“Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to engineer his return to power by launching a ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, courting far-right voters and accusing rivals of being beholden to Islamists,” the Times of London reports.

“The former prime minister warned rivals when he was unceremoniously removed from power a year ago that he would return.”

“The collapse of the coalition of eight ideologically diverse parties that replaced him — led by Naftali Bennett, who began his career as Netanyahu’s chief of staff — was largely Netanyahu’s doing.”

“Oliver Dowden, the chairman of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party, resigned on Friday, saying it could not carry on with business as usual after two crushing by-election defeats and someone had to take responsibility,” Reuters reports.

“For over a decade Marine Le Pen’s success in pushing her far-right party into France’s political mainstream has revolved around one key yardstick — the presidential election race which she has entered and lost three times while increasing her score with every campaign,” the Financial Times reports.

“Now her Rassemblement National movement has made a breakthrough in the National Assembly. It has increased its number of seats tenfold to 89 after legislative elections, far eclipsing the far-right movement’s previous best return with 35 seats in 1986 and placing the party and Le Pen at the heart of day-to-day politics in France.”

“While still 200 seats from a majority needed to control the 577-strong assembly, the strong result confounded expectations even within Le Pen’s own party, which has tended to fare poorly in the two-round legislative ballot system, and gives it a bigger voice to influence the agenda on issues such as immigration or security.”

“For the first time, Colombia will have a leftist president,” the New York Times reports.

“Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime senator who has pledged to transform the country’s economic system, has won Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results, setting the third largest nation in Latin America on a radically new path.”

“The centrist coalition supporting President Emmanuel Macron of France was projected to come out ahead in crucial parliamentary elections on Sunday, but a strong showing by an alliance of left-wing parties and a far-right surge prevented Mr. Macron’s forces from securing an absolute majority of seats, a setback that could complicate his second term,” the New York Times reports.

“Projections based on preliminary vote counts gave Mr. Macron’s centrist coalition 205 to 250 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament — more than any other political group, but less than half of all seats.”

“President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has for months consistently trailed in the polls ahead of the country’s crucial presidential race. And for months, he has consistently questioned its voting systems, warning that if he loses October’s election, it will most likely be thanks to a stolen vote,” the New York Times reports.

“Those claims were largely regarded as talk. But now, Mr. Bolsonaro has enlisted a new ally in his fight against the electoral process: the nation’s military.”

“The leaders of Brazil’s armed forces have suddenly begun raising similar doubts about the integrity of the elections, despite little evidence of past fraud, ratcheting up already high tensions over the stability of Latin America’s largest democracy and rattling a nation that suffered under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.”

New York Times: “For months, pollsters predicted that Gustavo Petro, a former rebel-turned-senator making a bid to be the nation’s first leftist president, would head to a June presidential runoff against Federico Gutiérrez, a conservative establishment candidate who had argued that a vote for Mr. Petro amounted to ‘a leap into the void.'”

“Instead, on Sunday, voters gave the top two spots to Mr. Petro and Rodolfo Hernández, a former mayor and wealthy businessman with a populist, anti-corruption platform whose outsider status, incendiary statements and single-issue approach to politics have earned him comparisons to Donald Trump.”

“Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party clinched a parliamentary majority after day of ballots getting counted in tightly contested seats, giving his government the heft to push through bills on issues ranging from climate change to anti-corruption measures,” Bloomberg reports.

A Conservative British local candidate has caused outrage after a post on his account said 16-year-old girls smell “buttery” and “creamy,” The Guardian reports.

Jonty Campbell tweeted: “Here’s the thing with girls 22 or under, they smell massively different to a girl of 28. Girls aged 16 to, say 23, have this buttery, creamy, slightly sweet smell that is unbelievably magnetic.”

Campbell’s Twitter account has now been set to private.

“Anthony Albanese and his opposition Labor Party were poised on Saturday to end nine years of conservative government in Australia, according to the country’s national broadcaster, defeating the coalition led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison with a campaign promising ‘renewal not revolution.’” the New York Times reports.

“The likely Labor victory would be only its fourth at the polls since World War II. After a race that became a referendum on Mr. Morrison and his combative style — in the final days he acknowledged that he could be ‘a bit of a bulldozer’ and promised to change — the results pointed to exhaustion with the incumbent more than enthusiasm for the challenger.”

“Australia’s national election has become too close to call, polls released on Wednesday showed, as the ruling conservative coalition narrowed the gap with the main opposition Labor Party three days before the country decides on a new government,” Nikkei Asia reports.

“One of the biggest donors to Britain’s Conservative Party is suspected of secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party from a Russian account,” the New York Times reports.

“Ferdinand Marcos Jr looked on course for a huge victory in the Philippines presidential election on Monday, after an unofficial tally of two thirds of the votes showed the son of the notorious late dictator surging ahead of his nearest rival,” Reuters reports.

“The massive lead bolsters the chances of a once unthinkable return to rule of the Marcos family, 36 years after its patriarch’s overthrow in a ‘people power’ revolution and his family’s humiliating retreat into exile.”

“Filipinos headed to the polls today in a hotly contested election that has been described as the most consequential in decades, one that will shape the direction of the country’s fragile democracy and transform alliances with the United States and China,” the New York Times reports.

“Although there are 10 presidential candidates on the ballot, the competition is seen as a two-way race between Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the former dictator, and Leni Robredo, the country’s vice president.”

“Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva officially launched his bid to return to Brazil’s presidency on Saturday more than a decade after he left office,” Bloomberg reports.

“The widely expected announcement, marked by an official event in Sao Paulo, kicks off a new phase of the campaign, in which Lula and his running mate Geraldo Alckmin will start traveling across the nation trying to gather broad support to defeat President Jair Bolsonaro in the October vote.”

“The Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, was on track Friday night to emerge as the largest party in Northern Ireland after legislative elections, a seismic political shift that could kindle hopes for Irish unity but also sow unrest in a territory where delicate power-sharing arrangements have kept the peace for two decades,” the New York Times reports.

“With much of the vote counted on Friday evening, Sinn Fein was on track to win the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a distinction that will allow it to name the first minister in the territory’s government.”

“Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said that his political party will seek to audit the electronic voting system before the upcoming election amid concerns he is actively sowing distrust in its eventual results,” the AP reports.

Boris Johnson has admitted the Tories suffered a “tough night in some parts of the country” at the local elections after the Conservative Party lost control of three key London councils, the Telegraph reports.