Monday 13 June 2011

Turkey elections 2011 will they make a difference?

Another nation experiencing elections this week was Turkey
According to LSE Bloggers the political parties often stay the same IFES provides basic background on the electoral system and recent results
Key resources (in Turkish) include the official election commission website and a special website created by Google which has statistics and graphs of the results. These include details about trends in searches for specific candidates.
Newspaper coverage is available in
Hurriyet daily news which has a special section with results, news stories and analysis
Al-Jazeera also has a special English language section with coverage.
Istanbul notes is a well regarded blog which also has discussion.
Think tanks with discussion on the state of the Turkish political system and possible outcome. Include:
Council for Foreign Relations
NDI
Brookings Institution
and Carnegie Endowment
Finally view the findings of the Council of Europe fact finding mission to the elections

Friday 10 June 2011

Portugal elections

Portugal also had some snap elections recently. see discussion of how the economic crissi effected the election on the Guardian website.

for further information onn the results see these websites.
The Official Portuguese election commission website has information on regulations, plus results.
The Minister of the Interior also has clear graphs of the results.

Compare the results with voting intention polls on this website maintained by ERC.

Some newspaper coverage and comment can be found in the website created by Jornal de Noticias

Publico
RTP - TV coverage.

Thursday 2 June 2011

Macedonia set for early elections June 5th - how is the web helping voters?

Macedonia has announced snap elections on June 5th
Reuters reported that it was seen as a way out of political deadlock.

Some useful sites for following the elections are
Offocial website of the Election Authority of Macedonia

Balkan Insight which has news stories, analysis and an interactive election map showing top candidates in the different regions.
SE times - also has news headlines.

Voters are being offered new web-based tools to help them keep track of politicians’ promises and the degree to which they fulfilled them.
Vistinomer - is a truth meter which compares promises made in 2008 with actions taken.
Glosmer - gives voters questions that help them decide which party is nearer their viewpoint.
Metamorphosis Group website discusses in English the development and use of these tools. It also has other documents on the use of ICT by government and democracy in Macedonia.
Another useful source on the state of democracy is watchdog MOST
and the OSCE which has deployed an observer mission and has copies of past reports on its website.