Ally of Kazakhstan’s longtime ex-leader wins presidency

June 10, 2019

MOSCOW (AP) — An ally of Kazakhstan’s former president was named winner of the presidential election on Monday in a vote marred by a police crackdown on protesters who criticized the result as an orchestrated handover of power.

The Central Election Commission in this Central Asian country said Monday that Kassym-Jomart Tokayev won nearly 71 percent of the vote with all the ballots counted. The results have not yet been formally confirmed.

Tokayev became acting president when Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had led the country since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, abruptly stepped down. Shortly after Nazarbayev resigned, Kazakhstan’s ruling party nominated Tokayev for presidency.

Some 500 people were taken into custody after police broke up rallies in Kazakhstan’s two largest cities Sunday. Protests erupted again on Monday with people rallying in the capital Nur-Sultan, named after the former president, and the commercial capital Almaty.

An Associated Press photographer saw at least 100 people detained by police on a central square in Almaty Monday morning. The observers’ mission of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe on Monday criticized Kazakh authorities for dispersing the rallies.

The OSCE said in a statement that the police response “hampered the conduct of democratic elections.” “While there was potential for Kazakhstan’s early presidential election to become a force for political change, a lack of regard for fundamental rights, including detentions of peaceful protesters, and widespread voting irregularities on election day, showed scant respect for democratic standards,” the statement said.

Kazakh protesters dispute legitimacy of presidential vote

June 09, 2019

MOSCOW (AP) — Hundreds of protesters held unauthorized demonstrations in Kazakhstan to oppose an early presidential election Sunday, drawing riot police and arrests. Police roughly broke up the demonstrations in Nur-Sultan, the capital, and Almaty, the country’s main commercial city. Deputy Interior Minister Marat Kozhayev said about 100 protesters were detained in all, news reports said.

The protesters complained the snap election was illegitimate, staged as a show to hand over power to a loyalist of the longtime president who resigned in March. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the upper house speaker who became acting president when President Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down, is expected to win Sunday’s contest easily.

Seven candidates are on the ballot, including a genuine opposition figure for the first time since independence. The resignation of the 78-year-old Nazarbayev, who had led Kazakhstan since it separated from the Soviet Union to become an independent country in 1991, came as a surprise to many who expected him to run for re-election next year.

The opposition candidate, Amirzhan Kossanov, said Sunday he had no complaints about violations during the campaign. “But the most important result, the peak of the election political process, is counting of the votes,” Kossanov said.

Preliminary results were expected early Monday. Kazakhstan has experienced rising opposition sentiment recently. Anti-government rallies were held in the spring to protest what opponents saw as an orchestrated handover of power and to call for a boycott of the early presidential vote.

One of the most prosperous former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan stands at a crossroads between neighbors China and Russia.

5 candidates for Algeria’s contested presidential vote

November 02, 2019

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria’s electoral body Saturday announced five candidates for the Dec. 12 presidential election, including two former prime ministers and all products of the system challenged by months of pro-democracy protests.

The electoral authority validated the candidacies of former prime ministers Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and two former ministers, one of them a moderate Islamist, plus the head of a small party.

The elections are to replace former longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, forced to resign in April after protests and a stern warning from army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the country’s authority figure.

Protesters had opposed Bouteflika’s planned bid for a fifth term after 20 years in power and now want to dismantle the corruption-ridden system that kept him in office and the long-standing, if often shadowy, role of the military at the top. Bouteflika was Algeria’s first civilian president since the nation’s first leader after independence from France in 1962, Ahmed Ben Bella, was deposed in a coup.

Besides the two former prime ministers running in next month’s presidential election, the other candidates are: former tourism minister and moderate Islamist, Abdelkader Bengrina; former culture minister and current interim secretary of the RND party that was in the governing coalition, Azzedine Mihoubi; and the head of the El Moustakbel (Future) party close to the FLN, also in the ruling coalition, Belaid Abdelaziz.

The announcement came a day after tens of thousands of Algerians marched for a 37th consecutive week to demand an end to Algeria’s post-colonial political system. Protesters say they don’t trust those currently in power to ensure democratic elections, citing their past links to Bouteflika.

The five who will run were among 23 people who tried to run for the presidency but fell short of the requirements. Rules for candidates included gathering 50,000 signatures from citizens on voting lists from at least 50 regions.

Indonesian voters decide between moderate and ex-general

April 17, 2019

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Tens of millions of Indonesians voted in presidential and legislative elections Wednesday after a campaign that pitted the moderate incumbent against an ultranationalist former general whose fear-based rhetoric warned that the country would fall apart without his strongman leadership.

Polling booths closed first in easternmost provinces such as Papua followed an hour later by central regions including Bali, and finally western provinces and Jakarta, the capital. Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands and hundreds of ethnic groups, has three time zones.

Preliminary results based on so-called “quick counts” as votes are publicly tallied at polling stations were expected to start rolling in within two hours of the final poll closings. The quick counts from reputable survey organizations have been reliable in past elections.

About 193 million people were eligible to vote in elections that will decide who leads the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and third-largest democracy after India and the U.S. Indonesians are voted for Senate and national, provincial and district legislatures.

The elections are a huge logistical exercise, with more than 800,000 polling stations and 17 million people involved in ensuring they run smoothly. Helicopters, boats and horses were used to get ballots to remote and inaccessible corners of the archipelago.

The presidential race is a choice between five more years of the steady progress achieved under Indonesia’s first president from outside the Jakarta elite, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, or electing Prabowo Subianto, who was a special forces general during the era of the Suharto military dictatorship.

Pre-election polls consistently gave a large lead of as much as 20 percentage points to Widodo and his running mate, conservative cleric Ma’ruf Amin, though analysts said the race was likely tighter. “I’ve voted for Jokowi because five years in office was not enough for him to complete his brilliant programs for infrastructure, health and education,” said Eko Cahya Pratama, 43, after voting in Tangerang on the outskirts of Jakarta.

“For me, this country is better to be managed by a man with a clean track record rather than a dirty one in the past,” he said. Widodo’s campaign highlighted his progress in poverty reduction and improving Indonesia’s inadequate infrastructure with new ports, toll roads, airports and mass rapid transit. The latter became a reality last month in chronically congested Jakarta with the opening of a subway.

A strident nationalist, Subianto ran a fear-based campaign, highlighting what he sees as Indonesia’s weakness and the risk of exploitation by foreign powers or disintegration. “He deserves to get my vote because I was impressed with his commitment to create a clean government and a great nation,” said Anneka Karoine, 43, after she and her husband voted for Subianto and his running mate, tycoon Sandiaga Uno. “I believe they will lead our country better than the current leader.”

Subianto voted not long after 8 a.m. in Bogor in West Java province, one of his strongholds of support, and told reporters he was confident of winning despite trailing in the polls. “I promised that we will work for the good of the country,” he said. “If it’s chaos or not, it’s not coming from us. But I guarantee that we don’t want to be cheated anymore, that Indonesian people don’t want to be cheated anymore.”

Widodo, who voted in Jakarta, held up a finger dipped in inedible ink to show reporters and said his next stop was playing with his grandson and eating with his wife, Iriana Widodo. Asked if he was feeling optimistic about the results of Wednesday’s vote, Widodo said: “Always. We should stay optimistic at work.”

2nd phase of voting begins in India with Kashmir in lockdown

April 18, 2019

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Voting began in the second phase of India’s general elections Thursday amid massive security and a lockdown in parts of the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Srinagar is one of 95 constituencies across 13 Indian states where voting was taking place.

Kashmiri Muslim separatist leaders who challenge India’s sovereignty over the disputed region have called for a boycott of the vote, calling it an illegitimate exercise under military occupation. Most polling stations in the Srinagar and Budgam areas of Kashmir looked deserted in the morning, with more armed police, paramilitary soldiers and election staff than voters.

Authorities shut down mobile internet services and closed some roads with steel barricades and razor wire as armed soldiers and police in riot gear patrolled the streets. Voting was expected to be brisk in the Hindu-dominated Udhampur constituency of the region.

The Indian election is taking place in seven phases over six weeks in the country of 1.3 billion people. Some 900 million people are registered to vote for candidates to fill 543 seats in India’s lower house of Parliament.

Voting concludes on May 19 and counting is scheduled for May 23. Also voting Thursday is Tamil Nadu state in the south, where tens of thousands lined up to cast their ballots for 37 seats. Voting was postponed for the Vellore seat following the seizure of 110 million ($1.57 million) in unaccounted cash allegedly from the home of a local opposition politician, Kathir Anand.

His party accused federal tax authorities of raiding the homes and offices of party leaders running against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party. The governing party in the state, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is an ally of Modi’s party.

The Election Commission said that authorities had recovered 2 billion rupees ($29 million) from leaders, workers and supporters of various political parties in the state in the past month. They suspect the money is for buying votes.

In vote-rich Uttar Pradesh state, election officials directed authorities to provide drinking water and sun shelters at polling stations to cope with the scorching summer heat, said Vekenteshwar Lu, the state’s chief electoral officer.

The election, the world’s largest democratic exercise, is seen as a referendum on Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. Modi has used Kashmir as one of the top issues of his campaign and played up the threat of rival Pakistan, especially after the suicide bombing of a paramilitary convoy on Feb. 14 that killed 40 soldiers. The bombing brought nuclear rivals India and Pakistan close to the brink of war.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989. Most Kashmiris support the rebels’ demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country, while also participating in civilian street protests against Indian control.

Anti-India unrest has risen significantly since Modi came to power in 2014 amid a rise in Hindu nationalism and attacks against Muslims and other minorities. Modi supporters say the tea seller’s son from Gujarat state has improved the nation’s standing. But critics say his party’s Hindu nationalism has aggravated religious tensions in India.

Associated Press writers Ashok Sharma in Bew Delhi and Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, contributed to this report.