elections

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pulled it off, again. After 2014, Shinzo Abe’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) has won yet another snap election and unless he will be challenged internally in the months ahead, Abe will govern in Japan until 2021. Voters have voted for stability over change in Sunday’s Lower House elections and have seemingly chosen to forgive the old and new Prime Minister’s his alleged cronyism and near-obsession to revise the country’s war-renouncing constitution. Mr.

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Tomorrow 56 million Iranians are expected to go to the ballot box to vote in the 12th presidential election. At the end of a fierce electoral campaign, it is now clear it will be a duel between incumbent President Hassan Rouhani and the challenger, Ebrahim Raisi. These two clerics, the former supported by reformists and technocrats and the latter by conservatives and ultraradicals, are the last two candidates still in the running after the other two prominent contenders, Jahangiri and Qalibaf, withdrew in favour of Rouhani and Raisi, respectively.

If there was a moment when it was possible to speculate that the British election would send a clear signal about Britain’s relationship with Europe, it was short-lived. The British people may well deliver a decisive majority to Theresa May and, in the best-case scenario for her next government, she may be able to leverage that majority to win a good deal for Britain and to lay the foundations for Britain’s new role in Europe and at the global level. Even if that all came to pass, however, future historians would be hard-pressed to s

Presidential elections will take place on May 19 2017 in Iran. There are six official candidates who are running for the presidency in this round who have been pre-selected by the Council of Guardians from among 1653 candidates. This means that the Council of Guardians has approved that these six persons have all the requirements, foreseen through the Constitution, to eventually become the President of the Islamic Republic.

The political atmosphere is becoming intense inside Iran as the Islamic Republic is preparing for the twelfth presidential election. Six candidates passed through the Guardian Council’s vetting process. In the list of candidates are President Rouhani, and his Vice President Mr. Eshagh Jahangiri, Ebrahim Raisi, who is the custodian of Astan Ghods Razavi, the biggest religious endowment in Iran, the Mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Mr.

While the details of the Trump Administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran have yet to be unveiled, it is clear that the new administration has “put Iran on notice” and by doing so intends to increase pressure on Tehran for its aggressive regional policy. This policy shift signifies a return to the U.S.’ traditional approach of containment and moves away from President Obama’s eight-year effort of nuclear engagement and reintegration of Iran as a means of promoting domestic change in Tehran and altering America’s footprint in the Middle East.

On May 19 Iran will hold its twelfth presidential election since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. All eyes are on the candidates, especially on the Rouhani-Raisi competition. However, there is another election process that is not under scrutiny and that will probably shape the future of the Islamic Republic. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will turn 78 this year and, although succession to the Supreme Leader is a taboo topic in Iran since Khomeini’s heir apparent Ali Montazeri fell from grace, sooner or later the necessity will arise.

Algeria has recently been at the center of multiple discussions and speculations. Several analysts believe that the country is about to face the second wave of the so-called “Arab Spring”. The regime would collapse and a civil war would follow. Six years after the Arab uprisings, the Algerian regime showed a remarkable degree of stability and continuity.