Tag Archives: Elections

Liberians vote in historic, delayed election

George Weah, former soccer player and presidential candidate of Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), prepares his ballot during presidential elections at a polling station in Monrovia, Liberia, December 26, 2017.

By James Giahyue and Alphonso Toweh

MONROVIA (Reuters) – Liberians went to the polls on Tuesday for a presidential election they hope will mark their first democratic transfer of power in more than seven decades, despite allegations of fraud.

Former world footballer of the year George Weah is squaring up against vice president Joseph Boakai, both of them promising to tackle poverty and corruption in a country where most citizens have no reliable electricity or clean drinking water.

They are bidding to succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a run-off vote delayed for more than a month after Boakai and another candidate alleged widespread fraud in October’s first-round vote, a challenge that the Supreme Court rejected this month.

There were no reports of violence as voting proceeded under sunny skies in the capital Monrovia. Election agents told Reuters first indications pointed to a lower turnout than in the first round.

“It is great day for Liberia – a test day for democracy,” said Boakai after casting his vote in Paynesville. “We will accept the results provided they meet all the standards.”

Officials said results were expected in the next few days, declining to give a specific date.

Johnson Sirleaf’s 12-year rule cemented peace in the West African country after civil war ended in 2003, and brought in much needed aid.

But critics, including much of the country’s youth, say her administration was marred by corruption and that she did little to raise most Liberians out of dire poverty.

Liberia was also racked by the Ebola crisis, which killed thousands between 2014 and 2016, while a drop in iron ore prices since 2014 has dented export revenues.

Weah, world footballer of the year in 1995, won with 38 percent in the first round versus Boakai’s 29 percent.

“I voted George Weah because I believe that he will do better for me and my country. I want change,” said Miama Kamara, a 32-year-old businesswoman, after casting her ballot in the capital.

“MARKED IMPROVEMENTS”

Observers from the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute said polling stations were better organised than in the first round.

The National Elections Commission said there were isolated incidents of voting irregularities, including one woman caught trying to vote twice, but no sign of widespread graft.

“So far the election process has been smooth and there are marked improvements on the Oct. 10 poll,” NEC said.

Boakai has found it harder to convince voters that he will bring change, given that he worked alongside Johnson Sirleaf for 12 years. Weah, by contrast, has won the hearts of mostly young Liberians through his star performances for Europe’s biggest football teams in the 1990s.

His arrival at a polling station in Paynesville was met with cheers by a crowd of supporters.

People wait to vote during the presidential election at a polling station in Monrovia, Liberia December 26, 2017.

People wait to vote during the presidential election at a polling station in Monrovia, Liberia December 26, 2017. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon

“My focus now is to win,” he told reporters. “From there, I am going to get on the drawing board with my team and then we’ll put a plan together to move our country forward.”

Some however are wary of Weah’s lack of political experience, education and concrete policy.

“Boakai understands diplomacy,” said McArthur Nuah Kermah, a school registrar in Paynesville. “Weah is not experienced and doesn’t know the workings of government.”

Turnout appeared low on the day after the Christmas holiday, in contrast to the high turnout for the first round, although official figures are yet to be released.

NEC did its best to rally young voters and conjure a sense of occasion in a morning Twitter post.

“First-time voters MUST vote on December 26 Run-Off elections,” its tweet said. “This is the first big process you are a part of … you must complete it in order to be a part of tomorrow’s glorious and democratic Liberia!”

(Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by John Stonestreet and Andrew Heavens)

Stop meddling in foreign elections, UK’s Johnson tells Russian hosts

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson attend a news conference following their talks in Moscow, Russia December 22,

By Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – British foreign minister Boris Johnson told his Russian counterpart on Friday there was “abundant evidence” of Moscow meddling in foreign elections, but said any Russian efforts to interfere in last year’s Brexit referendum had fallen flat.

On the first visit to Russia by a British foreign minister in five years, Johnson said he wanted to normalize UK-Russia relations, which were going through “a very difficult patch”.

But that didn’t mean pretending that Britain did not have serious concerns about Russia’s behavior, he said.

” … We can’t pretend that they (the problems) do not exist, and that we share a common perspective on the events in Ukraine, or in the Western Balkans or … on Russian activities in cyberspace,” said Johnson.

He also said Britain had a duty to speak up for the LGBT community in Chechnya. Two men from Chechnya told Reuters in June they had been tortured because they were gay. Chechen authorities deny the allegations.

Johnson’s visit comes at a time when relations between London and Moscow are strained by differences over Ukraine and Syria as well as by allegations, which Russia flatly denies, that Moscow has meddled in the politics of various European countries by backing cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns.

BREXIT

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov challenged that narrative, however, saying Johnson himself had recently said he had no proof that Moscow had meddled in last year’s British referendum on leaving the European Union.

“Not successfully, not successfully, I think is the word,” Johnson — a leading advocate of Brexit — shot back, to which Lavrov replied: “He’s scared that if he doesn’t disagree with me, his reputation will be ruined at home.”

Johnson, who said there was abundant evidence of Russian election meddling in Germany, the United States and other countries, said it was Lavrov’s reputation he was worried about.

“I think it is very important … to recognize that Russian attempts to interfere in our elections or in our referendum, whatever they may have been, they’ve not been successful,” said Johnson.

Lavrov said he blamed Britain for the poor state of relations, complaining about “insulting and aggressive statements” from London. He also complained about Britain airing its differences with Moscow publicly rather than in private.

But although the two men spent much of their joint news conference exchanging barbs, both sounded upbeat when it came to trying to cooperate in narrow areas, such as in the U.N. Security Council, and on security arrangements for next year’s soccer World Cup in Russia.

Lavrov complained, however, that Britain was still not fully cooperating with Russia’s FSB security service.

Johnson had riled Russian officials before his visit by telling Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper that Moscow was “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic”.

But when asked about the comment on Friday, he rowed back, saying he had been referring to the Soviet Union, not modern Russia.

Russian media has portrayed Johnson as anti-Russian. Johnson told reporters on Friday however that he was “a committed Russophile”.

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

Former Turkish minister launches party to challenge Erdogan

Former Turkish minister launches party to challenge Erdogan

By Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – A prominent Turkish nationalist politician and former minister announced on Wednesday she was forming a new party which could pose a significant challenge to President Tayyip Erdogan in elections due within two years.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener, who unsuccessfully opposed Erdogan’s drive for greater presidential powers in a referendum last April, said Turkey needed change after nearly 15 years of rule by his AK Party.

Her Iyi Parti (Good Party) is seen by many in Turkey as potentially one of the strongest challengers to Erdogan in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2019, but it starts out with only a fraction of the AK Party’s support.

Just five members of the 550-seat parliament have joined the new party, although pollsters say it could win over supporters of several parties including the conservative and Islamic-rooted AK Party as well as secular or nationalist groups.

“Turkey and its people are tired, the state is worn down, and public order is unraveling. There is no way other than the changing of the political atmosphere,” Aksener said at a ceremony in Ankara to mark the launch of her party.

“We are that way out, you are that way out. That road is the 80 million strong Turkish nation” she said, standing in front of the logo of her party – a yellow sun shining in a blue sky. “Our people are clearly saying they want … a new government.”

Aksener was expelled last year from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the smallest of three opposition parties in parliament, after launching a failed bid to unseat party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose support helped Erdogan to a narrow victory in a referendum that expanded his authority.

Since her expulsion, the 61-year old Aksener has become one of the most prominent voices in the country, frequently criticizing Erdogan and the government.

“BIG CHANGES”

The Iyi Party could take more than a tenth of the AK Party support, which stands at over 40 percent, said Hakan Bayrakci of SONAR pollsters. It could also erode the support base of nationalist MHP and the secularist CHP parties, he said.

“Meral Aksener’s party will lead to big changes in Turkey’s political atmosphere,” Bayrakci told Reuters. “This may not be immediate, but in three to five months, I believe this shift will be visible.”

Erdogan’s AK Party won just under 50 percent of votes in the last parliamentary election, in November 2015, and he has told supporters it is aiming for more than half the votes in 2019.

Mehmet Ali Kulat from polling company Mak Danismanlik, which is seen as close to the AK Party, said the Iyi Party currently had the support of around 5 percent of voters.

“It looks like Aksener’s party can get votes from angry voters,” Kulat said. “Their real strength will come out in the long term.”

Aksener said many members of her party wanted her to stand as its presidential candidate in the 2019 election, and criticized what she described as an erosion of rights in Turkey.

“Democracy is under threat and the government’s justice is above all else. It is evident that society is at a political standstill,” Aksener said.

Since a failed military coup last year, in which more than 240 people were killed, Turkish authorities have detained more than 50,000 people and suspended 150,000 people including teachers, soldiers, journalists and lawyers.

Aksener said her party aimed to raise the average length of education in Turkey from seven years to 11 years, and promised to bring Turkey into the world’s top 20 countries for education. It currently lies around 50th in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

In previous weeks, several members from the MHP and the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have quit their parties to join Aksener, who has said her party’s doors were open to anyone “willing to walk with their cause”.

“We have hopes and dreams. We want a rich Turkey, we have power. We want a just Turkey and we have that power. We want a free Turkey and we have our rights,” she said.

(Additional reporting and writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans and Robin Pomeroy)

Spain plans new elections in Catalonia to end independence bid: opposition

Spain plans new elections in Catalonia to end independence bid: opposition

By Sonya Dowsett and Inmaculada Sanz

MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish government has secured opposition support for dissolving Catalonia’s parliament and holding new elections there in January in its bid to defuse the regional government’s push for independence.

The Socialists, the main opposition, said on Friday they would back special measures to impose central rule on the region to thwart the secessionist-minded Catalan government and end a crisis that has unsettled the euro and hurt confidence in the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who wants opposition support to be able to present a united front in the crisis, has called an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday to pave the way for Madrid establishing central control in the region.

The government on Friday would not confirm whether January elections formed a part of the package, with Rajoy saying only that the measures would be announced on Saturday.

However a government spokesman saw regional elections as likely. “The logical end to this process would be new elections established within the law,” said government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo at a weekly government press conference.

It will be the first time in Spain’s four decades of democracy that Madrid has invoked the constitution to effectively sack a regional government and call new elections.

Rajoy wants as broad a consensus as possible before taking the step, which has raised the prospect of more large-scale protests in Catalonia, where pro-independence groups have been able to bring more than one million people out onto the streets.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, a former journalist who is spearheading the secession campaign, has refused to renounce independence, citing an overwhelming vote in favor of secession at a referendum on Oct.1.

Catalan authorities said around 90 percent voted for independence though only 43 percent of voters participated. Opponents of secession mostly stayed home.

ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE HURT

Spanish courts have ruled the referendum unconstitutional, but Puigdemont says the result is binding and must be obeyed.

The prolonged standoff has caused hundreds of companies to move their headquarters outside Catalonia and prompted the Spanish government to cut its economic growth forecast. The region accounts for a fifth of Spain’s economy.

Later on Friday, Moody’s was scheduled to review Spain’s sovereign rating, days after warning that political tensions between Madrid and the rebel leadership in Catalonia were credit-negative for the sovereign.

In a test of investor appetite for Spanish stocks, housebuilder Aedas <AEDAS.MC> dropped over 6 percent in its debut on the Madrid stock exchange on Friday, although it later regained losses to trade close to its listing price.

The uncertainty surrounding the future of the region has rattled the euro. On Thursday, European Union leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron offered their support for Rajoy at an EU leaders summit in Brussels.

The EU says it will not act as a mediator and the crisis is for Madrid and Barcelona to resolve.

After Rajoy announces the direct control measures on Saturday, Spain’s upper house will have to approve them in a session which could take place on Oct. 27, a Senate spokeswoman said on Friday.

Actions could range from dismissing the Catalan parliament and government, to a softer approach of removing specific heads of department. Direct rule from Madrid would be temporary while regional elections are held to form a new government.

Madrid on Friday stressed the move was not about taking autonomy away from Catalonia but temporarily imposing direct rule until a government was elected that would act within the law.

Socialist politician Carmen Calvo, a member of cross-party talks to establish what measures the government should take to impose direct rule on Catalonia, told TVE state television that January regional elections would form part of the package.

She gave no further details apart from saying the Socialists wanted a light-touch intervention.

(Additional reporting by Raquel Castillo and Isla Binnie; Writing By Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Venezuelan opposition pins hopes on elections as protests falter

FILE PHOTO: Opposition supporters clash with riot security forces while rallying against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, May 10, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello/FIle Photo

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition is shifting its focus to forthcoming state elections as protests aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro have subsided following the installation of an all-powerful, pro-government legislative body.

Four months of violent demonstrations in which at least 125 people were killed have all but stopped due to fatigue among protesters and disillusionment at seeing the ruling Socialist Party cement vast powers despite the concerted opposition push.

Most opposition leaders say October’s elections for governors in all the country’s 23 states now represent the best means to keep pressuring Maduro, providing a chance to win some of the governorships at stake and an opportunity for a protest vote to demonstrate the president’s unpopularity.

The opposition, which boycotted the elections for the Constituent Assembly, accused electoral authorities of inflating turn-out figures for the July 30 vote.

There are few options available for adversaries of Maduro, who maintains control over the OPEC nation despite widespread public anger about triple-digit inflation and chronic shortages of basic goods.

“Venezuelans are fighting against a continued rupture of the constitutional order,” said opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who is governor of Miranda state but who is not running in next month’s election and who is barred from holding public office once his term expires.

Nevertheless he urged Venezuelans to vote in the elections.

“If you abstain, then it’s more difficult to bring about the political change that all Venezuelans want,” Capriles told reporters. Capriles has called his own barring from office – because of alleged irregularities in managing public funds – a Socialist Party move to sideline him.

Governorships provide little in the way of a platform to directly challenge Maduro. But they are coveted by politicians because they offer launching pads for political careers and the possibility to channel state resources toward political allies.

The opposition’s participation in next month’s poll ensures it will have witnesses at voting stations and at the election council headquarters. Opposition coalition leaders say that should allow them to quickly identify any attempt to alter results.

However, some who spent months on the streets with the encouragement of opposition leaders, especially young members of a self-styled “Resistance” movement, feel betrayed.

They say turning attention so quickly to the election legitimizes what they view as Maduro’s authoritarianism and insults the memory of slain protesters. They also see a contradiction with the opposition’s decision to boycott July’s vote for the Constituent Assembly.

Maduro pushed for the creation of the assembly, which is meant to rewrite the constitution but which has no formal check on its powers, saying it would restore stability to a country in turmoil over the widespread anti-government protests.

It has broadly supplanted the Congress, which the opposition won control of in a 2015 landslide vote.

Small opposition party Vente Venezuela and its founder Maria Corina Machado, who has a high profile in the media but limited influence, broke with the opposition’s Democratic Unity coalition over its decision to join next month’s vote.

CANDIDATES TO BE BARRED?

The main opposition parties have nominated candidates and opinion polls show that in a free and fair vote they would likely take a majority, compared to just three governorships they won in 2012.

But the Socialist Party-controlled Constituent Assembly may bar some of them from running or from holding office if they win.

Last week, the assembly said it would seek the prosecution of opposition leaders for treason for attempting to block international financing for Maduro’s government and for allegedly seeking a military intervention against him.

Government leaders say the end of the protests is evidence the Constituent Assembly has brought peace to the country. They add that the opposition’s decision to register candidates is a sign they believe in the electoral system despite their complaints of fraud.

“The Constituent Assembly has calmed the country,” said assembly president Delcy Rodriguez. “As soon as it was inaugurated, Venezuela returned to tranquility.”

Maduro says the country is a victim of an “economic war” by the opposition, and insists the assembly is a symbol of Venezuela’s vibrant democracy.

The opposition took to the streets in late March to protest a Supreme Court ruling that briefly allowed it to assume the powers of Congress, and maintained near daily rallies until the end of July.

By then, street mobilizations were in decline and what had initially been massive marches steadily gave way to violent clashes between security forces and small groups of hooded demonstrators throwing rocks and at times vandalizing property.

Recent opposition rallies have attracted only a few hundred people.

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on top ruling Socialist Party officials, in some cases for their participation in the Constituent Assembly, while the European Union and most Latin American nations condemned the body.

Maduro has acquired the reputation as a dictator around the world, said opposition leader Freddy Guevara in an interview in August broadcast on the Internet, adding that street protests were crucial in shifting public opinion.

“I’m convinced that we have to confront the dictatorship in any situation that we can,” said Guevara.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Frances Kerry)

Eleven dead in Kenya as post-election riots flare

Anti riot policemen clash with protesters supporting opposition leader Raila Odinga in Mathare, in Nairobi, Kenya August 12, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By Katharine Houreld and Maggie Fick

NAIROBI/KISUMU, Kenya (Reuters) – Kenyan police killed at least 11 people in a crackdown on protests as anger at the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta erupted in the western city of Kisumu and slums ringing the capital, officials and witnesses said on Saturday.

The bodies of nine young men shot dead overnight in Nairobi’s Mathare slum had been brought to the city morgue, a security official told Reuters. The men were killed during police anti-looting operations, the official added.

Separately, a young girl in Mathare was killed by police firing “sporadic shots”, a witness said. The run-down neighborhood is loyal to 72-year-old opposition leader Raila Odinga, whose party rejected Tuesday’s vote as a “charade”.

A Reuters reporter in Kisumu, center of post-election ethnic violence a decade ago in which 1,200 people died nationwide, said tear gas and live rounds were fired. One man had been killed, a government official said.

The unrest erupted moments after Kenya’s election commission announced late on Friday that Kenyatta, 55, had secured a second five-year term in office, despite opposition allegations that the tally was a fraud.

Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i said the trouble was localized and blamed it on “criminal elements” rather than legitimate political protest.

Odinga’s NASA coalition provided no evidence for its rejection of the result. Kenya’s main monitoring group, ELOG, said on Saturday its tally matched the official outcome, undermining NASA’s allegations of fraud.

In addition to the deaths, Kisumu’s main hospital was treating four people for gunshot wounds and six who had been beaten by Kenyan police, its records showed.

One man, 28-year-old Moses Oduor, was inside his home in the impoverished district of Obunga when police conducting house-to-house raids dragged him out of his bedroom and beat him with clubs.

“He was not out fighting them. He was rescued by my sister who lives next to him. She came outside screaming at the police, asking why they are beating people,” his brother, Charles Ochieng said, speaking on behalf of a dazed Oduor.

More shooting was heard outside the hospital on Saturday morning. In Nairobi, armed police units backed by water cannon moved through the rubble-strewn streets of Kibera, another pro-Odinga slum.

“CRIMINAL ELEMENTS”

Interior minister Matiang’i defended the police against accusations of brutality.

“Let us be honest – there are no demonstrations happening,” he told reporters.

“Individuals or gangs that are looting shops, that want to endanger lives, that are breaking into people’s businesses – those are not demonstrators. They are criminals. And we expect police to deal with criminals how criminals should be dealt with.”

As with previous votes in 2007 and 2013, this year’s elections have exposed the underlying ethnic tensions in the nation of 45 million, the economic engine of East Africa and the region’s main trading hub.

In particular, Odinga’s Luo tribe, who hail from the west, had hoped an Odinga presidency would have broken the Kikuyu and Kalenjin dominance of central government since independence in 1963. Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first president, is a Kikuyu.

Even before the declaration, Odinga’s NASA coalition had rejected the outcome, saying the election commission’s systems had been hacked, the count was irregular and foreign observers who gave the poll a clean bill of health were biased.

NASA provided no evidence for any of its accusations but singled out former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and former South African president Thabo Mbeki – who both led teams of election observers – for criticism.

Top Odinga lieutenant James Orengo said NASA would not challenge the results in court – as Odinga did when he lost in 2013 – but hinted at mass action by praising the history of Kenyans in standing up to previous “stolen” elections.

“Going to court is not an option. We have been there before,” Orengo told reporters.

In addition to the thumbs-up from foreign monitors, Kenya’s ELOG domestic observation group, which had 8,300 agents on the ground, published a parallel vote tally on Saturday that conformed with the official results.

ELOG’s projected outcome put Kenyatta on 54 percent with a 1.9 percent error margin – compared to an official tally of 54.3 percent.

“We did not find anything deliberately manipulated,” ELOG chairwoman Regina Opondo said.

(Additional reporting by Humphrey Mulalo and Linda Muriki; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Supreme Court to hear major case on political boundaries

FILE PHOTO - A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, U.S., November 15, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether the U.S. Constitution limits how far lawmakers can go to redraw voting districts to favor one political party over another in a case that could have huge consequences for American elections.

The high court has been willing to invalidate state electoral maps on the grounds of racial discrimination, as it did on May 22 when it found that Republican legislators in North Carolina had drawn two electoral districts to diminish the statewide political clout of black voters.

But the justices have not thrown out state electoral maps drawn simply to give one party an advantage over another.

The justices will take up Wisconsin’s appeal of a lower court ruling last November that state Republican lawmakers violated the Constitution when they created state legislative districts with the partisan aim of hobbling Democrats in legislative races. The case will be one of the biggest heard by the Supreme Court during its term that begins in October.

The case involves a long-standing practice known as gerrymandering, a term meaning manipulating electoral boundaries for an unfair political advantage. The lower court ruled that the Republican-led legislature’s redrawing of state legislative districts in 2011 amounted to “an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.”

A panel of three federal judges in Madison ruled 2-1 that the way the Republicans redrew the districts violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection under the law and free speech by undercutting the ability of Democratic voters to turn their votes into seats in Wisconsin’s legislature.

In a possible sign of deep ideological divisions among the nine justices over the issue, the court’s conservative majority granted Wisconsin’s request, despite opposition from the four liberal justices, to put on hold the lower court’s order requiring the state to redraw its electoral maps by Nov. 1.

That means Wisconsin will not need to put in place a new electoral map while the justices consider the matter.

A Supreme Court ruling faulting the Wisconsin redistricting plan could have far-reaching consequences for the redrawing of electoral districts due after the 2020 U.S. census. State and federal legislative district boundaries are reconfigured every decade after the census so that each one holds about same number of people, but are sometimes draw in a way that packs voters who tend to favor a particular party into certain districts so as to diminish their statewide voting power.

Wisconsin Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel welcomed the justices’ decision to hear the state’s appeal and called the state’s redistricting process “entirely lawful and constitutional.”

The case in the short term could affect congressional maps in about half a dozen states and legislative maps in about 10 states, before having major implications for the post-2020 redistricting, according to the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.

‘POLITICS GOING HAYWIRE’

“Wisconsin’s gerrymander was one of the most aggressive of the decade, locking in a large and implausibly stable majority for Republicans in what is otherwise a battleground state,” said Brennan Center redistricting expert Thomas Wolf. “It’s a symptom of politics going haywire and something that we increasingly see when one party has sole control of the redistricting process.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who sometimes sides with the court’s liberals in major cases, could cast the decisive vote. Kennedy, writing in a 2004 case, indicated he may be open to the idea that racial gerrymanders could violate the Constitution. Though a “workable standard” defining it did not exist, he suggested one might emerge in a future case.

Democrats have accused Republicans of taking improper actions at the state level to suppress the turnout of minority voters and others who tend to support Democrats and maximize the number of party members in state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans call their actions lawful.

Republicans control the U.S. Congress. They also have majorities in an all-time high of 69 of 99 state legislative chambers, according to the Republican State Leadership Committee.

After winning control of the state legislature in 2010, Wisconsin Republicans redrew the statewide electoral map.

They were able to amplify Republican voting power, gaining more seats than their percentage of the statewide vote would suggest. In 2012, Republicans received about 49 percent of the vote but won 60 of the 99 state Assembly seats. In 2014, the party garnered 52 percent of the vote and 63 Assembly seats.

A dozen Wisconsin Democratic Party voters in 2015 sued state election officials, saying the redistricting divided Democratic voters in some areas and packed them in others to dilute their electoral clout and benefit Republican candidates.

The lower court found that redistricting efforts are unlawful partisan gerrymandering when they seek to entrench the party in power, and have no other legitimate justification.

The state argues recent election results favoring Republicans were “a reflection of Wisconsin’s natural political geography,” with Democrats concentrated in urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

Patriotic Russians may have staged cyber attacks on own initiative: Putin

A hooded man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that patriotic Russian hackers may have staged cyber attacks against countries that had strained relations with Moscow on their own initiative, but said the Russian state had never been involved in such hacking.

Putin, speaking to international media at an economic forum in St Petersburg, was answering a question about allegations Moscow might try to interfere in this year’s German elections.

Moscow’s attitude toward cyber crime is under intense scrutiny after U.S. intelligence officials alleged that Russian hackers had tried to help Republican Donald Trump win the White House, something Russia has flatly denied.

“If they (hackers) are patriotically-minded, they start to make their own contribution to what they believe is the good fight against those who speak badly about Russia. Is that possible? Theoretically it is possible,” said Putin.

Likening hackers to free-spirited artists acting according to their moods, he said cyber attacks could be made to look like they had come from Russia when they had not.

Putin also said he was personally convinced that hackers could not materially alter election campaigns in Europe, America or elsewhere.

“On a state level we haven’t been involved in this (hacking), we aren’t planning to be involved in it. Quite the opposite, we are trying to combat it inside our country,” said Putin.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

France’s Victorious Macron reminded of huge and immediate challenges

Outgoing French President Francois Hollande (R) reaches out to touch President-elect Emmanuel Macron, as they attend a ceremony to mark the end of World War II at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France,

By Michel Rose and John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron was confronted on Monday with pressing reminders of the challenges facing him as France’s next president, even as allies and some former rivals signaled their willingness to work closely with him.

The centrist’s victory over far-rightist Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s election came as a huge relief to European Union allies who had feared another populist upheaval to follow Britain’s vote to quit the EU and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president.

“He carries the hopes of millions of French people, and of many people in Germany and the whole of Europe,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference in Berlin.

“He ran a courageous pro-European campaign, stands for openness to the world and is committed decisively to a social market economy,” the EU’s most powerful leader added, congratulating Macron on his “spectacular” election success.

But even while pledging to help France tackle unemployment, she rejected suggestions Germany should do more to support Europe’s economy by importing more from its partners to bring down its big trade surplus.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker put it bluntly: “With France, we have a particular problem … The French spend too much money and they spend too much in the wrong places. This will not work over time,” Juncker said in Berlin.

The euro fell from six-month highs against the dollar on confirmation of Macron’s widely expected victory by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent, as investors took profit on a roughly 3 percent gain for the currency since he won the first round two weeks ago.

France’s economic malaise, especially high unemployment, had undermined the popularity of outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande to the point where he decided not even to run as a candidate.

“This year, I wanted Emmanuel Macron to be here with me so that a torch could be passed on,” said Hollande, who appeared with Macron at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Paris’ Arc de Triomphe to commemorate Victory in Europe Day and the surrender of Nazi forces on May 8, 1945 at the end of World War Two.

Elsewhere in Paris, hundreds of people, led by the powerful CGT trade union, marched in protest against Macron’s planned labor reforms.

PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY

On assuming office next Sunday as France’s youngest leader since Napoleon, the 39-year-old faces the immediate challenge of securing a majority in next month’s parliamentary election in order to have a realistic chance of implementing his plans for lower state spending, higher investment and reform of the tax, labor and pension systems.

With the two mainstream parties – the conservative Republicans and the left-wing Socialists – both failing to reach the presidential runoff, his chances of winning a majority that supports his election pledges will depend on him widening his centrist base.

The Socialists are torn between the radical left of their defeated candidate Benoit Hamon and the more centrist, pro-business branch led by former premier Manuel Valls.

On Monday, key members of the centrist arm of The Republicans appeared ready to work with Macron despite the party hierarchy calling for unity to oppose the new president and calling those that were wavering “traitors”.

“I can work in a government majority,” said Bruno Le Maire, a senior Republicans party official, who had been an aide of presidential candidate Francois Fillon.

“The situation is too serious for sectarianism and to be partisan.”

Le Pen, 48, defiantly claimed the mantle of France’s main opposition in calling on “all patriots to join us” in constituting a “new political force”.

Her tally was almost double the score that her father Jean-Marie, the last far-right candidate to make the presidential runoff, achieved in 2002, when he was trounced by the conservative Jacques Chirac.

(Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander, Andrew Callus, Bate Felix, Adrian Croft, Leigh Thomas, Tim Hepher, Gus Trompiz; Writing by Richard Balmforth and John Irish; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Ralph Boulton)

Iran reformists to back Rouhani re-election, though some voters grow cool

FILE PHOTO: Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi (L) meets with pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi in Tehran October 12, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran’s main pro-reform opposition leaders plan to speak out from their confinement under house arrest this month to publicly back President Hassan Rouhani for re-election, aides say, helping win over voters disillusioned with the slow pace of change.

Rouhani was elected in a landslide in 2013 on promises to ease Iran’s international isolation and open up society. He is standing for a second term against five other candidates, mostly prominent hardliners, on May 19, with a run-off a week later if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes cast in the first round.

In his first term, Rouhani expended his political capital pushing through a landmark agreement with global powers to limit Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions.

But even his supporters acknowledge he has made comparatively little progress on his domestic agenda, after promising that Iranians should enjoy the same rights as other people around the world.

Some reformist critics say he neglected the cause of curbing the powers of the security forces and rolling back restrictions that govern how Iranians dress, behave, speak and assemble.

Nevertheless, Iran’s two leading champions of the reform movement, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi, will urge voters to back him, a spokesman said.

“The two leaders, like in previous elections, will support the candidate backed by the pro-reform faction,” said Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, the Paris-based spokesman for the two men.

Another source close to the opposition leaders said “Mousavi and Karoubi will announce their support for Rouhani a few days before the May 19 vote.”

Rouhani has already won the backing of former President Mohammad Khatami, considered the spiritual leader of the reformists, who declared his support on his website on Tuesday. Iranian newspapers and broadcasters are banned from publishing the former president’s image or mentioning his name.

Many reformist voters will look for guidance to Mousavi and Karoubi, who both stood for president in 2009 when opposition to the disputed victory of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led to Iran’s biggest mass demonstrations since its 1979 revolution.

Both men have been held under house arrest for six years, although neither has been convicted of a crime. Their pronouncements from their confinement are eagerly followed by reformists online.

Maryam Zare, a 19-year-old in Tehran who would be voting for president for the first time, said she would vote only if she heard a call to do so from Karoubi and Mousavi.

“I will vote for whoever they support,” she said.

Others said they would back Rouhani, but only reluctantly.

“He is part of the establishment. We have to vote for the lesser of evils,” said music teacher Morad Behmanesh in the central city of Yazd. “What happened to Rouhani’s promises of releasing the two opposition leaders from house arrest?”

PRIORITIES

Under Iran’s governing system, the elected president’s powers are limited, circumscribed by the authority of the supreme leader, a position held since 1989 by hardline cleric Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

During Rouhani’s first term, the president won Khamenei’s cautious backing for his nuclear deal. But persuading the leader to accept social change may be a more difficult task.

Some of Rouhani’s allies say he will now be able to make more progress on his domestic agenda if he wins a clear, fresh mandate for another four-year term, which would prove to the hardliners that the public wants change.

“Iranians want to be free and live freely. They are not against the Islamic Republic. People will continue to fight for their rights,” a senior official in Rouhani’s government said on condition of anonymity.

But international rights groups and activists in Iran say there were few, if any, moves to bring about greater political and social freedoms during Rouhani’s first term. Dozens of activists, journalists, bloggers and artists were jailed on political grounds.

Rouhani often suggests that he has no control over such arrests, carried out by the mostly hardline judiciary and the Revolutionary Guards, a powerful military force.

“I have lost my hope over Rouhani’s ability to reform the country. His main focus has been economy, not improving civil rights,” said Reza, 28, a reformist who was jailed briefly after the 2009 election and asked that his surname not be published for security reasons.

The president has had some success on promises to loosen Internet restrictions, but access to social media remains officially blocked, although Rouhani, Khamenei and other officials have their own Twitter accounts.

Human Rights Watch said last year that Rouhani had failed to deliver on his promise of greater respect for civil and political rights. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in 2015 said that more journalists were in jail in Iran than any country other than China and Egypt.

The total number of political prisoners held in Iranian jails has not been disclosed. About a dozen people who also hold other nationalities have been jailed for what rights groups consider political offences.

“Whoever wins Iran’s presidential election should prioritize improving the country’s dismal human rights situation,” said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch.

“Iran has maintained the highest per capita execution rate in the world for years … it put 530 people to death last year, many for drug offences and a number of them minors.”

Rouhani benefits because reformist voters have no other choice on the ballot, where candidates are vetted by a hardline body.

Reformist voters will have to judge him in the context of what is possible under the system, said Saeed Leylaz, a prominent economist imprisoned under Ahmadinejad for criticising economic policy, who is now close to Rouhani’s government.

“Rouhani’s failure to fully deliver his promises on social reforms will impact the vote … but Iranians are well aware of his limitations and his achievements.”

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Peter Graff)