October election roundup

It’s been a busy time in the electoral world, and it continues this week. Six national elections are being held next weekend (Bulgaria, Georgia, Japan, Lithuania, Uruguay and Uzbekistan); I’ll try to say something about at least some of them later in the week. In the meantime here’s a quick look at some other events around the globe that you might have missed.

Iceland

Iceland wasn’t due for an election until September next year, but it will be going early on 30 November. Prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson announced the move a week ago due to apparently irreconcilable differences within his coalition, particularly over foreign policy and immigration.

The surprising thing here is that it has taken so long, since the government consists of widely divergent elements: Benediktsson’s Independence Party (centre-right), the Progressive Party (centrist-agrarian) and the Left-Greens. Despite that, it has survived since 2017. Left-Green leader Katrín Jakobsdóttir was prime minister – even though the Left-Greens have been the smallest of the three parties since the 2021 election – until last April, when she resigned to run (unsuccessfully) for president.

Apparently Benediktsson was not as good at keeping the coalition together. Opinion polls have the opposition Social Democrats set to emerge as the largest party, but it’s hard to see any route to a left-of-centre majority

Mozambique

Mozambique doesn’t get much coverage here, although here’s a story from back in 2019. It held elections for both president and parliament earlier this month, on 9 October. Most observers were not expecting any surprise; the ruling party, Frelimo, has governed the country since independence in 1975, for most of the time as an official or de facto one-party state.

Mild progress was made in that incumbent president Filipe Nyusi respected the rule on term limits; Frelimo chose Daniel Chapo, a former law professor and provincial governor, to replace him. But in other respects the election ran true to form: voting proceeded peacefully and opposition candidate Venâncio Mondlane claimed victory, but official preliminary results showed Chapo well in the lead.

The dangers of opposition in somewhere like Mozambique were brought home on Saturday when Mondlane’s lawyer and another election agent were murdered in the capital, Maputo. As one election watchdog plausibly told the BBC, “the killings were designed to intimidate anyone demanding transparency in the polls.” [And see update below]

Kiribati

Kiribati’s election is not until Friday, but it’s safe to report on it now since the result is not in doubt. Although it’s not a major player, with a population rather less than that of Cairns, the country has an interesting constitutional structure. Government is headed by a president who is directly elected, but is nonetheless responsible to parliament; parliament can force a fresh election at any time by passing a vote of no confidence.

To try to avoid conflict between president and parliament, there are two refinements: only MPs are eligible to run for president, and if more than four of them are nominated, a vote in parliament whittles the field down to just four. This year, however, incumbent president Taneti Maamau won a large parliamentary majority in August’s election and proceeded to game the system.

Maamau’s Tobwaan Kiribati Party nominated not just himself but also three dummy candidates, and then used its parliamentary numbers to ensure that they, rather than opposition leader Tessie Lambourne or an independent candidate, would be the ones to appear on the ballot. Voters have therefore been deprived of any real choice; the opposition is boycotting the election, and Maamau, having already neutered the judiciary, can expect to enjoy unchecked power for the next four years.

Indonesia

Finally to Indonesia, where, as readers might remember, the presidential election was held back in February, but only yesterday – more than ten months later – was the winner, General Prabowo Subianto, finally inaugurated. It’s far from clear what purpose is served by the extraordinarily long delay, but at least it seems to have proceeded peacefully, helped no doubt by the fact that his predecessor, two-term president Joko Widodo, is a supporter of Prabowo.

Prabowo’s record as a war criminal has raised understandable fears, although there are some signs he has mellowed with age. For some good commentary on his rise, see Tim Lindsey and Simon Butt at the Conversation and Michael Gill at Inside Story; the moral drawn by both is that Jokowi has been the one primarily responsible for the unsatisfactory state of Indonesia’s democracy.

While I can’t find anything as long as Indonesia’s, long transition periods are not unusual: another one ended this month with the inauguration of new Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who was elected at the beginning of June. Democratic backsliding has been a major issue there as well.

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UPDATE 25 October: The Mozambique electoral commission has finally released what it says are final results, showing Chapo the winner with 71% to Mondlane’s 20%. Critics have pointed out that this is simply not believable, but as usual the international community shows no interest.