Honduran election campaigns clouded by crisis

A bitter four-month dispute over who is president has left many Hondurans too jaded with politics to care about voting for their next leader.

A June coup that toppled President Manuel Zelaya and cut Honduras off from international aid has dampened interest in the November 29 presidential election, which some countries say they won’t recognize unless Zelaya is restored first.

Survey: Palestinians Have Little Faith In International Law

A global public opinion poll has found that Palestinians, Pakistanis and Iraqis have relatively little faith in international law.

The survey, conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, found that citizens in 17 of the 21 nations polled feel that their country should follow international law regardless of national interests. The majority of those surveyed felt that international legal bodies were fair and impartial.

Over 20,000 people were surveyed in 21 countries representing 64 percent of the world’s population.

On average, 57 percent of those polled felt their governments “should consistently follow international laws,” even if the government “thinks it is not in our nation’s interest.”

In the Middle East, support for international law was strongest in Egypt, where support for international over national law was 63 percent, six points above the global average, and faith in international legal institutions was 67 percent, well above the global average of 54 percent.

Respondents in Iraq, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories, however, were relatively sceptical of international law and legal institutions.

Only 38 percent of Pakistanis said their national interest justifies violating international law, almost 20 points below the global average and the lowest percentage of all countries surveyed.

Palestinians, the survey found, were divided on the question of international law versus national law, with 50 percent of respondents saying international law should always take precedence. An even smaller percentage of Palestinians had faith in the fairness of international legal bodies and only 18 percent of Palestinians felt they were more supportive of abiding by international law than their compatriots. This was the lowest figure in all the countries surveyed.

Dr Nabil Kukali is the director of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and ran the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll in the Palestinian territories.

“The majority of Palestinians are not so confident that international law will be fair to them,” Dr Kukali told The Media Line. “They feel there is an international wall when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and that’s the reason the majority of Palestinians are less supportive than the other countries.”

“The questions that needs to be asked is what Palestinians think of international law in regard to anything outside of Palestine,” said Dr Kukali. “My guess is that for anything outside of the country, Palestinians feel that international law and the international court is working. But when it comes to the Palestinian Israeli conflict, it doesn’t work.”

Field work for the WorldPublicOpinion.org survey was done between April 4 and July 9, 2009, well ahead of the release of Judge Richard Goldstone’s report on last years Gaza War to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Dr Kukali argued that the report, which said war crimes had been committed during the war by both Israel and Hamas, may have changed Palestinian opinions of international law.

“I think if we retook the poll now Palestinians would be more supportive of international law,” he said. “I think now people are starting to think international law might actually do something for them.”

The poll found that only 39 percent of Iraqis had faith in international courts, the lowest figure of all countries surveyed.

Dr. Haitham Numan, Director of the Asharq Research Center, which ran the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll in Iraq, said that Iraqis been repeatedly disappointed by the international community.

“There are many reasons Iraqis don’t believe in following international law,” Dr Numan told The Media Line. “International law did very little for the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein. The old regime under Saddam built a culture which perceives the international community as controlled by the U.S. and people completely lost their faith in the international community after the sanctions destroyed the economy and really hurt the people, but not the regime.”

“Also the recent U.S. invasion of Iraq was completely illegal,” Dr Numan said. “So Iraqis say ‘if international law is not followed by the world’s most powerful country, what use is it?’”

“So to be honest, the 46 percent support for international law was even higher than I expected,” Dr Numan added. “I would have expected 20 to 25 percent of the people to have faith in international law.”

WorldPublicOpinion.org is a collaborative project between research centers around the world and is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Abbas doesn’t want to run for January re-election

The Palestinian president says he doesn’t want to run for re-election in the January balloting.

Mahmoud Abbas says the stalemate in peace negotiations with Israel prompted his decision not to run again.

He charged the U.S. with backtracking on its Mideast policy and refusing to press Israel to freeze construction in its West Bank settlements.

Iraq lawmakers can’t agree on election law… again

Iraqi lawmakers failed Thursday to agree on an election law for the country’s January vote, raising concerns the balloting may be delayed and in turn push back a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Iraq’s election law has been stalled for weeks as lawmakers argue over who should be allowed to vote in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, claimed by both Arabs and Kurds. Lawmakers said they would meet again Saturday. One said it would not be a big problem to delay the January election by a few days.

Northern Mariana Islands readies for elections

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is preparing for general elections this Saturday.

They will determine the next elected governor, who will be the first to rule the islands under an American federalised immigration system.

The Commonwealth Election Commission mailed ballot papers to more than 2,000 absentee voters, and expects more than 14,000 registered voters to go to polling stations.

The polls will elect the CNMI’s next governor, lieutenant-governor, senators and congressmen, and representatives to different boards and municipal councils.

Four candidates, including incumbent governor Benigno R. Fitial, are vying to become the next governor of the Northern Marianas.

Mr Fitial expects a run-off election because a law now mandates the winner must have a 50 percent plus 1 of the votes cast.

If re-elected, he says he will continue to fight the law mandating the United States to apply its immigration laws on the islands.

Klaus expected to sign Lisbon ‘within days’

The Czech government expects President Václav Klaus to sign the Lisbon Treaty into law “within days”, a government source told EurActiv after the Czech Constitutional Court announced today (3 November) that the treaty is compatible with the Czech constitution.

The government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the court’s decision – Klaus’s last condition for signing the treaty – removed the only remaining obstacle for him to sign it into law and complete EU-wide ratification.

Mozambique’s Guebuza seen as landslide polls winner

Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza was declared the “landslide” winner of last week’s polls by two election monitoring groups on Monday.

Frelimo, Mozambique’s ruling party since independence in 1975, had 71 percent of the vote with 89 percent of polling stations reporting, said the Center for Public Integrity and the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa.

Afghan election commission declares Karzai winner

Afghanistan’s election commission proclaimed President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country’s tumultuous ballot Monday, canceling a planned runoff and ending a political crisis that began with a fraud-marred first round two and a half months ago.

The Obama administration has anxiously been waiting for a government deemed legitimate to emerge in Kabul before announcing whether to deploy tens of thousands more American troops to fight the burgeoning insurgency.

Iraq’s Sunnis seen divided in coming election

Iraq’s Sunnis have failed to form a united bloc to contest the coming election and instead have joined cross-sectarian alliances that may have stark implications for the Sunni Islamist insurgency, analysts say.

A Sunni boycott of the last national poll in 2005 and the rise to dominance of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority boosted resentment at their loss of power following the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and helped fuel the still-active insurgency.

Afghan election commission says runoff canceled

The chief officer on Afghanistan’s election commission says Saturday’s presidential runoff has been canceled.

Daoud Ali Najafi gave no details, but a second senior official on the commission also confirmed the second round has been called off.

President Hamid Karzai had already effectively secured a second term when his only challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the race Sunday because he said the vote would not be free or fair. The first round was marred by massive fraud.