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Nov. 6 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th president of the United States.

In 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.

In 1869, in the first formal intercollegiate football game, Rutgers beat Princeton, 6-4.

In 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected 31st president of the United States, defeating Democrat Al Smith.

In 1956, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected by a wide margin.

In 1965, a formal agreement between the United States and Cuba allowed Cubans who wanted to leave the island nation for America to do so. More than 250,000 Cubans had taken advantage of this opportunity by 1971.

In 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term, winning 49 states.

File Photo by Mal Langsdon/UPI

In 1985, members of the 19th of April Movement took over the Palace of Justice in Bogota, Colombia. The leftist guerrillas would kill more than 100 people (11 of whom where Supreme Court Justices) by the time the siege ended.

In 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree banning the Communist Party, nationalizing its property and condemning its activities.

File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

In 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney to win a second term. Federal finance reports showed campaign expenditures broke the $2 billion mark, making the election the most expensive in U.S. history at the time.

In 2013, Avigdor Lieberman, who had resigned as Israel’s foreign minister because of an investigation of alleged corruption, was acquitted and said: “This chapter is behind me. I am now focusing on the challenges ahead.” Lieberman became foreign minister again five days later.

In 2019, the U.S. midterm elections saw a number of milestones and firsts — Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., were the first Muslim women elected to the House; Sharice Davids, D-Kan., and Debra Haaland, D-N.M., were the first Native American women elected to the House; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was the youngest person elected to the House in nearly three decades; and Jared Polis became the country’s first openly gay male governor, in Colorado. Democrats also took back control of the House, while Republicans held onto the Senate.

In 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed Finance Minister Christian Lindner, resulting in the collapse of his three-party coalition government. A month later, Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament, triggering an election in February that saw conservative Friedrich Merz put into power.

File Photo by Leo Correa/UPI

Oct. 20 (UPI) — Bolivia is poised to elect Rodrigo Paz, a right-leaning centrist senator, as president on Sunday, besting former conservative president Jorge Quiroga in an election runoff.

According to preliminary results from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Paz, 58, of the Christian Democratic Party, won with 54.6% of the more than 6.5 million people in the country who cast ballots on Sunday.

Paz is the son of former President Jaime Paz Zamora, who served from 1989 to 1993.

Paz was elected after coming out on top of the mid-August presidential election — a surprise rise to the top of a heap of candidates as National Unit Front party’s Samuel Doria Medina was expected to be the winner at the time.

Sunday’s runoff was the result of neither Paz nor Quiroga, 65, winning the presidency outright in that August contest.

With both Paz and Quiroga being conservatives, their victories in the runoff ensured a right-leaning president would lead the country for the first time since 2006, when Bolivia elected union organizer Evo Morales as its first Indigenous president, who served until his resignation amid protests over voting irregularities in 2019.

“Here we were, here we are and here we will continue to be,” Quiroga said in a statement on Facebook as the election results became clear. “THANK YOU! Together we will keep working for a Free Bolivia.”

Paz won on a campaign to establish a market-based economy with the motto of “Capitalism for All.”

Quiroga had similarly championed a market-based economic system during his campaign, which emphasized private property rights for citizens.

The election comes as the South American country faces an economic crisis, with voters’ shunning of the leftist Movement Towards Socialism seen as a repudiation of the party.

“I congratulate the President-elect of Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz, for his victory in the elections and the entire Bolivian people for their democratic participation at the ballot boxes,” Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font said in a statement.

“From Chile, we reaffirm our commitment to strengthening cooperation and joint work between brother countries for the benefit of our peoples.”

U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said Bolivia, with the election of Paz, “has turned the page & defeated socialism.”

“From the U.S. Congress, I wish your administration great success as you restore freedom, prosperity & democratic values to Bolivia,” he said on X.

More than 218,000 people voted in Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) leadership election that could shape the island’s political direction.

Opposition candidate Tufan Erhurman has won the presidential election in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), decisively defeating incumbent Ersin Tatar, the Turkish Cypriot High Electoral Council has announced.

Erhurman, chairman of the centre-left Republican Turkish Party (CTP), secured 62.76 percent of the vote, compared with 35.81 percent for Tatar in Sunday’s election.

“There are no losers in this election. We, the Turkish Cypriot people, have won together,” Erhurman said after the announcement.

“I will exercise my responsibilities, particularly in matters of foreign policy, in consultation with the Republic of Turkiye. Let no one worry,” he added, referring to Ankara’s longstanding interest in Northern Cyprus.

Tatar, 65, was supported by the Turkish government and advocates a two-state solution for Cyprus. Erhurman, 55, a lawyer born in Nicosia and educated at the University of Ankara, has said he intends to restart negotiations with Greek Cypriots aimed at a federal reunification of the island. He previously took part in talks under former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat between 2008 and 2010 and served as TRNC prime minister from February 2018 to May 2019.

Northern Cyprus occupies less than a third of the Mediterranean island and is recognised only by Turkiye, which maintains more than 35,000 peacekeepers in the region.

Divided island

Cyprus was divided in 1974 after a coup in the south aimed at uniting the island with Greece. Turkish Cypriots declared independence in 1983, nine years after Turkiye’s military intervention following a brief Greek-backed coup which threatened the island’s Turkish community.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, but only the Greek Cypriot south – home to the internationally recognised government – enjoys full EU membership benefits. Many Turkish Cypriots hold EU-recognised Cyprus passports while residing in the north.

Greek Cypriots reject the two-state proposal, which they see as incompatible with the United Nations and EU-endorsed framework for a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.

There are around 218,000 registered voters in Northern Cyprus. Polls closed at 15:00 GMT on Sunday, and vote counting took place under the supervision of the TRNC Supreme Election Board at centres across the territory.

Greek Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides congratulated Erhurman on his victory, reaffirming his commitment to resuming negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leaders.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also congratulated Erhurman in a post on social media, adding that Turkiye would “continue to defend the rights and sovereign interests” of the breakaway territory.

WARSAW, Poland — The Conservative Political Action Conference, the United States’ premier conservative gathering, held its first meeting in Poland on Tuesday, just five days before a tightly contested presidential election between a liberal mayor and a conservative backed by President Trump.

The two candidates vying to replace Polish President Andrzej Duda offer starkly different visions for Poland: Rafał Trzaskowski, the pro-European Union liberal mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the Law and Justice party who is skeptical of the EU.

“We need you to elect the right leader,” Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, said in a speech at the event. “You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values.”

Noem described Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader” and Nawrocki as someone who would lead Poland in a style similar to Trump.

She opened her speech saying: “I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol and listen: he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?”

She also implied that electing Nawrocki would strengthen the U.S.-Poland relationship.

“If you (elect) a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have an ally that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values,” she said.

“You will have strong borders and protect your communities and keep them safe, and ensure that your citizens are respected every single day,” she said. “You will continue to have a U.S. presence here, a military presence. And you will have equipment that is American-made, that is high quality.”

The United States currently has some 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, a mission aimed at reassuring the frontline NATO nation worried about Russian aggression.

“Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” Noem said.

CPAC sees a ‘globalist’ attack

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp opened the proceedings with a speech claiming that conservatives around the world are locked in a battle against “globalists,” whom he described as enemies of faith, family and freedom.

Schlapp claimed CPAC had stood by Trump throughout his legal battles and declared that similar threats were playing out in countries like Poland.

“Are you happy that America is getting closer to being great again?” Schlapp asked the audience. “Did the reelection of Donald Trump bring you joy?”

“When one of us is under attack, the rest of us must come to that person’s defense,” he added. “The globalists intend to take each one of us out one by one — to shame us, to silence us, to bankrupt us, to ruin us, to make our kids turn against us.”

He said that’s why it was important to “win all these elections, including in Poland, that are so important to the freedom of people everywhere.”

The conference took place in Jasionka, near the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow, located in a region of Poland that is staunchly conservative. Jasionka has also been the hub for U.S. and Western weapons sent to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago.

A global conservative movement

CPAC meetings, which started in 1974, used to champion tight budgets and a hawkish foreign policy, but have steadily been taken over by the Trump wing of the Republican party. CPAC has rebranded itself as a celebration of the U.S. president’s populist approach.

At the same time, it’s reached out to other conservative populists with a stated goal of helping grow a global conservative movement. CPAC has held gatherings in Japan, South Korea, Mexico City and Israel. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his staff have become regular speakers. The gathering in Poland followed multiple CPAC meetings in Budapest.

Another speaker Tuesday was John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was the architect of much of Trump’s unsuccessful strategy to overturn his 2020 election loss.

In his speech, Eastman framed the upcoming Polish presidential election as a decisive moment for the future of Western civilization. He argued that a cultural and ideological “cancer” marked by a loss of faith in Western civilization is spreading eastward.

“Poland is poised to play a critical role in defeating this threat to Western civilization. That is why the election this coming Sunday is so important,” Eastman said.

Gera writes for the Associated Press.