Senegal elections did they set a good example?

According to the BBC the conduct was a shining example for African democracy
as the defeated candidate conceded defeat gracefully.
Get some more information on events using these recommended resources.
The official government website has the full results and press releases.
The official elections website has background information on the conduct of the elections.
get news headlines from the Sud Quotidien
The Ace Project has some news stories, background information on the electoral system
The African Union has statements on the conduct of the election.
finally an interesting website from the The Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for Elections (COSCE) Senegal Scrutin which has real time mappings of conditions and violations at election stations.

Slovak elections 2012

A parliamentary election took place in Slovakia on 10 March 2012 to elect 150 members of the Národná rada. The election followed the fall of Prime Minister Iveta Radičová's Slovak Democratic and Christian Union – Democratic Party-led coalition in October 2011 over a no confidence vote her government failed because of its support for the European Financial Stability Fund.
The statistics Bureau of Slovakia - recorded the official result and voter turnout figures.
The European Election database- enables you to compare this with results since 1990 at both national and regional levels.
For background on the political system see the Ministry of the Interior website.
If you are looking for English Language material. A good starting point is the ACE project which links to key news stories and reports covering the most recent and some past elections. It includes election observation reports from the OSCEFor recent polls see Focus research
The Slovak Spectator has covered these and other stories in English.
Other Slovakia news services include: SME
ujszo.com
Etrend - economics news.
Finally try UCL SSEES twitter feed for comment and links to resources. The library also maintains a good Internet guide to resources about Slovakia.

Russian Elections - are you surprised by the outcome?

At the weekend Russians were voting in the Presidential elections
Get some English Language news from the BBC, the Guardian newspaper, Moscow Times ITAR-TASS (official government news service)RIAN-VOSTI
Voice of Russia funded by the Russian state.
For accounts of election observations see the ODIHR who has deployed a mission. The Russian Central Election Commission also has results, reports and background information on the system.
Other sources for information and analysis of past and current elections include: Russia Votes. Surveys and analysis conducted by Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde. Look at recent approval ratings and results from 1996 onwards.
Amnesty International discussion of Russian human rights policy
Human Rights Watch has reports that voters were harassed.
Jamestown Foundation reports on Russian security issues

how did the Singer Youssou N'Dour get on in his Senegal presidential bid

This week the Senegal elections took place.
IFES has a quick guide to the basics.
The official national press agency has the latest news in French.

For some user discussion and online videos see the site created by L'association des Blogueurs du Sénégal
Google also has a special page with news stories and discussions of web trends.
More news stories can be found on all.africa.com
France 24
Le Monde
and the New York Times
Finally further English commentary, including a recent briefing paper can be found on the Chatham house website.

Yemen elections 2012

The Yemen presidential elections were held on 21st february. As there was only one candidate the results focussed on voter turnout. for discussion of the system try these resources.
Yemen Fox gives a glowing account of the elections.However , the BBC reported violence.
Al Jazeera has a blog with images and coment.
For background information on the political situation see the
IFES site which has basic facts about the electoral system.
International IDEA website has some publications

Turkmenistan elections- were they a sham?

Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov improves on his performance in 2007 election, but there are accusations of fraud.
See some commentary on politics in the region on the Chatham House website.
Eurasia net has articles and discussion
The Voice of Russia website has coverage in English. However do remeber this site is supported by the Russian government.
other monitoring bodies covering human rights in the region include:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Transparency International rated it as one of the most corrupt nations in 2010
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked Turkmenistan at 165 out of 167 countries of the world in its Democracy Index for 2011

NDI has also established programmes to improve the state of democracy in the region.

Former finance leader winds Finland's presidential election

Last week the winner of Finland's presidential election was announced. Here are some recommended sites for finding out more.
Ministry of Justice Finland. Has the resiults for each round of voting plus background on the system used.
For up to date news coverage and analysis see
Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition. English Language analysis

Finland press. Other links to Finnish language resources.

For examples of past electoral results see Statistics Finland which has a large election data section.
The European elections database also has a section for Finland where you can find historic materials.
Electoral geography has some interesting mappings of past and recent elecions.