Displaying items by tag: Election

At the time of writing European leaders are trying to agree on a compromise EU leader after political groups failed to unite behind a candidate to replace Jean-Claude Juncker in Europe’s top job. Following the elections in May, nobody has won united support from the four mainstream parties to become president of the EU’s executive arm. Onlookers are calling it a ‘big fight’ between Europe's political groups, leaders, and institutions. Other vacancies to be filled include speaker of the European parliament, which will sit for the first time on 2 July, and foreign policy chief. The final nominees must have the backing of least 21 of the 28 EU leaders and a majority in the 751-member parliament. National leaders want to control the process and allocate the most senior jobs in a way that balances men and women, east and west, small countries and large.

On 18 May Austria's vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache resigned after German media published a video that purportedly showed him offering government contracts to a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, in exchange for media coverage and political funding. The scandal drove Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to call for snap elections instead of trying to revive his weakened coalition government. ‘Enough is enough,’ Kurz told reporters, while Strache, who leads Austria's far-right Freedom Party, described the incident as a ‘targeted political assassination.’ The video was reportedly just months before Austria's last election, where Strache's party received 26% of the vote and 51 seats. In the wake of the video, Kurz said the abuse of power, taxes and interference in media affairs were among his concerns. Strache vowed to take legal steps to address the video.

Now that a federal election has been called, Australian Prayer Network has initiated a season of prayer which will last up to and including the eve of the elections, on 18 May. Churches are encouraged to include the daily prayer points and readings in their notices each Sunday, to promote prayer for the election. Permission has been given for these prayer points to be distributed across other networks interested in having their people pray. Each Wednesday until the election, new prayer points will be released for the following week. We can pray for a mighty wave of Holy Spirit righteousness and justice to sweep across Australia, drawing Christians into a greater place of authority and integrity in an increasingly secular society.

The Crimean Tatar people have decided to support Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine's presidential election. They said, ‘The most significant criterion in assessing candidates for the presidency is their ability to mobilise Ukrainian society to rebuff Russian aggression against Ukraine and restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, which include the Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.’ The Tatars have also called on Ukrainians in occupied Crimea to participate in mainland Ukraine polling stations, and urged diaspora to vote at foreign polling stations. Russia outlawed the Tatar parliament (Mejlis) for ‘propaganda, ethnic nationalism, and extreme hatred towards Russia’.

Please join in praying that the crucial U.S. elections next week will bring to power those who have strong Christian values and “bring down the wicked” as the psalmist prayed. Lawless, leftist, socialist groups want to reshape the country into a totalitarian state to become part of a globalist New World Order that diminishes national sovereignty and human freedoms. Surveys reveal that about half of the Millennial generation, who are largely ignorant of history and political science, now believe in socialism even though that form of government has never resulted in any good for the nations that have tried it. Venezuela is a recent example of a once prosperous land that has been brought down to poverty and despotism by that delusion.

In this battle between Americanism and socialism, pray that the American people, especially the Christians, large numbers of which do not even vote, will not succumb to such deception, and rise up to vote for their Christian values. May the Leftist/socialist forces, often financially supported by George Soros (called “the most wicked man in the world”), be decisively defeated at the polls and may America’s traditional values that come from the U.S. Constitution and the Bible be reaffirmed and upheld for the blessing of the coming generations.

Amid rampant political corruption and a crime epidemic in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro is on the verge of becoming Brazil’s next president on 28 October. He has expressed enthusiasm for former military rulers (particularly Carlos Brilhante Ustra, a colonel who ran a military torture squad in the 1970s). His chosen deputy president, a former general, said that the military may be needed to clean up corruption. For many years former army captain Mr Bolsonaro was a marginal Congress figure, known for defending the military dictatorship and making offensive comments about women, blacks, gay men and lesbians. Earlier this year he was investigated for inciting hatred and discrimination. His critics accuse him of racism and misogyny, and tens of thousands of women organised protest marches with the slogan #EleNão - or #NotHim. But he came out of the first round of voting with a strong lead, thanks to last-minute backing from the evangelical lobby and powerful business and commerce groups.

On 1 September, the North African desert country Mauritania will have an election for its national assembly. 146 members will be elected for one- or four-year terms. Most of its population is nomadic, but a third of Mauritanians are registered voters. It is one of the world's poorest nations, and one of the most religiously restricted. Sunni Islam and Sharia law have ruled them over a thousand years. The government prohibits conversion to Christianity. Those who do so face the death penalty, and must not enter non-Muslim households. A caste system grants privileges to certain groups. They marginalise darker-skinned Mauritanians or anyone who holds a worldview other than Islam. The Islamic terror group AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) operates in Mauritania.

The opposition party has rejected President Emmerson Mnangagwa's historic presidential election win after a poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of vote-rigging. On 2 August, Mnangagwa was declared the winner of the first election since the toppling of veteran leader Robert Mugabe, with a 6-point lead over Nelson Chamisa, head of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mnangagwa won 50.8 percent of the vote, the election commission said, and Chamisa 44%. The president tweeted, ‘Though we may have been divided at the polls, we are united in our dreams. This is a new beginning. Let us join hands in peace, unity, and love, and together build a new Zimbabwe for all!’ The chances of this happening appear slim, as the MDC has rejected the result as ‘fake’ and says it will challenge it in the courts. Six people have already died in clashes between protesters and the security forces which are patrolling the streets of Harare.

Pakistan’s election results are in doubt, with the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League (PML) rejecting the result amid widespread allegations of ballot rigging in favour of Imran Khan’s PTI party. With most of the votes counted, Khan’s party is in the lead, but the results have not yet been confirmed. The election was marred by violence, with 31 killed by a bomb at one polling station. The PML leader said his party’s polling agents had been evicted from dozens of stations by security officials before a final tally, so they were unable to monitor potential tampering. In fact almost every party except the PTI said their polling agents had been excluded from polling stations. For the first time ever, no Christian candidates were picked by the mainstream parties for the national assembly, so Christians will be bereft of a voice whoever wins. Khan said he will not change the blasphemy laws, rather he will ensure they are enforced. The blasphemy law is a discrimination tool for persecuting Christians.

Conservative MPs in Iran are proposing that Iranians should only be allowed to vote for members of their own religious group, making it impossible for members of religious minorities to be elected to any position of authority (90-95% of the population is Shia Muslim). Recently a Zoroastrian was suspended from the city council of Yazid, a historic city with many ancient Zoroastrian sites. The ruling clerics are becoming increasingly unpopular for taking harsher measures to block members of religious minorities from higher office. The proposal to force voters to vote for candidates from their own religious background would violate everyone’s democratic right to elect and be elected. Journalists, lawyers and some MPs have pointed to the presence of three Christians, a Jew and a Zoroastrian in Iran’s national parliament. The constitution currently allows each of the three minority groups a representative in parliament.