Considering the low expectations that Egyptians and other observers had of the country’s parliamentary elections (the two rounds took place on November 28 and December 5, 2010 respectively), it should perhaps be recognised as an achievement of sorts for the Mubarak regime.
Egypt’s parliamentary elections will take place on November 28, by which time this issue of Crescent will have gone to press. Normally, this would be problematic from a news point of view; one of the most difficult issues for any periodical is when major developments are expected between its press deadline and its publication date.
There was a crucial National Security Council meeting due to take place in Ankara that day. When he was informed about the incident, Mr. He collected some of the fragments while listening to testimonies from people in the mosque
But Obama has been a huge disappointment to most Americans as well. Republican Scott Brown’s victory to the senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts since 1972 is reflective of this mood swing...
When Americans are not winning hearts and minds by dropping 1,000-pound bombs on wedding parties or mud-hut dwelling women and children as they did in Farah province on May 4 killing 147 civilians, 93 of them children, they are busy delivering democracy through cruise missiles...
After a week of sporadic protests in Tehran, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a stern warning on June 19th during the Friday Khutbah attended by two million people to desist from trying to overturn the results of presidential elections through street protests.
Far away from the corporate course of managed information and at a distance from the bromide cliches being spouted by a network of America-centered Iranians who lost in Iran 30 years ago and will lose again today, take a look at Islamic Iran from another, quite different angle.
There are many possible explanations for the unrest that has broken out in Iran since the presidential elections last month. One thing that has become quite clear is that there was a pre-existing plan by enemies of the Islamic State to exploit the political uncertainty of the election period for their own purposes, regardless of the results; now perhaps we can see where the resources that the Bush administration had committed to destabilising Iran have been used.
Despite US President Barack Obama’s claims of non-involvement in Iran’s affairs, few people believe that the US was an innocent bystander in the recent riots in Tehran.The US not only has a long history of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs, these intensified during former President George Bush’s era.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, government and people, are gearing up for presidential elections that are scheduled for the first half of June 2009. There appear to be two prime candidates for the presidency: Mr. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Mr. Mir HosseinMoussavi. Both fine men are qualified beyond doubt to lead the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Movement of the world during the coming four-year term, which will probably be the most challenging time in the history of the Islamic Movement and state.
Elections in Iran, whether local, parliamentary or presidential, are never dull but this year’s presidential elections are beginning to take on a decidedly more exciting tone. In addition to the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, being in the race, two other leading figures have indicated they will contest the polls: Ayatullah Mehdi Karoubi, and Mir Husain Mousavi.
Barack Obama’s election on November 4th and his inauguration as the 44th president of the United States on January 20th have led to misplaced optimism even among those who should know better. Obama’s claims to America’s “greatness” because it afforded him — son of a cattle-herder from Africa — the opportunity to rise to the highest office in the land should not mislead anyone.
By-elections in Malaysia are fought with the same vigor, if not more, as the general election. Why this is so remains a mystery, especially when the ruling party still has a comfortable majority in parliament despite the drubbing it got in the general elections last March.
Two narratives have dominated news about Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential elections. The first is the corporate media’s hype that democracy in America is vibrant because even an African-American can be elected president. The second is the global euphoria over Obama’s “historic” victory carrying the implication that a similarly “historic” shift is about to occur in US policies.
By the time many readers see this issue of Crescent International, the US presidential elections will have taken place and the results known. Failing some drastic turnaround in the last days of campaigning (after Crescent goes to press), Barack Obama is likely to be confirmed as the US’s first black president, in what is already being widely anticipated as a total and deliberate repudiation of the legacy of the presidency of George W. Bush.
The great political circus otherwise known as the US presidential election campaign is an expensive affair. It will cost nearly $1 billion—no mean sum in a country with 45 million people without health insurance and another 40 million living in absolute poverty, even if it boasts the largest economy in the world.
It has become a political tradition for the performance of a government to be evaluated once it has been in power for a period of some three months or a hundred days. This is usually taken as the time required for the new administration to bed itself in; problems encountered before this time has elapsed can often be conveniently attributed to the previous regime.
At the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, US president George W. Bush performed a comedy skit making fun of all three contenders to replace him, blithely ignoring the fact that he himself is the greatest figure of fun of all -- a lame duck president despite having nearly a year of his administration to go, with the lowest approval ratings of any American president ever.
The neo-cons’ commitment to promoting democracy in the Muslim world was quietly discarded after Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections in January 2006, when they finally realised what most observers had been saying all along: that free elections in Muslim countries would almost invariably result in governments that the West would not like because they would promote the concerns and interests of their own people above those of Washington.
That there are now two ruling coalitions in Malaysia – UMNO’s and another led by Anwar Ibrahim (pic, left) – aptly describes Malaysia’s post-election reality. For the first time, the opposition’s credibility is being put to test at the governing level.
