Republic of Congo: Opposition Alliance

"There are other (parties) which will be coming along", said B Jean-Jacques Serge Yhombi-Opango b , the RDD's vice president and son of the party's founder, who died from Covid-19 in 2020. Three opposition parties in the Republic of Congo have joined forces ahead of the next elections, for which veteran hardline leader B Denis Sassou Nguesso b is a potential candidate. The Alliance for Democratic Change in 2026, unveiled on April 13th, brings together three parties that have grassroots support but no legislative seats. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social & Cultural Series is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Intertwined Geographies of the Pandemic and the U.S. Presidential Election of 2020: COVID-19 Prevalence and Donald Trump

For all, 2020 was beyond extra ordinary. While at the start of 2020 much of the world was transfixed on Donald Trump and the upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States, a virus began emerging in China. In the early months of 2020, the term's coronavirus or COVID-19, would become too familiar and by March 2020 as the world faced the first major Pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918. In the U.S., the reactions and beliefs about the ferocity of the virus and the mitigation strategies to halt the spread became deeply entangled in the nation's already highly partisan political divides. This chapter will focus on the impacts of COVID-19 on the 2020 presidential election. Specifically, this chapter will provide a temporal and spatial representation of COVID-19 on the 2020 election cycle from the presidential primaries, to the presidential campaigns, the November 3, 2020 election, and ending with the January 20, 2021 inauguration of newly elected President Joe Biden. It was clear, after the election distinct spatial patterns between COVID-19 rates and partisan preference were identifiable. In general, higher rates of COVID-19 correlated with higher support for Donald Trump. Maps and statistical analyses complement the investigation of a uniquely intertwined political geography between the spread of COVID-19 and American electoral politics. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Race, poverty and unemployment as quantitative predictors of voter turnout in St. Louis amidst COVID-19 and a racial justice movement

PurposeThe 2020 election season brought with it a global public health pandemic and a reenergized racial justice movement. Given the social context of the intertwined pandemics of COVID-19 and racialized violence, do the traditional predictors of voter turnout – race, poverty rates and unemployment rates – remain significant?Design/methodology/approachUsing county-level, publicly available data from twelve Midwest states with similar demographic and cultural characteristics, voter turnout in St. Louis City and St. Louis County were predicted using race, poverty rates and unemployment rates.FindingsFindings demonstrate that despite high concentration of poverty rates and above average percentages of Black residents, voter turnout was significantly higher than predicted. Additionally, findings contradict previous studies that found higher unemployment rates resulted in higher voter participation rates.Originality/valueThis study suggests that the threat of COVID-19 and fear of an increase in police violence may have introduced physical risk as a new theoretical component to rational choice theory for the general election in 2020.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Presidential Tweets, the U.S.–U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Humanitarian Intervention, and China's Bilateral Relations

" Words Matter: Presidents Obama and Trump, Twitter, and U.S. Soft Power. Graph [9] concentrate on the issues that soured the initial optimism for a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement between President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson which did not come to its planned fruition by 2020. EN Social Media Foreign Policy Twitter Soft Power Obama Trump Boris Johnson Humanitarian Intervention President Clinton Bosnia Kosovo China Sri-Lanka Kazakhstan South Korea ASEAN Sub-Saharan Africa Information Technology. NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Presidential Tweets, the U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Humanitarian Intervention, and China's Bilateral Relations. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of World Affairs is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The Pandemic in Belarus in 2020-21: COVID-19 in the Shadow of Politics

The situation with COVID-19 in Belarus has been unique compared to other countries in the region since its very inception in February 2020. When the first case was registered the problem of a purely medical character barged into the realities of the authoritarian regime, leading to a mass decrease in its popularity, and spurring a social solidarity movement with physicians. At the same time, 2020 was the year of the presidential election in Belarus that caused a deep political crisis and made the COVID-19 topic disappear from people's consciousness because both society and representatives of the state machine were concerned not by the virus, but by repressions, prospects of the ruling power, and their own future. For one thing, we ought to note that the figures of those who fell ill, recovered, and died, which are presented by data provided by the Health Ministry should not be trusted. We explain in the "State statistics: Trust issues” section of the chapter. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Pandemic Democracy in Manipur: By Elections and Covid-19

This article provides an initial assessment of the many risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the conduct of genuine and transparent elections in Manipur. It begins with explaining why elections are a vital part of democracy and then using the notion of the electoral cycle, constructs a risk matrix that assesses the relative impact and likelihood of risks to the cycle, as well as proposes a number of potential mitigations to these risks. The root cause of the by-elections in Manipur is to be the election of the Rajya Sabha which held on June 19, 2020 by indulging in cross voting in favour of BJP candidate. There is a clear that the rise of Covid-19 cases be increased during the democratic process of by-elections such as, mass rallies, congregation etc. without maintaining SOPs. The number of elections dimensions of the electoral cycle that can be disrupted and the need for solution raises significant questions about the future of democracy itself.Copyright © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.