Brazil
Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist rebel who was jailed and tortured during the country’s military dictatorship, won a run-off election on 31 October to become Brazil’s first female president. Her victory was due, in large part, to the endorsement of popular outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who leaves office in January with an 80 percent approval rating. Rousseff, Lula’s former chief of staff, had never before run for office.
An estimated 135 million Brazilians voted in what has been described as one the country’s most divisive presidential races. But despite a corruption scandal involving one of her closest aides and a smear campaign orchestrated by the opposition party and religious groups, Rousseff beat José Serra of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy by 56 to 44 percent. She had been denied victory in the first round of voting following an unexpected surge in support for Marina Silva, the Green Party candidate and former environment minister. Rousseff’s congressional coalition will have a three-fifths majority in both houses, but it is thought that she may find it difficult to impose her will on both her party and her coalition partners.
USA
The Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives, taking 63 seats from the Democrats in the mid-term elections on 2 November, giving the party its largest majority since the 1940s. The right-wing Tea Party movement, backed by 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, energised the Republican Party and contributed to the victory in the lower house. However, the movement was equally held responsible for the Republican Party’s Senate defeats in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware. The Democrats managed to hold on to the Senate but their majority was greatly diminished.
The advances made by Republicans in the state legislatures will help the party when the states redraw their congressional district boundaries following the 2010 census. This could possibly give Republicans an electoral advantage for the next ten years.
Guinea
Veteran political activist and opposition leader Alpha Condé won the first fully democratic presidential election to have been held in Guinea since independence in 1958. He secured the presidency with 52 percent of the vote, compared to 47 percent for his rival, former Prime Minister Cellou Diallo. The second round run-off, which was held on 7 November, had been postponed four times due to violence, political disputes and logistical problems. The campaign took place in an atmosphere of ethnic tension and was marred by clashes between rival supporters. Diallo alleged electoral fraud and launched an unsuccessful appeal before the country’s Supreme Court. The election returns the mineral-rich country to civilian rule almost two years after the military coup that followed the death of the country’s second dictator, Lansana Conté.
Jordan
Jordanians went to the polls on 9 November to elect members of the 120-seat lower house of parliament. Turnout was low – officials said 53 percent but the opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF) disputed this, claiming that the figure was less than 30 percent. The IAF, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood, staged a boycott. The election followed a year of direct royal rule after King Abdullah dissolved the previous parliament halfway through its four-year term. A fresh ballot was delayed whilst a new election law, which promised meaningful democratic reform, was drafted. However, critics say the revised electoral system gives greater representation to the less-populated rural constituencies – where people tend to vote on tribal lines and are loyal to Jordan’s royal family – than to the densely inhabited urban ones, where the IAF finds most of its support. An international monitoring group said that the vote was credible but also criticised the country’s electoral law.
Egypt
The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) won 83 percent of the seats in parliamentary elections held on 28 November and 5 December. The two main opposition parties – the Muslim Brotherhood and the liberal-secular Wafd party – boycotted the second round of voting when figures released by the electoral commission showed that the NDP had taken 420 out of 508 seats in the first round. The Muslim Brotherhood, which had 88 MPs in the outgoing parliament, was left without any representation. Following the Brotherhood’s surprise electoral success in 2005, the government introduced a constitutional ban on religious-based parties, leaving the group to field candidates as independents. Before the polls, hundreds of the Brotherhood’s members were arrested and some of its candidates disqualified. The group has called upon the President to announce fresh elections.
Haiti
Thousands of protestors took to the streets in Port-au-Prince following the announcement on 7 December of the results of the presidential election. Supporters of musician Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly, who was widely expected to make the second round of voting, were furious when it became clear that he had been narrowly edged out of the contest by Jude Célestin, a government technocrat and protégé of the unpopular outgoing President, René Préval. The UN, EU and US questioned the validity of the results, which they say were inconsistent with election observers’ projections.
Out of a potential electorate of 4.7 million, only 1.1 million actually voted in the poll on 28 November, which was marred by ballot box stuffing, repeat voting and intimidation. Polling stations were late opening and many Haitians were unable to find either the correct voting centre or their names on the electoral register. Ten of the 19 presidential candidates have called for an annulment. On 9 December, the electoral authorities announced that they would review the results.
