Thursday 27 January 2011

More on Portuguese elections

Here are some useful sources of research on Portuguese elections which you might want to explore further.

Direcção-Geral da Administração Interna. This is an official website of the Portuguese government It provides access to Portuguese election results from parliamentary elections, presidential elections, local elections, referendums and European elections in Portugal from approximately 1999 onwards. It is possible to view statistics and tables relating to total results, results by party
ODIHR - OSCE organisation which produces election monitoring reports. These assess the state of democracy and conduct of elections.
Another excellent staerting point for elections research are election studies. These often involve surveys with voters, offering insight into voting behaviours, sources of information and more. GESIS has a catalogue of studies conducted for different nations.
The Portuguese Voting Behavior website has useful information and free access to some papers related to this.

Finally the Portuguese Political Science Association has specialists working on all aspects of politics relating to Portugal.

Friday 21 January 2011

Portugal - forthcoming presidential election

On the 23rd January Portugal is due to have a presidential election.
Here are some starting points for research.
IFES has the basic facts on the candidates and electoral system
The National Electoral Commission of Portugal has far more detailed information (in Portuguese) about the process and official government documents.
All the canidadates have their own webpages.
Cavaco Silva official website
Manuel Alegre official website
Fernando Nobre official website
Francisco Lopes official website
Defensor Moura official website
José Manuel Coelho official website
Other good starting points for coverage are national newspapers which have stories, analysis and polls.
Some key examples from Portugal are:
Journal de Noticias
Diaria de Noticias
Publico
Portuguese TV station RTP1 (public service) also has information
Finally regulatory authority ERC has information about recent opinion polls

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Sudan background information on human rights

As an add on to the previous message. Here are some suggestions on where you can get further full text information on human rights in the aftermath of the conflict in Sudan. These might be helpful for considering the background to the elections.
The Human Security Gateway (a joint project of the Human Security report project and School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)is a great starting opoint for tracing links to recent reports, plus maps, key blogs and data sites. It has a specialist Sudan gateway.

The Sudan Open Archive aims to provide free access to a digital archive of materials about Sudan. It is a special project of the Rift Valley Institute with support from UNICEF, UNEP and the Southern Sudan Centre for Census, Statistics and Evaluation. Topics covered include: economic, social and political development in the region, the civil war and peace process; conflict in Darfur. There is also general country information about the history, culture, politics and economy of Sudan.

Sudan Human Rights Watch reports. Topics include the Civil war in Sudan, human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing in Darfur and the peace process
Amnesty International Reports on Sudan full text from the mid 1990s onwards.
Sudan: International Crisis Group resources - free access to a collection of full-text briefing papers, articles and reports about Sudan, includes coverage of the elections.
Gurtong Trust - Peace and Media Project is an independent, not-for-profit, community-based project, which seeks to promote democracy and human rights in Southern Sudan. Its website provides information on its mission, organisation and recent activities. This includes some articles and discussion of politics, political reform, elections and the peace process in Sudan

Sudan Information Gateway: United Nations. Includes reports, press releases on economic, social and political conditions in Sudan.

Sudan - get the opinion of the observers

The Sudan referendum has been observed by a number of watchdogs- what did they think of the conduct?
The EU mission has made a statement. You can also find facts about its deployment on the website
The Carter Center has a number of press releases on conditions. Their website also has more detailed reports on health and democracy programmes which it has organised in the region over a number of years.
NDI has reports on observations by SuNDE, a coalition of local groups working to educate and register Sudanese voters. These are located on the right hand side of the page.
Finally the Sudan Vote monitor website has contributions from citzens mapping incidents of abuse.

Thursday 6 January 2011

Sudan referendum - is the news positive?

To begin 2011, a Referendum is due to take place in Sudan concerning independence for Southern Sudan.
A good starting point for finding information on this is the BBC news site. This has a clear guide to the issues, plus a timeline of recent history, profiles of voters and more.

Another good basic introductory guide is the IFES Election Guide. This has basic facts and figures about the referendum and the Sudanese electoral system.

A good source of news coverage from Sudan is Afro - online news portal which contains writings from African journalists.
Global voices online also has a section for comment from bloggers. It includes links to some interesting citizen media sites including blogs and YouTube.

Background on the importance of the referendum can be obtained from the United States Institute of Peace website This has an audio file of an event which discussed the management of the referendum. The site also has a free online library of papers covering security in Sudan.
It is also creating a Sudan-North South Border intiative library which will contain documents designed to strengthen inter-group relationships in the border areas commonly known as Tamazuj (Arabic for inter-mingling).

CSIS (American research body Center for Strategic and International Studies) has some reports which have polled Sudanese viewpoints on the referendum. It also has academic comment from its analysts.


A really interesting site to watch is the Sudan Vote Monitor. This is a civil society intitiative empowered by Usuhadi technology which will enable voters and civil rights monitors to mark and record on a map any incidents of electoral fraud or violence during the polling. The site also has up to date news polls about events.

Finally another civil society intiative is Sudan votes- which is financed by the German Federal Foreign Office and produced by Media in Cooperation and Transition (MICT). It contains personal reports from Sudanese journalists, twitter feeds and videos. Some material is archived from the 2010 elections. Some offered in Arabic only.