Moldova — Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin failed on Wednesday to secure the parliament’s election of a compliant ally as his successor who would have allowed him to continue running the country behind the scenes.
Voronin’s plan to win parliamentary support for fellow Communist Zinaida Greceanii came unstuck when opposition parties torpedoed the ballot with a boycott that denied her, by just one vote, the required tally of votes for election.
The outcome triggers new parliamentary elections, though Voronin took no immediate steps to dissolve the chamber.

The biggest phase of India’s parliamentary elections is under way amid fresh attacks blamed on Maoist fighters and a heat wave sweeping across much of the country.
As the second of five rounds of polling went ahead on Thursday, suspected fighters launched a bomb attack on a vehicle carrying election officials in the eastern Jharkhand state, authorities said.
A magistrate and a police officer were hurt in the blast, according to SP Pradhan, a Jharkhand government spokesman.
Security forces subsequently launched an aerial raid on a suspected Maoist base in a wooded …

When asked how his New Year celebrations have been, the pilgrim — a middle-aged businessman wearing a heavy winter coat against the bitter winds that knife through the monastery’s narrow alleys — immediately glances up and then over his shoulder. It is the universal, instinctive reaction of Tibetans I talked to on a recent trip to China’s far western province of Qinghai, where ethnic Tibetans make up the majority of the population in the areas closest to the Qinghai-Tibet border. “Cameras,” he hisses, nodding upward. “The police have them everywhere.”

Iraqi voters gave the prime minister a resounding endorsement in provincial elections, choosing security over long-dominant religious parties in much of the country, according to results released Thursday.
The election commission announced that the coalition loyal to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki finished first in races for ruling councils in Baghdad and eight other provinces during last weekend’s vote.
The clearest victory was in Baghdad, where al-Maliki’s Coalition of the State of Law received 38 percent of the vote, followed by allies of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and a Sunni party with 9 …

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s allies swept to victory over Shiite religious parties during last weekend’s provincial elections in Iraq — a rousing endorsement of his crackdown on extremists, according to official results released Thursday.
The impressive showing, which must be certified by international and Iraqi observers, places al-Maliki in a strong position before parliamentary elections late this year and could bolster U.S. confidence that it can begin withdrawing more of its 140,000 troops.

Provincial elections that were meant to strengthen democratic rule in Iraq and distribute power more equally are now threatening to upend almost two years of peace in Anbar province, the vast western desert where Al Qaeda in Iraq once operated freely.
With preliminary polling results scheduled for release as early as Thursday, tribes of the Anbar Awakening and other clans that helped U.S. forces crush the insurgency here have charged that last Saturday’s elections were a sham. The tribes insist that they were double-crossed by the region’s sitting government and suggest …

Tens of thousands of policemen and soldiers, doctors at hospitals, prisoners clad in orange jumpsuits and residents forced from contested towns cast early ballots Wednesday in provincial elections that will redraw Iraq’s political landscape.
Regular voting is scheduled for Saturday to choose the equivalent of state legislatures in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces. But early voting was allowed for certain groups, in particular the security forces, which will be deployed as part of a security clampdown. On election day, the government has ordered a nighttime curfew, the closing of Iraq’s …

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appealed on Friday for a big turnout in next week’s provincial elections as the gunning down of a Sunni family of nine highlighted the fragile security situation.
Maliki urged voters to go to the polls in large numbers, saying the ballot represented their best chance of securing a safe and stable future amid continued violence almost six years after the US-led ouster of Saddam Hussein.
The January 31 provincial elections are seen as a crucial step in helping to secure Iraq’s stability amid simmering unrest, a …

BAGHDAD, Iraq — If any single image can capture Iraq’s precarious position, suspended between dictatorship and democracy, it’s the campaign posters that are pasted on towering concrete blast walls throughout Baghdad and in the provinces, reflecting the country’s brutal past and its hopes for a different future.
A week before voters go to the polls to fill several hundred council seats in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, more than 14,400 candidates are jostling to make their pitches in an election that many Iraqis hope will distribute power more equitably. On campaign …

Iraqi MPs struggling to break a political deadlock over the election of the next speaker of parliament postponed a vote on Monday until after regional polls scheduled for the end of the month, an official said.
“The decision to postpone was made after the parliament’s presiding board and the heads of political entities in the parliament agreed on the issue today,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The voting process for a new speaker will now take place on February 4 and 5.