Tuesday 25 June 2013

Albanian elections- what are the main issues?

This week Albanians went to the polls


Albania Election Update
was a  service of the Government of Albania with  Albania’s Central Election Commission (CEC) . It has official press releases and news The CEC website also has laws and full text reports.

The BBC reported allegations of vote rigging

Osce monitored the elections and produced an initial assessment.

GDEM has also produced some pre-election assessments.

NDI website has a series of election watches which analyse events
Albanian elections observatory briefings more can be found on the website of the Hellenic Foundation


The Monkey cage blog has reports and analysis from researchers

Tirana Centre for Excellence in Journalism created a special area on its website to encourage independent high quality reporting. It includes news updates

News coverage
from Balkan insight

Transitions Online (some items for subscribers only)

Tirana Times

For background information on the state of democracy in the region see:

Freedom House has reports of the state of democracy in the region

IREX has produced a media sustainability index of  Albania which measures the quality of journalism, legal freedoms of the press

The state of Albanian Democracy at the eve of 2013 General elections- Instituti i Studimeve Ndërkombëtare


Thursday 20 June 2013

Iranian elections - see our recommended research resources

In the news this week the Iranian presidential elections.
For some good starting points try these recommended research resources.

IFES has basic information on the electoral system and past elections.
They also have a selection of reports on the electoral system and state of democracy in iran which they have published in recent years.

Official news from the Iranian government can be found on the Islamic republic news service which has an English language version.

For news coverage try.
BBC which as a good FAQ  
Guardian
al-jazeera
Washington Post
New York Times

also interesting wikipedia has links to election debates and transcripts.Note that as these are ioffered in Arabic only we have not been able to verify content so evaluate before use.

for news services and blogs from Iran try

Iran election watch Independent journalsits operating in and outside Iran
Iran's view
Al-Monitor Iran pulse

Global voices online - blogs including some from Iran

Commentary from think tanks on the elections. The following have briefings and useful background reports.
Wilson Center election update and news.
Rand
Council on Foreign relations

Brookings Institution. Chatham House RUSI
For more information on the winner see
His official website rouhani website

al Jazeera collected news.

Finally an excellent site for background information on previous Iran elections is the Iran Electoral Archive from the The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna an Italian public university
This covers all aspects of the electoral process from 1967 onwards providing free access to documents, legislation and more in English and Persian.It also includes some 2013 resources.