New York Times: “Large numbers of Venezuelans turned out to vote on Sunday in a landmark election that could give President Hugo Chávez a new term to extend and deepen his socialist revolution or replace him with a youthful, more moderate challenger, Henrique Capriles Radonski.”

“For the first time since Mr. Chávez took office in 1999, the outcome of a presidential election was in doubt. His long hold on power and his autocratic grip over all branches of government have led some in the opposition to question whether he would accept a defeat.”

Washington Post: “The wild card in the contest between two markedly different men that
began eight months ago is Chavez’s health. The 58-year-old former army
paratrooper, famous for his seemingly boundless energy and his
hours-long speeches, had until the past three months been mostly out of
sight, as doctors here and in Cuba treated him for a cancerous tumor.
Chavez said he is cured, but details of his illness are a state secret.”

Update: The Venezuela electoral council says Chavez won re-election, the AP reports.

The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike — withholding sex from their husbands or partners — to demand the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbe, the AP reports.

Said one of the women leaders to the BBC: “We have many means to oblige men to understand what women want in Togo. If men refuse to hear our cries we will hold another demonstration that will be more powerful than a sex strike.”

“Election regulators named Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of Egypt’s first competitive presidential elections, handing the Islamist group a symbolic triumph and a new weapon in its struggle for power with the ruling military council,” the New York Times reports.

“But Mr. Morsi’s recognition as president does little to resolve the larger standoff between the generals and the Brotherhood over the balance of power over the institutions of government and the future constitution.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy “is in deep trouble and is looking, for now, as if he could be the first one-term French president since 1981,” the New York Times reports.

“He appears to be running neck and neck with his main challenger, the Socialist candidate François Hollande, in the first round of voting on Sunday, when 10 candidates are competing. But all the opinion polls show Mr. Sarkozy losing to Mr. Hollande in a face-off two weeks later.”

Egyptian election authorities “eliminated three of the country’s leading presidential candidates in one broad stroke on Saturday night in an unexpected decision that once again threw into disarray the contest to shape the future of Egypt,” the New York Times reports.

“The High Election Commission struck down 10 candidates in all, including the three who have generated the most passion in this polarized nation: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief.”

The BBC notes the move “comes as a surprise and looks set to dramatically alter the race. Many of those banned and their supporters have expressed anger over the move and large demonstrations are expected in the capital, Cairo.”

The Muslim Brotherhood “nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power,” the New York Times reports.

“Because of the Brotherhood’s unrivaled grass-roots organization and popular appeal, Mr. Shater, 62, a multimillionaire business tycoon who was a political prisoner until just a year ago, immediately became a presidential front-runner.”

Reuters: “The move will worry liberals and others who fret about the rising influence of Islamists after they swept parliament and now dominate an assembly writing the new constitution.”

Simon Parkes, a Labour party politician elected last month to the Whitby Town Council, stunned colleagues by claiming his “real mother” is a 9 ft green alien with eight fingers, the Northern Echo reports.

Although he has had “hundreds of close encounters with extra-terrestrials,” he insisted “it will not interfere with his mission to help residents at the seaside resort.”

No one knew even though Parkes detailed his alien contacts in a video last year.

[Read more…]

After months of street protests calling for his resignation, Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement immediately transferring power to his vice president, the New York Times reports.

“The agreement effectively ends Mr. Saleh’s 33 years of authoritarian rule, making him the fourth leader forced from power by the Arab Spring revolts that have roiled the Middle East and North Africa. But it is unlikely to restore calm anytime soon to a country that has become increasingly important to the United States as Islamist militants have gained a stronger hold there.”

Silvio Berlusconi “has resigned as prime minister of Italy after a historic vote paved the way for a new government in Rome tasked with shoring up the country’s economy and taking it off the frontline in the eurozone crisis,” the Guardian reports.

“With his formal resignation, which was confirmed by the presidential palace on Saturday night, the 75-year-old billionaire brought down the curtain on a government that has played a significant role in taking the European single currency and the global economy to the brink of catastrophe. The dramatic end of Berlusconi’s 17-year domination of Italian politics came as the lower house of parliament approved a package of savage cuts and stimulus measures demanded by the European Union to trim Italy’s massive €1.9 trillion debt.”

Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party has a new get out the vote advertisement which Ben Smith notes “conflates voting and sex in a way that makes no sense but has great production values and a compelling beat.”

The tagline: “Let’s do it together.”

[Read more…]