Elections

No one anticipated last Sunday midterm election result in Argentina. Not even the executive, that faced a dire situation on the way to the election. Unexpectedly, Donald Trump himself came to President Milei’s rescue and the election´s results surprised everyone in the Argentine political spectrum.

The political campaign couldn´t be worse for the incumbent. First, in early September it lost a provincial election in key Buenos Aires province (home to 40% of Argentines). Second, Milei’s sister and top political advisor was accused of bribery. Third, his top candidate for national lawmaker at, again, the crucial Buenos Aires province had to step down amid accusations of being funded by a suspected narcotrafficker. Fourth, even though Milei has been very successful in slashing inflation, from over 200% annually to around 20%, this came with a hefty price. He cut subsidies to poor families and utilities, increase interest rates and open the economy to imports. According to the World Bank, economic activity plummeted a 1.7% in Milei’s first year in office while projections for 2025 economic growth hover around 3% to 4%. Finally, the Argentine peso faced strong devaluation pressures for several weeks prior the election that dried good part of Central Bank´s reserves.

It was at this point that Trump stepped in. He gave a 20bn US$ bailout that kept the peso´s devaluation under control during the crucial days previous to the election. He even offered to increase the economic assistance to 40bn depending on the elections’ result. Trump defied internal criticism, both from Democrats and Republicans for giving money to record high foreign debt defaulter Argentina.  

Astonishingly, the election’s result couldn´t be better for the government. It won at the national level with over 40% of the votes while the Peronist got 35%. It won in all but 8 of the 24 provinces, including Peronist stronghold, Buenos Aires province. It has greatly increased the president´s party congressional power, giving him the chance to defend his presidential decrees and vetoes and even advancing crucial legislation with the help of allies. Key among Milei´s projects is the reform of the 1974 labour law. This law repeatedly resisted reform attempts by pro market administrations in the past and has been blamed for Argentina´s far from successful private sector performance.

At the same time, the election has weakened the Peronists presidential aspirations since this voting could not produce a clear leader in their political arc. The same goes for other opposition candidates with presidential ambitions. In sum, this election has infused new life to the Milei administration and gave him the chance to pursue his agenda with renewed strength.

The other big winner is Donald Trump. He has successfully influenced an election in one of Latin America’s largest country. From here on, Argentina’s alliance with the US will only deepened. In the mind of those who voted Milei for president and were now doubting whether to cast their ballots for him again, the US support acted as a huge catalyst in making up their minds. The group of those seeking a profound alliance with the US in Argentina (traditionally an anti-American country, as Latino Barometer polls has shown across the years) has only grew.

Nevertheless, one important pitfall lies ahead: Argentina’s relations with China. China is currently Argentina’s major trading partner while the US ranks fourth after Brazil and the EU. Former Brazilian president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro faced the same situation: he tried at first to sever its economic ties with Beijing, only to find massive opposition from exporters at home. Will political affinity trump (no pun intended!) trade interests? The Argentine case will act as a litmus test of the future of the relationship between the US, Latin America and China.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been declared the winner of the country’s presidential election.

The electoral commission on Saturday said the incumbent had secured nearly 98 percent of the vote that saw key candidates jailed or barred and triggered days of violent protests.

More to follow…

D66 party says no time to waste as begins challenge of finding three coalition partners on fractious centre-ground.

Dutch centrist leader Rob Jetten has claimed victory in a cliffhanger election dominated by immigration and housing after seeing off far-right contender Geert Wilders, saying his win proved populism can be beaten.

The 38-year-old head of the D66 party, which won the most votes in this week’s general election, is now set to become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister of the European Union’s fifth-largest economy.

“I think we’ve now shown to the rest of Europe and the world that it is possible to beat the populist movements if you campaign with a positive message for your country,” he said on Friday, as tallying from news agency ANP showed he was on course to win.

The pro-EU, liberal D66 tripled its seat count with an upbeat campaign and a surge in advertising spending, while Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party lost a large part of the support that had propelled him to a shock victory at the previous poll in 2023.

D66, which currently has 26 seats but could gain one more when every vote is counted, is now expected to lead talks to form a coalition government, a process that usually takes months.

The party will need to find at least three coalition partners to reach a simple majority in the 150-seat lower chamber of parliament, with the centre-right CDA (18 seats), the liberal VVD (22) and the left-wing Green/Labour group (20) viewed as contenders.

But there are questions about whether the VVD and Green/Labour will work together. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said before the election an alliance with Green/Labour “would not work” and she wanted a centre-right coalition.

On Monday, the Green/Labour group will elect a new leader after former EU Vice President Frans Timmermans stepped down.

On Friday, Jetten urged mainstream parties from the left to the right to unite. “We want to find a majority that will eagerly work on issues such as the housing market, migration, climate and the economy,” he said.

‘Serious challenges’

Reporting from Amsterdam, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said Jetten faced “serious challenges” as informal coalition talks got under way, given that his party holds a razor-thin lead of only thousands of votes over Wilders and his PVV Freedom Party.

Jetten, an enthusiastic athlete who once ran as a pacemaker to Olympic champion Sifan Hassan, had said there was no time to waste “because the Dutch people are asking us to get to work”.

Wilders said Jetten was jumping the gun, pointing out that the results would only become official once the Electoral Council, rather than ANP – which collects the results from all municipalities in the Netherlands – had decided.

“How arrogant not to wait,” he wrote on X.

Although all mainstream parties had already ruled out working with him, Wilders had said he would demand to have a first crack at forming a coalition if his party was confirmed to have the most votes.

Although he saw support collapse, other far-right parties like the Forum for Democracy (FvD), a nationalist party that wants to withdraw from the EU’s Schengen system of open borders, performed well.

Confirmation of the result will come on Monday, when mail ballots cast by Dutch residents living abroad are counted.

Party leaders will discuss the next steps on Tuesday.

The New York City mayoral election is dominated by Democrats, a reflection of the US metropolis’s deeply liberal bent. But a Republican could make the difference in the race.

Candidate Curtis Sliwa has remained defiant ahead of the November 4 election, shrugging off appeals from some top conservatives to drop out and boost the chances of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after being routed in June’s Democratic primary.

Some political observers see Sliwa’s exit as the only way for Cuomo to have a shot at defeating frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, who has surged to the top of voter polls on a Democratic Socialist platform.

“New Yorkers are tired of Andrew Cuomo, but Andrew Cuomo doesn’t seem to understand when ‘no’ means ‘no’,” said Rusat Ramgopal, Sliwa’s deputy campaign manager, with a pointed reference to the sexual misconduct allegations that forced Cuomo from his post as New York State’s governor in 2021.

Sliwa has also doled out blows to both of his opponents.

“Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City,” he said during the final mayoral debate on October 22.

Sliwa has also dipped into the same Islamophobic tropes perpetuated by Mamdani’s critics, falsely claiming during the final debate that the leading candidate supports “global jihad”.

Local showman or subway hero?

So who is Curtis Sliwa? It is a question that has dogged Sliwa since he rose to prominence as the leader of the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime-fighting group that became famous for its patrols of the New York City subway system.

Supporters have identified with the do-it-yourself ethos of the group, which Sliwa started in 1979, when he was a 24-year-old night manager at a McDonald’s restaurant in the Bronx. Many continue to hail him as an emblem of New Yorkers stepping up when city administration fails.

“When people see that red beret, they think about subway safety, public safety. They remember what he’s done for the city,” Ramgopal said.

“He is a larger-than-life figure who’s been integral to New York life for so many decades at this point.”

Others have accused the Guardian Angels, who do not carry weapons, of perpetuating a dangerous brand of vigilantism. The group has also faced criticism for alleged racial profiling, demonising immigrants, and wrongfully accusing individuals of committing crimes.

On the campaign trail, Sliwa has regularly condemned “migrant” crime.

The authenticity of the group’s exploits have been scrutinised, with Sliwa admitting in 1992 that he faked some crimes to boost publicity.

In recent years, Sliwa has been a candidate in local politics, a radio host and a media personality.

What are his platforms?

Unsurprisingly, Sliwa has made public safety, particularly in the transit system, the focus of his campaign. Even as crime dropped, Sliwa maintained the city is “facing a crisis of crime, lawlessness and failed leadership”.

He has vowed to hire 7,000 new New York Police Department (NYPD) officers, re-up controversial police units, and — as his website puts it — “enhance proactive and intrusive policing strategies to target illegal firearm carriers, repeat offenders, and violent criminals before crimes occur”.

Critics have said those strategies have historically led to increased racial profiling, the over-policing of minority communities, and intrusions on civil liberties.

He has also pushed affordability, an issue that has been dominant this campaign season, pledging to overhaul the system the city currently uses to coordinate with affordable housing programmes.

In addition, Sliwa, who owns several cats, has made animal protection a key plank of his campaign.

What do supporters see in him?

As the only right-wing candidate in the race, Sliwa has strong support among registered Republicans, who comprise 11 percent of New York’s 4.7 million registered voters.

Despite rising to prominence decades ago, he continues to rally new supporters.

“His work with the Guardian Angels has resonated with me a lot,” Shan Singh, a 30-year-old cab driver from Richmond Hill, Queens, told Al Jazeera.

Singh had previously been a Democrat but switched his support to US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential election. He perceives the recent protests that have swept the city as dangerous.

The fact that Sliwa is trailing in the polls, he added, is not enough to lose his vote.

“Regardless of the numbers, Curtis is the person who seems most real to me,” he said.

Russell, a 28-year-old from Brooklyn who asked that his last name be withheld, came out to show support for Sliwa ahead of the first mayoral debate in midtown Manhattan.

He said both Cuomo and Mamdani were too soft on crime, and he took particular issue with their support for bail reform programmes, designed to eliminate cash bail for low-level offences and avoid mass incarceration.

“It emboldens criminals to keep committing crimes, because there are no repercussions for it,” Russell said.

Does he have any chance at winning?

Short of a miracle, Sliwa has no real path to victory. The latest Quinnipiac University poll found he had the support of 14 percent of likely voters. That paled in comparison to Mamdani’s 43 percent and Cuomo’s 33 percent support.

That’s why Cuomo has pushed so hard for him to exit the race. The former governor made repeated overtures to conservative voters, saying a vote for Sliwa is, in essence, a vote for Mamdani.

Cuomo has even left the door open to giving Sliwa a role in his administration if he were to drop out.

As of yet, the appeals have been to no avail. It also remains unclear how many of Sliwa’s staunchest supporters would be willing to cross party lines.

“If Sliwa leaves the race, I wouldn’t vote for either [Cuomo or Mamdani],” Russell told Al Jazeera.

Support for Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Islam Freedom Party has declined as the centrist D66 party made major gains in the Dutch elections. The two parties are now neck-and-neck in the race to become the largest in parliament.

New York City, United States – Sitting in a room of hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers, Zohran Mamdani received cheers and applause at the Erev Rosh Hashanah service of progressive Brooklyn synagogue Kolot Chayeinu on a Monday evening last month.

This was one of the Democratic mayoral nominee’s recent appearances at synagogues and events over the Jewish High Holy Days, and a visible step towards navigating a politically charged line: increasingly engaging the largest concentration of Jewish people in any metropolitan area in the United States, and holding firmly anti-Zionist views before the general election on November 4.

Historically, Mamdani has held a strong stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, even founding a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine during his undergraduate days at Bowdoin College. A little more than a decade later, as Mamdani’s name began to gain recognition, his longstanding unapologetically pro-Palestinian stance became a rallying force behind his platform as well as a point of criticism from opponents.

Mamdani received endorsements and canvassing support from progressive Jewish organisations like Bend the Arc, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), organisations that have each confronted Israel’s role in the war in Gaza through statements on their websites.

Simultaneously, he has sustained attacks from far-right activists, Jewish Democrats on Capitol Hill and Zionist activist groups for his firm support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and refusal to call Israel a Jewish state.

But despite mixed responses, the polls are clear: Mamdani is leading among Jewish voters overall in a multiway race.

‘No group is a monolith’

In July, a publicly released research poll by Zenith Research found that Mamdani led with a 17-point lead among Jews and by Jewish subgroups. In the scenario of Mayor Eric Adams dropping from the race, Mamdani still dominated, 43-33.

“Me being Jewish, I understand that there are many cleavages within the Jewish community,” said Adam Carlson, founding partner of Zenith Research. “As a pollster, one of my big things is that no group is a monolith, and if you have a large enough sample size, you can break it out and glean some nuances … what we found was a better-than-expected result for Mamdani among Jewish voters in New York City.”

Beth Miller, political director of the political advocacy organisation Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action and a member of Kolot Chayeinu, shared what it was like to witness a fraction of this support at the Erev Rosh Hashanah that Mamdani attended last month.

“He was basically swarmed at the end because people were so excited that he was there,” said Miller. “And that’s not because he’s a celebrity, it’s because people are excited about what we can all build together if he becomes mayor.”

JVP Action, a day-one endorser of Mamdani, represents one organisation among a growing group of Jewish supporters for Mamdani, like JFREJ, a group that has played a part in spearheading canvassing efforts among the diverse Jewish communities of NYC.

JFREJ’s electoral arm, The Jewish Vote, has supported Mamdani since he was first running for state assembly in 2020. Since then, JFREJ members and Mamdani have worked, canvassed and protested together.

Alicia Singham Goodwin, political director of JFREJ, has personally been arrested at protests alongside Mamdani.

“That’s the kind of thing that gives me faith in his commitments,” Goodwin told Al Jazeera regarding the arrests. “He’s willing to take on big risks for the things that matter.”

JFREJ has played a large role in spreading Mamdani’s message by knocking on doors and phone banking Jewish voters.

“We care about what our neighbours are worried about, excited and hopeful for — what they need for their families, and we’re ready to meet them there with our analysis of how the city needs to move to get to affordable housing, universal childcare, or to combat the real rise in anti-Semitism and hate violence,” said Goodwin. “We believe that Zohran is the strongest candidate for that, as well as for all the other issues we talk about.”

Courting the Jewish vote

While there is no doubt that the canvassing army of 50,000 volunteers has served Mamdani well, the mayoral hopeful has also been strategic in his pursuit of the Jewish vote.

“He has definitely modulated his rhetoric and has made a concerted effort to reach out to liberal congregations,” said Val Vinokur, professor of literary studies and director of the minor in Jewish culture at The New School. “This has made him more palatable to some progressive Zionists, much to the outrage of his anti-Zionist supporters.”

One example of Mamdani’s subdued rhetoric includes his response to continued backlash over the phrase “globalise the intifada”.

The phrase, used by pro-Palestinian activists, sparked tension between Mamdani and parts of the Jewish community. To some, it represents a call for solidarity with Palestinian resistance, while others view it as anti-Semitic and violent.

Mamdani resisted rejecting the phrase before the June election, but The New York Times reported that since then, he said he would “discourage” its use.

On the second anniversary of the Gaza war, Mamdani posted a four-paragraph statement on X where he acknowledged the atrocities of Hamas’s attack, and then called Israel’s response genocide and ended on a note of commitment to human rights.

“It got s*** on from all sides,” said Carlson. “He made nobody happy, which in my mind, is kinda the correct way to go about it … Sometimes, pleasing nobody is the job of the mayor, and I think he’s learning that now. It’s like a microcosm of what he’s about to face as mayor, assuming he wins. Sometimes, you have to piss off everybody a little bit for compromises.”

Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism

As Carlson’s Zenith Research poll reflected, the NYC Jewish community has a wide diversity of opinion about politics and positions on Israel and Palestine. The community most clearly differentiates along lines of age, and secular versus conservative practice, but as Jewish support for Mamdani increases, it is evident that these divides are not always so distinct.

“While it’s true that there are major trends that younger American Jews are more progressive and sympathetic to Palestinians, it’s also true that for as long as Zionism has existed, there have been anti-Zionist Jews,” said Miller. “I learned a lot from elders who were in their 70s, 80s and 90s who have been anti-Zionist since Israel was created because they never felt that what they wanted or needed was an ethnostate to represent them.”

Alternatively, Zionist groups like Betar worldwide are troubled by these trends within the Jewish community of New York.

“It’s heartbreaking to see members of the Jewish community support Zohran Mamdani, who openly opposes Zionism — the national liberation movement of the Jewish people,” said Oren Magnezy, spokesperson of Betar worldwide.

Jonathan Boyarin, American anthropologist and Mann professor of modern Jewish studies at Cornell University, wondered whether anti-Zionism has done much to help Palestinians, but distinguished the line that Mamdani is walking.

“It’s been said that there are two kinds of people who confuse anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: Zionists and anti-Semites. I don’t think Zohran Mamdani belongs in either of those categories,” said Boyarin.

‘New political moment’

Ultimately, experts like Vinokur predict Mamdani will win, barring a scenario in which Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa drops out. Regardless, Vinokur expects Mamdani to secure the Jewish vote.

“He will win the Jewish vote despite and not because of his anti-Zionist background,” said Vinokur. “Younger Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal, have been galvanised by the dynamism of his campaign, and ultimately want to make the city a more livable, affordable, and equitable place.”

Mamdani’s message and campaign were celebrated at the JFREJ annual gala fundraiser, the Mazals. NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Mamdani were honoured together during a night filled with music, ritual and tradition with more than 1,000 attendees.

“I would say it was probably the largest single gathering of Jews for Zohran,” said Goodwin. “They cement this new political moment that we’re in, where people like JFREJ members, movements like ours, are not fringe or aspirational, but we are popular among a majority of New Yorkers.”

Polls suggest anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party on course to win largest number of seats.

People in the Netherlands are voting in a high-stakes snap election dominated by immigration and housing issues that will test the strength of the far right, which is on the rise across Europe.

Voting began at 7:30am (06:30 GMT) on Wednesday, and polls suggested anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders and his far-right Freedom Party (PVV) are on course to win the largest number of seats in the 150-member House of Representatives. However, three more moderate parties are closing the gap, and half the electorate is undecided.

After the results are known, parties have to negotiate the makeup of the next coalition government in a system of proportional representation that means no party can reach the 76 seats needed to govern alone.

The key question is whether other parties will work with Wilders – known as the “Dutch Trump”, a reference to the United States president – who sparked the elections by pulling the PVV out of a fractious four-way coalition and collapsing the previous government in a row over immigration.

All mainstream parties have ruled out a partnership with him again, finding his views too unpalatable and viewing him as an untrustworthy coalition partner. It seems likely that the leader of the party that polls second will most likely become prime minister.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said the election campaign had been “dominated by calls to limit immigration” with “some violent protests against refugee centres”.

In a pre-election interview with the news agency AFP, Wilders said people were “fed up with mass immigration and the change of culture and the influx of people who really do not culturally belong here”.

“The future of our nation is at stake,” he said.

Rob Jetten – leader of the centre-left D66 party, which wants to rein in migration but also accommodate asylum seekers – told Wilders that voters can “choose again tomorrow to listen to your grumpy hatred for another 20 years or choose with positive energy to simply get to work and tackle this problem and solve it”.

Frans Timmermans, a former European Commission vice president who now leads the centre-left bloc of the Labour Party and Green Left, said in the final debate before the elections that he was “looking forward to the day – and that day is tomorrow – that we can put an end to the Wilders era”.

Beyond immigration, the housing crisis that especially affects young people in the densely populated country has been a key campaign issue.

The electoral commission has registered 27 parties and 1,166 candidates running for the House of Representatives.

That means a big ballot paper because it bears the names of all the parties and the candidates on each party’s list.

Polls close at 9pm (20:00 GMT).

President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to win the election as the two main opposition parties have been barred from taking part.

Polls have opened in Tanzania for presidential and parliamentary elections being held without the leading opposition party, as the government has been violently cracking down on dissent ahead of the vote.

More than 37 million registered voters will cast their ballots from 7am local time (4:00 GMT) until 4pm (13:00 GMT). The election commission says it will announce the results within three days of election day.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan, 65, is expected to win after candidates from the two leading opposition parties were barred from standing.

The leader of Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema’s Tundu Lissu, is on trial for treason, charges he denies. The electoral commission disqualified Chadema in April after it refused to sign an electoral code of conduct.

The commission also disqualified Luhaga Mpina, the candidate for the second largest opposition party, ACT-Wazalendo, after an objection from the attorney general, leaving only candidates from minor parties taking on Hassan.

In addition to the presidential election, voters will choose members of the country’s 400-seat parliament and a president and politicians in the semiautonomous Zanzibar archipelago.

Hassan’s governing party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), whose predecessor party led the struggle for independence for mainland Tanzania in the 1950s, has dominated national politics since its founding in 1977.

Hassan, one of just two female heads of state in Africa, won plaudits after coming to power in 2021 for easing repression of political opponents and censorship that proliferated under her predecessor, John Magufuli, who died in office.

But in the last two years, rights campaigners and opposition candidates have accused the government of unexplained abductions of its critics.

She maintains her government is committed to respecting human rights and last year ordered an investigation into the reports of abductions. No official findings have been made public.

Stifling opposition

UN human rights experts have called on Hassan’s government to immediately stop the enforced disappearance of political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists “as a tool of repression in the electoral context”.

They said more than 200 cases of enforced disappearance had been recorded in Tanzania since 2019.

A recent Amnesty International report detailed a “wave of terror” including “enforced disappearance and torture … and extrajudicial killings of opposition figures and activists”.

Human Rights Watch said “the authorities have suppressed the political opposition and critics of the ruling party, stifled the media, and failed to ensure the electoral commission’s independence”.

US crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) said the ruling CCM was intent on maintaining its status as the “last hegemonic liberation party in southern Africa” and avoiding the recent electoral pressures faced by counterparts in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

In September 2024, the body of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the opposition Chadema party, was found after two armed men forced him off a bus heading from Dar-es-Salaam to the northeastern port city of Tanga.

There are fears that even members of CCM are being targeted. Humphrey Polepole, a former CCM spokesman and ambassador to Cuba, went missing from his home this month after resigning and criticising Hassan. His family found blood stains in his home.

The Tanganyika Law Society says it has confirmed 83 abductions since Hassan came to power, with another 20 reported in recent weeks.

Protests are rare in Tanzania, in part thanks to a relatively healthy economy, which grew by 5.5 percent last year, according to the World Bank, on the back of strong agriculture, tourism and mining sectors.

Hassan has promised big infrastructure projects and universal health insurance in a bid to win over voters.

Voters in Tanzania are heading to polling booths on Wednesday to vote for a new president, as well as members of parliament and councillors, in elections which are expected to continue the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) – or Party of Revolution’s – 64-year-long grip on power.

Despite a bevy of candidates in the lineup, incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan, analysts say, is virtually unchallenged and will almost certainly win, following what rights groups say has been a heavy crackdown on popular opposition members, activists and journalists.

Key challengers Tundu Lissu of the largest opposition party, Chadema, and Luhaga Mpina of ACT-Wazalendo, have been barred from standing, thus eliminating any real threat to Hassan. Other presidential candidates on the ballot lack political backing and are unlikely to make much impact on voters, analysts say.

The East African nation is replete with rolling savannas and wildlife, making it a hotspot for safari tourism. It is also home to Africa’s tallest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, as well as a host of important landmarks, like the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. Precious minerals, such as the unique tanzanite – a blue gemstone – and gold, as well as agricultural exports, contribute significantly to foreign earnings.

Central Dodoma is the country’s capital, while the economic hub is coastal Dar-es-Salaam. Swahili is the lingua franca, while different local groups speak several other languages.

Here’s what to expect at the polls:

What are people voting for and how will the elections be decided?

Voters are choosing a president, parliament members and local councillors for the 29 regions in mainland Tanzania. A president and parliament members will also be elected in the autonomous island of Zanzibar.

Winners are elected by plurality or simple majority vote – the candidate with the most votes wins.

Authorities declared that Wednesday would be a public holiday to allow people to vote, while early voting began in Zanzibar on Tuesday.

How many people are voting?

More than 37 million of the 60 million population are registered to vote. To vote, you must be a citizen aged 18 or over.

Voter turnout in the last general elections in 2020 was just 50.72 percent, however, according to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.

Who is President Samia Suluhu Hassan and why is she regarded as a shoe-in?

Formerly the country’s vice president, Hassan, 65, automatically ascended to the position of president following the death of former President John Magufuli in March 2021, to serve out the remainder of his term.

Hassan is presently one of only two African female leaders, the other being Namibia’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. She is the sixth president and the first female leader of her country. She was previously minister of trade for Zanzibar, where she is from.

This will be Hassan’s first attempt at the ballot, and the election was supposed to be a test of how Tanzanians view her leadership so far. However, analysts say the fact that her two strongest challengers have been barred from the polls means the president is running with virtually no competition.

After taking office in 2021, Hassan immediately began reversing controversial policies implemented by Magafuli, an isolationist leader who denied that COVID-19 existed and refused to issue policies regarding quarantines or vaccines.

Under Hassan, Tanzania joined the international COVAX facility, directed by institutions like the World Health Organization, to help distribute vaccines to developing countries, especially in Africa.

Hassan also struck a reconciliatory tone with opposition leaders by lifting a six-year ban on political rallies imposed by Magufuli.

She focused on completing large-scale Magafuli-era development projects and launched new ones, especially around railway infrastructure and rural electrification. The president’s supporters, therefore, praise her record in infrastructure development, improving access to education and improving overall stability of governance in the country.

However, while many hoped Tanzania would become more democratic under her leadership, Hassan’s style of governance has become increasingly authoritarian, analysts say, and now more closely resembles that of her predecessor.

In a report ahead of the elections, Amnesty International found that Hassan’s government has intensified “repressive practices” and has targeted opposition leaders, civil society activists and groups, journalists and other dissenting voices with forced disappearances, arrests, harassment and even torture.

Tanzania’s government has consistently denied all accusations of human rights violations.

Hassan’s campaign rallies have been highly visible across the country – but hers has been nearly the only major national campaign, with smaller parties sticking to their particular regions.

Some opposition parties are now calling for a boycott of the elections altogether. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Chadema party member John Kitoka, who is currently in hiding to avoid arrest, said the elections are “completely a sham”.

How are opposition parties being dealt with?

Last week, Hassan urged Tanzanians to ignore calls to boycott the vote and warned against protests.

“The only demonstrations that will exist are those of people going to the polling stations to vote. There will be no other demonstrations. There will be no security threat,” she said.

Tanzania’s police have also warned against creating or distributing “inciting” content on social media, threatening that those caught will face prosecution. The country routinely restricts access to social media on specific occasions, such as during protests. Only select traditional media have been approved to provide coverage of the elections.

In the autonomous Zanzibar, which will also elect a president and parliament members, there is more of an atmosphere of competitive elections, observers say. Incumbent leader Hussein Mwinyi of the ruling CCM is facing off against the ACT-Wazalendo candidate Othman Masoud, who has been serving as his vice president in a coalition government.

Why have key opposition candidates been barred from standing?

Tundu Lissu, 57, is the charismatic and widely popular opposition Chadema candidate who lived in exile in Belgium for several years during the Magufuli era. His party, which calls for free elections, reduction of presidential powers, and promotion of human rights, has been barred from the vote for failing to meet a submission deadline, and Lissu is currently in custody for alleged “treasonous” remarks he made ahead of the elections.

The move followed Lissu’s comments during a Chadema rally in the southern town of Mbinga on April 3, during which he urged his supporters to boycott the elections if Hassan’s government did not institute electoral reforms before the vote. Lissu was calling on the government to change the makeup of the Independent National Election Commission, arguing that the agency should not include people appointed directly by Hassan.

Government officials claimed his statements were “inciting” and arrested Lissu on April 9.

Three days later, the electoral commission disqualified Chadema from this election – and all others until 2030 – on the grounds that the party had failed to sign a mandatory Electoral Code of Conduct due on April 12.

Local media reported that two Chadema party members attending a rally in support of Lissu on April 24 were also arrested by the Tanzanian police.

Last week, Chadema deputy chairperson John Heche, deputy chairperson of Chadema, was detained while attempting to attend Lissu’s trial at the Dar-es-Salaam High Court. He has not been seen since.

Lissu has been detained often. He survived an assassination attempt in 2017 after he was shot 16 times.

In August, the elections commission also barred opposition candidate Luhaga Mpina, 50, of the ACT-Wazalendo, the second-largest opposition party. Mpina, a parliament member who broke away from the ruling CCM in August to join ACT-Wazalendo – also known as the Alliance for Change and Transparency – was barred for allegedly failing to follow the rules for nominations during the presidential primaries.

Hassan will compete with 16 other candidates –  none of whom are from major national parties or have an established political presence.

What are the key issues for this election?

Shrinking democratic freedoms

Observers say Tanzania’s democracy, already fragile during the presidency of Magafuli, is at risk as a result of the Hassan government’s tightening of political freedoms and crackdowns on the media.

Amnesty International notes that electoral rights violations were apparent in 2020 under Magufuli, but have worsened ahead of this week’s polls.

Human Rights Watch and the United Nations human rights agency (UNHCR) have similarly documented reports of rights violations under Hassan’s government, noting in particular the disappearance of two regional activists, Boniface Mwangi from Kenya and Agather Atuhaire from Uganda, who travelled to witness Lissu’s trial but were detained in Dar-es-Salaam on May 19, 2025.

Mwangi was reportedly tortured and dumped in a coastal Kenyan town, while Atuhaire reported being sexually assaulted before also being abandoned at the border with Uganda.

“More than 200 cases of enforced disappearance have been recorded in Tanzania since 2019,” the UNHCR noted.

Business and economy

Tanzania’s economic growth has been stable with inflation staying below the Central Bank’s 5 percent target in recent years, according to the World Bank.

Unlike its neighbour, Kenya, the lower-middle-income country has avoided debt distress, with GDP boosted by high demand for its gold, tourism and agricultural commodities like cashew nuts, coffee and cotton. However, the World Bank noted that 49 percent of the population lives below the international poverty line.

While growth has attracted foreign investment, government policies have negatively impacted the business landscape: In July, Hassan’s government introduced new restrictions banning foreigners from owning and operating businesses in 15 sectors, including mobile money transfers, tour guiding, small-scale mining and on-farm crop buying.

Officials argued that too many foreigners were engaging in informal businesses that ought to benefit Tanzanians. The move played to recent protests against the rising influx of Chinese products and businesses in Tanzanian markets, analysts say. Foreigners are also banned from owning beauty salons, souvenir shops and radio and TV stations.

The move proved controversial in the regional East African Community bloc, particularly in neighbouring Kenya, whose citizens make up a significant population of business owners in the country, having taken advantage of the free-movement policy within the bloc.

Conservation challenges

While abundant wildlife and natural resources have boosted the economy via tourism, Tanzania faces major challenges in managing human-wildlife conflict.

Clashes between humans, particularly in rural areas, and wild animals are becoming more common due to population growth and climate change, which is pushing animals closer to human settlements in search of food and water.

Human-elephant flare-ups are most common. Between 2012 and 2019, more than 1,000 human-wildlife mortality cases were reported nationwide, according to data from Queen’s University, Canada.

While the government provides financial and material compensation to the families of those affected by human-wildlife conflict incidents, families often complain of receiving funds late.

Meanwhile, there is tension between the government and indigenous groups such as the Maasai, who are resisting being evicted to make more room for conservation space to be used for tourism.

Last year, crackdowns on Maasai protesters and resulting outrage from groups led to the World Bank suspending a $150m conservation grant, and the European Union cancelling Tanzania’s eligibility for a separate $20m grant.

Cameroon’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya has won a record eighth term with 53.66% of the vote. His rival Issa Tchiroma Bakary also claimed victory and reported gunfire near his home as protests over alleged election fraud left at least four people dead.

On Sunday, Argentinians voted in midterm elections that attracted an uncommonly high level of international attention. This was in part due to the potential $40bn bailout promised to cash-strapped Buenos Aires by Washington. Ahead of the vote, United States President Donald Trump had made clear the cash injection was contingent upon the election results.

And Trump’s far-right buddy Javier Milei, the equally uniquely coiffed president of Argentina, did not fail to deliver. Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, pulled off a rather startling win, scoring more than 40 percent of the votes cast, according to early results. Half of the seats in Argentina’s lower Chamber of Deputies and a third of the seats in the Senate were up for grabs.

Trump naturally wasted no time in appropriating the electoral feat as a personal victory, claiming that Milei “had a lot of help from us. He had a lot of help.”

Before the election, Trump explained that his generous gesture to Milei – made even as the US president was overseeing sweeping cuts to healthcare and other services at home – was his own way of “helping a great philosophy take over a great country”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent similarly contended that the “bridge” the US was extending to Milei was in the hopes “that Argentina can be great again”.

Call it MAGA – the South American version.

But as is the case with the US itself, it’s not quite clear when, precisely, in history Argentina was ever so “great”. Of course, there were the good old days of the US-backed Dirty War when a right-wing military dictatorship murdered and disappeared tens of thousands of suspected leftists, many of them dropped from aircraft into the ocean or Rio de la Plata.

As historian Greg Grandin documented in his biography of eternal US diplomat Henry Kissinger, the statesman advised the junta’s foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, in 1976: “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.”

Another great “philosophy”.

Now, Trump stands poised to preside over a renewed era of US influence in the South American nation. And while the days of dropping bodies from airplanes may be over, there is still plenty of room for right-wing brutality.

Milei, who self-defines as an “anarcho-capitalist” and who assumed the presidency in 2023, made a charming habit of wielding a chainsaw at political rallies to symbolise his approach to governance – which has been to slash spending on healthcare, education and other public services while overseeing mass layoffs and pension cuts.

In the first six months of Milei’s austerity programme, poverty in Argentina soared to nearly 53 percent. Inflation has dropped, but so has purchasing power, and surveys indicate that most Argentines do not earn enough to pay their monthly expenses. Sunday’s legislative win – pardon, Trump’s victory – was crucial to maintaining the “chainsaw” strategy, which anyway has worked out just fine for certain elite sectors of the Argentinian populace.

Until now, Milei’s party commanded less than 15 percent of the seats in Congress. This meant that the president was forced to govern at the mercy of an opposition that insisted on overturning his vetoes on things like increasing benefits for people with disabilities and restoring congressional funding for paediatric healthcare and universities.

Naturally, Milei’s sociopathic efforts are near and dear to Trump’s heart, and the US head of state has repeatedly come out in his defence: “Everybody knows he’s doing the right thing. But you have a radical-left sick culture that’s a very dangerous group of people, and they’re trying to make him look bad.”

To be sure, it takes a hell of a “radical-left sick culture” to say that children should have healthcare or that folks with disabilities should be lent a hand.

Incidentally, Milei’s government has effectively done its part to increase the number of Argentinians with disabilities by, inter alia, wantonly firing rubber bullets and tear gas at pensioners and other demonstrators protesting against violent austerity measures. In March, 33-year-old Jonathan Navarro was blinded in one eye by a rubber bullet while protesting on behalf of his father and other retirees.

For his part, Trump, who no doubt sympathises with the need for militarised responses to peaceful demonstrators, recently graciously joked with Milei about the possibility of sending Tomahawk missiles to Argentina: “You need them for your opposition, I guess.” Trump and Milei also see eye to eye on the subject of Israel, and in August, the Argentinian president proposed a $1m initiative to boost relations between Latin America and the genocidal state.

The list of similarities goes on. Trump has never been one to look down on corruption or nepotism – as long as he’s the one benefitting – and Milei wasted no time in appointing his own sister as secretary-general to the presidency. Karina Milei has played the starring role in one of various scandals to have rocked her brother’s administration – scandals that were supposedly threatening to jeopardise his party’s performance in Sunday’s midterms.

In August, leaked audio recordings featured Diego Spagnuolo, who at the time was the head of Argentina’s National Disability Agency, discussing bribes allegedly pocketed by Karina Milei in exchange for pharmaceutical contracts concerning the procurement of medications for people with disabilities.

Anyway, only a “radical-left sick culture” would have been bothered by such an arrangement.

Now that the midterm elections appear to have breathed new life into Milei’s unhinged free-market experiment, impoverished Argentinians certainly have a lot to lose. But Washington has much to gain, as Trump made clear in his victory speech after the results were released: “We’ve made a lot of money based on that election because the bonds have gone up. Their whole debt rating has gone up.”

The president went on to add that the US was “not in that for the money, per se”. Remember those words as Argentina is chain-sawed to greatness again.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

A crackdown by armed forces in Cameroon has killed at least four opposition supporters amid protests over the declared re-election win by President Paul Biya.

Protesters calling for fair results from the African country’s contested presidential election held on October 12 have hit the streets in several cities as 92-year-old Biya prepares for an eighth term, which could keep him in power until 2032 as he nears 100.

Biya, whose election win was finally confirmed by Cameroon’s Constitutional Council on Monday, is Africa’s oldest and among the world’s longest ruling leaders. He has spent 43 years – nearly half his life – in office. He has ruled Cameroon, a country of 30 million people, as president since 1982 through elections that political opponents said have been “stolen”.

What’s behind the deadly protests?

Supporters of opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary of the Front for the National Salvation of Cameroon party have defied a ban on protests, setting police cars on fire, barricading roads and burning tyres in the financial capital, Douala, before the announcement of the election result. Around 30 activists have been arrested.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon to break up the crowds that came out in support of Tchiroma, who had declared himself the real winner, and called for Biya to concede.

Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, the governor of the region that includes Douala, told the AFP news agency that the protesters attacked police stations in the second and sixth districts of the city.

Several members of the security forces were wounded, and “four people unfortunately lost their lives,” he said. Tchiroma’s campaign team confirmed the deaths on Sunday were of protesters.

Opposition supporters claim the results of the election have been rigged by Biya and his supporters in power. In the lead-up to the announcement of the result, the current government rejected these accusations and urged people to wait for the result.

Who is the main opposition in Cameroon?

The Union for Change is a coalition of opposition parties that formed in September to counter Biya’s dominance of the political landscape.

The forum brought together more than two dozen political parties and civil society groups in opposition to Biya with an aim to field a consensus candidate.

In September, the group confirmed Tchiroma as its consensus candidate to run against Biya.

Tchiroma, 76, was formerly part of Biya’s government, holding several ministerial positions over 16 years. He also served as government spokesperson during the years of fighting the Boko Haram armed group, and he defended the army when it stood accused of killing civilians. He was once regarded as a member of Biya’s “old guard” but has campaigned on a promise of “change”.

What happened after the election?

After voting ended on October 12, Tchiroma claimed victory.

“Our victory is clear. It must be respected,” he said in a video statement posted on Facebook. He called on Biya to “accept the truth of the ballot box” or “plunge the country into turmoil”.

Tchiroma claimed that he had won the election with 55 percent of the vote. More than 8 million people were registered to vote in the election.

On Monday, however, the Constitutional Council announced Biya as the winner with 53.66 percent of the vote.

It said Tchiroma was the runner-up with 35.19 percent.

Announcing the results on Monday, the council’s leader, Clement Atangana, said the electoral process was “peaceful” and criticised the opposition for “anticipating the result”.

What are the main criticisms of Biya?

Under Biya’s rule, Cameroon has struggled with myriad challenges, including chronic corruption that critics say has dampened economic growth despite the country being rich in resources such as oil and cocoa.

The president, who has clinched wins in eight heavily contested elections held every seven years, is renowned for his absenteeism as he reportedly spends extended periods away from the country.

The 92-year-old appeared at just one campaign rally in the lead-up to this month’s election when he promised voters that “the best is still to come.”

He and his entourage are often away on private or medical treatment trips to Switzerland. An investigation in 2018 by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found Biya had spent at least 1,645 days (nearly four and a half years) in the European country, excluding official visits, since being in power.

Under Biya, opposition politicians have frequently accused electoral authorities of colluding with the president to rig elections. In 2008, parliament voted to remove the limit on the number of terms a president may serve.

Before the election, the Constitutional Council barred another popular opposition candidate, Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement, from running.

Some opposition leaders and their supporters have been detained by police on a slew of charges, including plotting violence.

On Friday, two prominent leaders, Anicet Ekane and Djeukam Tchameni of the Union for Change, were arrested.

The African Movement for New Independence and Democracy party also said its treasurer and other members had been “kidnapped” by local security forces, a move it claimed was designed “to intimidate Cameroonians”.

Analysts also said Biya’s hold on power could lead to instability when he eventually goes.

What is the security situation in Cameroon?

Since 2015, attacks by the armed group, Boko Haram, have become more and more frequent in the Far North Region of the country.

Furthermore, since gaining independence in 1960 from French rule, Cameroon has struggled with conflict rooted in the country’s deep linguistic and political divisions, which developed when French- and English-speaking regions were merged into a single state.

French is the official language, and Anglophone Cameroonians in the northwest and southwest have felt increasingly marginalised by the Francophone-dominated government in Yaounde.

Their grievances – over language, education, courts and distribution of resources – turned into mass protests in 2016 when teachers and lawyers demanded equal recognition of English-language institutions.

The government responded with arrests and internet blackouts, and the situation eventually built up to an armed separatist struggle for an independent state called Ambazonia.

The recent presidential election was the first to take place since the conflict intensified. Armed separatists have barred the Anglophone population from participating in government-organised activities, such as National Day celebrations and elections.

As a result, the Southwest and Northwest regions saw widespread abstention in voting on October 12 with a 53 percent turnout. The highest share of votes, according to the official results, went to Biya: 68.7 percent and 86.31 percent in the two regions, respectively.

What will happen now?

Protests are likely to spread, observers said.

After the deaths of four protesters before the results were announced, Tchiroma paid tribute “to those who fell to the bullets of a regime that has become criminal during a peaceful march”.

He called on Biya’s government to “stop these acts of barbarity, these killings and arbitrary arrests”.

“Tell the truth of the ballots, or we will all mobilise and march peacefully,” he said.

Deadly clashes have broken out in Cameroon after opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma declared victory in an election yet to publish results. Tchiroma urged his supporters onto the streets to demand President Paul Biya, the world’s oldest serving ruler, step aside after over 43 years in power.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei sang to his supporters after early results showed he had won the country’s midterm elections, bolstering his push for radical economic reforms closely watched by the US.

Argentinian President Javier Milei’s party has pulled off a stunning win in the country’s legislative elections, according to early results, boosting his ability to push forward with his radical overhaul of the economy, including free-market reforms and deep austerity measures.

Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, scored 40.84 percent of the votes cast for members of Congress on Sunday, compared with 31.64 percent for the opposition Peronist coalition, early results showed.

The results were based on a count of more than 90 percent of ballots cast.

The midterm elections were the first national test of Milei’s support since he won office two years ago, and will help him maintain the support of United States President Donald Trump, whose administration recently provided Argentina with a hefty financial bailout but has threatened to pull away if the libertarian leader did not do well.

At La Libertad Avanza’s headquarters on Sunday, Milei hailed the party’s victory as a “turning point” for the country and promised to charge ahead with his reforms.

Beaming as his supporters cheered, he seized on the results as evidence that Argentina had turned the page on decades of Peronism that had brought the country infamy for repeatedly defaulting on its sovereign debt.

“The Argentinian people left decadence behind and opted for progress,” Milei said, thanking “all those who supported the ideas of freedom to make Argentina great again”.

Milei’s party triples seat count

In Sunday’s elections, half of the seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies, or 127 seats, and one-third of the upper Senate, or 24 seats, were up for grabs.

Milei said his party has now tripled its seat count, winning 101 seats in the lower house, up from 37, and 20 seats in the Senate, up from six.

The most surprising results of Sunday’s election were in Buenos Aires province, where Milei’s party clawed its way back from defeat in last month’s local elections to run neck-and-neck with the Peronists.

The province has long been a political stronghold for the Peronists, and the win for Milei’s party marked a dramatic political shift.

The strong showing in Sunday’s election ensures Milei will have enough support in Congress to uphold presidential vetoes, prevent an impeachment effort, and see through his ambitious plans for tax and labour reforms in the coming months.

To support Milei, the Trump administration offered a bailout potentially worth $40bn, including a $20bn currency swap, which is already signed, and a proposed $20bn debt investment facility.

Trump has threatened to pull away if his populist ally performed poorly, warning that “if he doesn’t win, we’re not going to waste our time, because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again”.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on Milei’s win.

‘Unobjectionable, unquestionable’

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Buenos Aires, said that Trump’s interest in Milei may have influenced the decisions of some of the voters.

“Certainly, the United States played a crucial role in the last stage leading to this election,” she said. “People here listened, and in a way, it may have convinced many to vote for Javier Milei’s party.”

The results were a surprise, she said, “after the president’s party lost by 14 points in the province of Buenos Aires last month to the Peronist opposition after one of the harshest austerity plans in this country’s history”.

Analysts said the stronger-than-expected showing could reflect fear of renewed economic turmoil if the country abandoned Milei’s policies, which, while painful at times, have succeeded in drastically slowing inflation.

Gustavo Cordoba, the director of the Zuban Cordoba polling firm, told the Reuters news agency that he was shocked by the results and thought they reflected public wariness over a possible return to the economic crises of past governments.

“Many people were willing to give the government another chance,” he said. “We’ll see how much time Argentine society gives the Argentine government. But the triumph is unobjectionable, unquestionable.”

Milei, a key ideological ally of Trump who has slashed state spending and liberalised Argentina’s economy after decades of budget deficits and protectionism, had a lot riding on Sunday’s elections.

Milei’s government has been scrambling to avert a currency crisis ever since the defeat by the Peronist opposition in a provincial election last month panicked markets and prompted a selloff in the peso – a move that led to the US Treasury’s extraordinary intervention.

A series of scandals – including bribery allegations against Milei’s powerful sister, Karina Milei – hurt the president’s image as an anticorruption crusader and hit a nerve among voters reeling from his harsh austerity measures.

Although the budget cuts have significantly driven down inflation, from an annual high of 289 percent in April 2024 to just 32 percent last month, many Argentinians are still struggling to make ends meet.

Price rises have outpaced salaries and pensions since Milei cut cost-of-living increases. Households pay more for electricity and public transport since Milei cut subsidies. The unemployment rate is now higher than when the libertarian president took office.

Country awaits final presidential election result that could see 83-year-old Alassane Ouattara sworn in for fourth term.

Former Ivory Coast commerce minister Jean-Louis Billon has conceded defeat to incumbent Alassane Ouattara in the country’s presidential election, as early partial results show the latter with a strong lead nationwide.

“The initial results place the incumbent President, Mr Alassane Ouattara, in the lead, designating him the winner of this presidential election,” Billon said in a statement, congratulating the president on Sunday.

Billon was among four opposition candidates running against Ouattara, the 83-year-old former International Monetary Fund executive who is seeking a fourth term in office.

Billon failed to secure the endorsement of the opposition PDCI party, led by Tidjane Thiam – the ex-Credit Suisse chief who was barred from the ballot.

Earlier in the day, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission began announcing partial results from Saturday’s polls on national television.

“The results of 20 departments or divisions are being read out,” and 10 or 11 departments remain, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said, reporting from the economic capital, Abidjan on Sunday. This included diaspora votes from six countries.

“This is the most critical stage of this election, where results from various polling booths and centres are being collated and announced,” Idris said.

“From the initial results, it’s clear the incumbent is leading by a wide margin in many of the areas so far.”

Nearly nine million Ivorians were eligible to vote in an election marked by a divided opposition further hobbled by the barring of two leading candidates.

“Ivorians are watching closely what happens here,” said Idris. “And the result of this election will determine whether or not the streets will remain calm.”

So far, the streets of Abidjan have remained quiet and calm, Idris reported, “apart from reports of scattered violence in other parts of the country that has led to two deaths”.

“Security patrols are all over the place; at least 44,000 security personnel have been deployed for this election before, during, and after, in case trouble breaks out,” he added.

Ouattara’s leading rivals – former President Laurent Gbagbo and Thiam – were barred from standing, Gbagbo for a criminal conviction and Thiam for acquiring French citizenship.

This led to pre-election protests and calls from some quarters for a boycott of the polls.

While an official voter turnout is not yet known, the president of the election commission, Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, earlier put the figure at about 50 percent.

Polling stations in Abidjan and historically pro-opposition areas in the south and west were nearly empty, the AFP news agency reported. Meanwhile, it said voters turned out in large numbers in the north, where Ouattara had most of his support.

With key contenders out of the race, Ouattara was the overwhelming favourite.

Saturday’s vote was reminiscent of the last election in 2020, in which he obtained 94 percent of the ballots with a turnout slightly above 50 percent in an election then boycotted by the main opposition.

None of the four candidates who faced Ouattara represented a major party or had the reach of the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace.

Ismail Omar Guelleh could seek re-election in 2026 after parliament votes to remove age restriction for presidential candidates.

Djibouti’s parliament has removed the constitutional age ceiling for presidential candidates, opening the door for Ismail Omar Guelleh to seek a sixth term despite being 77 years old.

All 65 lawmakers present voted on Sunday to eliminate the age restriction of 75 years, a move that would allow the veteran leader to contest elections scheduled for April 2026. The decision requires either presidential approval followed by a second parliamentary vote on November 2, or a national referendum.

Guelleh, known widely as IOG, has governed the Horn of Africa nation since 1999, when he succeeded Hassan Gouled Aptidon, the country’s founding president.

The constitutional barrier was introduced by Guelleh himself in 2010 alongside reforms that scrapped presidential term limits, but reduced each term from six to five years.

National Assembly Speaker Dileita Mohamed Dileita defended the change as essential for maintaining stability in a turbulent region. He said public support exceeded 80 percent for the measure, though Al Jazeera is not able to verify this claim.

Earlier this year, in an interview with the Jeune Afrique magazine, Guelleh gave an important indication that he had no plans to relinquish power. “All I can tell you is that I love my country too much to embark on an irresponsible adventure and be the cause of divisions,” he said.

Rights advocates condemned the move as a step toward permanent rule. “This revision prepares a presidency for life,” said Omar Ali Ewado, who heads the Djiboutian League for Human Rights, calling instead for a peaceful democratic transition.

Daher Ahmed Farah, a leader in the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development, told Al Jazeera that international partners should reconsider their priorities. “The country is in a strategic position and hosts many bases, but these interests lie with the Djiboutian people, not with a single man,” he said.

Guelleh won his fifth term in 2021 with more than 98 percent of votes after opposition groups boycotted the election. At the time, the United States welcomed the result but encouraged the government “to further strengthen its democratic institutions and processes in line with recommendations from the observer missions”.

Guelleh is East Africa’s third-longest-serving leader behind Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, in power for nearly four decades, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki, with a tenure reaching 27 years.

Despite its small population of one million, Djibouti wields outsized geopolitical influence. The country hosts the only permanent US military base in Africa, alongside installations operated by France, China, Japan and Italy. Its position overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait makes it vital for global shipping between Asia and Europe.

That strategic value has kept Djibouti stable while neighbouring states face mounting crises, including Sudan’s civil war and Somalia’s fragmentation.

Hundreds of supporters of opposition presidential candidate Issa Tchiroma accuse President Paul Biya’s government of seeking to rig the vote.

At least two people have been killed by gunfire in Cameroon, as protesters rallied a day before the announcement of presidential election results, the opposition campaign has said.

Hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma barricaded roads and burned tyres in Cameroon’s commercial capital Douala on Sunday. Police fired tear gas and water cannon to break up the crowds. A police car was also burned.

The protesters say Tchiroma beat veteran leader Paul Biya, 92, in the October 12 polls and have accused authorities of preparing to rig the election.

Protests have flared in several cities, including the capital Yaounde, Tchiroma’s hometown Garoua, as well as Maroua, Meiganga, Bafang, Bertoua, Kousseri, Yagoua, Kaele, and Bafoussam.

The demonstrations came after partial results reported by local media showed that Biya was on course to win an eighth term in office.

During the counting process, according to the figures, Tchiroma was declared the winner. But during the national count, the electoral commission announced that Biya would be the winner, which Tchiroma disputes.

He claims that he has won the elections and that he has evidence to prove it, which led to a call for national demonstrations to demand the truth about the ballot boxes.

‘We want Tchiroma’

“We want Tchiroma, we want Tchiroma!” the protesters chanted in Douala’s New Bell neighbourhood. They blocked roads with debris and threw rocks and other projectiles at security forces.

Reuters news agency reporters saw police detain at least four protesters on Sunday.

Cameroon’s government has rejected opposition accusations of irregularities and urged people to wait for the election result, due on Monday.

Earlier on Sunday, Tchiroma’s campaign manager said authorities had detained about 30 politicians and activists who had supported his candidacy, heightening tensions.

Among those he said were detained were Anicet Ekane, leader of the MANIDEM party, and Djeukam Tchameni, a prominent figure in the Union for Change movement.

Cameroon’s Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji said on Saturday that arrests had been made in connection with what he described as an “insurrectional movement,” though he did not say who – or how many – had been detained.

Biya is the world’s oldest serving ruler and has been in power in Cameroon since 1982. Another seven-year term could keep him in power until he is nearly 100.

Tchiroma, a former minister and one-time Biya ally, has said that he won and that he will not accept any other result.

Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has energised liberal voters and has strongly condemned Israel’s war on Gaza.

Polling places have opened for the start of in-person voting for one of the year’s most closely watched elections in the United States, the New York City mayor’s race.

New Yorkers on Saturday began choosing between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who has built up a sizeable lead in the polls, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat appearing on the ballot as an independent. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, is also on the ballot, but dropped out of the race last month and recently threw his support behind Cuomo.

Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has energised liberal voters, drawn to his proposals for universal, free child care, free buses, and a rent freeze for New Yorkers living in about 1 million rent-regulated apartments.

Cuomo has assailed Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, over his criticism of Israel.

Mamdani, who has weathered anti-Muslim rhetoric during the contest, says Israel’s military actions in Gaza have amounted to genocide, a view shared by a UN inquiry, genocide experts and numerous rights groups.

In an emotional speech on Friday, Mamdani said the attacks against him are “racist, baseless”.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” said Mamdani, who in June beat Cuomo to achieve a landslide victory in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Cuomo has portrayed Mamdani’s policies as naive and financially irresponsible. He has appealed to voters to pick him because of his experience as the state’s governor, a position he gave up in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.

New York has allowed early voting since 2019, and it has become relatively popular. In June’s mayoral primary, about 35 percent of the ballots were cast early and in person, according to the city’s campaign finance board.

In neighbouring New Jersey, the governor’s race is also being closely followed. It features Republican state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli against Democratic US Representative Mikie Sherrill. New Jersey adopted early voting in 2021.

The off-year elections in the two states could be bellwethers for Democratic Party leaders as they try to decide what kinds of candidates might be best to lead their resistance to Republican President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The races have spotlighted affordability and cost of living issues as well as ongoing divisions within the Democratic Party, said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“New York City pits the progressive wing against the establishment old guard in Mamdani versus Cuomo, while New Jersey is banking on moderate candidate Mikie Sherrill to appeal to its broad middle,” she said.

The New Jersey gubernatorial candidates, in their final debate earlier this month, sparred over the federal government shutdown, Sherrill’s military records, Trump’s policies and the high cost of living in the state.

The winner would succeed Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, who is term-limited.