Just How Important Are Term Limits? Ask Senegal.

Senegal's long-standing reputation as a peaceful democracy, somewhat of an anomaly in Africa, is in jeopardy. Why? Over term limits.

REUTERS: In choosing to run again, the 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade is contradicting the term limits he himself introduced into the constitution. He argues that those restrictions should not apply to him since he was elected before they went into effect, and the deadly riots that have rocked the country began last month when the nation's highest court agreed with him.

That's some pretty good political logic President Wade is employing. I wonder what Mayor Bloomberg thinks of all this.

Congolese citizens take voter protection into their own hands.

"Dear Ballot Box, I hope you will tell me a story with a happy ending on December 6. It is the one I wrote."

This article is a must read for people interested in first or post-conflict elections, or anyone who is considering not voting in 2012.
People die for the right to vote and have their vote counted, whereas so many Americans take it for granted.

1/3 of Zimbabwe's Registered Voters are Dead

According to this NPR report.

In case this made you curious about the US statistics. I googled it.

Ivory Coast Update II

This is a pretty incredible story.

Ivory Coast Update

NYT Article Here.

Two parallel governments in a steel cage death match. Who will prevail? Stay Tuned...

And you thought we were a mess...

Elections were held in the Ivory Coast last week after being delayed for FIVE YEARS.

"The winner should already be known. But on Tuesday night, with reporters looking on and television cameras rolling, an electoral commission member with ties to President Laurent Gbagbo grabbed sheets of voting results as they were about to be announced. He crumpled them, then angrily tore them up...Troops have been summoned to this commercial capital. A 7 p.m. curfew, strictly enforced, has been proclaimed. Normally teeming streets were deserted on Wednesday, except for armed soldiers and United Nations forces."

This article is really interesting as is this more recent one in which the election council declares current President Gbagbo the winner in a decision rejected by the UN.

I'm going to spare you my trite commentary on the peaceful transfer of power, (I get chocked up when I imagine the exchange between George Washington and John Adams) and just leave you with the suggestion that this story is one worth following.