Local election news from across the world

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Melbourne elects former
party leader as Lord Mayor
Melbourne, 2 November 2008: Melbourne has elected a centre-right politicians as its new Lord Mayor. Robert Doyle, a former leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria, will take over from the popular John So. So, who was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2006, announced in October that he would not seek a third term. The election was contested by 11 candidates, including the former deputy Lord Mayor Peter McMullin. The final results showed Robert Doyle on 31,300 votes, with runner-up Councillor Catherine Ng on 26,600.

The Lord Mayor-elect left politics in 2006 in the run-up of state elections after it became clear that he could not win. Previously, in 2002, he led the state Liberal Party to a heavy electoral defeat. Melbourne’s new Deputy Lord Mayor will be Susan Riley.

Melbourne was one of 79 councils having elections in Victoria. Preliminary results showed that the Greens had made record gains across the state.

Chavez opponent
wins in Caracas
Caracas, 24 November 2008: Venezuela President Hugo Chavez's allies won a majority in Sunday's local and regional elections, but the opposition made important gains, including winning the mayoralty in Caracas. The country’s electoral agency said Chavez's socialist party hds won 17 of the country's 22 states. Authorities also said the opposition party had won three states, including Venezuela's two most populous - Miranada and Zulia. Two states have not been decided.

The opposition also won mayoral elections in Caracas - formerly held by Juan Barreto, a Chavez supporter. The post is regarded as the second most important job in the country. The new mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, said he wanted the government to work with him to rescue Caracas from problems such as rising crime and ageing infrastructure.

Mr Chavez's Socialist Party also made gains. They held onto the state of Sucre, the central Caracas district of Libertador and the president's home state, Barinas, where his brother was elected governor.

In the last regional vote four years ago, Mr. Chavez's allies won all but two of the 22 states. But analysts had predicted a margin of victory that wide this year as not likely, considering voters' main concerns are high crime rates, inflation and government corruption.

Voter turnout was heavy Sunday. Lines snaked around some polling places hours after closing time. Last year, Mr. Chavez lost a referendum that would have allowed him to seek re-election indefinitely.

As he campaigned for his fellow United Socialist Party of Venezuela members, he said Sunday's vote could decide the future of socialism as well as the future of Hugo Chavez. (Report by VoA News and local reporters)

Nicaragua’s Sandinistas
claim local election victory
Managua, 21 November 2008: Despite allegations of election fraud, Nicaragua’s election council announced that the left-wing governing Sandinistas had won the large majority of municipal races, including the capital Managua. According to official results, the Sandinistas won 105 of 146 races in nationwide local elections held on 9 November, while the opposition Liberal Constitutional Party won 37. Smaller parties took the remaining four. Members of the opposition charged that the vote was fraudulent and complained that international monitors were not permitted to observe the elections.

The US representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) Hector Morales asked for an audit of the results of Nicaraguan municipal elections, saying that he had reports of potential fraud. „If the Nicaraguan government has nothing to hide, then they should turn over the voting results for an outside audit,'' Morales said. He also accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of illegally disbandaning two rival parties to favour his Sandinista candidates.

Meanwhile, the London-based Guardian reported that Nicaragua was braced for fresh clashes after the election results triggered a week of violence. “Supporters of the Sandinista government patrolled the capital, Managua, with rocks and clubs to deter opposition groups from mobilising,” the paper’s correspondent writes.

In the country’s capital Managua, the Sandinista candidate and former world boxing champ Alexis Arguello, was declared the winner. The electoral council, which is controlled by the government, announced that Arguello had won 51 per cent of the vote for mayor, while the opposition Constitutionalist Liberal Party candidate Eduardo Montealegre had collected 46 per cent. Montealegre is a former finance minister who lost the presidential election to Ortega in 2006.

Vancouver elects
left-leaning mayor
Vancouver, 17 November 2008: Gregor Robertson from the left-leaning Vision Vancouver alliance is the city’s new mayor. He beat his opponent Peter Ladner, from the centre-right Non-Partisan Association (NPA), by a margin of almost 19,000 votes. In June, Ladner won a bitter struggle with Vancouver’s incumbent mayor Sam Sullivan to become his party’s mayoral candidate. Despite a number of controversies during the election campaign – Robertson was fined for under-paying on public transport, while it was revealed that the NPA-dominated city council had secretly approved a Can$100-million loan to the Olympic village developers – voter turnout, at 31 per cent, was exceptionally low.

The new mayor’s Vision Vancouver party also won seven of 10 seats on the city council. Two other councillors were elected from the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) and a third from the NPA. The results were a significant defeat for the NPA, which beat COPE and Vision in 2005 by taking the mayor's seat and five council positions. Vision and COPE also dominated the results for the school and park boards. The two parties worked together to limit the number of candidates each would run, with the aim of not splitting the left-of-centre vote. A single Green Party candidate also took part in the loose coalition and was elected to the park board.

Gregor Robertson, who will take over as mayor on 5 December, said he would make homelessness his number one priority. "My first order of business is to call an emergency task force on homelessness and to focus on how we get people off the street as quickly as possible in to temporary housing or shelter," he announced. He also promised that all details of the controversial $100-mnillion loan would be made public within 30 days of him taking office. "I want to see real transparency at city hall. I want to make sure people feel engaged and connected like they have a voice at city hall."

Looking beyond the 2010 Winter Games, which will be held in Vancouver, Robertson plans to turn the city into one of the greenest and most creative communities in the world. "I'd like to see us re-brand Vancouver into being the greenest and most creative city in the world. I think that those are strength in Vancouver that we have got to bring out," he said.

In 1994, Robertson co-founded the organic juice maker Happy Planet.

Jerusalem’s new mayor
rejects any concessions
Jerusalem, 12 November 2008: Nir Barkat, a secular right-wing politician and successful businessman, was elected new mayor of Jerusalem. His victory over his rival Rabbi Meir Porush will end a five-year rule of an ultra-Orthodox mayor. Barkat, a former member of Israel’s ruling Kadima party, won some 52 per cent of the vote. In his victory speech the newly elected mayor rejected any concessions of parts of occupied and annexed East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a future peace deal. "Jerusalem has to stay unified," he said.

The local elections, which were held on 11 November across Israel, were seen as a test run for next February’s parliamentary elections. Preliminary results show that the centrist Kadima party won control of 50 of the country’s 150 councils, with environmental groups making strong gains.

In his victory speech, Barkat declared himself the mayor of all Jerusalemites, pledging to work for those who had voted for him as well as those who had voted for other candidates. He added that he would be working for both religious and secular, as well as Jewish and Arab residents of the city. However, most Palestinians, who make up 34 per cent of Jerusalem’s 750,000 residents, boycotted the vote. They do not recognise Israel's rule over occupied Arab East Jerusalem and its claim to all of the city as its capital.

The new mayor, who ran a campaign promising to fight poverty and unemployment in the city, pledged to reverse an exodus of secular, mainly young Jerusalemites seeking better employment opportunities in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Barkat quit the Kardima party over its alleged plan to divide Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with Palestine.

Meanwhile, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai won an additional five-year term in office. He won 50 per cent of the vote.

Secular and Orthodox Jews
fight it out in Jerusalem poll
Jerusalem, 11 November 2008: Israelis were casting ballots in municipal polls on 11 November. In Jerusalem, the mayoral race has highlighted a battle between secular Jews and the Orthodox who are gaining influence over the Holy City. Jerusalem's landscape has been changing in recent years, with more Orthodox Jewish families moving into neighborhoods in both traditionally Jewish West Jerusalem and in settlements in Arab East Jerusalem.

For the past five years, the city has been run by an ultra-orthodox mayor Uri Lupolianski who has sought to expand the influence of conservative, observant Jews who favor giving fewer concessions to Palestinians. Jerusalem is home to about 750,000 people, roughly a third of them Arabs. Thousands of Arabs are allowed to vote in these elections, but few say they want to do so. 

Jerusalem's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Husein, issued a call ordering Palestinian Muslims to stay away from the polls. He says that to vote is to validate Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem. He says his fatwa is based on the belief that no Muslim should accept or assist a non-Muslim occupier. The cleric says Palestinian Muslims can never recognize the sovereignty of a non-Muslim occupier.

But a few Arabs defied the order and went to the polls. This man in East Jerusalem who asked not to be identified says this is his first time voting. He says violence has failed to resolve the everyday issues facing Arab families, "We need for my street to be cleaned. We do not have any of those things for a long time. Because, I need to be safe. I need to be happy in my home," he said. "I am not a visitor. I live here and I want change."

The candidate who has been most visibly courting Arab voters is Arkady Gaydamak, a wealthy, Russian-born, and controversial billionaire who faces trial in a French court over the smuggling of weapons to Angola in the 1990s during its civil war. He says he would push for better city services and granting more building permits for Jerusalem's Arab residents. At the same time, he says he supports the agenda of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

"They are the keepers of our Jewish traditions and today, unfortunately, a big part of the Jewish people are very far from our traditions," he said. "And that is why we should do everything to provide unconditional support to the ultra-Orthodox community."

Representing many ultra-Orthodox Jews is Rabbi Meir Porush and his religion-based Agudat Israel party. Another top candidate is wealthy businessman Nir Barkat, also a rightist, but one who favors secular policies and wants to attract more young people and investment to the city. The main candidates oppose efforts to stop the expansion of Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem, which Arabs want as the capital of a future Palestinian state. (Report by Luis Ramirez, VoA News)

Chilean centre-right opposition
makes gains in local elections
Santiago, 28 October 2008: President Michelle Bachelet and her governing centre-left Concertación coalition experienced defeat in local elections held on 26 October – the coalition’s first in 19 years following the end of the military regime that General Augusto Pinochet presided over between 1973 and 1989. The Concertación lost 56 mayors while its centre-right rivals, the Alianza alliance, gained 36 more. In metropolitan Santiago, where a third of Chile’s population lives, the Concertación elected 15 mayors to the Alianza’s 16. This represented a fall of five and an increase of two respectively since the last set of local elections, in 2004.

The Alianza’s victory is seen as a success for businessman Sebastian Piñera, of the market-oriented Renovación Nacional (RN), which gained the largest number of votes. The Alianza’s success – and that of the RN’s 71 mayors – makes Piñera the frontrunner for the centre-right ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The Concertación defeat may be attributable to several factors. First, there has been the ongoing debacle of the public transport system, Transantiago, which has plagued the government since its introduction in 2006. Second, the coalition lost votes to the newly formed Partido Regionalista de los Independientes (PRI). The party, formed by senator Adolfo Zaldívar, after his expulsion from the Christian Democrats last year, won 7.7% in alliance with the Ecologist Party and other assorted independents. Zaldívar’s achievement is seen as a blow for another Christian Democrat senator, Soledad Alvear, who led the campaign for his expulsion and who is expected to be a contender for the Concertación’s presidential candidate in 2009.

Yet there was a small silver lining for the Concertación, with the electoral system working to its advantage. In terms of council seats, it secured 45.11% of councillors, against 36.25% for the Alianza. This success was despite the greater number of votes for the Alianza won, beating the Concertación by 45.78% or 7.6 million to 40.17%, or 6.7 million.

According to Piñera, the public wants change. However, such change is noticeably modest in tone. The RN was followed in the vote stakes by that of the more socially conservative Union Democrata Independiente (UDI). Meanwhile, within the Concertación the more centrist Christian Democrats (which lost 300,000 votes from 2004) and Socialists outperformed the coalition’s more progressive partners, the Party por la Democracia (PPD) and the Partido Radical Social Demórata (PRSD), by 10%. Further to the left, the Juntos Podemos alliance, which includes the Communist Party, gained 9.07% of the vote, which was slightly down from its 9.17% share in 2004. (Report by Guy Burton, South America Correspondent)

Finnish Social Democrats drop to
second place in local elections
Helsinki, 28 October 2008: Finland’s centre-right National Coalition Party tallied the largest number of votes in municipal elections held on 26 October. Final results show the party on more than 23 per cent of total votes cast, an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to four years ago. The Social Democratic Party saw its share of the vote decline by 2.9 percentage points to 21.2 per cent. However, it nevertheless came ahead of the government Centre Party, which was third with 20.1 per cent, a drop of 2.7 points from four years ago.

The Green League gained 1.6 points to finish fourth nationwide with 8.9 per cent of the vote, just ahead of the Left Alliance, which received 8.8 per cent, a decline of 0.8 points. The populist True Finns party made the greatest proportional gains, taking 5.4 per cent of the vote, an increase of 4.5 points from last time.

The Swedish People's Party got 4.7 per cent of the vote, a slight decline, and the Christian Democrats gained slightly to get 4.2 per cent. Of the smallest groups, the Finnish Communist Party achieved 0.5 per cent, the Senior Party 0.1 per cent and the Independence Party 0.1 per cent.

The voter turnout was 61.2 per cent, a slight improvement on four years ago, when just 58.6 per cent of eligible voters went to the polls. A party's result on a national level has no bearing on the makeup of individual city councils, but gives an indication of the party's popularity. It's this figure that is usually used to declare winners and losers. (Report by YLE Finland)

Incumbent mayor
wins in Sao Paulo
Belo Horizonte, 27 October 2008: Candidates from Brazil’s ruling left-wing Workers Party (PT) lost second-round elections in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre. However, in Rio de Janeiro the mayoral candidate supported by President Lula won a wafer-thin majority. Run-off ballots became necessary in some 30 cities after first-round elections two weeks ago failed to produce clear winners. Sao Paulo's incumbent mayor, Gilberto Kassab, a member of the conservative Democrat Party, defeated the Workers' Party candidate, Marta Suplicy. Kassab won 61 per cent of the vote, according to provisional results. Marty Suplicy was mayor or Sao Paulo from 2001 to 2004.

In Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes was elected mayor with 51 per cent of the votes. He defeated Fernando Gabeira, a Green Party congressman who helped kidnap a US ambassador nearly four decades ago, by less than two percentage points.

Bosnians vote for ethnic
parties in local elections
Sarajevo, 7 October 2008: Results of Sunday’s (5 October) local elections in Bosnia Herzegovina reflect the ethnic divisions of the country. To the dismay of many European politicians, voters provided the three nationalist parties, representing Muslims, Serbs and Croats, with decisive victories. Preliminary results show that the Alliance of Independent Social democrats (SNSD) of Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik won mayoral races in at least 32 municipalities. The Serb Democratic Party (SDS) was far behind with 15 wins.

Among Muslim voters, the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) of former president Alija Izetbegovic, who led the country to independence in 1992, won in 28 municipalities, followed by the Social Democratic Party with nine municipal victories. Most voters of the third ethnic group, the Croats, voted for the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which won in 15 municipalities.

Overall turnout was 55 per cent, but there was a marked abstention in major cities, such as capital Sarajevo where turnout was only 40 per cent. Observers from the European Union attributed the abstention in urban areas to general disappointment with the nationalist rhetoric, which had dominated the campaign. They also expressed disappointment that the elections demonstrated once again that Bosnia remained a deeply divided country, 13 years after the civil war, which is estimated to have claimed more than 100,000 lives. According to the Dayton peace accord, which ended the war in 1995, the country was divided into two entities with most state powers: a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb entity. (Source: ADNKRONOS)

Centre-right suffers large losses
in north and south of Germany
Potsdam, 29 September 2008: Yesterday turned into a black Sunday for Germany’s conservative politicians. Both in the country’s north, Brandenburg, and south, Bavaria, the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) suffered heavy losses. In prosperous Bavaria, the CSU not only lost its parliamentary absolute majority but also its image of invincibility, while in Brandenburg’s local election, the CDU was relegated from being the state’s strongest party to third place. In Brandenburg former CDU voters strengthened the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the left-wing party, the Left, while in Bavaria the neo-liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the association of independent voters (FW) benefited most from disillusioned CSU voters.

Despite losses of more than 17 percentage points, Bavaria’s CSU remains by far the strongest party, gaining 92 parliamentary seats. The Social Democrats failed to attract any former conservative voters but, despite recording its worst ever result in Bavaria, remained, with 39 seats, the second-largest party in parliament. Sunday’s winners were the FDP and FW, who entered parliament for the first time. The gains of the Green Party, an additional four seats, were overshadowed by the movement of voters which took place on the centre-right of the political spectrum. Bavaria’s outgoing prime minister Günther Beckstein has stated his determination to head a coalition government, preferably consisting of the CSU and the FDP.

In Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin, it was the political left that gained from the unpopularity of the Christian Democrats. Both, the Social Democrats and the Left Party were supported by some 25 per cent of the electorate, while the CDU’s share of the vote fell from almost 28 per cent in 2003 to little more than 19 per cent. Right-wing parties, which in other parts of eastern Germany have recently achieved significant results, failed to attract substantial amount of voters. Support for the Greens and the Free Democrats remained largely unchanged.

Sydney’s colourful mayor
overwhelmingly re-elected
Sydney, 15 September 2008: Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her group of independent councillors were the overwhelming winners of last week’s local elections. With almost all votes counted, the mayor’s Independent Group won 47 per cent, with the Greens on 18 per cent of votes cast. The centre-right Liberal party was supported by 15 per cent of voters. The Labor Party – on 14 per cent – was the victim of an electoral backlash against the state government. Labour Premier Morris Lemma was forced to resign at the beginning of this month over his handling of the power privatisation. In addition, the man who replaced him, Nathan Rees, had to dismiss his police minister Matt Brown amid claims of drunken, inappropriate sexual behaviour.

The re-elected mayor, whose personal vote was above 50 per cent, said that public transport would be the main task during her second term. She called on the national and state governments to support a light rail network for the city. "We need to ensure that once people get into the city they can easily move about the place," she told reporters.

Lord Mayor Moore has made a name for herself as a champion for gay rights. She introduced legislation to outlaw anti-gay vilification in New South Wales in 1993, introduced the first bill to outlaw discrimination against transgender people, has sought amendments to the Adoption Act to allow same-sex couple to adopt, and marched in the last sixteen of Sydney’s Mardi Gras Parades.

Hong Kong Democrats
retain blocking minority
Hong Kong, 8 September 2008: Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties have lost less ground than expected to pro-establishment parties backed by Beijing in elections held on Sunday, 7 September 2008. Reports early Monday indicate that some pro-democracy incumbents lost their seats, but anti-establishment candidates won at least 23 seats overall - 19 in geographic constituencies, four in functional constituencies. The results allow pro-democracy parties to retain the power to veto legislation seen as too favourable to China's central government.

Before the election, a senior opposition leader, Democratic Party Vice Chairman Sin Chung-kai feared that the pro-democracy side might retain only 19 or 20 seats in the 60-member legislature.

Political analysts said a low voter turnout and infighting could have hurt anti-establishment candidates. Government figures show that about 45 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots, compared to a record turnout of nearly 56 per cent four years ago.

Currently, only half of Hong Kong's 60-member Legislative Council is directed elected by voters, with the rest chosen by special interest groups. The Chinese government in Beijing agreed last year that Hong Kong could elect its own leader in 2017 and possibly all of its legislators in 2020. (Report by VoA News)

Conservative candidate
wins Düsseldorf election
Düsseldorf, 1 September 2008: Düsseldorf, the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, a centre-politician as its new mayor. Dirk Elbers, the candidate of the Christian Democrats (CDU), won almost 60 per cent of votes. His closest rival, the Social Democrat Karin Kortmann, achieved 36 per cent. None of the candidates of left and right wing parties received more than three per cent. Elbers will replace Joachim Erwin, who died of cancer in May. Meanwhile, politicians from all parties expressed their disappointment of the low turnout of less than 39 per cent. Defeated candidate Kortmann described the voters’ apathy as catastrophic and bad for democracy.

The election result has boosted the confidence of the centre-right state government ahead of next year’s local and European elections. North Rhine-Westphalia, which includes the Ruhr region, was once a Social Democrat bastion but been governed by a centre-right coalition since 2005, thus ending 39 years of SPD rule. The election of Dirk Elbers will also be viewed with satisfaction by Fritz Schramma, mayor of nearby Cologne. Schramma, also a CDU member, has recently announced he would be seeking re-elections next year. Of the two mayors, Schramma is regarded as more liberal and open-minded. He recently pushed through the building of a controversial mosque against the wishes of his own party. Instead he was supported by Green and centre-left city councillors.

Sri Lankan rulers
win local elections
Colombo, 25 August 2008: Sri Lanka's ruling party the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) has won the local government elections in North Central Province and Sabaragamuva Province, officials from the Department of Elections said. The UPFA won 20 seats in North Central Provincial Council, followed by 12 seats of the main opposition the United National Party (UNP) and one seat of the leftist party JVP (People's Liberation Front). Some 2.1 million voters were eligible to vote in these two elections held on 23 August, elections officials said. The turnout in both provinces was around 68 per cent.

Sri Lanka's independent election watchdogs said earlier that both elections were generally free and fair. Voting took place in 758 polling stations in North Central Province with 690 candidates from 37 political parties and independent groups vying for 33 member slots in the council. In Sabaragamuva Province polls held at 1,014 stations with 1, 008 candidates from 19 different parties vying for 44 seats in the council.

The run-up to the elections was marred by a high level of violence with all parties being accused of assault, arson and destruction of property belonging to rivals. High level of pre-election violence led to special security measures being put in place on the election day.

The Army was also deployed in some areas in view of heightened tension among contesting parties. The two elections were called by President Mahinda Rajapakse 14 months ahead of the schedule to test the public mood on his current military campaign against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north and east. The elections came after the ruling party won the Province Council election in Eastern Province in May. (Report by China View)

Pro-European elected
as mayor of Belgrade
Belgrade 21 August 2008: The assembly for the Serbian capital Belgrade has elected a pro-European mayor, his deputy and new council members just days before a deadline that would have led to fresh elections. Serbian President Boris Tadic’s coalition partners voted in Dragan Djilas to be the city’s mayor for the next four years. Tuesday’s elections came after the Presidents Democrats Party struck a deal with the opposition pro-European Liberal Democratic Party in securing their support for ruling Belgrade, ending weeks of deadlock following the indecisive outcome of the 11 May elections.

Assembly deputies also voted in Milan Krkobabic, of the United Pensioners’ Party, as Deputy Mayor and 13 members of Belgrade’s Government. The move is seen as a boost to the pro-Europeans who picked up the most votes in the May elections but fell short of an overall majority at local and national level.

According to information on Wikipedia, Dragan Djilas graduated from the University of Belgrade. He worked as a journalist at Radio Index and in 1989 became one of the founders of Radio B92 where he later became the news editor. He was active in opposing the regime of Slobodan Milosˇevic´, leading the student protest in 1991 and 1992. He actively participated in various anti-regime rallies between 1996 and 2000.

Belgrade has some two million people and the city administration is in charge of a budget of nearly one billion euros. After the president and the prime minister, the mayor of Belgrade is the third most powerful politician in Serbia. (Source: Balkan Insight, Wikipedia and local reporters)