Around the Bloc: Macedonians Stage Mass Anti-Gov’t Protest March
Around 15,000 people marched in Skopje to honor WWII anti-fascist uprising, protest ruling VMRO DPMNE party’s ‘authoritarianism.’
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Around 15,000 people marched in Skopje to honor WWII anti-fascist uprising, protest ruling VMRO DPMNE party’s ‘authoritarianism.’
More...
Consensus candidate Kersti Kaljulaid took office on Monday after weeks of discussions in the parliament, and a number of failed votes.
More...
Opposition parties are trying to form a coalition to send long-serving PM Djukanovic into political retirement.
More...
Despite disclaimers, the coalition’s credentials are under scrutiny because of the Center Party’s past ties with United Russia.
More...
A week after winning the presidential election, Igor Dodon has already earmarked heads to roll.
More...
Prime Minister resigns after heavy defeat of his party’s candidate to military man seen as pro-Russian.
More...
Socialist Igor Dodon’s victory is marred by the logistics of voting abroad, where a shortage of ballots prevented many from casting their votes in the election runoff.
More...
Former PM Gruevski’s bid to reclaim office could derail the delicate ceasefire between conservatives and leftists.
More...
Hawkish former interior minister will head a government of agrarians and Greens.
More...
Corruption is a phenomenon that has already occurred in the end of the Roman Republic. The former legislator has introduced regulations limiting the possibility of buying electoral votes by a ban on organizing public feasts and the distribution of gifts. In addition, it was penalized to make promises to release somebody from public burdens, such as the obligation to perform certain public works. In the Polish legal system there are also regulations penalizing electoral corruption. The basic legal acts are Penal Code and the Electoral Law to the municipal councils, district councils and regional assemblies. This article presents cases of electoral corruption in the light of the Code regulations.
More...
Authors of the article pay attention to legal regulation regarding criminal offence of electoral corruption (Section 336 a, Criminal Code), which was introduced into Slovak Criminal Code since 1st September, 2011. The article includes analysis of body of the criminal act and it also points out possible application problems. Also, the authors presented their views concerning solution of the application problems.
More...
The presented contribution attempts to analyze citizen’s protection in the area of public affairs governance exercised by the Slovak Republic citizens directly or by means of nominated representatives elected by them. The Constitutional Law to elect and vote in referendum is guaranteed by the legislator not only by means of Election Acts and the Act referring to the manner and methods of providing referendum, but at the same time it is protected by the Criminal Law provisions. The author puts a special attention to the criminal offence regarding manipulation of the preparation and the course of elections and referendum. Besides that, the author puts into consideration the criminal offence of the election corruption together with some application problem- factors of the mention provisions.
More...
The right for electing the representatives of authority bodies is one of the fundamentals of democracy. This right entitles citizens for active public participation through expressing their support (votes) for candidates, which will respectively represent their voters in certain institutions. Polish electoral law, which regulates the local self–government elections is very controversial. The existing legal rules were changed many times since 2011. Among the subjects being discussed one can mention electoral campaigns, candidate registration rules and organization of elections. Frequent changes in the electoral law result in misunderstandings and unwillingness to participate in elections. Their effect is low voter turnout and a large number of invalid votes. To sum up considerations over a political model of large cities, it is worth to indicate that during the last 25 years of operation of Polish local government none of political models of big cities was adopted.
More...
The article studies the main milestones of political struggle of oppositional intellectuals in contemporary Poland. Traced is the history of confrontation of the authority and opposition since 1980-s when the labor union "Solidarity" entered the political arena and the review is finalized with presidential elections of 2015 in Poland.
More...
The article analysed the electoral system in elections to the Spanish Congress, its proportionality and impact on the shape of the party system. It is based on the assumption that long-standing dominance of two political parties is the result of settings of the electoral system. The main aim was to identify the key factors that influence the final results of elections. By analysis of the individual components of the electoral system, the paper identified the size of constituencies in combination with the electoral formula that have key impact on election results. Based on quantitative data the text showed that the adjustment of the system does not generate two party system format. However, under certain circumstances it can produce results with a significant disproportionality. The article also explained the institutional factors that allow the relevant representation of parties in third and fourth place. By knowing the facts, paper reviews previous theories that pointed to the direct closeness of the electoral system and the Spanish form of the two party system.
More...
After the 1980 and 1995 sovereignty referendums in Quebec, relevant international institutions and liberal democratic states involved in secessionist struggles of their peripheries and scholars started to pay attention to the issue of wording of ballot formulas designed for independence referendums. In this text, the rather underestimated scholarly reflection of the issue will be critically scrutinized. Scholars have investigated on many aspects of the ballot text. Nevertheless, I argue that the whole debate on its legitimacy can be narrowed to three most relevant legitimizing criteria. Naturally, referendum questions ought to be an important part of scholarly attention, nevertheless, the relevance of response options cannot be underestimated. Last but not least, attention was paid to the question whether single-question ballot texts deserve more legitimacy than multiple-choice ballot texts. I found out that there was a dynamic development of the issue within the last two decades. As for intelligibility of the referendum questions, scholars have defined a clear question in opposition to unbearably long and biased formulas. As for fair response options, it has not been clear whether, in future, the most common Yes-No binary alternatives might be substituted by long and illustrative response options as it was the case on the ballot text designed for “Brexit”. Finally, scholars have not brought a clear answer to the question whether a single issue – which oversimplifies the issue – or a multiple-choice ballot text – which rarely generates clear majority for any of the alternatives – fulfils better the criteria of legitimacy.
More...
In this paper we wish to offer an image of the operation of the integrative mechanisms of the Hungarian society. Specifically we concentrate on systems integration, in other words to those political processes and interactions that reproduce the mechanisms of coexistence within the society. Systems integration is approached from the dimension of action (Kiss 2015a). Testing three hypotheses on the data base of the OTKA-research entitled ’Processes of Integration and Disintegration in the Hungarian Society’ we present which explanatory factors influence intentions of choice and the traditional or direct democratic forms of political activity. We separately dwell upon relations between cohort generations and participation, life events and participation as well as clients and participation.
More...
The paper analyzes the evolution of parliamentary electoral law in Poland, applying the method of systemic analysis, the legal and comparative method and historical methods. A statistical analysis has also been conducted. The paper indicates what factors are related to electoral regulations that result in the deformation of the intentions of citizens. In particular, it discusses the political outcomes of the successive changes of electoral laws and their political context. It presents how the changes to electoral law deform the intentions of citizens. The paper also examines the real level of the legitimization of legislative power in Poland by citizens.
More...
This paper analyzes the regional elections of the deputies to the Kaliningrad Oblast Duma, starting in 1993 and the applicable legislation, and leads to the conclusion that, in general, all the elements of the election system of deputies of the State Duma, or the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, are replicated in the Kaliningrad region and other units of the Federation. The unification of the electoral legislation across the entire Russian Federation promoted greater similarity of the election systems of different regions, without taking into account their specific character. The transformation of the law on electoral procedures on the federal level, which is still in progress, determines further search for an optimal election model in the Russian Federation.
More...
Consensual type of democracy is adequate to the democratic organization of the modern society. Consensual democracy implies an adequate representation of all ethno-cultural structures at all levels of decision-making in a society. However, when it comes to Montenegrin society, and in view of consensual democracy, the current participation of the Roma and Egyptian (RE) population in the political life is low. The RE population is essentially out of the processes. This means that a very important element of consensual democracy has been omitted and without it one cannot talk about the democratic process entirety in Montenegrin society, completed democratic transition nor about „ontological security“ of all ethno-cultural and national structures
More...