ELECTION RESULTS (March-June 2011)
Benin: In the March 13 presidential election, incumbent Thomas Boni Yayi won 53 percent of the vote, defeating opposition leader and former prime minister Adrien Houngbédji. In April 30 elections to the 83-seat National Assembly, the Cauri Forces for an Emerging Benin, which supports President Yayi, won 41 seats. The Build the Nation Union, which supports Houngbédji, won 30 seats. Six other parties won 2 seats each.
Central African Republic: According to preliminary results following the March 27 runoff in districts where no candidate had received a majority, President François Bozizé’s National Convergence “Kwa Na Kwa” party had 61 seats in the 105-seat National Assembly; other candidates supporting the president had 11 seats; and independents had 26 seats. The Central African People’s Liberation Movement and the Central African Democratic Rally had 1 seat each. Opposition parties, denouncing the first round as fraudulent, called for a boycott of the runoffs. There will be a special by-election for 13 seats after the Constitutional Court invalidated those results. EU ambassador to the CAR, Guy Samzun, said that independent experts found fraud, malfunctions, and irregularities that marred the electoral process.
Chad: In the April 25 presidential election, incumbent Idriss Déby, who has been in power since a 1990 coup, won 89 percent of the vote. The three main opposition candidates boycotted the election after their demands to improve the electoral process (in particular to print new voter cards) were not met.
Djibouti: In the April 8 presidential election, incumbent Ismail Omar Guelleh was reelected with 81 percent of the vote. Mohamed Warsama [End Page 173] Ragueh, former president of the Constitutional Council, won 19 percent. Opposition groups boycotted the election following the arrests of opposition leaders in recent months. A month before the vote, the government declared Democracy International, a USAID-funded election monitoring group, “illegal” and ordered it to leave the country. In 2010, the National Assembly had amended the constitution to allow Guelleh to run for a third term.
Estonia: In March 6 elections to the 101-seat Parliament (Riigikogu), Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Estonian Reform Party won 29 percent of the vote and 33 seats. Its coalition partner, the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL), led by Mart Laar, won 21 percent and 23 seats. The opposition Estonian Center Party, led by Edgar Savisaar, won 23 percent and 26 seats; and the Social Democratic Party, led by Sven Mikser, won 17 percent and 19 seats. No other party passed the 5 percent threshold needed to gain a seat. The Reform Party maintained its governing coalition with IRL following the elections.
Haiti: In the March 20 presidential runoff, musician Michel Martelly of the Farmers’ Response party won with 68 percent of the vote, defeating former first lady Mirlande Manigat of the Rally of Progressive National Democrats. Following concurrent parliamentary runoffs for the 99-seat Chamber of Deputies (in districts where no candidate had received a majority), the ruling Unity party of former president René Préval had 33 seats; the Alternative for Progress and Democracy party had 14 seats; the Ansanm Nou Fò party had 9 seats; Haiti in Action had 8 seats; and the Lavni Organization had 7 seats. No other party won more than 4 seats.
Kazakhstan: According to the Central Election Commission, incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev (who has been in power since 1991) won the April 3 presidential election with 95.6 percent of the vote. None of the three other candidates won more than 2 percent.
Macedonia: Parliamentary elections were scheduled for June 5; results will be reported in a future issue.
Micronesia: In March 8 elections to Congress, all 14 seats were won by independents, as no parties exist in Micronesia.
Niger: In the presidential runoff on March 12, Mahamadou Issoufou of the Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism won with 58 percent of the vote, defeating Seini Oumarou of former president Mamadou Tandja’s National Movement for a Developed Society. Tandja was ousted in a February 2010 coup. [End Page 174]
Nigeria: In the April 16 presidential election, incumbent Goodluck Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who assumed office last year after the death of president Umaru Yar’Adua, won 59 percent of the vote, while former military ruler Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change won 32 percent. The National Democratic Institute, which monitored the election, said in a statement immediately following the voting that the elections “represent a step forward from the seriously flawed elections of the past” and “hold the promise of setting a new standard for integrity in Nigeria’s electoral process.” Following the announcement of the results, violent protests broke out in several northern cities. Human Rights Watch reported that 800 people died in the postelection violence. (Nigeria has a history of postelection violence.) According to preliminary results announced by the Independent National Election Commission for the April 26 runoffs to the 360-seat House of Representatives, the PDP won 123 seats; the Action Congress of Nigeria party won 47 seats; and other parties won 64 seats. The first round of voting was held on April 9.
Peru: In the June 5 presidential runoff, Ollanta Humala of the Win Peru Alliance, a left-leaning former army officer and one-time protégé of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, won 51.6 percent of the vote, defeating Keiko Fujimori of Force 2011, the daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori. In the first round on April 10, Humala won 32 percent, while Keiko Fujimori won 23.6 percent. Former minister and World Bank economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of the Alliance for the Great Change won 18.5 percent; former president Alejandro Toledo of the Peru Possible Alliance won 16 percent; and Luis Casta~neda of the National Solidarity Alliance, the former mayor of Lima, won 10 percent. In April 10 elections to the 130-seat Congress, the Win Peru Alliance (led by Humala’s Peru Nationalist Party and including the Socialist Party) won 47 seats; Force 2011 won 37 seats; the Peru Possible Alliance won 21 seats; the Alliance for the Great Change won 12 seats; the National Solidarity Alliance won 9 seats; and the Peruvian Aprista Party of outgoing president Alan García won 4 seats.
Singapore: In May 7 parliamentary elections, the ruling People’s Action Party, led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, won 60 percent of the vote (6 percent less than in 2006) and finished with 81 seats in the 87-seat Parliament, while the Workers’ Party of Singapore, led by Low Thia Khiang, won 13 percent and finished with 6 seats.
Turkey: Parliamentary elections were scheduled for June 12; results will be reported in a future issue.
Uganda: In February 18 elections to the 350 directly elected seats in the [End Page 175] Parliament, reelected president Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement won 250 seats. Opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change won 34 seats. The Democratic Party won 12 seats, the Uganda People’s Congress won 10 seats, and independent candidates won 41 seats. For more information, please see Angelo Izama’s article on pp. 64-78.
UPCOMING ELECTIONS (July 2011-June 2012)
Argentina: presidential/legislative, 23 October 2011
Bahrain: parliamentary, 24 September 2011
Bulgaria: presidential, October 2011
Burkina Faso: parliamentary, May 2012
Cameroon: presidential, October 2011
Cape Verde: presidential, 7 August 2011
Croatia: parliamentary, November 2011
Democratic Republic of Congo: presidential/legislative, 28 November 2011
Dominican Republic: presidential, May 2012
Egypt: parliamentary, September 2011
El Salvador: legislative, March 2012
Equatorial Guinea: parliamentary, May 2012
Gabon: parliamentary, December 2011
The Gambia: presidential, 24 November 2011; legislative, January 2012
Georgia: parliamentary, May 2012
Guatemala: presidential/legislative, 11 September 2011
Guyana: presidential/parliamentary, August 2011
Iran: legislative, March 2012
Kyrgyzstan: presidential, October 2011
Lesotho: parliamentary, February 2012
Liberia: presidential/legislative, 11 October 2011 [End Page 176]
Madagascar: presidential/parliamentary, September 2011
Mali: presidential, April 2012
Mauritania: parliamentary, November 2011
Mongolia: parliamentary, June 2012
Nicaragua: presidential/legislative, 6 November 2011
Oman: parliamentary, October 2011
Papua New Guinea: parliamentary, 1 June 2012
Poland: parliamentary, October 2011
Russia: parliamentary, December 2011; presidential, March 2012
São Tomé and Príncipe: presidential, 17 July 2011
Senegal: presidential, 26 February 2012
Singapore: presidential, by August 2011
South Korea: parliamentary, April 2012
Taiwan: parliamentary/presidential, 14 January 2012
Thailand: parliamentary, 3 July 2011
Timor-Leste: presidential, May 2012; parliamentary, June 2012
Tunisia: constitutional assembly, 23 October 2011
Yemen: parliamentary, late 2011
Zambia: presidential/legislative, October 2011
Zimbabwe: parliamentary, by May 2012
Election Watch provides reports of recently decided and upcoming elections in developing nations and the postcommunist world. Some of the data for Election Watch come from IFES, a private, nonprofit education and research foundation that assists in monitoring, supporting, and strengthening the mechanics of the electoral process worldwide. For additional information, visit www.ifes.org. [End Page 177]