May 3, 2009 – Panama, President and Parliament
May 7, 2009 – India, Parliament (4th Round)
May 9, 2009 – Maldives, Parliament
May 10 2009 – New Caledonia, Parliament
May 13, 2009 India, Parliament (5th Round)
May 16, 2009 – Kuwait, Parliament
May 17, 2009 – Lithuania, President (1st Round)
May 17, 2009 – Switzerland, Referendum
May 17, 2009 – Comoros, Constitutional referendum
May 19, 2009 – Malawi, President and Parliament
May 20, 2009 – Cayman Islands, Parliament and constitutional referendum
May 20, 2009 – Moldova, President (indirect)
May 23, 2009 – Germany, President (indirect)
May 24, 2009 – May: Mongolia, …

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance said on Saturday the ruling Congress party-led alliance had the biggest mandate after a general election.
“The Congress has the biggest mandate,” said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
“I think if Congress wants to compliment some of its leaders in this hour of victory, I think they’re entitled to do so.”
The Congress-led alliance was projected to get about 250 seats of a total 543 parliamentary seats.

The Election Commission has identified as ‘vulnerable’ from a security point of view over 12,000 villages that go to polls in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections Thursday.
‘All preparations have been made for peaceful elections,’ Deputy Election Commissioner R. Balakrishnan told reporters here Monday.
Eighty-five Lok Sabha constituencies in eight states, including Delhi, will vote Thursday.
‘The commission has identified more than 12,048 villages as vulnerable to threat and intimidation and 60,405 people have been identified as trouble makers,’ Balakrishnan said.

Indian newspapers applauded Friday the millions of voters who cast their ballots during the first day of marathon general elections, despite attacks by Maoist rebels in several states.
“Red Terror can’t stop India’s Ink,” ran the headline in the Hindustan Times, which noted a turnout of around 50 percent in those states where Maoists, known in India as Naxals, had threatened to disrupt the polls.
“That people turned out in substantial numbers shows that they still have more faith in our flawed democracy than the Naxal version of rule through the barrel …

Malaysia’s new Prime Minister, Najib Razak, is facing his first major test, as voters cast their ballots in three local by-elections.
One parliament seat and two state seats are being contested, but the results are also being seen as an indication of support in Mr Najib’s leadership.
Mr Najib took office on Friday, to replace former leader Abdullah Badawi.

Hamid Karzai is the current President of Afghanistan, since December 7, 2004. He became a prominent political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

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.”

SUVA, Fiji (AP) — Fiji’s military ruler on Wednesday refused to buckle to demands that he hold democratic elections this year, saying he would stick to his own timetable even if it meant facing sanctions.
Commodore Frank Bainimarama also suggested that the leaders of the 16-member Pacific Island Forum who threatened to suspend Fiji from their bloc, which could mean losing aid money, that they had no right to do so.
“I have never come across a situation where a country gives an ultimatum to another country unless, of course, there is …

The awkward issue of democracy in Fiji will dominate a meeting of South Pacific leaders in Papua New Guinea.
There is disagreement on how to respond to the failure of Fiji’s military-led government to hold elections.
Both Australia and New Zealand appear to be losing patience with the Fijian military and are pushing for tougher sanctions.
Smaller island nations, including Tonga and Samoa, have said they will oppose any heavy-handed tactics.
Fiji’s military seized power more than two years ago and shows no sign of returning the country to democratic government anytime soon.

Her plucked-and-arched eyebrows flanking brown shades, pink chiffon chador over head with a wisp of grey showing, Begum Khaleda Zia has just cast her vote in the centre at Adamjee Cantonment School and College here.
Workers of her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), she alleges, have been harassed overnight in Rangpur and Satkhira, but she is hoping the elections will be peaceful.
The Awami League’s 14-party combine is widely tipped to take an edge over the BNP-led four-party alliance. Zia may be positioning herself for an upset after claiming she was on …