Elections

President Sheinbaum labels vote a ‘success’, but experts warn criminals could use it to infiltrate judiciary.

A landmark vote to select judges in Mexico has been labelled a “success” by the president despite a sparse turnout and widespread confusion.

Just 13 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday’s vote to overhaul the court system. President Claudia Sheinbaum proclaimed that the election would make Mexico more democratic, but critics accused her of seeking to take control of the judiciary, while analysts warned it could open the way for criminals to seize influence.

The vote, a cornerstone policy of Sheinbaum and predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, aimed to fill about 880 federal judicial positions, including Supreme Court justices, as well as hundreds of local judges and magistrates.

But many voters said they struggled to make informed choices among a flood of largely unknown candidates, who were barred from openly disclosing party affiliations or engaging in widespread campaigning.

‘Largely empty’ polling stations

Al Jazeera’s John Holman reported from Mexico City that polling stations were “largely empty”.

“On what the government planned to be a historic day, the majority of Mexicans prefer to do something else,” he said.

Still, Sheinbaum hailed the election as “a complete success” that makes the country a democratic trailblazer.

“Mexico is a country that is only becoming more free, just and democratic because that is the will of the people,” the president said.

The reform, defended by supporters as necessary to cleanse a corrupt justice system, was originally championed by Sheinbaum’s predecessor, Lopez Obrador, who frequently clashed with the old judiciary.

‘Painstaking process’

Experts had warned that turnout would be unusually low due to the sheer number of candidates and the unfamiliarity of judicial voting.

To be properly informed, voters “would have to spend hours and hours researching the track record and the profiles of each of the hundreds of candidates”, said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego.

That concern was echoed by voters at the polls.

“We are not very prepared,” said Lucia Calderon, a 63-year-old university teacher. “I think we need more information.”

Francisco Torres de Leon, a 62-year-old retired teacher in southern Mexico, called the process “painstaking because there are too many candidates and positions that they’re going to fill”.

Beyond logistical challenges, analysts and rights groups raised fears that powerful criminal groups could use the elections to further infiltrate the judiciary.

While corruption already exists, “there is reason to believe that elections may be more easily infiltrated by organised crime than other methods of judicial selection”, said Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

Although all candidates were supposed to have legal experience, no criminal record and a “good reputation”, several have been linked to organised crime and corruption scandals.

Rights group Defensorxs identified about 20 candidates it considers “high risk”, including Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for Sinaloa cartel cofounder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Another candidate, in Durango state, previously served nearly six years in a US prison for drug offences.

Election results are expected in the coming days. A second round of judicial elections is scheduled for 2027 to fill hundreds more positions.

Seoul, South Korea – After six hours of emergency martial law, hundreds of days of protests, violence at a Seoul court and the eventual impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea is now hours away from choosing a new leader in the hope of restoring stability to an unsettled nation.

From 6am to 8pm on Tuesday (21:00 to 11:00 GMT), South Koreans will vote for one of five presidential candidates in a race led largely by the opposition Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung. He is followed in the polls by the governing People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo.

The election – involving 44.39 million eligible voters – is expected to see either of these two top contenders replace Yoon. The expelled former president last week attended his fifth court hearing where he faces charges of leading an insurrection and abusing power due to his failed imposition of martial law on December 3.

If convicted, Yoon could face a maximum penalty of life in prison or even the death sentence.

Participation in the election is predicted to be at an all-time high amid the political turmoil resulting from the brief imposition of military rule, which still resonates in every corner of society and has sharply divided the country along political lines. There are those who still support Yoon and those who vehemently oppose his martial law decision.

The Democratic Party’s Lee is currently the clear frontrunner, with Gallup Korea’s latest poll on May 28 placing his support at 49 percent, compared with People Power Party Kim’s 36 percent, as the favourite to win.

Early voting, which ended on Friday, had the second-highest voter turnout in the country’s history, at 34.74 percent, while overseas voting from 118 countries reached a record high of 79.5 percent.

Lee Jae-myung’s second chance

In the last presidential election in 2022, Yoon narrowly edged out Lee in the closest presidential contest in South Korea’s history.

After his crushing defeat in 2022 to a voting margin of just 0.73 percentage points, Lee now has another chance at the top office, and to redeem his political reputation.

About a month ago, South Korea’s Supreme Court determined that Lee had spread falsehoods during his 2022 presidential bid in violation of election law.

In addition to surviving a series of bribery charges during his tenure as mayor of Seongnam and governor of Gyeonggi Province, which he claimed were politically motivated, Lee also survived a stabbing attack to his neck during a news conference in Busan last year.

Fortunately for Lee, the courts have agreed to postpone further hearings of his ongoing trials until after the election.

On the campaign trail this time around, Lee addressed his supporters from behind bulletproof glass, with snipers positioned on rooftops, scanning the crowds for potential threats, as counterterrorism units patrolled on foot.

Lee has also been joined on his campaign by conservative lawmakers, his former opponents, who have publicly supported his run for office numerous times during the past month, seeing him as a path back to political stability.

People Power Party candidate Kim was served an especially hard blow when his parliamentary colleague, Kim Sang-wook, defected from the party in early May to join Lee’s Democratic Party.

According to polling data from South Korea’s leading media outlet Hankyoreh, only 55 percent of conservative voters who supported Yoon in the 2022 election said they would back the People Power Party’s Kim this time around.

While such shifts represent the crisis that the mainstream conservative party is facing after the political fallout from Yoon’s botched martial law plan and removal from office, it also testifies to Lee’s appeal to both moderate and conservative voters.

Future president faces ‘heavy burden’

“The events of the martial law, insurrection attempt and impeachment process have dealt a heavy blow to our democracy,” said Lim Woon-taek, a sociology professor at Keimyung University and a former member of the Presidential Commission on Policy Planning.

“So, the new president will receive a heavy burden when assuming the president’s seat,” Lim told Al Jazeera.

Youth unemployment, social inequality and climate change have also become pressing issues that Yoon’s administration failed to tackle.

According to recent research, South Korea’s non-regular workers, including contract employees and part-timers, accounted for 38 percent of all wage and salary workers last year.

Lee has promised to champion business-friendly policies, and concentrate on investment in research and development and artificial intelligence, while refraining from focusing on divisive social issues such as the gender wars.

His stance has shifted considerably from his time moving up the political ranks when he promoted left-wing ideas, such as a universal basic income.

Events on the night of the declaration of martial law on December 3, also helped cement Lee’s image as a political freedom fighter. A former human rights lawyer, Lee was livestreamed scaling the walls of the National Assembly as the military surrounded the compound, where he rallied fellow legislators to vote and strike down Yoon’s decision to mobilise the military.

Among Lee’s most central campaign pledges has been his promise to bring to justice those involved in Yoon’s martial law scheme and tighten controls on a future president’s ability to do the same. Lee also wants to see a constitutional amendment that would allow presidents to serve two four-year terms, a change from the current single-term five years.

While Lee’s closest challenger, Kim, has agreed on such policies and made sure to distance himself from Yoon, the former labour-activist-turned-hardline-conservative has also said the former president’s impeachment went too far.

Trump, tariffs and South Korea’s new direction

The election also unfolds as United States President Donald Trump has proposed a series of tariffs on key South Korean exports such as steel, semiconductors and automobiles.

In the face of those threats, Lee has promised to stimulate demand and growth, while Kim has promised to ease business regulations. Kim also emphasised his plan to hold an immediate summit meeting with Trump to discuss the tariffs.

Lee, on the other hand, has promised a more pragmatic foreign policy agenda which would maintain relations with the US administration but also prioritise “national interests”, such as bridging closer relations with neighbouring China and Russia.

On North Korea, Lee is determined to ease tensions that have risen to unprecedented heights in recent years, while Kim has pledged to build up the country’s military capability to counter Pyongyang, and wants stronger security support from the US.

Lee has also promised to relocate the National Assembly and the presidential office from Seoul to Sejong City, which would be designated as the country’s new administrative capital, continuing a process of city-planning rebalancing that has met a series of setbacks in recent years.

Another major issue that Keimyung University’s Lim hopes the future leader will focus more on is the climate situation.

“Our country is considered a climate villain, and we will face future restrictions in our exports if we don’t address the immediate effects of not keeping limits on the amount of our hazardous outputs,” Lim said.

“The future of our country will really rest on this one question: whether the next president will draw out such issues like the previous administration or face the public sphere and head straight into the main issues that are deteriorating our society.”

The results of Tuesday’s vote are expected to emerge either late on Tuesday or in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

In the 2022 election, Yoon was proclaimed the winner at 4:40am the morning after election day.

With Lee the clear frontrunner in this election, the outcome could be evident as early as Tuesday night.

But enhanced surveillance at polling stations this year due to concerns raised about counting errors may be a factor in slowing down any early announcement of the country’s next president.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Final vote count gives conservative candidate 50.89 percent, while his liberal rival receives 49.11 percent, AP reports.

Conservative eurosceptic Karol Nawrocki is expected to win Poland’s presidential run-off election with all votes now counted, according to media reports.

The Associated Press news agency, citing the final vote count, reported on Monday that Nawrocki won 50.89 percent of votes in the tight race against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11 percent.

The Polish news website, Onet, reported the same results on its website.

The Polish Electoral Commission said on its website that it had counted all of the votes. The commission had said earlier that official results would be out on Monday morning.

Nawrocki, 42, a historian and amateur boxer who ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure economic and social policies favour Poles over other nationalities, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine.

While Poland’s parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and across the European Union.

The European country chooses between conservative historian Karol Nawrocki and pro-EU Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski.

Poles are voting in a decisive presidential run-off that could have a major impact on the nation’s future role in the European Union.

Polling began at 7am local time (05:00 GMT), with pro-EU Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski from the centre-right Civic Platform of the governing Civic Coalition facing off against conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The run-off follows a tightly contested first round on May 18, in which Trzaskowski won just more than 31 percent, and Nawrocki won nearly 30 percent, eliminating 11 other candidates.

The winner will succeed incumbent Andrzej Duda, the outgoing nationalist conservative president who was also backed by PiS and blamed for holding up justice reforms by using his veto against Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government.

The campaign has highlighted stark ideological divides, with the outcome expected to determine whether Poland continues along a nationalist path or pivots more decisively towards liberal democratic norms.

Trzaskowski, the 53-year-old son of a famous jazz musician, has promised to restore judicial independence, ease abortion restrictions and promote constructive ties with European partners.

Nawrocki, a 42-year-old former boxer, who is favoured by United States President Donald Trump, has positioned himself as a defender of traditional Polish values, and is sceptical of the EU.

Amid rising security fears over Russia’s war on Ukraine, both the candidates support aid to Kyiv, though Nawrocki opposes NATO membership for neighbouring Ukraine, while Trzaskowski supports it.

The two candidates have taken a similarly hardline approach to immigration, both using anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, building on growing resentment among Poles who see themselves as competing for strained social services with 1.55 million Ukrainian war refugees and migrants.

While Trzaskowski has proposed that only working Ukrainians should have access to the country’s child benefit, Nawrocki has gone further, saying he would also be against Ukraine joining NATO or even the EU.

Polls close at 9pm (19:00 GMT) when an exit poll is expected. Final results are likely to be announced on Monday.

Voters in South Korea are choosing a new president to replace Yoon Suk-yeol who was impeached and removed from office over his brief and ill-fated martial law bid in December.

The snap election on June 3 is pivotal, with implications for South Korea’s democratic future, as well as its ties with China, the United States and its nuclear armed neighbour, North Korea.

The winner – who will serve a single term of five-years – faces the task of addressing the fallout from the martial law decree, which lasted six hours but unleashed political chaos, including mass protests, a riot at a court and three caretaker leaders in six months.

The new president will also have to tackle a deepening economic downturn and manage tariff negotiations with the US, which has imposed a 25 percent levy on key exports such as steel, aluminium and automobiles.

Here’s what you need to know about the June 3 poll:

Who are the candidates?

There are six candidates on the ballot, but the main contenders are Lee Jae-myung of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DP), and Kim Moon-soo of the governing conservative People Power Party (PPP).

Who is expected to win?

Lee, 61, a human rights lawyer-turned-politician, is the clear frontrunner.

A Gallup Korea poll on May 28 showed 49 percent of respondents favoured the liberal candidate, while 36 percent said they would vote for Kim, 73, a staunch conservative who served as labour minister in Yoon’s government.

Trailing in third place is Lee Jun-seok of the conservative New Reform Party, at 9 percent.

What are the key issues?

Yoon’s botched martial law bid has cast a shadow over the race.

It put Lee, who lost the last election to Yoon in 2022, back on track for the presidency.

The leader of the opposition was instrumental in foiling the president’s plan. On December 3, when Yoon declared martial law – in a bid to quash the Democratic Party-dominated parliament, which he portrayed as “anti-state” and a “den of criminals” – Lee rushed to the National Assembly and climbed the walls of the building to avoid the hundreds of armed troops deployed there. He livestreamed his exploit, urging supporters to come to the parliament and prevent the arrest of legislators.

Despite the troop blockades, enough legislators managed to make it to the parliament and vote to end martial law. The assembly went on to impeach Yoon on December 14.

“This election would not have happened if not for the declaration of martial law by Yoon Suk-yeol and his impeachment,” said Youngshik Bong, research fellow at Yonsei University in Seoul. “These issues have sucked in all others like a vortex. Everything else is marginal.”

On the campaign trail, Lee has pledged to bring to justice anyone involved in Yoon’s failed bid and has also promised to introduce tighter controls on the president’s ability to declare martial law.

Where the candidates stand on the martial law attempt

Lee, the opposition leader, has also proposed constitutional changes to introduce a four-year, two-term presidency – at the moment, South Korean presidents are only allowed a single term of five years. Lee has also argued for a run-off system for presidential elections, whereby if no candidate secures 50 percent of the popular vote, the top two candidates take on each other in a second round.

“A four-year, two-term presidency would allow for a midterm evaluation of the administration, reinforcing responsibility,” he wrote on Facebook, calling for a constitutional amendment to enable the change. “Meanwhile, adopting a run-off election system would enhance the legitimacy of democratic governance and help reduce unnecessary social conflict.”

The PPP’s Kim has accepted Lee’s proposals for a constitutional amendment to allow a two-term presidency, but has suggested shortening each term to three years.

Yoon’s martial law bid, however, has left the PPP in crisis and disarray.

Infighting plagued the embattled party as it tried to choose the impeached president’s successor. Although Kim won the party primary, its leaders tried to replace him with former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo. On the eve of the party’s campaign launch, they cancelled Kim’s candidacy, only to reinstate him after party members opposed the move.

Bong, at Yonsei University, said the infighting as well as divisions in the conservative camp over Yoon’s decree has cost it support.

“Kim Moon-soo has not set his position clearly on the martial law declaration,” Bong said. “He has not distanced himself from the legacy of Yoon, but at the same time, he has not made it clear whether he believes the declaration of martial law was a violation of the constitution. So the PPP has not really had enough energy to mobilise its support bases.”

Still, Kim appears to have eroded what was a more than 20 percent point gap with Lee at the start of the campaign.

But he has failed to convince the third placed contender – Lee Jun-seok – to abandon his bid and back the PPP to improve its chances. The New Reform Party’s Lee, who is 40 years old, said on Tuesday there would be “no candidate merger” with “those responsible for the emergency martial law”.

What about foreign policy?

Although policy debates have taken a backseat, the outcome of the election could reorient South Korea’s approach towards North Korea. The two neighbours are technically in a state of war as the Korean War of 1950-1953 ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, and ties between them are at a new low.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for rewriting his country’s constitution to scrap the longstanding goal of unifying the war-divided nations and described Seoul as an “invariable principal enemy”. Pyongyang has also severed communication lines, and the two countries have clashed over balloons and drones carrying rubbish and propaganda.

Lee of the Democratic Party has promised to ease tensions if elected, including by restoring a military hotline, and committed to maintaining the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

Kim, however, has backed Yoon’s hardline approach, promising to secure “pre-emptive deterrence” through tools such as ballistic missiles and the redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons. He has said he would also seek a path for the country to pursue nuclear armament by securing the right to reprocess nuclear fuel, a key step towards building atomic weapons.

The two candidates also differ in their approach to the US, the country’s most important security ally, and to China, its biggest trading partner.

Lee, who espouses what he calls a pragmatic foreign policy, has said it is crucial to maintain South Korea’s alliance with the US and pursue security cooperation with Japan. However, he has pledged to prioritise “national interests” and said there’s “no need to unnecessarily antagonise China or Russia”.

Kim, meanwhile, has questioned Lee’s commitment to the US-South Korea alliance, and has promised to hold an immediate summit meeting with US President Donald Trump if elected to discuss tariffs.

“I have a very friendly and trusting relationship,” with the US leader, Kim has said.

He has also indicated a willingness to discuss sharing more of the cost of stationing US troops in the country, something Trump has demanded for years.

Lee Sung-yoon, board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, described the policy differences between the rival camps as “immutable” and referred to earlier comments by the Democratic Party’s Lee, because of which some view him as being soft on China and Russia.

“In the past, Lee has said South Korea should not get involved in China’s posture towards Taiwan, and just say thank you to both Beijing and Taiwan and stay out of the conflict. He has said of the trilateral defensive drills among US, Japan and South Korea as ‘a defence disaster’ and an ‘extremely pro-Japanese act’. And more than once he has said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy incited Russia to invade because he was a political novice who said unfortunate things.”

The analyst said Lee has – over the course of the election campaign – tried to walk back some of his statements in a bid to appeal to more moderate voters.

However, “I would venture to guess that people sitting in the councils of power in Washington, DC, or Tokyo or in Kyiv, Ukraine, are not overly jubilant at the prospect of a Lee administration,” he said.

When will we know the results?

Koreans overseas have already cast their ballots, and early voting took place on Thursday and Friday. Large numbers of people turned out for the early vote, including the two frontrunners.

According to the National Election Commission, some 44.4 million people in the country of 52 million are eligible to vote. On election day, which is a public holiday, polling stations will open at 6am (22:00 GMT) and close at 8pm (20:00 GMT).

Counting will begin immediately and the winner will be known that evening or in the early hours of the following day. The candidate who receives the most votes will be deemed the winner, even if they don’t win 50 percent of the votes.

Sejong, South Korea – By the standards of South Korea’s teeming metropolises, Sejong is not much of a city.

With a population of 400,000 people, Sejong, a planned city located about 100km (62 miles) south of Seoul, does not even crack the top 20 urban centres.

But if South Korea’s likely next president has his way, Sejong could soon become the country’s “de facto” capital.

Lee Jae-myung, the overwhelming favourite in Tuesday’s presidential election, has pledged to relocate the presidential office, legislature and numerous public institutions to Sejong as part of a renewed push to establish a new administrative capital.

“I will make Sejong the de facto administrative capital and Daejeon a global science capital,” Lee said in the run-up to the election, referring to the nearby central city.

“I will also push for the complete relocation of the National Assembly and presidential office to Sejong through social consensus.”

Sejong was conceived of in 2003 by late President Roh Moo-hyun, who believed that moving the capital would achieve the twin aims of reducing congestion in Seoul and encouraging development in South Korea’s central region.

Roh’s ambitions for Sejong were dealt a setback the following year when the Constitutional Court ruled that Seoul should remain the capital.

While the prime minister’s office and about a dozen ministries have moved to Sejong over the years as part of successive governments’ decentralisation efforts, Seoul has remained not only the official capital but also the centre of political, economic and cultural life.

Greater Seoul is home to about 26 million people – half of South Korea’s population – and most of the country’s top companies, universities, hospitals and cultural institutions are clustered in the region.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Sejong’s wide streets were mostly quiet, a world away from the bustling alleyways of downtown Seoul.

At the city’s express bus station, a number of government workers were waiting on a bus to take them to the capital.

Kevin Kim, a 30-year-old civil servant, travels to Seoul for the weekend at least twice a month.

“My family, friends and girlfriend are in Seoul,” Kim, who has lived in Sejong for nearly two years, told Al Jazeera.

“I have to go to Seoul, as all the big hospitals are there.”

Lee Ho-baek, who works for a start-up in Sejong, also visits Seoul several times a month.

“There just isn’t enough infrastructure or things to do in the city for us,” he told Al Jazeera, explaining that he is not sure if he will stay much longer despite having moved to Sejong only a year ago.

After years of roadblocks to Sejong’s development, including concerns about costs and constitutional legitimacy, candidate Lee’s pledge has stirred tentative signs of growth in the city.

In April, real estate transactions increased threefold compared with the same period the previous year.

But with Sejong’s fortunes so closely tied to the changing whims of politicians, there are concerns about its long-term sustainability.

During discussions about the possible relocation of the presidential office and legislature by Lee Jae-myung’s Democratic Party in 2020, apartment prices jumped by 45 percent – only to decline in the following years.

In Sejong’s Nasung-dong, a central neighbourhood surrounded by parks, shopping centres and flashy apartments, the streets were quiet as Friday afternoon turned into evening.

M-Bridge, a highly anticipated multifunctional mall designed by global architect Thom Mayne’s firm, was largely empty.

According to the Korea Real Estate Board, Sejong has a 25 percent vacancy rate for mid- to large-sized shopping centres, the highest rate in the country.

Few draws for young people

“In our city, the weekdays are busier than the weekends,” Jace Kim, a restaurant owner who came to Sejong in 2015, told Al Jazeera.

“Most public workers who work within the city spend their time and money outside of the city limits. Our city is relatively small and newly built, so it’s ideal for mothers and children. But we don’t have any universities or major companies that will attract young people to come here.”

Moon Yoon-sang, a research fellow at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), said Washington, DC, could be a model for Sejong’s growth and development.

“If the centre of the government moves to Sejong, it’s the hope that conventions and important meetings will happen there instead of in Seoul,” Moon told Al Jazeera.

“Today, there are only two major hotels in the city, but people are expecting a monumental effect with the moving of the National Assembly.”

Park Jin, a professor at KDI’s School of Public Policy and Management, said he supports Sejong becoming the official capital.

After the 2004 Constitutional Court ruling, relocating the capital would require an amendment to the constitution, which would need to be approved by two-thirds of the National Assembly and half of voters in a referendum.

In a 2022 survey by Hankook Research, 54.9 percent of respondents said they approved of moving the capital to Sejong, but 51.7 percent disapproved of moving the National Assembly and the president’s office out of Seoul.

“As all of the country’s talent pool and key infrastructure are staying within Seoul, the country needs to invest in developing our other major cities,” Park told Al Jazeera.

“For Sejong, this means combining with neighbouring Daejeon to become the nation’s centre for administration and research.”

Park believes that the country’s five major cities outside the greater Seoul area should have at least 4 million residents to maintain healthy urbanisation.

Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, has 3.26 million people. Last year, the Korea Employment Information Service officially categorised Busan as being at risk of extinction due to record-low birth rates and a declining young workforce.

Population declines in regional parts of the country have been further exacerbated by internal migration to Seoul. More than 418,000 people moved to the capital region last year.

Sejong has a goal of reaching 800,000 residents by 2040, roughly double its current population.

“Today, many people won’t think about moving to Sejong. In an age where it’s expected for both members of married couples to be working, it’s very difficult for both members to find jobs outside of Seoul,” Moon said.

“Maybe in the next 10 years, we might see differences in how people view Sejong.”

Park said developing a city from scratch is not a short-term project.

“But with the relocation of the capital, we can expect some real changes to happen,” he said.

From the beginning, the reforms were controversial. Thousands of court workers went on strike to protest the constitutional amendment. Some protesters even stormed the Senate building.

Critics accused the Morena party of seeking to strengthen its grip on power by electing sympathetic judges. Already, the party holds majorities in both chambers of Congress, as well as the presidency.

Opponents also feared the elections would lead to unqualified candidates taking office.

Under the new regulations, candidates must have a law degree, experience in legal affairs, no criminal record and letters of recommendation.

Candidates also had to pass evaluation committees, comprised of representatives from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

And yet, some of the final candidates have nevertheless raised eyebrows. One was arrested for trafficking methamphetamine. Another is implicated in a murder investigation. Still more have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Arias suspects that some candidates slipped through the screening process due to the limited resources available to organise the election.

She noted that the National Election Institute had less than 10 months to arrange the elections, since the reforms were only passed in September.

“The timing is very rushed,” she said.

One of the most controversial hopefuls in Sunday’s election is Silvia Delgado, a lawyer who once defended the cofounder of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.

She is now campaigning to be a judge in Ciudad Juarez, in the border state of Chihuahua.

Despite her high-profile client, Delgado told Al Jazeera that the scrutiny over her candidacy is misplaced: She maintains she was only doing her job as a lawyer.

“Having represented this or that person does not make you part of a criminal group,” she said.

Rather, she argues that it is Mexico’s incumbent judges who deserve to be under the microscope. She claimed many of them won their positions through personal connections.

“They got in through a recommendation or through a family member who got them into the judiciary,” she said.

President Sheinbaum has likewise framed the elections as part of the battle against nepotism and self-dealing in the judicial system.

“This is about fighting corruption,” Sheinbaum said in one of her morning news briefings. “This is the defence of the Mexican people for justice, for honesty, for integrity.”

Pro-European Nicusor Dan faces big challenges after defeating pro-Russian George Simion last week in a tense run-off.

Pro-European Nicusor Dan has been sworn in as Romania’s new president amid persisting claims from the far right that his election was illegitimate.

The centrist promised on Monday to usher in a “new chapter” in Romania amid hopes that his inauguration could help bring an end to months of political crisis. However, his pro-Russian and nationalist rival George Simion maintained that the May 18 election represents a “coup d’etat”.

In the run-up to the election, which was marred by the annulment of November’s initial vote due to Russian interference, Dan promised to quash corruption and reaffirm Romania’s commitment to the European Union and NATO.

In his inauguration speech, he said he would fix Romania’s economic and political woes and be a president “open to the voice of society”.

“The Romanian state needs a fundamental change within the rule of law, and I invite you to continue to be involved in order to put positive pressure on state institutions to reform,” he said. “I call on political parties to act in the national interest.”

‘National treason’

The May election rerun was held months after the Constitutional Court voided the previous election.

Far-right, pro-Russian Calin Georgescu had won the most votes in the first round of November’s vote but was thrown out of the race after allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.

Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), took his place and led the polls for weeks before a surge in the final days of the campaign pushed Dan past the post.

Since the result was announced, Simion has repeatedly alleged, without providing evidence, that the election was rigged through foreign interference.

However, the Constitutional Court validated the results on Thursday after rejecting an appeal from Simion to annul the vote.

Lawmakers from the AUR boycotted the swearing-in ceremony, calling it “legitimising a national treason” while Simion condemned the court’s decision as a “coup d’etat”.

Authorities remain on alert with protests expected by supporters of the far right.

Dan’s victory over Simion was heralded around Europe with the outcome viewed as crucial to maintaining Romania’s place within Western alliances, especially as the war continues in neighbouring Ukraine.

“We won the Romanian presidential elections. People rejected isolationism and Russian influence,” Dan said on Sunday at a rally in Poland for liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who will face nationalist Karol Nawrocki in a presidential run-off on June 1.

However, significant challenges lie ahead for Dan as Romania faces political and economic crises.

He must first nominate a prime minister who can garner the support necessary to form a new government as widespread rejection of the political class has propelled figures like Georgescu and Simion into leading challengers.

Dan is expected to meet Ilie Bolojan, who had been serving as interim president. The member of the pro-EU National Liberal Party has been tipped as a possible prime minister.

As for Romanians struggling economically, Dan made few promises on Monday.

“Put simply, … the Romanian state is spending more than it can afford,” the new president said.

“It is in the national interest for Romania to send a message of stability to financial markets,” he said. “It is in the national interest to send a signal of openness and predictability to the investment environment.”

Beirut, Lebanon – As southern Lebanon continues to suffer from sporadic Israeli attacks despite a ceasefire signed in November between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, establishment parties have emerged as the biggest winners of municipal elections.

Voting took place over four weeks, starting in Mount Lebanon – north of the capital, Beirut – followed by the country’s northern districts, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, and concluding on Saturday in southern Lebanon.

While Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group, suffered setbacks to its political influence and military capabilities during 14 months of war with Israel, the group’s voter base was still intact and handed it and Amal, its closest political ally, victories across dozens of municipalities.

“The Hezbollah-Amal alliance has held firm and support among the Shia base has not experienced any dramatic erosion,” Imad Salamey, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, told Al Jazeera.

Despite establishment parties winning the majority of seats across the country, candidates running on campaigns of political reform and opposition to the political establishment also made inroads in some parts of the country, even winning seats in municipalities in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah historically has enjoyed strong support.

In Lebanon, there is no unified bloc of reformists although political actors and groups that emerged during the 2019 antigovernment protests over the economic crisis are referred to locally as “el-tagheyereen”, or change makers.

“Alternative Shia candidates in some localities were able to run without facing significant intimidation, signalling a limited but growing space for dissent within the community,” Salamey said.

The fact the elections were held at all will be seen as a boon to the pro-reform government of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who came to power in January, say analysts. The polls, initially set for 2022, were delayed three times due to parliamentary elections, funding issues and the war with Israel, which started in October 2023.

Critics, however, argued the elections favoured established parties because the uncertainty over when they would be held meant candidates waited to build their campaigns. As recently as March, there were still proposals to delay the elections until September to give candidates a chance to prepare their platforms after Lebanon suffered through the war and a two-month intensification by Israel from September to November, which left the country needing $11bn for recovery and reconstruction, according to the World Bank.

The war left Hezbollah politically and militarily battered after Israel killed much of its leadership, including longtime Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor Hachem Safieddine.

The war reordered the power balance in Lebanon, diminishing Hezbollah’s influence. Many villages in southern Lebanon are still inaccessible, and Israel continues to occupy five points of Lebanese territory that it has refused to withdraw from after the ceasefire. It also continues to attack other parts of the south, where it claims Hezbollah still has weapons.

With their villages still destroyed or too dangerous to access, many southerners cast ballots in Nabatieh or Tyre, an act that recalls the 18-year Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000. During the occupation, elections for southern regions under Israeli control were also held in other cities still under Lebanese sovereignty.

Hezbollah has given up the majority of its sites in the south to the Lebanese army, a senior western diplomat told Al Jazeera and local media has reported.

The recent post-war period also brought to power a new president, army commander Joseph Aoun, and the reform camp’s choice for prime minister, Salam, former president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Hezbollah remains ‘strong’

Municipal elections are not seen as an indicator of the country’s popular sentiment due to low voter interest and local political dynamics differing from those at the national level. Some analysts dismissed the results, calling them “insignificant” and added that next year’s parliamentary elections would more accurately reflect which direction the country is headed.

Voter turnout was lower in almost every part of the country compared with 2016, the last time municipal elections took place. The places it fell included southern Lebanon, where 37 percent of the population voted. In 2016, 48 percent of its voters cast ballots. This was also true in most of the Bekaa Valley, an area that also was hit hard during the war and where Hezbollah tends to be the most popular party. In the north, voter turnout dropped from 45 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2025. In Beirut, the turnout was marginally higher – 21 percent in 2025 compared with 20 percent in 2016.

Many people in southern Lebanon are still living through the war as Israel continues to carry out attacks on areas like Nabatieh. While some in and from the south have questioned Hezbollah’s standing and decision to enter into a war with Israel on behalf of Gaza when they fired rockets on the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms territory on October 8, 2023, others still cling to their fervent support for the group.

“The municipal elections confirmed that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement remain strong,” Qassem Kassir, a journalist and political analyst believed to be close to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera. “The forces of change are weak, and their role has declined. The party [Hezbollah] maintains its relationship with the people.”

Although reform forces did win some seats, including in Lebanon’s third largest city, Sidon, they were largely at a disadvantage due to a lack of name familiarity, the short campaign time and misinformation circulated by politically affiliated media.

Claims of corruption and contested election results marred voting in parts of the north, where many candidates from traditional political parties dominated.

In Beirut, forces for change were dealt a heavy blow. After receiving about 40 percent of the vote in 2016, which still was not enough to earn them a municipal seat, the reformist Beirut Madinati (Beirut My City) list won less than 10 percent of this year’s vote.

The defeat took place despite the worsening living conditions in the capital, which critics blamed on establishment parties, including those running the municipality.

“The municipality lives on another planet, completely detached from the concerns of the people,” Sarah Mahmoud, a Beirut Madinati candidate, told Al Jazeera on May 18 on the streets of Beirut as people went out to vote.

Since an economic crisis took hold in 2019, electricity cuts have become more common, and diesel generators have plugged the gap. These generators contribute to air pollution, which has been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory ailments in Beirut and carries cancer risks.

Despite the criticisms and degraded living situation in the city, a list of candidates backed by establishment figures and major parties, including Hezbollah and Amal, but also their major ideological opponents, including the Lebanese Forces and the right-wing Kataeb Party, won 23 out of 24 seats.

This list ran on a platform that stoked fears of sectarian disenfranchisement and promised sectarian parity.

Municipalities, unlike Lebanon’s parliament, do not have sectarian quotas.

‘What are you fighting for?’

The unlikely coalition of establishment parties, which was similar to the successful list in 2016 that aligned establishment parties against reform candidates, puzzled some in the capital. In separate incidents, television reporters confronted representatives from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces, drawing angry and confrontational reactions from them but little clarification as to why they’d align with an avowed enemy.

Bernard Bridi, a media adviser for the list, said its priority was to bring in a foreign consultancy that would advise the municipality on how to manage Beirut like other major international capitals. She added that the opposing parties decided to unify because the stakes are so high this year after years of economic suffering, particularly since the war.

Critics, however, accused the establishment parties of trying to keep power concentrated among themselves rather than let it fall to reformists who could threaten the system that has consolidated power in the hands of a few key figures and groups in the post-civil war era.

“The question is what are you fighting for,” Karim Safieddine, a political organiser with Beirut Madinati, said, referring to the establishment list. “And if they can tell me what they’re fighting for, I’d be grateful.”

Now the nation’s eyes will turn to May next year as parties and movements are already preparing their candidates and platforms for parliamentary elections.

In 2022, just more than a dozen reform candidates emerged from Lebanon’s economic crisis and subsequent popular uprising. Some speculated that the reform spirit has subsided since thousands of Lebanese have emigrated abroad – close to 200,000 from 2018 to 2021 alone – and others have grown disillusioned at a perceived lack of immediate change or disagreements among reform-minded figures.

Many Lebanese will also have last year’s struggles during the war and need for reconstruction in mind when heading to the polls next year.

Some have started to question or challenge Hezbollah’s longtime dominance after seeing the group so badly weakened by Israel. Others are doubling down on their support due to what they said is neglect by the new government and their belief that Hezbollah is the only group working in their interests.

“Taken together, these developments imply a future trajectory where Shia political support for Hezbollah remains solid but increasingly isolated,” Salamey explained, “while its broader cross-sectarian coalition continues to shrink, potentially reducing Hezbollah’s influence in future parliamentary elections to that of a more pronounced minority bloc.”

Venezuela’s ruling coalition, led by President Nicolas Maduro, has won the parliamentary and regional elections by a landslide, maintaining a significant majority in the powerful National Assembly, according to the country’s electoral authority.

Sunday’s legislative and gubernatorial elections were held as several opposition groups called for a boycott in response to what they described as fraudulent results of the July 2024 presidential vote. Maduro was declared the winner of the 2024 disputed vote.

Following the results, the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will continue to control key institutions, such as the attorney general’s office and the supreme court, as their members are chosen by the 285-member assembly.

Here is what you need to know about parliamentary and regional elections:

What were the official results of the 2025 regional and legislative elections?

Preliminary results released by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday showed that the PSUV and its allies won 82.68 percent of the votes cast the previous day for seats in the National Assembly.

The ruling coalition also won 23 out of 24 state governor positions, the CNE said.

A coalition considered close to the ruling socialist party won 6.25 percent of the vote, while an opposition alliance won 5.17 percent, CNE rector Carlos Quintero said in a declaration broadcast on state television.

Maduro hailed the election results as a “victory of peace and stability” and said it “proved the power of Chavismo” – the left-wing, populist political movement founded by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

What did voters elect?

The CNE oversaw Sunday’s election for 260 state legislators, 285 members of the unicameral National Assembly and all 24 governors, including the newly created governorship purportedly established to administer Essequibo, a region long under dispute between Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana.

Opposition candidates won the governorship of Cojedes state, a fall from the four they won in 2021.

Why election in Essequibo, a disputed region near Guyana, was controversial?

The Venezuelan government revised the electoral boundaries to elect a governor and eight representatives for the Essequibo, an oil-rich region that Caracas disputes with Guyana in a colonial-era dispute.

The vote took place in a micro-district of 21,403 voters in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, on the Guyanese border. Caracas had specially created it for Sunday’s legislative and regional elections. There were no polling stations in the 160,000sq km (61,776sq miles) territory of Essequibo, administered by Georgetown.

Guyana has administered the region for decades, but Caracas has threatened to partially annex it – a threat that Maduro repeated on Sunday. The Guyanese government, before the vote, warned that participating in Venezuela’s election could amount to treason.

The Maduro government last year passed a law creating a new state in the disputed territory, despite the ongoing case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Venezuelan actions have come despite a 2023 court order asking Caracas to avoid any action that would change the status quo of the territory.

The Venezuelan government has said it does not recognise the court’s authority in the case.

How did the opposition respond to the results?

Opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado declared in a post on X late on Sunday that in some areas of the country, up to 85 percent of eligible voters snubbed the election, which she slammed as an “enormous farce that the regime is trying to stage to bury its defeat” in last year’s election.

Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognised by the United States and several other countries as the winner of the July 2024 presidential election, said, “We witnessed an event that attempted to disguise itself as an election, but failed to deceive the country or the world.”

“What the world saw today was an act of civic courage. A silent but powerful declaration that the desire for change, dignity, and a future remains intact,” he said in a post on X.

Meanwhile, another opposition faction, headed by two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and Zulia state Governor Manuel Rosales, urged people to vote to avoid the opposition being cut out of all governance.

Capriles was elected to the National Assembly, while Rosales lost his governor’s seat.

What was the voter turnout, and what factors influenced it?

Turnout in the elections was 8.9 million, or roughly 42 percent of 21 million voters eligible to cast their ballots, according to the CNE.

However, the country’s main opposition leaders had urged voters to boycott the election in protest over the July 2024 presidential election.

What are the implications of these elections for Venezuela’s political landscape?

The results are a big boost for Maduro who will further consolidate power as the ruling coalition now exercises almost complete control over the democratic institutions.

It will also demoralise the opposition, which has been in a disarray, with the executive secretary of the opposition’s Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), Omar Barboza, stepping down in March. Barboza cited lack of unity as one of the reasons to quit his post weeks before the elections.

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Argentina, noted that during the campaign, the opposition had been divided on the boycott call, making it difficult to present a more forceful challenge against Maduro.

She added that most analysts have said they “could not guarantee if the elections were free and fair”. “They denounced the lack of international observers, among other things,” she said.

What’s next for Maduro?

Maduro’s success in recent elections comes despite the decline of the economy following years of mismanagement and international sanctions.

US President Donald Trump has recently revoked permission for oil giant Chevron to continue pumping Venezuelan crude, potentially depriving Maduro’s administration of a vital economic lifeline.

Licence to Chevron was given in 2022 under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, after Maduro agreed to work with the opposition towards a democratic election.

Washington has also started to deport Venezuelan immigrants, many of them to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Last week, the US Supreme Court revoked the deportation protection for some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the US.

Legislative, regional elections are the first to allow broad voter participation since last year’s disputed presidential vote.

Venezuelans are casting their ballots in legislative and regional elections under the shadow of a heightened government crackdown and opposition leaders calling for a boycott.

Sunday’s elections are the first to allow comprehensive voter participation since last year’s disputed presidential vote, which President Nicolas Maduro claimed to have won despite contradictory evidence.

It is also taking place two days after the government detained dozens of people, including a prominent opposition leader, and accused them of being linked to an alleged plot to hinder the vote.

In the first hours after the polls opened, members of the military reportedly outnumbered voters in some voting centres in the capital, Caracas. No lines formed outside the polling stations, including the country’s largest – a stark contrast with the hundreds of people gathered around the same time for the July 28 presidential election.

Many people appeared to have lost faith in the electoral process. “I am not going to vote after they stole the elections last year. For what? I don’t want to be disappointed again,” Caracas resident Paula Aranguren said.

In the eyes of the opposition, voter participation legitimises Maduro’s claim to power and what they brand as his government’s repressive apparatus.

After the presidential election, 25 people were reportedly killed and more than 2,000 people were detained – including protesters, poll workers, political activists and minors – to quash dissent. The government also issued arrest warrants against opposition leaders, levelling charges against them ranging from conspiracy to falsifying records.

Despite the risks, campaigning for some has remained a key form of resistance against the government.

“History is full of evidence that voting is an instrument towards democracy,” Henrique Capriles, a former opposition presidential candidate now running for a seat in the National Assembly, told Al Jazeera.

“I believe the way we stood for our rights last year kept alive the peaceful fight for our constitution because voting is what we have left to manifest our rejection of Maduro and his government,” Capriles said.

Meanwhile, the ruling party is touting an overwhelming victory across the country, just as it has done in previous regional elections.

A nationwide poll conducted from April 29 to May 4 by the Venezuela-based research firm Delphos showed only 15.9 percent of voters expressed a high probability of voting on Sunday.

Of those, 74.2 percent said they would vote for the candidates of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its allies while 13.8 percent said they would vote for contenders associated with two opposition leaders who are not boycotting the elections.

Maduro accuses the opposition of attempts to destabilise the country.

“The death throes of fascism have tried to bring in mercenaries, and today, we have already captured more than 50 mercenaries who came in to plant bombs or launch violent attacks in the country,” he told supporters before election day.

Political analysts said the chances that free and fair elections would take place are practically nonexistent.

“There won’t be witnesses at the table, very few witnesses. Nobody wants to be a witness,” political analyst Benigno Alarcon told Al Jazeera, adding that low voter turnout, no understanding of who the candidates are and the lack of international observers are likely going to make the elections unfair.

Some voters who cast ballots on Sunday said they did so out of fear of losing their government jobs or food and other state-controlled benefits.

“Most of my friends aren’t going to vote, not even a blank vote,” state employee Miguel Otero, 69, told The Associated Press news agency. “But we must comply. We have to send the photo [showing] I’m here at the polling station now.”

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Warsaw to show support for the opposing candidates in next weekend’s tightly contested Polish presidential run-off, which the government views as crucial to its efforts for pro-European democratic reform.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk hopes to galvanise support for his candidate, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, to replace outgoing Andrzej Duda, a nationalist who has vetoed many of Tusk’s efforts to reform the judiciary.

“All of Poland is looking at us. All of Europe is looking at us. The whole world is looking at us,” Trzaskowski told supporters who waved Polish and European Union flags on Sunday.

Tusk swept to power in 2023 with a broad alliance of leftist and centrist parties on a promise to undo changes made by the nationalist Law and Justice government that the EU said had undermined democracy and women’s and minority rights.

Trzaskowski beat nationalist opponent Karol Nawrocki by 2 percentage points in the first round of the election on May 18 but is struggling to sustain his lead, according to opinion polls.

The two candidates are locked in a tight contest before the June 1 run-off with the latest polls projecting a tie of 47 percent of the vote each.

Nawrocki’s voters – some wearing hats with the words “Poland is the most important,” a nod to United States President Donald Trump’s America First policies – gathered in a different part of the capital to show support for his drive to align Poland more closely with Trump and the region’s populists.

“I am the voice of all those whose cries do not reach Donald Tusk today. The voice of all those who do not want Polish schools to be places of ideology, our Polish agriculture to be destroyed or our freedom taken away,” Nawrocki told the crowd.

Some of his supporters carried banners with slogans such as “Stop Migration Pact” and “This is Poland” or displayed images of Trump.

“He is the best candidate, the most patriotic, one who can guarantee that Poland is independent and sovereign,” Jan Sulanowski, 42, said.

An estimated 50,000 people attended the gathering of Nawrocki’s supporters while about 140,000 people participated in the march supporting Trzaskowski, the Polish Press Agency reported, citing unofficial preliminary estimates from city authorities.

Jakub Kaszycki, 21, joined the pro-Trzaskowski march, saying it could determine Poland’s future direction. “I very much favour … the West’s way to Europe, not to Russia,” he said.

At Trzaskowski’s march, newly elected Romanian President Nicusor Dan pledged to work closely with Tusk and Trzaskowski “to ensure Poland and the European Union remain strong”.

Dan’s unexpected victory in a vote on May 18 over a hard-right Trump supporter was greeted with relief in Brussels and other parts of Europe because many were concerned that his rival George Simion would have complicated EU efforts to tackle Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Gran Morgu project may transform Suriname’s economy, rivalling oil-rich neighbour Guyana by 2028, officials predict.

Voters in Suriname, which is on the cusp of a much anticipated oil boom, have begun to elect a new parliament, which will subsequently choose the next president of the smallest nation in South America.

Sunday’s elections have already been marked by fraud allegations and have seen little debate about what the next government, which will hold power until 2030, should do with income from the offshore oil and gas Gran Morgu project. It is to begin production in 2028.

Experts said Suriname, a country beset by poverty and rampant inflation, is projected to make billions of dollars in the coming decade or two from recently discovered offshore crude deposits.

The project, led by TotalEnergies, is Suriname’s first major offshore effort. The former Dutch colony, independent since 1975, discovered reserves that may allow it to compete with neighbouring Guyana – whose economy grew 43.6 percent last year – as a prominent producer.

“It will be a huge amount of income for the country,” President Chan Santokhi told the AFP news agency this week. “We are now able … to do more for our people, so that everyone can be part of the growth of the nation.”

Santokhi is constitutionally eligible for a second term, but with no single party in a clear lead in the elections, pollsters are not predicting the outcome.

The party with the most seats will lead Suriname’s next government, likely through a coalition with smaller parties, but negotiations and the choosing of a new president are expected to take weeks.

Fourteen parties are taking part in the elections, including Santokhi’s centrist Progressive Reform Party and the leftist National Democratic Party of deceased former coup leader and elected President Desi Bouterse.

Also in the running is the centre-left General Liberation and Development Party of Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk, a former rebel who fought against Bouterse’s government in the 1980s.

Provisional results are expected by late Sunday.

Suriname – a diverse country made up of descendants of people from India, Indonesia, China, the Netherlands, Indigenous groups and enslaved Africans – will mark the 50th anniversary of its independence from the Netherlands in November.

Since independence, it has looked increasingly towards China as a political ally and trading partner and in 2019 became one of the first Latin American countries to join the Asian giant’s Belt and Road infrastructure drive.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a stopover in Suriname in March on a regional tour aimed at countering China’s growing influence in the region.

More than 90 percent of the country is covered in forest, and it is one of few in the world with a negative carbon footprint.

Santokhi insisted this status is not in danger and Suriname can use its oil windfall “for the transition towards the green energy which we need, also because we know the fossil energy is limited”.

“It will be gone after 40 years.”

The right-wing Noboa had defeated left-wing candidate Luisa Gonzalez amid allegations of electoral fraud.

Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s youngest-ever president and heir to a prominent banana-exporting fortune, has been sworn in for his first full term in office, pledging to intensify his government’s battle against powerful drug gangs while reviving the struggling economy.

In a ceremony at the National Assembly in Quito on Saturday, the right-wing president was sworn in by Assembly President Niels Olsen Peet, who draped the presidential sash across his shoulders before the two raised clasped hands in a symbolic gesture of unity.

Noboa, 37, won the election in April’s, securing a new term after completing the final 18 months of his predecessor’s tenure, defeating left-wing candidate, Luisa Gonzalez, despite her allegations of electoral fraud.

Speaking to lawmakers, Noboa pledged to make a sharp reduction in violent crime a cornerstone of his administration.

“The progressive reduction of homicides will be a non-negotiable goal,” Noboa declared. “We will maintain our fight against drug trafficking, seize illegal weapons, ammunition, and explosives, and exercise greater control at the country’s ports.”

Ecuador, once considered one of the more stable countries in the region, has in recent years faced a sharp rise in violence, with drug cartels, including the powerful from Mexico, exploiting porous borders and weak institutions to expand their influence.

Noboa has responded with militarised crackdowns, deploying the armed forces onto the streets and tightening security at key infrastructure hubs.

The president’s security strategy has drawn comparisons to El Salvador’s controversial anti-gang measures, which have been praised by some for reducing crime but condemned by rights groups over mass detentions and alleged abuses.

Noboa has cited El Salvador, as well as the United States and Israel, as strategic partners in Ecuador’s security overhaul.

His administration has also hired Erik Prince, founder of private military contractor Blackwater, to advise Ecuadorian security forces, a move that has raised alarm among opposition politicians and human rights advocates, who warn of creeping militarisation and lack of oversight.

While Noboa has claimed a 15 percent drop in violent deaths during 2024, government figures show a 58 percent increase in killings during the first four months of 2025 compared with the same period last year, with 3,094 recorded deaths.

Despite war losses, Hezbollah is using the vote as an opportunity to show it still has political influence.

Voters in southern Lebanon are casting their ballots in municipal elections seen as a test of support for Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political and armed group.

The vote on Saturday in the mostly Shia area, where Hezbollah is allied with Amal – the party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri – marks the final phase of Lebanon’s staggered local elections.

It comes after a November 2024 ceasefire between the group and Israel was supposed to end months of attacks. lsrael, however, has continued sporadic strikes as recently as on Thursday, when air raids hit multiple locations in the south.

Both Hezbollah and Amal are widely expected to dominate the municipal races, having already secured control of numerous councils unopposed.

Turnout was high in border villages ravaged by last year’s conflict, with residents of Kfar Kila – a town nearly levelled by Israeli attacks – voting in nearby Nabatieh. Others from surrounding areas cast ballots in Tyre.

“The will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction,” Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told reporters on Saturday, as he made a tour of the country’s south. He said he voted for the first time in 40 years in his hometown of Aaichiyeh.

Among those heading to the polls were Hezbollah members still recovering from a series of Israeli attacks in September 2024, when thousands of pagers exploded nearly simultaneously, killing more than a dozen people and wounding nearly 3,000.

“Southerners are proving again that they are with the choice of resistance,” Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayyad, who represents border villages, said in Nabatieh.

Hezbollah still holding political influence

The vote comes at a critical time for Hezbollah. While the group emerged from the conflict with reduced military capabilities and diminished political leverage, the elections offer a platform to reaffirm its influence in the region.

“Lebanon has still not fully recovered from last year’s war between Hezbollah and Israel. In fact, Israel continues to target Hezbollah despite a ceasefire,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Nabatieh.

“Hezbollah, no doubt was militarily weakened during the conflict; it lost a lot of its military power but it is using these elections as an opportunity to show that it still has political influence,” Khodr added.

Many feel Hezbollah failed to shield them during the war, yet fears of isolation persist, she said. “They feel vulnerable … not just towards Israel, but also in a deeply divided country and they feel that opponents of Hezbollah are also marginalising the community as a whole.”

Lebanon’s new government has pledged to create a state monopoly on arms, raising pressure on Hezbollah to disarm as required under the United States-brokered truce with Israel.

Lebanon now faces the massive task of rebuilding after 14 months of war, with the World Bank estimating its reconstruction needs at more than $11bn.

In October 2023, Hezbollah launched a rocket campaign on Israel in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which was being bombarded by Israel following a surprise attack led by Palestinian group Hamas.

Israel responded with shelling and air attacks on Lebanon that escalated into a full-blown war before the ceasefire went into effect in late November.

Fake stories of a coup d’etat in the West African nation of Ivory Coast surfaced this week amid mounting tensions over the upcoming October general elections.

Several accounts on social media sites, including Facebook and X, posted videos of huge crowds on streets with burning buildings, which they claimed were from the country’s commercial capital, Abidjan.

However, no violence was reported by security forces or any other government authorities in the city this week. Abidjan residents also denied the claims on social media.

On Thursday, the country’s National Agency for Information Systems Security of Ivory Coast (ANSSI) denied the rumours.

In a statement published on local media sites, the agency said: “Publications currently circulating on the X network claim that a coup d’etat has taken place in Cote d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast] … This claim is completely unfounded. It is the result of a deliberate and coordinated disinformation campaign.”

The rumours come just weeks after popular opposition politician Tidjane Thiam was barred from running for office after his eligibility was challenged in court over a technicality relating to his citizenship status. Thiam is appealing the ruling and claims the ban is political.

Ivory Coast, Africa’s cocoa powerhouse, has a long history of election violence, with one episode a decade ago spiralling into armed conflict that resulted in thousands of deaths.

Fears that President Alassane Ouattara might run for a fourth term have added to the tensions this time. Although the country has a two-term limit for presidents, a constitutional amendment in 2016 reset the clock on his terms, the president’s supporters argue, allowing him to run for a third five-year term in 2020. That same argument could also see him on the ballot papers this October, despite what experts say is widespread disillusionment with the political establishment in the country.

Here’s what we know about the current political situation in the country:

How did the coup rumours start?

Videos showing hundreds of people demonstrating in the streets and setting fires to shops and malls started appearing on social media sites on Wednesday this week. French is the official language in Ivory Coast, but most of the posts and blogs with images purporting to be from were from Abidjan and claiming that a coup d’etat was in progress were written in English.

Some posts also claimed that the country’s army chief of staff, Lassina Doumbia, had been assassinated and that President Ouattara was missing. These claims were untrue and have been denied by the office of the president. Credible media outlets, including Ivorian state media and private news media, did not report the alleged violence.

It is unclear how the rumours that President Ouattara was missing emerged. On Thursday, he chaired a routine cabinet meeting in the capital. He also attended a ceremony commemorating the revered former president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, alongside Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe.

Why are there political tensions in the country?

The upcoming general elections on October 25 are at the root of current political tensions in the country.

Elections have in the past been violent: During the October 2010 general election, former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to hand over power to Ouattara, who was proclaimed the winner by the electoral commission.

Tense political negotiations failed, and the situation eventually spiralled into armed civil war, with Ouattara’s forces, backed by French troops, besieging Gbagbo’s national army. France is the former colonial power in Ivory Coast, and Ouattara has close ties to Paris.

Some 3,000 people were killed in the violence. Gbagbo’s capture on April 11, 2011, marked the end of the conflict. He was later tried and acquitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in 2019.

That painful history has spurred fears that this year’s polls could also turn violent, as several opposition candidates, including Gbagbo, have been barred from running, mainly due to past convictions. In 2018, the former president was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year jail term over the looting of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the country’s post-election crisis.

Last December, the governing Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party nominated Ouattara for a fourth term as president. So far, Ouattara has refused to say whether he intends to run, triggering concerns among Ivorians, many of whom feel the president has outstayed his welcome. Analysts see the party’s nomination as setting the stage for his eventual candidature, however.

Analysts also say there is widespread sympathy for the young military leaders who seized power in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, and who have maintained a hostile stance towards France, unlike Ouattara.

What is the popular view of Ouattara?

He has been praised for overseeing rapid economic stability in the last decade and a half, which has made the country the regional economic hub.

Ouattara is also credited with bringing some level of political peace to the country. In 2023, he welcomed back Gbagbo, who had been living in Brussels since his 2021 ICC acquittal. Since then, election campaigns have not been as inflamed as they were in the 2000s when Gbagbo played on ethnic sentiments to incite opposition to Ouattara, whose father was originally from Burkina Faso.

However, Ouattara’s critics accuse him of fighting to hold onto power unconstitutionally. Some also accuse him of coercing state institutions into railroading his political opponents, including in the latest case involving Thiam.

His closeness with France, which is increasingly viewed as arrogant and neo-colonialistic, particularly by younger people across Francophone West Africa, has not won the president any favour from the country’s significant under-35 population.

Who is Tidjane Thiam, and why has he been barred from the elections?

Thiam, 62, is a prominent politician and businessman in Ivorian political circles. He is a nephew of the revered Houphouet-Boigny and was the first Ivorian to pass the entrance exam to France’s prestigious Polytechnique engineering school. He returned from France to serve as a minister of planning and development from 1998 until 1999, when a coup d’etat collapsed the civilian government, and the army took control of the country.

Thiam declined a cabinet position offered by the military government and left the country. He went on to take high-profile positions, first as the chief executive of the UK insurance group, Prudential, and then as head of global investment bank Credit Suisse. A corporate espionage scandal at the bank led to his resignation in 2020 after a colleague accused Thiam of spying on him. Thiam was cleared of any involvement.

After returning to Ivory Coast in 2022, Thiam re-entered politics and rejoined the Democratic Party (PDCI), the former governing party which held power from independence in 1960 until the 1999 coup d’etat, and which is now the major opposition party.

In December 2023, the party’s delegates overwhelmingly voted for Thiam to be the next leader following the death of former head and ex-President Henri Konan Bedie. At the time, PDCI officials said Thiam represented a breath of fresh air for the country’s politics, and many young people appeared ready to back him as the next president.

But his ambitions came to a halt on April 22 when a judge ordered his name be struck off the list of contenders because Thiam had taken French nationality in 1987 and automatically lost Ivorian citizenship according to the country’s laws.

Although the politician renounced his French nationality in February this year, the court ruled he had not done so before registering himself on the electoral roll in 2022, and was thus ineligible to be the party leader, a presidential candidate, or even a voter.

Thiam and his lawyers argued that the law is inconsistent. Ivorian footballers on the country’s national team, Thiam pointed out in one interview with reporters, are mostly also French nationals, but face no restrictions on holding Ivorian nationality. “The bottom line is, I was born Ivorian,” Thiam told the BBC in an interview, accusing the government of trying to block what he said is his party’s likely success in this year’s elections.

Will Thiam be able to stand and who else is standing?

It is unclear if Thiam can legally make his way back onto the candidate list, but he is trying.

In May, he resigned as PDCI president and was almost immediately re-elected with 99 percent of the vote. He has yet to reveal if he will attempt to re-register as a candidate, but has promised to keep up the fight.

Thiam has pledged to attract industrial investment to the country as he once did as minister, and to remove the country from the France-backed CFA currency economy that comprises West and Central African countries formerly colonised by France, and sees their currencies pegged to the euro.

Meanwhile, other strong candidates include Pascal Affi N’Guessan, 67, a former prime minister and close ally of Gbagbo, who will represent Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).

Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady who is now divorced from Gbagbo, will also run, as the nominee for the Movement of the Capable Generations. She was sentenced to a 20-year term in 2015 on charges of undermining state security, but benefitted from an amnesty law to foster national reconciliation later in 2018.

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, May 23 (UPI) — Venezuela will hold regional and parliamentary elections Sunday amid a deep political and economic crisis. High voter abstention is forecast and a divided opposition lacks a unified strategy against the ruling party.

María Corina Machado, leader of the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform, who is in hiding from government security forces, has called for a boycott of the vote. She urged Venezuelans not to legitimize what she describes as a fraudulent process.

Other opposition leaders, including former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and Zulia state Gov. Manuel Rosales, have chosen to participate in the vote to preserve political representation.

After leading the opposition coalition that secured Edmundo González’s victory in the 2024 presidential vote, Machado remains a key figure for many who oppose President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro rejected the election results and held on to power by force. Machado’s influence is expected to drive widespread abstention, according to Beatriz Rangel, a former Cabinet minister under President Carlos Andrés Pérez.

A recent poll from the Center for Political and Government Studies at Andrés Bello Catholic University found that just 15.9% of Venezuelans plan to vote in the upcoming elections. Of those, 74.2% said they would back pro-Maduro government candidates, while 13.8% expressed support for figures aligned with Rosales and Capriles.

The leading reasons cited for abstention include a lack of trust in the National Electoral Council (27.4%), the belief that voting no longer makes a difference (23.9%), and the view that participating would undermine protests against alleged fraud in the most recent presidential election (14.4%).

Venezuela’s economic situation continues to worsen after a brief period of relative stability. The Venezuelan Finance Observatory reported a 2.7% contraction in the economy during the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year, citing declining oil production, soaring inflation and reduced domestic consumption.

The Economic and Social Research Institute at Andrés Bello Catholic University projects inflation will reach 220% by the end of the year, driven by the depreciation of the bolívar and falling government revenues. The weakened currency has made imported goods more expensive and eroded purchasing power for most Venezuelans.

The upcoming elections will decide 285 seats in the National Assembly and 24 regional governorships, most of which are expected to remain under the control of Maduro allies.

For the first time, representatives from the disputed Guayana Esequiba region also will be elected, a move that has heightened tensions with Guyana. The Guyanese government has denounced the inclusion as illegal and warned that those participating could face arrest.

A top figure in Venezuela’s opposition has been arrested on charges of “terrorism” before parliamentary elections scheduled for the weekend.

On Friday, a social media account for Juan Pablo Guanipa, a close associate of Maria Corina Machado, considered the leader of the opposition coalition, announced he had been detained. State television also carried images of his arrest, as he was escorted away by armed guards.

In a prewritten message online, Guanipa denounced Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for human rights abuses, including stifling political dissent and false imprisonment.

“Brothers and sisters, if you are reading this, it is because I have been kidnapped by the forces of Nicolas Maduro’s regime,” Guanipa wrote.

“For months, I, like many Venezuelans, have been in hiding for my safety. Unfortunately, my time in hiding has come to an end. As of today, I am part of the list of Venezuelans kidnapped by the dictatorship.”

Since Venezuela held a hotly contested presidential election in July 2024, Guanipa, along with several other opposition figures, has been in hiding, for fear of being arrested.

That presidential election culminated in a disputed outcome and widespread protests. On the night of the vote, Venezuela’s election authorities declared Maduro the winner, awarding him a third successive six-year term, but it failed to publish the polling tallies to substantiate that result.

Meanwhile, the opposition coalition published tallies from voting stations that it said proved its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had prevailed in a landslide. International watchdogs also criticised the election for its lack of transparency.

Maduro’s government responded to the election-related protests with a police crackdown that led to nearly 2,000 arrests and 25 people killed. It also issued arrest warrants against opposition leaders, accusing them of charges ranging from conspiracy to falsifying records.

Maduro has long accused political dissidents of conspiring with foreign forces to topple his government.

Gonzalez himself was among those for whom a warrant was signed. He fled to exile in Spain. Others have gone into hiding, avoiding the public eye. Until recently, a group of five opposition members had sought shelter in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas, until they were reportedly smuggled out of the country earlier this month.

Opposition members and their supporters have dismissed the charges against them as spurious and further evidence of the Maduro government’s repressive tactics.

“This is pure and simple STATE TERRORISM,” Machado, the opposition leader, wrote on social media in the wake of Guanipa’s arrest.

Machado and others have said that Guanipa was one of several people arrested in the lead-up to this weekend’s regional elections, which will see members of the National Assembly and state-level positions on the ballot.

Several prominent members of the opposition have pledged to boycott the vote, arguing it is a means for Maduro to consolidate power.

“Just hours before a farcical election with no guarantees of any kind, the regime has reactivated an operation of political repression,” Gonzalez wrote on social media, in reaction to the recent spate of arrests.

He argued that the detention of Guanipa and others was a means of ensuring “nothing will go off script” during Sunday’s vote.

“They harass political, social, and community leaders. They persecute those who influence public opinion. They intend to shut down all alternative information spaces and ensure a narrative monopoly,” Gonzalez wrote.

“To the international community: This is not an election. It’s an authoritarian device to shield the power they’ve usurped.”

Israeli attacks come as residents of Lebanon’s southern districts prepare to vote in municipal elections on Saturday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has denounced a wave of Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon, calling on the international community to pressure Israel to respect a ceasefire reached in November with Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said on Thursday that the Israeli military struck a building in Toul, a town in the Nabatieh governorate. The army had earlier warned residents to evacuate the area around a building it said was used by Hezbollah.

Lebanese media outlets also reported Israeli bombardment in the towns of Soujod, Touline, Sawanna and the Rihan Mountain – all in the country’s south.

In a statement, Salam’s office said the Israeli attacks come at a “dangerous” time, just days before municipal elections in Lebanon’s southern districts on Saturday.

The contests are expected to be dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, and there have been growing concerns about the safety of voters, especially in border towns, amid the continued Israeli occupation of parts of southern Lebanon.

“Prime Minister Salam stresses that these violations will not thwart the state’s commitment to holding the elections and protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese,” his office said in its statement.

As part of the November ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah fighters were to pull back north of the Litani River and dismantle military infrastructure south of that demarcation line.

For its part, Israel was to withdraw all forces from Lebanon but it has kept troops in parts of south Lebanon. It argues it must maintain a presence there for “strategic” reasons.

The truce was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in southern Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces had carried out several strikes targeting Hezbollah sites and killed one fighter in the southern Lebanon town of Rab el-Thalathine.

Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the Israeli army’s claim.

Separately, a shepherd was injured in a different Israeli attack nearby, the NNA reported.

The Israeli military said its forces also “struck a Hezbollah military site containing rocket launchers and weapons” in the Bekaa Valley in northeastern Lebanon.

The NNA described Israel’s attacks as some of the heaviest since the ceasefire went into effect.

National Party and Liberal Party part ways after more than 60-year alliance following election defeat.

Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and following a resounding loss in the national elections this month.

“It’s time to have a break,” the National leader, David Littleproud, told reporters on Tuesday.

The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Anthony Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against United States President Donald Trump’s policies.

Under the longstanding partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power in governments, with the Nationals broadly representing the interests of rural communities and the Liberals contesting city seats.

“We will not be re-entering a coalition agreement with the Liberal Party after this election,” Littleproud said, citing policy differences.

Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley, who was installed in the role last week, had pledged to revisit all policies in the wake of the election loss. She said on Tuesday she was disappointed with the Nationals’ decision, which came after they had sought specific commitments.

“As the largest nongovernment political party, the Liberals will form the official opposition,” she added.

The Liberals were reduced to 28 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives, their worst result, as Labor increased its tally to 94 from 77, registering its largest-ever majority in an election. The National Party retained its 15 seats.

The Liberal Party lost key city seats to independents supporting gender equality and action on climate change.

Ley, a former outback pilot with three finance degrees, was elected as the party’s first female leader after opposition leader Peter Dutton lost his seat in the election.

“She is a leader that needs to rebuild the Liberal Party; they are going on a journey of rediscovery, and this will provide them the opportunity to do that,” said Littleproud.

The Nationals remain committed to “having the door open” for more coalition talks before the next election, but would uphold the interests of rural Australians, he said.

The Nationals had failed to gain a commitment from Ley that her party would continue a policy taken to the election supporting the introduction of nuclear power, and also wanted a crackdown on the market power of Australia’s large supermarkets, and better telecommunications in the Outback.

Australia has the world’s largest uranium reserves but bans nuclear energy.

Littleproud said nuclear power was needed because Australia’s move away from coal to “renewables only” under the Labor government was not reliable.

Wind farm turbines “are tearing up our landscape, they are tearing up your food security”, he said.

Michael Guerin, chief executive of AgForce, representing farmers in Queensland state, said the urban-rural divide was worsening.

“Perhaps we’re seeing that in the political forum,” he said, adding the Liberals and Nationals both needed to rebuild.

Labor Party treasurer Jim Chalmers said the split in the opposition was a “nuclear meltdown”, and the Liberals would have a presence “barely bigger” than the cross-bench of 12 independents and minor parties when Parliament sits.