Elections

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has plunged France further into a political deadlock after he resigned just hours after forming a cabinet as Paris struggles to plug its mounting debt.

Lecornu – whose tenure, which ended on Monday, was the shortest in modern French history – blamed opposition politicians for refusing to cooperate after a key coalition partner pulled support for his cabinet. He joins a growing list of French prime ministers who since last year have taken the job only to resign a short time later.

Opposition parties in the divided French Parliament have increased pressure on President Emmanuel Macron to hold snap elections or even to resign – as have politicians and allies in his own camp. Analysts said Macron now appears to be caught on the back foot since Lecornu was widely seen as his “final bullet” to solve the protracted political crisis.

Here’s what to know about Lecornu’s resignation and why French politics are unstable:

What happened?

Lecornu and his ministers resigned on Monday morning after he had named a new government the previous day.

Lecornu took up his office on September 9 after his predecessor Francois Bayrou stepped down. His tenure lasted 27 days, the shortest since 1958 when France’s Fifth Republic began. He was France’s fifth prime minister since 2022 and its third since Macron called snap elections in June last year. He was formerly the minister of the armed forces from 2022 until last month.

In an emotional television address on Monday morning, Lecornu blamed political leaders from different ideological blocs for refusing to compromise to solve the crisis.

“The conditions were not fulfilled for me to carry out my function as prime minister,” the 39-year-old Macron ally said, adding that things could have worked if some had been “selfless”.

“One must always put one’s country before one’s party,” he said.

Macron, in what appeared to be a final attempt at stability, then asked Lecornu on Monday evening to stay on until Wednesday as the head of a caretaker government and to hold “final negotiations” with political parties in the interests of stability. It’s unclear what exactly these talks might entail or whether Lecornu might still emerge as prime minister at the end of them.

In a statement late on Monday on X, Lecornu said he accepted Macron’s proposal “to hold final discussions with the political forces for the stability of the country”. He added that he will report back to Macron by Wednesday evening and the president can then “draw his own conclusions”.

France expert Jacob Ross of the Hamburg-based German Council on Foreign Relations said the caretaker agreement was a “bizarre” one, even if legal, and underscored Macron’s desperation to project some form of control even as his options appear to be running out.

“For me, this really secures the narrative that Lecornu was Macron’s last bullet” to solve the current crisis, Ross said.

Why did Lecornu quit?

France has a deeply divided parliament that makes consensus difficult. Far-right and left-wing parties together hold more than 320 seats in the 577-seat lower house and abhor each other. Macron’s centrist and conservative bloc, which has tried to win conditional support from the left and right to rule, holds 210. No party has an overall majority.

After forming his government on Sunday, Lecornu immediately lost the support of the right-wing Republicans party (LR), which holds 50 seats, because of his choice for defence minister — former Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

LR President Bruno Retailleau, who was set to be interior minister in the government, announced on X on Sunday evening that his party was pulling out of the coalition because it did not “reflect the promised break” from pro-Macron ideologies initially assured by Lecornu. He said later on the broadcaster TF1 that Lecornu did not tell him Le Maire would be part of the government.

Le Maire is seen by many critics as representing Macron’s pro-privatisation economic policies and not the radical shifts that Lecornu promised in the three weeks of negotiations before forming a cabinet. Others, meanwhile, hold Le Maire responsible for overseeing the large public deficit during his term as finance minister from 2017 to 2024.

Lecornu’s exit affected the markets with stocks of prominent French companies dropping sharply by about 2 percent on the CAC 40, France’s benchmark stock index, although it has somewhat recovered since then.

Ministers who were supposed to form the government will now remain as caretakers until further notice. “I despair of this circus where everyone plays their role but no one takes responsibility,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who was set to be reappointed as ecology minister, said in a post on X.

Why has France’s politics become unstable?

The issues go back to the snap elections in June 2024, which produced a hung parliament consisting of Macron’s centrist bloc as well as left and far-right blocs. With Macron failing to achieve a majority and with parliament consisting of such an uncomfortable coalition, his government has faced hurdles in passing policies.

Added to the political impasse are Macron’s attempts to push through deeply unpopular austerity measures to close widening deficits that resulted from COVID-19-era spending.

Bayrou, who was prime minister from December to September, proposed budget cuts in July to ease what he called France’s “life-threatening” debt burden and cut public spending by 44 billion euros ($52bn) in 2026. His plans included a freeze on pensions, higher taxes for healthcare and scrapping two holidays to generate economic activity. However, they were met with widespread furore in parliament and on the streets and resulted in waves of protests across France. Parliament eventually rejected Bayrou’s proposals in September, ending his nine-month run.

Lecornu, meanwhile, had abandoned the holiday clause and promised to target lifelong privileges enjoyed by ministers. He had negotiated with each bloc for three weeks, hoping to avoid a vote of no confidence. By Monday, it was clear that his approach had not worked.

Public anger has increasingly also been directed at Macron since he first imposed higher fuel taxes in 2018 – and later scrapped them after large-scale protests. In April 2023, Macron again drew popular anger when he forced through pension reforms that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. That policy was not reversed despite large protests led by trade unions. At present, the French president’s popularity in opinion polls has sunk to record lows.

“There is a numb anger in the voter base, a sense that politicians are playing around, and a huge part of the French electorate is disgusted,” Ross said. “My fear is that it is a potentially promising starting position to call for new elections but also a referendum on topics like migration and even France staying on in the European Union.”

What’s next for Macron?

Macron, due to be in office until April 2027, is increasingly under pressure. Opposition groups are capitalising on Lecornu’s resignation, and his own allies are publicly distancing themselves from him in a bid to boost their standing in the next elections, analysts said.

The anti-immigrant and anti-EU National Rally (RN) on Monday urged Macron to hold elections or resign. “This raises a question for the president of the republic: Can he continue to resist the legislature dissolution? We have reached the end of the road,” party leader Marine Le Pen told reporters on Monday. “There is no other solution. The only wise course of action in these circumstances is to return to the polls.” The RN is expected to gain more seats if elections are held.

Similar calls came from the left with members of the far-left France Unbowed party asking for Macron’s exit.

The president, who has not made a public statement but was spotted walking alone along the River Seine on Monday, according to the Reuters news agency, is also isolated within his own camp. Gabriel Attal, prime minister from January to September 2024 and head of Macron’s Renaissance party, said on the TF1 television channel that he no longer understood Macron’s decisions and it was “time to try something else”.

Edouard Phillipe, a key ally of Macron and prime minister from 2017 to 2020, also said Macron should appoint a caretaker prime minister and then call for an early presidential election while speaking on France’s RTL Radio. Phillipe, who is running in the 2027 elections under his centrist Horizons party, slammed what he said is a “distressing political game”.

France needs to “emerge in an orderly and dignified manner from a political crisis that is harming the country”, Philippe said. “Another 18 months of this is far too long.”

“People are seriously speculating that he might step down, and his allies are seeing him as political [dead] weight,” Ross said.

Macron, he added, has three options: elect yet another prime minister who might still struggle to gain parliamentary consensus, resign or more likely call for snap parliamentary elections – which could still fail to produce a majority government. All three options would come with their own challenges for the president, he noted. Macron has repeatedly ruled out stepping down.

The crisis, Ross said, is similarly affecting the president’s political standing on the international front as head of the EU’s second most populous economy.

Election marks landmark moment in country’s post-war transition, but vote is postponed in Druze and Kurdish areas.

Syria has published the results of its first parliamentary election since the government of former President Bashar al-Assad was toppled, revealing that most new members of the revamped People’s Assembly are Sunni Muslim and male.

Electoral commission spokesperson Nawar Najmeh told a press conference on Monday that only four percent of the 119 members selected in the indirect vote were women and only two Christians were among the winners, sparking concerns about inclusivity and fairness.

The election represents a landmark moment in the country’s fragile transition after nearly 14 years of war, but critics say it favours well-connected figures and is likely to keep power concentrated in the hands of Syria’s new rulers, rather than paving the way for genuine democratic change.

News agency AFP cited Najmeh as saying that the number of women in the parliament was “not proportionate to the status of women in Syrian society and their role in political, economic and social life”.

He called the representation of Christians “weak, considering the proportion of Christians in Syria”.

The authorities resorted to an indirect voting system rather than universal suffrage, alluding to a lack of reliable population data following the war, which killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions.

Sunni Muslims make up an estimated 75 percent of Syrians. The former al-Assad regime, which was overthrown in December after a nearly 14-year civil war, was largely headed by Syrians from the Alawite minority.

Sunday’s vote saw around 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges choose candidates from preapproved lists, part of a process to produce nearly two-thirds of the new 210-seat body. President Ahmed al-Sharaa will later select the remaining third.

Citing security and political reasons, authorities postponed the vote in areas outside government control, including Kurdish-held parts of Syria’s north and northeast, as well as the province of Suwayda, held by the Druze minority. Those suspensions left 21 seats empty.

Najmeh was cited by news agency AFP as saying the state was “serious” about having “supplementary ballots” to fill the assembly’s seats.

Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid said: “If you ask the Druze in the south or the Kurds in the north, they say [the elections] were not representative.

“If you ask people in major cities, like Aleppo, Damascus, Hama, and other parts of the country, they’re hopeful that this is the first taste of a real election.”

On March 10, Syria’s Kurds and Damascus agreed to integrate Kurdish-administered civil and military institutions in the country’s northeast into the state by the year’s end, but negotiations on implementing the deal have stalled.

Delays in implementing the March 10 agreement meant there were no timetables as yet for ballots in Raqqa and Hasakeh, according to Najmeh.

Najmeh said that the president’s choice would perhaps “compensate” for some underrepresented components of Syrian society, but he rejected the idea of a quota-based system.

Political and rights activist Nour al-Jandali, who was selected for a seat in central Syria’s city of Homs, was quoted by AFP as saying the new lawmakers “have a great responsibility”.

She noted challenges the new legislature faces, including “how we re-establish a state built on freedom, citizenship and justice”, adding that “women must have a real and active role” in drafting public policy.

Opposition protests turned violent as riot police deployed tear gas and water cannon near the presidential palace.

Georgian riot police have deployed water cannon, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse protesters who tried to storm the presidential palace in Tbilisi during municipal elections.

The clashes took place on Saturday after opposition groups, who had boycotted the vote, called for a “peaceful revolution” against the governing Georgian Dream (GD) party, accusing it of authoritarianism and adopting pro-Russia policies.

Thousands of people gathered in Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue waving Georgian and EU flags in what organisers said was a show of defiance against GD. Some later barricaded nearby streets, lit fires and clashed with riot police.

In the evening, a group of demonstrators moved towards the palace and attempted to break through the fence, according to witnesses.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs later declared the rally unlawful, saying it had “exceeded the norms set by law.” Police then pushed protesters back with force.

“Today is the outcome of a deep crisis which is absolutely formed by our pro-Russian and authoritarian government,” protester Davit Mzhavanadze told local media, according to a report carried by Reuters. “I think this protest will continue until these demands will be responded to properly from our government.”

The governing GD, which announced it had won control in every municipality across the country of 3.7 million, rejected accusations of vote-rigging. The party, founded by billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, denies being pro-Moscow. It says it seeks EU membership while maintaining stability with Russia.

Georgia, once seen as one of the most pro-Western states to emerge after the Soviet Union’s collapse, has seen its ties with Europe and the United States deteriorate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government froze accession talks with the European Union following last year’s disputed parliamentary election, sparking months of demonstrations.

Saturday’s confrontation was the most serious flare-up in months after earlier protests had lost momentum. Authorities had warned in advance that they would respond firmly to any attempt at what they described as a push for “revolution”.

With most votes tallied, Babis’s ANO party is ahead, but it appears set to fall short of a majority in parliament.

Billionaire Andrej Babis’s populist ANO party has taken a commanding lead in the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election, but is on track to fall short of a majority.

With ballots from more than 97 percent of polling stations counted on Saturday, ANO had 35 percent of the vote, according to the Czech Statistical Office. Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s centre-right Spolu (Together) alliance trailed with 23 percent.

Shortly after the preliminary results were announced, Fiala conceded defeat and offered congratulations to Babis.

Turnout reached 68 percent, the highest since 1998, with more than 4,400 candidates and 26 parties competing for seats in the 200-member lower house.

President Petr Pavel, who holds the power to appoint the next prime minister, is expected to open coalition talks with party leaders on Sunday once results are finalised. Officials have warned that the rollout of mail-in voting could slow the official confirmation.

Despite the strong showing, the failure to secure a majority means Babis cannot rule alone. Early signs suggest ANO may seek backing from the Motorists, a party opposing European Union green policies, and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), which has campaigned against both NATO and the EU.

SPD deputy leader Radim Fiala told Czech television the party was ready to help topple the government. “We went into the election with the aim of ending the government of Petr Fiala and support even for a minority cabinet of ANO is important for us and it would meet the target we had for this election,” he said.

The partial results showed fringe pro-Russian parties underperforming. SPD managed 8 percent, while the far-left Stacilo! movement, centred on the Communist Party, failed to clear the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament.

Babis, who led a centre-left government from 2017 to 2021, has shifted sharply to the right in recent years. Once supportive of adopting the euro, he now brands himself a eurosceptic and admirer of US President Donald Trump, even handing out “Strong Czechia” baseball caps styled after Trump’s MAGA slogan.

He has also forged close ties with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and aligned with far-right forces in the European Parliament.

While resisting SPD’s call for a referendum on leaving the EU and NATO, Babis has promised to end Prague’s arms procurement initiative for Ukraine, insisting military aid should be managed directly by NATO and the EU.

Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will choose the country’s fifth leader in five years on Saturday following the resignation of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

After governing Japan almost continuously since the 1950s, the conservative party has been in disarray following successive election defeats and a series of political scandals.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their governing majority in lower house elections in October last year, a defeat followed by a drubbing in upper house polls in July.

After leading a badly damaged minority government for nearly a year, Ishiba announced on September 7 that he would step down.

Whoever takes over the LDP will face a public frustrated over the cost of living, an ascendant populism epitomised by the “Japan first” Sanseito party, and the headwinds of US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

LDP lawmakers and some one million rank-and-file party members will choose from five candidates, ranging from the son of a former prime minister to the protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Their choice could determine whether Japan will enjoy a period of political stability or continue down the path of the “rotating prime ministership,” which marked Japanese politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s, said Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies.

“Even though it’s not historically abnormal for Japan to have a high turnover rate, this is a very bad time for Japan to not have stable political leadership,” Hall told Al Jazeera.

Here’s a look at the candidates:

Shinjiro Koizumi

Koizumi, 44, is the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and one of two frontrunners in the race.

Earlier this year, he stepped in as the minister of agriculture at a time when the price of rice – Japan’s beloved staple food – was rising sharply.

Koizumi’s work on Japan’s “rice crisis” won him a surge in public support, and he is also popular with a large swath of the LDP, said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy.

“Mr. Koizumi is supported by traditional LDP heavyweights and the centre of the party. He does not have a particular policy position, so he is flexible to meet demands from older LDP values,” Suzuki told Al Jazeera.

Viewed as a political moderate, Koizumi has pledged to work with opposition parties to reform the tax system while lowering the public debt ratio, and to pursue balanced policies geared towards economic growth with fiscal discipline.

His relatively young age and educational background could still keep him from winning the leadership despite his popularity, said Stephen Nagy, a visiting fellow with the Japan Institute for International Affairs.

Koizumi attended Kanto Gakuin University and later Columbia University, but three of his rivals – Toshimitsu Motegi, Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Takayuki Kobayashi – graduated from the more prestigious University of Tokyo and Harvard.

“Whether we like it or not, educational pedigrees bring respect in society and in the LDP,” Nagy told Al Jazeera.

Sanae Takaichi

Takaichi, 64, is the only woman in the race and the leading challenger to Koizumi.

A former economic security minister, Takaichi skews towards the right-wing flank of the LDP and has “strong conservative credentials” as Abe’s former protege, Nagy said.

All the candidates have focused on how to revive Japan’s economy after decades of stagnation, putting forward broadly similar expansionary policies, said Sota Kato, research director at the Tokyo Foundation.

Still, Takaichi is “closer in stance” to “Abenomics”, the three-pronged strategy of fiscal expansion, monetary easing and structural reform championed by her mentor, Kato told Al Jazeera.

Takaichi is known for conservative views on social issues, including immigration and same-sex marriage, and foreign affairs, including China-Japan relations.

While her views have earned her the support of the conservative wing of the LDP, they are at odds with more centrist members.

“Some believe she is exactly what the LDP needs to pull support away from the opposition parties, such as Sanseito … Others believe she will push more centrist voters away,” Nagy said.

Yoshimasa Hayashi

Hayashi, 64, is considered the “dark horse” of the election due to his experience and amenable personality, according to Kato of the Tokyo Foundation.

Currently serving as chief cabinet secretary, Hayashi previously held high-profile posts including defence chief and minister of foreign affairs, and is campaigning on an economic policy focused on fiscal discipline.

Like Koizumi, he is viewed as a political centrist.

“From the perspective of LDP lawmakers, Hayashi provides a sense of stability compared to figures like Koizumi or Takaichi,” Kato said.

“If Hayashi secures more votes than either Koizumi or Takaichi in the first round of voting and proceeds to the second round, his chances may improve.”

Hayashi cited his extensive ministerial experience while campaigning and argued that Japan should strengthen its cooperation with “like-minded” democratic countries to push back against China, Russia and North Korea.

Toshimitsu Motegi

Motegi, 69, is a former secretary-general of the LDP who also did stints as minister of foreign affairs and minister of economy, trade and industry.

His platform includes cuts to petrol and diesel prices, wage increases for nurses and childcare workers, and incentives to encourage investment.

His economic policies “fall somewhere in between” those of Takaichi and Koizumi, the latter of whom has placed greater emphasis on fiscal discipline than his more conservative rival, according to Kato of the Tokyo Foundation.

Motegi and Hayashi both have factional support within the LDP, but this may not translate into enough votes to win the leadership position, according to the University of Tokyo’s Suzuki.

“Mr Motegi and Mr Hayashi are very experienced politicians, but they represent the old-fashioned LDP. They have certain support within the party, but they are not popular among the public,” he said.

Takayuki Kobayashi

Takayuki Kobayashi, 50, is a former economic security minister and previously ran for leader of the LDP.

His platform has heavily focused on economic growth and assisting citizens with cost-of-living issues.

Kobayashi has the support of many younger LDP members, but his youth and experience are potential handicaps, according to Nagy.

“Kobayashi is seen as very accomplished, smart, internationally minded, but still too young to fight with the 80-year-old sharks in the LDP,” he said.

His view was echoed by the University of Tokyo’s Suzuki.

“Mr Kobayashi is a new generation politician who has been a rising star, but not yet popular enough,” Suzuki said.

“Motegi, Hayashi and Kobayashi are very competent in policies and their sharpness in discussion, but these qualities are not the issue for this party leadership contest. The most important issue is the popularity and reactivation of the LDP,” he added.

Self-described ‘Trumpist’ Andrej Babis has campaigned on pledges of welfare and halting military aid to Ukraine.

Czechs are casting their ballots in a two-day general election, in which the party of populist billionaire Andrej Babis is expected to garner the most votes but not secure a majority, raising concerns that Ukraine ally the Czech Republic may draw closer to pro-Russian European Union countries Hungary and Slovakia.

Polling stations opened at 12:00 GMT and will close at 20:00 GMT on Friday, before reopening from 06:00 to 12:00 GMT on Saturday, with the results expected on Saturday evening.

Even if Babis’s ANO (Yes) party tops the vote, it will almost certainly have to negotiate a coalition. Analysts say the likely contender is the far-right opposition SPD movement, which is backed by about 12 percent of voters.

Babis, 71, has campaigned in the EU and NATO member of about 11 million people on pledges of welfare and halting military aid to Ukraine.

The current centre-right coalition government of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, 61, has provided extensive humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, but many voters blame it for ignoring problems at home.

“A change is necessary. The Czech Republic must be more autonomous, it must not be just a messenger boy for Brussels,” 68-year-old geographer Jaroslav Kolar told the AFP news agency.

But doctor Anna Stefanova, 41, told AFP she was afraid of a “sway towards Russia”.

Babis was critical of some EU policies while he was prime minister from 2017 to 2021, and is on good terms with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, who have maintained strong ties with Moscow despite its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

However, Babis has rejected any steps towards exiting the EU or NATO, including calls for referendums, countering accusations by the current government that he would drag the country off its democratic pro-Western course.

ANO tops opinion polls, suggesting support exceeding 30 percent, ahead of Fiala’s Together grouping with about 20 percent.

Describing himself as a “peacemonger” calling for a truce in Ukraine, Babis has promised a “Czechs first” approach – echoing United States President Donald Trump – and pledged “a better life” for all Czechs.

In 2024, Babis cofounded the far-right Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament, which also includes France’s National Rally among other parties.

Fiala said on X that voters would decide “whether we will continue on the path of freedom, high-quality democracy, security and prosperity, or whether we will go east”.

Some concerns about Russian propaganda being spread online over the course of the election period have emerged, though analysts say they cannot see a big shift in voter sentiment so far.

A group of analysts said last week that Czech TikTok accounts reaching millions of viewers “systematically spread pro-Russian propaganda and support anti-system parties through manipulated engagement”.

Last week, Moldova’s pro-Western governing party decisively won a parliamentary election plagued by claims of Russian interference and was widely seen as a definitive choice between staying in Europe’s orbit or lurching into Moscow’s.

Both Babis and Fiala have also seen scandals tarnish their reputations.

Fiala’s government is under fire over the justice ministry’s decision to accept $44m in bitcoins from a convicted criminal.

Babis, Slovak-born and the seventh-wealthiest Czech according to Forbes magazine, is due to stand trial for EU subsidy fraud worth more than $2m.

He has rejected all allegations of wrongdoing as “a smear campaign”.

Responding to the Trump administration‘s hampering of federal regulators, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed a bill greatly expanding California’s power over workplace disputes and union elections.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 288, gives the state authority to step in and oversee union elections, charges of workplace retaliation and other disputes between private employers and workers in the event the National Labor Relations Board fails to respond.

As Newsom signed the worker rights bill, his office drew a sharp contrast with the gridlock in Washington, D.C., where a government shutdown looms.

“With the federal government not only asleep at the wheel, but driving into incoming traffic, it is more important than ever that states stand up to protect workers,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is a proud labor state — and we will continue standing up for the workers that keep our state running and our economy booming.”

The NLRB, which is tasked with safeguarding the right of private employees to unionize or organize in other ways to improve their working conditions, has been functionally paralyzed since it lost quorum in January, when Trump fired one of its board members.

The Trump administration has also proposed sweeping cuts to the agency’s staff and canceled leases for regional offices in many states, while Amazon, SpaceX and other companies brought lodged challenges to the 90-year-old federal agency’s constitutionality in court.

With this law in place, workers unable to get a timely response at the federal level can petition the California Public Employment Relations Board to enforce their rights.

The law creates a Public Employee Relations Board Enforcement Fund, financed by civil penalties paid by employers cited for labor violations to help pay for the added responsibilities for the state labor board.

“This is the most significant labor law reform in nearly a century,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “California workers will no longer be forced to rely on a failing federal agency when they join together to unionize.”

The state’s labor board can choose to take on a case when the NLRB “has expressly or impliedly ceded jurisdiction,” according to language in the law. That includes when charges filed with the agency or an election certification have languished with a regional director for more than six months — or when the federal board doesn’t have a quorum of members or is hampered in other ways.

The law could draw legal challenges over whether the bill infringes on federal law.

It was opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce, which warned that the bill improperly attempts to give California’s labor board authority even as the federal agency’s regional offices continuing to process elections as well as charges filed by workers and employers.

The chamber argued that “courts have repeatedly held that states are prohibited from regulating this space.”

Catherine Fisk, Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong Professor of Law at UC Berkeley Law counters, however, that in the first few decades of the NLRB’s functioning, state labor agencies had much more leeway to enforce federal labor rights.

She said the law “simply proposes going back to the system that existed for three decades.”

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne) said the bill will ensure California workers can continue to unionize and bargain.

“The current President is attempting to take a wrecking ball to public and private sector employees’ fundamental right to join a union,”McKinnor said in a statement. “This is unacceptable and frankly, un-American. California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize.”

Moldova’s ruling pro-West governing party won a majority in the country’s tense Sunday elections, beating pro-Russian parties by a wide margin amid reported attempts to violently disrupt the vote and allegations of interference by Russia.

Results from more than 99 percent of the polling stations counted by Monday noon showed the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) clearly in the lead, despite analysis and opinion polls before the vote suggesting that pro-Russian parties would come close and possibly upset the ruling party’s parliamentary majority.

The small country is located between Ukraine and Romania. One of Europe’s poorest states, it was part of the Soviet Republic until 1991. The breakaway, semi-autonomous region of Transnistria, which lies along the border with Ukraine, has traditionally supported ties with Russia.

As a result, in recent years, Moldova has emerged as a battleground for influence between Russia and the West.

In a September 9 speech at the European Parliament, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, founder of PAS, declared that this election would be “the most consequential” in the country’s history.

For Moldovans, the elections represented a crucial turning point. The small country with Russia’s war in Ukraine on its doorstep could either continue on its current path towards European Union membership, or it could fall back into the old fold of Russian influence.

Ultimately, despite reports of pro-Russian groups threatening violence, with at least three people arrested in Moldova, and several bomb scares reported at polling booths abroad, the Moldovan diaspora played a key role in delivering a pro-EU victory.

What was the outcome of Moldova’s election?

Nearly all votes cast at polling stations had been counted by Monday. Some 1.6 million people cast their votes, making about 52.2 percent of eligible voters, which is higher than in previous elections.

The ruling pro-EU PAS, led by parliament president and PAS cofounder, Igor Grosu, won 50.16 percent of the vote and about 55 of the 101 seats in parliament, translating to a comfortable majority government, according to the country’s election agency.

The current prime minister, Dorin Recean, appointed by Sandu in February 2023, is expected to retain his position.

The pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), an alliance of four parties led by former president and Russian ally Igor Dodon, came in a far second with 24.19 percent of the vote. The party won 26 seats in parliament. Two parties within the bloc, Heart of Moldova and Moldova Mare, were banned from participating in the election amid allegations they had received illicit funding from Russia.

In third place was the Alternative Party, which is also pro-EU with 7.97 percent of the vote, securing eight parliamentary seats.

Our Party, a populist group, and the conservative Democracy at Home party, respectively, won just more than 6 percent and 5 percent of the vote. That allowed them entry into parliament for the first time with 6 seats each.

What had polls predicted?

Opinion polls had suggested a much tighter race between the ruling PAS and the BEP, which was predicted to come a close second. That scenario would have disrupted PAS’s present control of parliament, potentially forcing it into an uncomfortable coalition with the BEP, and slowing down pro-EU reforms.

Before the Sunday polls, politicians and their supporters on both sides of the debate campaigned intensely on the streets and on TV, but also on online platforms such as TikTok, in an attempt to reach young people who make up about a quarter of the population.

What were the key issues?

EU accession was the single most important issue on the ballot this election. Under President Sandu, Moldova applied to join the EU in early 2022, just after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. Chisinau’s goal, alongside a better economy, has been to obtain security guarantees like its neighbour, Romania, which is a member of the EU and of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO).

In July 2022, the EU granted Moldova – as well as Ukraine – candidate status, on the condition that democracy, human and minority rights, and rule of law reforms are made. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the time declared that the future of Moldova was in the EU.

However, while President Sandu’s PAS is eager to achieve Moldova’s EU membership by 2028 when her term expires, she has accused Moscow of attempting to scupper this plan in order to continue wielding influence over a country it once controlled.

Russia has considerable support in Moldova, and backs a breakaway, autonomous enclave – Transnistria, located along its border with Ukraine. About 1,500 Russian troops are present there, and the enclave’s government has requested Russian annexation several times.

In a referendum vote last October, just more than 50 percent of Moldovans voted “yes” to joining the EU, a tight margin of victory that was seen as a predictor of this week’s parliamentary elections.

At the time, President Sandu blamed “dirty interference” from Russia for her camp’s thin victory.

Did Russia interfere in these elections?

During the run-up to Moldova’s election, the authorities have repeatedly accused Moscow of conducting a “hybrid war” – offline and online – to help pro-Russian parties to win the vote. Moscow denies meddling in Moldovan politics.

Russia is specifically accused of being behind a widespread “voter-buying” operation – through which voters are bribed to vote for particular parties – and of launching cyberattacks on Moldovan government networks throughout the year.

The authorities have also claimed that Moscow illicitly funds pro-Russia political parties. Two pro-Russia parties – Heart of Moldova and Moldova Mare – were barred from the vote on Friday over allegations of illegal financing and vote buying.

According to researchers and online monitoring groups, Moldova was flooded with online disinformation and propaganda in the months leading up to the vote that attempted to tarnish PAS and raise doubts and concerns about the EU. Researchers found that these campaigns were powered by artificial intelligence (AI), with bots deployed in comment sections on social media or fake websites posting AI-generated content deriding the EU.

International security professor Stefan Wolff, from the University of Birmingham, told Al Jazeera that Russia had indeed tried to influence Sunday’s elections to bring Moldova back under its influence.

“There is very little doubt in my mind and quite convincing evidence that Russia has done basically two things: Tried to bribe Moldovans literally with cash to vote for anti-European parties, and it has exerted massive campaigns of disinformation about what a pro-European choice would mean,” he said.

Wolff added that Russia also attempted to “discredit” President Sandu and PAS’s parliamentary candidates. “This really was a massive Russian operation, but it also, I think, shows the limits of how far Russia can push its influence in the post-Soviet space,” he said.

Google, in a press statement last week, said it had noticed coordinated campaigns targeting the Moldovan elections on YouTube. “We have terminated more than 1,000 channels since June 2024 for being part of coordinated influence operations targeting Moldova.”

What other disruptions to the election were there?

Two brothers and a third man had been arrested in Chisinau on suspicion of planning riots during the election on Sunday, Moldovan police said. According to local media, the police found flammable material in the possession of the suspects.

Last week, police arrested 74 people during 250 raids of groups linked to alleged Russian plans to instigate riots during the vote. Authorities said the suspects, who were between 19 and 49, had “systematically travelled” to Serbia, where they received training for “disorder and destabilisation”.

How did the Moldovan diaspora vote?

Some 17.5 percent of the votes – 288,000 – were cast by Moldovans living abroad, mostly in Europe and the US.

Bomb scares were reported at polling units in Italy, Romania, Spain and the US. Some polling units in Moldova also reported similar scares. The elections agency did not break down how the diaspora voted.

Voters in the enclave of Transnistria – where many people hold dual citizenship with Russia – faced logistical challenges, as they had to travel to polling stations 20km (12 miles) outside Transnistria. Media reports noted long car queues at Moldovan checkpoints on Sunday morning.

Some pro-Russian voters from the enclave told reporters they had been sent back and forth between polling stations because of bomb scares.

How has PAS reacted to the election result?

Speaking to reporters at the PAS headquarters in Chisinau on Monday after the party’s win, PAS leader Grosu reiterated the allegations against Russia.

“It was not only PAS that won these elections, it was the people who won,” Grosu said.

“The Russian Federation threw into battle everything it had that was most vile – mountains of money, mountains of lies, mountains of illegalities. It used criminals to try to turn our entire country into a haven for crime. It filled everything with hatred.”

Prime Minister Dorin Recean also said Moldovans “demonstrated that their freedom is priceless and their freedom cannot be bought, their freedom cannot be influenced by Russia’s propaganda and scaremongering”.

“This is a huge win for the people of Moldova, considering the fully-fledged hybrid war that Russia waged in Moldova,” Recean added. “The major task right now is to bring back the society together, because what Russia achieved is to produce a lot of tension and division in society.”

Last November, Romania cancelled its own presidential elections after authorities alleged that Russian interference had helped a far-right leader win the polls. A second election was held in May this year, which was won by the centrist and pro-EU candidate Nicusor Dan.

What happens next?

The election result was immediately denied by BEP leader Dodon, who called for protests at the parliament building in Chisinau after claiming – without providing evidence – that PAS had meddled with the vote.

In an address on national TV late on Sunday before the results were declared, Dodon claimed his party had won the vote. He called on the PAS government to resign, and asked supporters to take to the streets.

“We will not allow destabilisation,” the politician said. “The citizens have voted. Their vote must be respected even if you don’t like it”.

On Monday, dozens of people gathered to protest the results. It is unclear if the politician will launch a legal challenge.

Meanwhile, President Sandu will now have to nominate a prime minister who will form a new government. Analysts say the president will likely opt for continuity with Prime Minister Recean, who is pro-EU and previously served as Sandu’s defence and security adviser.

Sept. 29 (UPI) — Moldova’s pro-Europe party of President Maia Sandu has claimed victory in Parliamentary elections that are being framed as a repudiation of Russia and its alleged actions to undermine the small nation’s democracy.

The Sunday contest is also being seen as a win for Moldova’s bid to join the European Union, which it has sought since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fearing it could be the Kremlin’s next target.

“A landslide victory for #Moldova’s European path,” Moldova’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said in an English-language statement on X. “The ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) retains the absolute majority in Parliament. This is the merit of Moldovans at home & abroad who defied expectations.

“Kremlin lost. Democracy won,” he added.

According to unofficial results from Moldova’s Central Electoral Commission, PAS secured 50.16% of the vote share, with 99.9% of the 1.6 million votes counted.

The pro-Russia Patriotic Electoral Bloc of Igor Dodon finished a distant second with a little more than 24% of the vote.

Dodon has called for protests on Monday outside of Parliament, stating it was in defense against the “threat to democracy” and “the dictatorship of PAS.”

“We will come out without party symbols, carrying only the national flag, to defend democracy and the voice of the people,” he said.

Moldova police issued a statement early Monday saying it is aware that people have been promised money to attend the protest. It had earlier said it was also aware of voters being illegally transported from Russia

Ahead of voting, Sandu took to X to describe the election as the nation’s “most consequential.”

“Its outcome will decide whether we consolidate our democracy and join the EU, or whether Russia drags us back into a grey zone, making us a regional risk,” she said.

“Moldova’s future must be decided by Moldovans, not Moscow.”

Igor Grosu, head of PAS, said efforts by Russia to interfere in the election included illegal transportation of voters, vote theft and bomb threats. The foreign ministry confirmed in a statement that bomb threats were made against polling stations in Brussels, Belgium; Rome and Genoa, Italy, Bucharest, Romania, North Carolina’s Asheville, United States; and Alicante, Spain.

The ministry later confirmed that all bomb threats were false.

“Russia’s attempts to hijack the electoral process have been huge,” Grosu said in a statement amid voting, stating it was unclear what effect it would have.

“We pray for patience and calm.”

Moldova applied for EU membership a week after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February of 2022. The former Soviet Union nation has been fighting Russian interference for years and is home to the pro-Kremlin breakaway Transnistria region that borders Ukraine.

Moldova election rocked by bans on pro-Russian parties as EU path hangs in balance.

Moldova’s electoral commission has barred two pro-Russian parties from taking part in this weekend’s parliamentary election, a high-stakes vote overshadowed by claims of Russian interference.

On Friday, the commission excluded the Heart of Moldova and Moldova Mare parties, citing allegations of illegal financing, voter bribery and undeclared foreign funds. Both parties had campaigned on closer ties with Moscow, challenging the pro-Western government ahead of Sunday’s ballot.

The decision against the Heart of Moldova followed a ruling by the Chisinau Court of Appeal that restricted the party’s activities for 12 months. The Ministry of Justice requested the ban after searches earlier this month led to accusations of money laundering, illicit financing and attempts to bribe voters.

The party rejected the charges, describing the move as a political purge.

“This isn’t justice, but a final act of a dirty show orchestrated in advance by authorities with a single goal: to silence us,” it said in a statement. Its leader, Irina Vlah, also condemned the ruling, calling it a “political spectacle, concocted a long time ago” by the governing party.

The electoral commission said all candidates put forward by Heart of Moldova would be removed from the Russia-friendly Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), which has been one of the main challengers to the governing party of Action and Solidarity (PAS). The bloc has been given 24 hours to adjust its candidate list to remain eligible.

Later the same day, the commission also barred Moldova Mare, citing vote-buying, hidden financing from abroad and its involvement in what it called a “camouflaged electoral bloc” linked to a banned party.

Sunday’s vote is seen as pivotal for Moldova, a former Soviet republic that became a European Union candidate state in 2022. The outcome will decide whether the country continues on a pro-European track or veers back towards Moscow’s sphere of influence.

Since 2021, the PAS has held a strong parliamentary majority under President Maia Sandu, but analysts warn it could lose ground as Russia-friendly blocs consolidate.

With no strong pro-European partners on the ballot, the PAS faces pressure from multiple fronts.

Russia, which has long been accused of destabilising Moldova, dismissed the allegations as “anti-Russian” and “unsubstantiated”.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City to Zohran Mamdani by significant margins and is now contesting as an independent, is second in the race to clinch the mayor’s title in the largest city in the United States.

Mamdani won on a message of affordability, but Cuomo has slammed his plans as extreme and not feasible. Al Jazeera did an analysis of Cuomo’s economic policies to see what he has to offer for New Yorkers.

Housing

Cuomo – who only moved into New York City in September 2024 after living in Westchester, a suburban community north of the city – has promised to build over the next decade half a million new apartments, two-thirds of which will be “affordable”. The plan offers tax incentives to private developers to build more residential developments. It also says it will loosen zoning laws to promote office-to-residential conversions.

However, much of what he’s touting is already city policy.

New York launched an office-to-housing programme in 2020 under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, followed by reforms last year to speed up conversions under incumbent Eric Adams.

According to a report from City Comptroller Brad Lander, who also ran in the primaries but has since endorsed Mamdani, those initiatives have already produced 44 conversions. Projects finished or under way are expected to create as many as 17,400 units citywide – mostly studios and one-bedroom apartments – including one of the largest office-to-housing conversions in the country in Lower Manhattan.

Cuomo’s plan to expand housing options across the city also taps into publicly owned land, including vacant lots, to allow for development of new housing and mixed-use development – the same as both other leading candidates, Mamdani, a former State Assembly member, and Adams.

Cuomo wants to pump $2.5bn into public housing over the next five years, which would be a 75 percent increase from the city’s current funding. For housing protections, he wants to add more lawyers in the city’s housing court system to help renters with issues like tenant harassment and unlawful eviction and provide more housing vouchers to help address homelessness.

However, Cuomo’s history says otherwise. When he was governor, he pushed the state to cut funding for a rental voucher programme called Advantage. The cuts from Albany, the state capital, left City Hall no choice but to cut the programme altogether.

One of the few new ideas from Cuomo, who has been US secretary of housing and urban development in the past, is called “Zohran’s Law”, a jab at the most likely next mayor of New York. The new law would put in place income limits on those who are seeking rent-stabilised apartments across the city, which account for about half of the rental housing stock.

Cuomo said the law would not penalise those who see their incomes increase while already living in a rent-stabilised unit.

New York City’s rent-stabilisation programme was never designed with certain income levels in mind. It was intended to regulate the broader housing market and protect residents from rent price surges that market-rate apartments face in times of housing scarcity.

“I think that’s been the playbook all along, kind of pick a fight, steal an idea, deliver less ambitiously than New Yorkers really need or deserve,” Adin Lenchner, founder of the New York based political consultancy Carroll Street Campaigns told Al Jazeera.

Transit

Cuomo’s most ambitious proposal is to bring New York City’s transit system under the control of the city itself. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which oversees subways, buses and commuter railroads, has been under state jurisdiction since the agency was created in 1968. That structure gives the governor disproportionate power over the operations of the nation’s largest transit system.

Shifting control to City Hall would be a steep challenge because much of its funding comes from state-collected taxes and revenues. And even if it were to happen and Cuomo would want to increase the city’s tax rate to pay for it, he would still need a buy-in from the governor, who either accepts or denies the city’s proposed tax rate.

That funding dynamic is a key reason why Mamdani’s free-bus proposal has drawn scepticism. Implementing it would demand coalition-building and leverage in Albany, which critics have said are best used for other pressing issues like universal childcare.

As a state lawmaker, Mamdani was able to help champion a free-bus pilot programme, but expanding such an initiative citywide would be far more complicated from the mayor’s office without control of the MTA, a key weakness in the Mamdani campaign that Cuomo has tried to capitalise on.

Cuomo, on the other hand, is not pushing for free transit quite like Mamdani but has suggested he would consider some free routes. He also said he would expand access to what is called the fair fares programme, which offers discounted rates to low-income New Yorkers.

Cuomo’s push to claim city control of the MTA also comes with a fairly chequered political history.

During his time as governor, he was frequently accused of weaponising the state’s authority over transit against then-Mayor de Blasio, taking credit for successes while deflecting blame for service breakdowns onto City Hall. The tug-of-war over responsibility for transit performance has long been a point of contention between Albany and City Hall.

Cuomo does have a track record of delivering on major transportation projects. Under his watch, a subway line expanded, the long-delayed construction of another subway line began and Penn Station, one of the city’s largest transit hubs, began a substantial revitalisation. He also oversaw the rebuilding of LaGuardia Airport.

Lencher pointed out that Cuomo proudly took credit for those wins but when the city’s subway system faced widespread delays in 2017 during the construction – colloquially referred to as the summer of hell, in which there were constant equipment failures and the worst on-time performance of any mass transit system in the world – Cuomo said it was “the city’s MTA”.

Jobs

Cuomo has pitched a jobs plan that he has called the $1.5bn Five-Borough Economic Transformation Capital Fund, which would fund projects all over the city. He is also proposing an innovation hub that would give grants to start-ups and offer them tax exemptions if they can prove they can provide job growth opportunities to the city.

He is also adding a 90-day “fast-track regulatory review”, a promise to cut red tape for business development. Both of his competitors have made similar promises, but Mamdani’s is focused on the small-business economy.

Cuomo’s plan for workforce training and development programmes includes expanding existing training and apprenticeship programmes for people who want to pursue jobs in fields like healthcare.

While he has offered to promote more training programmes that would help with “preparation for jobs that don’t require a college degree”, he hasn’t offered any details about what that would be. Representatives for Cuomo did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for more details.

Taxes

In 2021, Cuomo was behind one of the biggest tax increases on the ultrawealthy in New York state’s history. His administration raised the corporate tax rate by 0.75 percent. He also raised the taxes for those making $1m to $2m to 9.65 percent from 8.82 percent and built in two new tax brackets: For those making $5m to $25m, it was 10.3 percent, and 10.9 percent for those making more than $25m annually.

His new plan as mayor includes no tax on tips for restaurant workers and eliminating income tax for New Yorkers making at or less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level – $31,300 annually for a single-person household and $64,300 for a family of four.

For wealthy New Yorkers, he said he would increase the threshold for the mansion tax, an additional tax for a real estate transaction, to $2.5m, up from its current level of $1m.

His planned tax cuts are raising questions among experts about how he would pay for his proposals.

Unlike Mamdani, Cuomo has not provided a detailed plan on how he intends to pay for his platform, and Adams has his own existing record to point to, including increased tax collections and decreased spending.

“They [Mamdani’s campaign] always get asked how are you going to pay for it [Mamdani’s policy proposals]. Cuomo and people to the right of him don’t face that same line of questioning,” Kaivan Shroff, a New York State delegate for the Democratic National Committee and senior adviser to the Institute for Education, told Al Jazeera.

“The reality here is that [the Cuomo campaign] has come up with a plan to have a plan.”

Presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Voters in Guinea have overwhelmingly backed a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president if he chooses to, according to partial results.

The constitution looked set to pass with 90.6 percent votes in favour and 9.4 percent against, the head of Guinea’s General Directorate of Elections, Djenabou Toure, told reporters late on Monday. Those figures were based on 91 percent of the votes cast in Sunday’s referendum.

An overall figure for voter turnout was not available, but officials had counted more than 4.8 million votes out of more than 6.6 million registered voters, meaning turnout had exceeded 70 percent.

Critics called the results a power grab, but the military government said the referendum paves the way for a return to civilian rule. The presidential election is currently expected to take place in December.

Reporting from the capital, Conakry, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said members of the opposition were opposed to the referendum.

“The elections were held all across Guinea with no incidents at all – 45,000 security forces were deployed. … The opposition said this is a way of harassing the voters,” he said.

Presidential election

Doumbouya, a 40-year-old former member of the French Foreign Legion, voted along with his wife at a health centre in Conakry, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap with a drawing of a traditional mask symbolising fertility.

He seized power in Guinea, home to the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, in 2021. It was part of a wave of eight coups that swept West and Central Africa from 2020 to 2023.

A charter adopted after the coup barred members of the transitional government from seeking office. But that language was not included in the constitution put to voters on Sunday.

Doumbouya has not said yet whether he intends to run for office.

The country’s two main opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and deposed former President Alpha Conde, are among those who called for a boycott of the referendum.

Their political parties are currently suspended, and Human Rights Watch has accused the government of disappearing political opponents and arbitrarily suspending media outlets.

The government has denied any role in disappearances but has promised to investigate such allegations.

Yoweri Museveni urges supporters to back his vision for the future as he seeks to run for a record seventh term.

Uganda’s long-time President Yoweri Museveni has been confirmed to stand in the January 2026 elections, as he seeks to extend his nearly 40-year rule in the African country.

Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, on Tuesday urged supporters to back his vision for the future after electoral officials near the capital, Kampala, announced that the 81-year-old leader would be on the ballot.

The governing National Resistance Movement (NRM) party officially confirmed him in June as its presidential candidate.

In a post on X, Museveni thanked his supporters for entrusting him to run again for the 2026-2031 term.

“In this economy, the GDP of Uganda has doubled currently in the recent Kisanja from $34 billion to $66 billion,” he wrote. He has promised to make Uganda a $500bn economy in the next five years.

“You have everything today that you lacked in the past: electricity, roads, telephones, manpower, the educated people, and peace. That’s why we are being flooded by many investors because they are looking for a peaceful and profitable area where to invest,” he added.

In a list of pledges for the next term, Museveni said the party’s priorities would focus on wealth creation, education, infrastructure, crime, corruption, health and water.

Our priorities for this term include:

1. Wealth creation: Everybody should be involved in the money economy.
2. Education: All children in government primary and secondary schools should study for free.
3. Infrastructure: Roads should be tarmaced on time and maintain the… pic.twitter.com/KhDcNeyJaH

— Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) September 23, 2025

Museveni came to power in 1986 after his NRM party waged a rebellion to depose the military regime of General Tito Okello.

After the NRM won the war, Museveni, the then-leader of the movement’s armed group, declared himself president. Since then, the president has been elected in subsequent elections.

In 2017, an amendment to the constitution removed the age limit for presidential candidates, which had been set at 75, allowing Museveni to continue ruling the country.

But the leader’s main political opponent, Bobi Wine, a former musician, is expected to be announced as a candidate in the upcoming election later this week.

During the 2021 elections, Wine secured 35 percent of the vote, with Museveni taking 58 percent in his worst-ever result.

While Wine accused Museveni of alleged voter fraud and ballot stuffing, his performance during the election placed him as the strongest challenger to Museveni’s rule.

Wine also has a large following among working-class communities in urban areas, with his National Unity Platform party holding the most seats of any opposition party in the national assembly.

After Monday’s mass raids, pro-Western President Maia Sandu once again accuses Moscow of interference.

At least 74 people have been arrested in Moldova over an alleged plot to organise “mass riots” in the Eastern European nation as President Maia Sandu has accused Russia of an attempt to sway next weekend’s parliamentary elections.

The police said the suspects were detained on Monday after more than 250 raids were carried out across the country. “The searches are related to a criminal case into the preparation of mass riots and destabilisation, which were coordinated from the Russian Federation through criminal elements,” police said in a statement on Monday.

Victor Furtuna, a leading Moldovan prosecutor, said those arrested were aged 19 to 45 and most of them had received training in Serbia.

Pro-Western Sandu, who has described Sunday’s voting as the “most consequential” in the nation’s history, accused the Kremlin of pouring “hundreds of millions of euros” into the country in an attempt to sway the elections.

“People are intoxicated daily with lies,” Sandu said after Monday’s raids. “Hundreds of individuals are paid to provoke disorder, violence and spread fear.”

“I appeal to all citizens: We must not allow our country to be handed over to foreign interests,” the president added.

Moscow has long denied meddling in Moldova’s domestic affairs.

The Kremlin has also been accused of interfering in the politics of Moldova’s neighbour, Romania.

Last year, far-right politician Calin Georgescu won the first round of Romania’s presidential election before it was annulled by the Constitutional Court, which accused Russia of meddling in the electoral process. Moscow denied any involvement.

Georgescu, a strong critic of NATO, was barred from competing in this year’s election, rerun by Romania’s central election authority.

Sandu’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) has sought to cast Moldova’s elections as critical not just for Moldova but also for the wider continent. The president has warned that the country would be used as “a launchpad for hybrid attacks on the European Union” if it were run by a pro-Russian government.

Amid widespread Western accusations of Russian interference in Moldova, German, French and Polish leaders have recently visited the country, which applied for EU membership in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Although the Moldovan government is ahead in most pre-election polls, political analysts believe the result could be close.

The opposition, led by the pro-Russian Patriotic bloc, is trying to tap into voters’ frustrations over economic hardships and unfulfilled reform promises.

Igor Dodon, a former president who is the joint leader of the Patriotic bloc, said on the Telegram messaging app that some of its members were targeted in Monday’s raids.

The Moldovan government “is trying to intimidate us, frighten the people and silence us”, he said.

Last month, the fugitive Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, who has been sanctioned by the United States and EU for being an alleged Russian agent, offered his countrymen $3,000 to join antigovernment protests.

With more than one million Moldovans living abroad, diaspora voters could play an important role in Sunday’s voting.

A record 300,000 Moldovans in the diaspora cast ballots in the second round of last year’s presidential election, helping Sandu win re-election in a country whose population is only 2.4 million.

A third of the People’s Assembly of Syria seats will be appointed directly by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Syria will elect a new People’s Assembly on October 5, the first parliament to be chosen since the fall of Bashar al-Assad late last year.

The vote for members of the parliament will take place “across all electoral districts”, the state-run SANA news agency reported on Sunday.

The announcement comes as the new government seeks to rebuild state institutions and gain legitimacy amid regional and international efforts to stabilise the war-battered country.

A third of the assembly’s 210 seats will be appointed directly by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The rest will be chosen by local committees supervised by the electoral commission. The chamber will be tasked with approving legislation aimed at overhauling decades of state-controlled economic policies and ratifying treaties that could reshape Syria’s foreign policy.

The new parliament is also expected to “lay the groundwork for a broader democratic process” following al-Assad’s removal in December after nearly 14 years of civil war, SANA said. Critics, however, warn that the current system does not adequately represent Syria’s marginalised communities.

Authorities had initially said the vote would take place in September. The electoral commission previously indicated that polling in the provinces of Suwayda, Hasakah and Raqqa would be delayed because of security concerns.

Suwayda witnessed clashes in July between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, while Hasakah and Raqqa remain partly under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

In March, al-Sharaa’s administration issued a constitutional declaration to guide the interim period until the election.

The document preserves a central role for Islamic law as well as guarantees women’s rights and freedom of expression. Opponents have expressed concern that the framework consolidates too much power in the hands of Syria’s leadership.

Al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group played a key role in al-Assad’s fall, has also turned to regional diplomacy to bolster his government and Syria’s security.

He told local media that security talks with Israel are a “necessity”, stressing that any agreement must respect Syria’s territorial integrity and end Israeli violations of its airspace.

Guinea’s 6.7 million voters eligible to cast a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote on a new constitution.

Guinea is holding a long-awaited referendum on a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president and would transition the African nation from military to civilian rule.

Polls opened and will close later on Sunday for the 6.7 million eligible voters to cast a “yes” or “no” vote on a new constitution that would lengthen the presidential term from five to seven years, renewable once, and create a Senate, one-third of whose members the president would directly appoint.

In the capital, Conakry, where political campaigning was banned on Friday and Saturday, people gathered at polling stations early on Sunday to cast their votes.

Reporting from Conakry, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said the government has deployed security officers with a government statement outlining that “more than 40,000 security personnel have been deployed to provide security for this election”.

“People are expecting that the referendum will result in the approval of the draft constitution that some people call impressive and progressive,” Idris said.

“However, people who are opposed to this referendum are saying it will legitimise the current military rulership to participate in the election. The transitional charter said, in fact, no member of the current military government will participate, but a lot of people fear that the referendum will result in a constitution that will allow every member of this government to participate in the [next] election,” he added

Critics are closely watching the referendum, fearing that this is the latest attempt by the government to legitimise its rule on a continent where eight coups since 2023 in West and Central Africa have changed the political landscape.

The referendum has also been criticised as a power grab by Doumbouya. His military-led government missed a December deadline it had set to return the government to civilian rule after he had seized power four years ago.

A presidential election is scheduled to take place in December.

While the military leader has not yet said if he would run in the presidential election, a transitional charter adopted by his government after it took power said coup members would be barred from standing in the next elections.

Sunday’s vote is likely to pass as two of the prominent opposition leaders, Cellou Dalein Diallo and deposed former President Alpha Conde, have called for a boycott of the vote.

Both Diallo’s and Conde’s parties are currently suspended with Human Rights Watch accusing the military government of disappearing political opponents, which it has denied.

The results of the election are expected within the next two to three days, Idris said.

Convicted ex-leader rushed to a hospital in Brasilia after falling ill at his residence, his son says.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to prison last week for plotting a coup, has been rushed to hospital after falling ill while under house arrest, his son said.

The emergency visit on Tuesday is the 70-year-old former army captain’s second hospital visit since his conviction.

Bolsonaro has had recurring intestinal issues since he was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, including at least six related surgeries, including a 12-hour-long procedure in April. He won the election that year, and governed from 2019 to 2023.

“Bolsonaro felt unwell a short while ago, with a severe bout of hiccups, vomiting, and low blood pressure,” his son, Flavio, wrote on X.

“He was taken to DF Star [Hospital] accompanied by correctional police officers who guard his home in Brasília, as it was an emergency,” he wrote.

Bolsonaro visited the same hospital on Sunday, and had eight skin lesions removed and sent for biopsies.

A panel of Supreme Court justices on Thursday found the former leader guilty of plotting a coup after he lost the 2022 election to current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

They sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.

The sentence, however, does not immediately send him to jail. The court panel has up to 60 days to publish the ruling after the decision, and once it does, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.

Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and said he is the victim of political persecution. United States President Donald Trump has also called the trial a “witch-hunt”, and imposed tariffs of 50 percent on Brazilian goods, citing the case against Bolsonaro, among other issues.

The former Brazilian leader has been under house arrest since August for allegedly courting pressure on the courts from Trump. He had already been wearing an ankle monitor.

Separately on Tuesday, a federal court ordered Bolsonaro to pay 1 million reais ($188,865) in damages for collective moral harm stemming from racist comments he made while in office.

The inquiry originated from Bolsonaro’s statements to a Black supporter who approached him in May 2021 and asked to take a picture.

The former president joked, saying he was seeing a cockroach in the man’s hair. He also compared the man’s hairstyle with a “cockroach breeding ground”, implying the hair was unclean.

There was no immediate comment from his legal team after the latest court order.

His defence had previously told media outlets that the former leader’s remarks were intended as jokes rather than racist statements, denying any intent to cause offence.

Public opinion in Brazil, meanwhile, is split on Bolsonaro’s prison sentence on coup charges, and the far-right politician’s allies have laid out several plans to overturn or reduce the jail term.

In the Congress, they have rallied behind an amnesty bill, building on the campaign to free hundreds of his supporters who stormed and vandalised government buildings in January 2023.

Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a leading Bolsonaro ally, has also promised repeatedly to pardon the former leader if he were to become president in next year’s election. A court has barred Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030, though the former president insisted earlier this year that he would compete in the 2026 presidential election.

For his part, Lula, the incumbent president, has hailed the sentencing of Bolsonaro as a “historic decision” that followed months of investigations that uncovered plans to assassinate him, the vice president and a Supreme Court justice.

Bolsonaro’s conviction, he also said, “safeguards” Brazil’s institutions and the democratic rule of law.

Malawians are voting to elect their next president amid a deepening economic crisis in one of Africa’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries.

The small Southeast African nation has been hit with double-digit inflation that has caused food prices to skyrocket for several months now. It came after intense drought events last year. Earlier, in 2023, Cyclone Freddy, which struck the region, hit Malawi the hardest, killing more than 1,000 people and devastating livelihoods.

In Tuesday’s election, voters are also choosing parliamentarians and local councillors across 35 local governments.

Malawi is most known for its tourist hotspots, such as Lake Malawi, Africa’s third-largest freshwater lake, as well as nature and wildlife parks.

The country has a population of 21.6 million. Lilongwe is the capital city, and Blantyre is the commercial nerve centre.

Here’s what to know about the elections:

How does voting happen?

The elections began in the morning on Tuesday and will end by evening.

Some 7.2 million people are registered to vote across 35 local government authorities, according to the electoral commission.

To emerge as president, a candidate must gain more than 50 percent of the vote. If not, then a run-off must be held. Presidential results will be published by September 24.

A total of 299 constituency parliament members and 509 councillors will be elected. Parliamentary results will be published by September 30.

Who are the key contenders?

Seventeen presidential candidates are running for the post. However, the race is largely considered a two-horse race between incumbent President Lazarus Chakwera and former leader Peter Mutharika.

Lazarus Chakwera: The 70-year-old president and leader of the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP) is hoping to secure his second and — per the constitution —  final term.

The former preacher’s win in 2020 was historic, after a court ruled that there were irregularities in the 2019 election, and ordered a re-run. Chakwera’s win in that second vote marked the first time in African history that an opposition candidate won a re-run election.

However, Chakwera’s tenure has been marked by high levels of inflation and, more recently, fuel shortages. There have also been numerous allegations of corruption, particularly nepotism, against him. In 2021, the president made headlines when he appointed his daughter, Violet Chakwera Mwasinga, as a diplomat to Brussels.

In his campaigns, Chakwera has asked for more time to work on easing the country’s current economic stagnation. He and officials in his government have also blamed some of the hardships on last year’s drought, a cholera outbreak between 2022 and 2024, and the devastation of Cyclone Freddy in February 2023.

Supporters point out that Chakwera has already overseen major road construction work across Malawi and restarted train services after more than 30 years.

He previously ran in 2014, but was unsuccessful.

Peter Mutharika: The 85-year-old leader of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is looking to make a comeback after his earlier second-term bid was defeated by Chakwera in 2020.

A former law professor, Mutharika has campaigned on the economic gains he said Malawi witnessed under him, arguing that things were better during his tenure than under the present leadership. He led Malawi from 2014 to 2020.

While he is credited with lowering inflation and kickstarting major infrastructure projects, Mutharika also faced corruption scandals in his time. In 2018, Malawians took to the streets to protest his alleged involvement in a bribery scandal that had seen a businessman pay a 200,000 kickback to his party. Mutharika was later cleared of wrongdoing.

Critics have speculated about Mutharika’s age, noting that he has not been particularly active during the campaign. Mutharika is the brother of former President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died in office in 2012.

Other notable presidential contenders include:

• Joyce Banda – Malawi’s only female president from 2012 to 2014, from the People’s Party. She was formerly vice president under Bingu wa Mutharika.
• Michael Usi – the former vice president who is from the Odya Zake Alibe Mlandu party.

What’s at stake in this election?

Struggling economy

Although Malawi exports tobacco, tea, and other agricultural products, the country is largely aid-dependent. It is also under pressure from accumulated external debt.

For Malawian voters, rising prices of food and everyday items are the most pressing issue on the ballot. Food costs have gone up by about 30 percent in the past year, but salaries have largely stayed the same. Meanwhile, the costs of fertiliser for the 80 percent of Malawians who survive on subsistence farming have risen.

Economists chalk up the stagnation crisis to a lack of foreign currency, which has limited crucial imports, including fertilisers and fuel.

Presently, the country is facing severe fuel shortages, with hundreds queuing up at fuel stations daily. Chakwera has blamed corrupt officials, who he says are deliberately sabotaging the fuel markets, for the problem.

In May, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) terminated a $175 million loan programme after it failed to give early results. Only $35 million had been disbursed. There will likely be negotiations for a new IMF programme after the elections, officials have said.

Earlier, in February, disgruntled citizens took to the streets Lilongwe and Blantyre in protest against the rising cost of living. Some voters, particularly the young people, feel that not much will change whether they vote or not.

While Mutharika has campaigned on his economic record while in office, Chakwera has pledged a cash transfer programme of 500,000 Malawi kwacha ($290) for newborns, which they can access at the age of 18.

Corruption

Corruption crises have riddled both Mutharika and Chakwera’s governments, something many Malawians say they are tired of.

While Chakwera has talked tough on fighting graft since becoming head of state in 2020, he has faced criticism for nepotism scandals and for handling corruption cases selectively.

Meanwhile, candidate Joyce Banda has also promised to fight corruption if elected. As president, Banda fired her entire cabinet in 2013, following news that some government officials were caught with large amounts of cash in their homes.

Drought and extreme weather

Malawi is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, although it does not contribute significantly to emissions. With the majority of people relying on subsistence farming for food, extreme weather events often hit Malawi especially hard.

Climate activist Chikondi Chabvuta told Al Jazeera that governments in the past have not invested enough in building systems, such as food systems, that can absorb climate shocks. Women and girls, in particular she said, are often most affected by the double whammy of weather disasters and inflation that often follows.

“Creating a buffer for the people impacted should be a priority because science is telling us these events are going to get worse,” Chabvuta said. “Life for Malawians has to get better by policies that show seriousness,” in tackling environmental challenges, she added.

Millions of people were impacted for several months in 2024, after a severe regional drought destroyed harvests, driven by El Nino weather patterns.

According to the World Food Program, hundreds of thousands across the country were forced to rely on food assistance for survival as Malawi declared an emergency.

In February 2023, Cyclone Freddy, which was one of the deadliest storms to hit Africa in the last two decades, caused 1,216 fatalities. It also wiped out crops and caused similar food shortages.

More than a dozen names are on the ballot, but analysts say the race is between President Lazarus Chakwera and his predecessor Peter Mutharika.

Polls have opened in Malawi with the incumbent president and his predecessor vying for a second chance to govern the largely poor southern African nation, battered by soaring costs and severe fuel shortages, in a closely and fiercely contested election where a run-off is widely expected.

Polls opened at 6:00am (04:00 GMT) on Tuesday with 17 names on the ballot.

Analysts say the race is between President Lazarus Chakwera, 70, and his predecessor, law professor Peter Mutharika, 85, both of whom have campaigned on improving the agriculture-dependent economy battered by a series of climate shocks, with inflation topping 27 percent.

Tuesday’s elections mark Malawi’s first national elections since the 2019 presidential vote was nullified and ordered to be redone in 2020 because of widespread irregularities.

However, both of the men have been accused of cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement during their first presidential terms, leaving voters a choice between “two disappointments”, political commentator Chris Nhlane told the AFP news agency.

Though both drew large crowds to colourful final rallies at the weekend, many younger Malawians were reportedly uninspired.

With about 60 percent of the 7.2 million registered voters aged less than 35, activists have been mobilising to overcome apathy and get young voters to the polls.

“We are frustrated,” said youth activist Charles Chisambo, 34. “If people vote for Mutharika, it is just to have a change,” told AFP.

“We don’t need a leader, we need someone who can fix the economy.”

The cost of living in one of the world’s poorest countries has surged 75 percent in 12 months, according to reports citing the Centre for Social Concern, a nongovernmental organisation.

Two seasons of drought and a devastating cyclone in 2023 have compounded hardships in a country where about 70 percent of the 21 million population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.

Chakwera, from the Malawi Congress Party that led the nation to independence from Britain in 1964, has pleaded for continuity to “finish what we started”, flaunting several infrastructure projects under way.

Days earlier, he announced a huge drop in the high cost of fertiliser, a major complaint across the largely agricultural country.

Lydia Sibale, 48, a hospital administrator who had been in a petrol queue in Lilongwe for an hour, told AFP she still had confidence in Chakwera. “The only challenge is the economic crisis, which is worldwide,” she said.

Chakwera was elected with about 59 percent of the vote in the 2020 rerun, but, five years later, there is some nostalgia for Mutharika’s “relatively better administration”, said analyst Mavuto Bamusi.

“Chakwera’s incumbency advantage has significantly been messed up by poor economic performance,” he said.

“I want to rescue this country,” Mutharika told a cheering rally of his Democratic Progressive Party in the second city of Blantyre, the heartland of the party that has promised a “return to proven leadership” and economic reform.

“I will vote for APM (Mutharika) because he knows how to manage the economy and has Malawians’ welfare at heart,” 31-year-old student Thula Jere told AFP.

With a winner requiring more than 50 percent of votes, a run-off within 60 days is likely.

The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, has endorsed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate who has campaigned for a more equitable allocation of the city’s resources, for mayor ahead of a closely watched November election in the financial capital of the United States.

Writing in The New York Times, the state leader said on Sunday she made her decision after “frank conversations” with her fellow Democrat, who resoundingly won the support of the party’s voters in a primary election in May.

“In our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighbourhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” Hochul wrote in the city-based newspaper.

“I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support,” Hochul added.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old left-wing politician who has promised to make buses free and freeze rents for subsidised tenants, won 56.4 percent of votes among registered Democrats in the primary race, easily beating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Yet Cuomo, a pro-Israel candidate who joined a team of lawyers defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes allegations in Gaza, has taken the unusual move of choosing to stay in the race, reflecting a continued divide within the Democratic Party.

While recent polls suggest Mamdani has a 22-point lead among New York voters, some prominent New York Democrats have appeared hesitant to back him, including US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, and, until recently, Hochul — though the governor had been more positive in comments about Mamdani than the others.

Speaking in Iowa on Saturday, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen criticised his Democratic colleagues for failing to endorse Mamdani, accusing them of the “kind of spineless politics” that “people are sick of”.

“They need to get behind him, and get behind him now,” Van Hollen said.

Mamdani, who has campaigned alongside independent Senator Bernie Sanders and progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal in recent days, has received fewer endorsements from centrist Democrats like Hochul, less than two months out from the November 4 general election.

Thanking the governor for her announcement on Sunday, Mamdani acknowledged Hochul’s “support in unifying our party” as well as her “focus on making New York affordable”.

He also praised “her resolve in standing up to Trump”.

Trump has also weighed in on the race, saying Mamdani being “up by 20” in a recent poll shows there is a “rebellion against bad candidates … they’re tired of it”.

“I’m not looking at the polls too carefully, but it would look like he is going to win, and that is a rebellion,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Fox News on Friday, describing Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as “my little communist mayor”.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Mamdani with 45 percent support among likely voters, and a comfortable 22-point lead over his closest rival, Cuomo, with 23 percent.

Repeat Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who cofounded the Guardian Angels to combat “violence and crime” on the New York subway in the 1970s, is polling at 15 percent, according to the Quinnipiac poll, while embattled incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent candidate, has just 12 percent support.

Trump has dismissed Sliwa as a candidate, describing the Republican candidate known for his trademark red beret as “not exactly prime time”.

Mamdani, meanwhile, has portrayed Adams as a “puppet” of Trump’s following meetings between the mayor and the US president and his team. Trump has described Adams as a “very nice person” but has denied recent reports that he offered the mayor an ambassadorship.