacy.

Bahamas: Need for a Voters’ Manifesto

  16 January 2012

“It’s 2012 and the silly season is officially upon us”: Blogworld notes that “it’s a rare situation this election. For the first time in 35 years, it’s a proper three-way race…[yet] predictably, and unfortunately so, the discussion is progressing the way football hooligans support their favourite teams.”

Russia: Social Networks Mobilise Society

RuNet Echo  13 January 2012

Facebook, the possibility to calculate numbers of protest participants, slogans from the Internet, a wide variety of gadgets - these are four new important factors in the analysis of demonstrations in Russia. Marina Litvinovich reports.