Word: referendums
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...regional voting in Venezuela on Sunday was ostensibly about gubernatorial and mayoral contests. But for the past decade, every election held in the Western hemisphere's richest oil nation has boiled down to one thing - a referendum on left-wing President Hugo Chávez. The balloting this time was no different. The bottom line: Did Chávez's party win big enough for him to rebound from a stunning defeat in last year's constitutional plebiscite? That vote reaffirmed the presidential term limits that Chávez had hoped to eliminate - and he needed a huge win this...
...making process, but Tibetans' reverence for him has inhibited many of them from speaking out in any way that might challenge his authority. "This is the problem with having God as your leader," says Tsering Shakya, a professor of modern Tibetan history at the University of British Columbia. A referendum in the early 1990s on whether to give the Dalai Lama a mandate to follow his "Middle Path," seeking autonomy within China, resulted in such overwhelming support that some Tibetans doubted that it was a true expression of democracy. "People were upset by that," says Robbie Barnett, a professor...
...signatures, or 2% of the province's population (as required by law). After the Commission publicizes the official request through the media this week, its backers must garner an additional 139,200 signatures to meet the required 10% of the province's voting population in order to call a referendum. The central government is then obliged to hold the vote within 15 days. "If we get 51% of the votes, Basra will become a region," al-Fadel says...
...Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently called for amendments to Iraq's constitution to strengthen the central government's power at the expense of the country's 18 provinces. This week, Maliki's rivals in the southern Shi'ite bastion of Basra submitted a petition demanding a referendum in the oil-soaked province aimed to turning it into a semi-autonomous federal region akin to Kurdistan...
...present in the 37-member Cabinet, three stayed away from Sunday's vote, two grudgingly gave their conditional approval and one - the Minister for Women's Affairs, Dr. Nawal al-Samarrei - voted against the measure because it did not agree to put the pact to a referendum, a key demand of the Tawafuk Front. The front is the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc with 44 of the legislature's 275 seats. "If Tawafuk says no, that means the Sunnis say no," said party spokesman Omar Almashhadani. "We prefer that the U.N. mandate be extended or the Iraqi government agree...