The need for physical distancing during this COVID-19 pandemic has raised the need for innovative campaign methods to be developed by election contestants because conventional campaign methods such as rallies, public meetings, etc. are prohibited in some jurisdictions. Distant and online election campaigning may be seen as restrictive to both contestants and voters alike due to physical and technological barriers that appear. To what degree is this true?
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The Parliamentary Centre, in collaboration with International IDEA, is organizing a conversation useful for Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and Canadian foreign and development policy thinkers to ensure support for women's political voice, inclusive democratic institutions and human rights remain at the heart of Canada’s COVID-19 response.
As part of the initiative on the e-Parliament strategy, specialised consultants and stakeholders recommended the Parliament of Bhutan to build a series of focussed, high-impact services which will overtime led to an adaptive and evolving e-Parliament. The primary recommendation entails a significant investment in people and a local ICT capability.
Popular uprisings, protests and unconstitutional regime changes are common characteristics of political change and political life in Africa. The decade 2011–2021 has seen a wave of popular uprisings slamming against the bedrock of long-established autocratic regimes.
Mientras África navega por este súper año de elecciones, la integridad electoral y de la información y los derechos de voto se verán presionados debido a la naturaleza de suma cero de la política africana.
As Africa navigates this super year of elections, election and information integrity and voting rights will come under pressure due to the zero-sum nature of Africa's politics.
This Discussion Paper reviews the performance of 16 lobbying registers according to 3 interlinked dimensions: (a) transparency; (b) regulatory capacity; and (c) interoperability. Under ‘transparency’, the paper examines the scope of lobbying information collected by the register in question, as well as how that information is administered and subsequently disclosed.
The 9 January election in Bhutan saw the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by a seasoned political leader, Dasho Tshering Tobgay, returned to the government after being ousted in the 2018 elections. As part of its electoral process, Bhutan has two rounds of elections.
The recently concluded workshops on Media Literacy Training and Effective Communication Skills held in Paro for members of the National Council of Bhutan (NCB) and secretariat staff have ushered in promising outcomes for the nation's democratic processes.
As political campaigning in the lead-up to elections has moved online, parties and candidates have found new and innovative methods for connecting with voters. However, new challenges have multiplied, with the regulation and oversight authorities struggling to keep up. Campaign communications are increasingly opaque online, thus enabling harmful mis- and disinformation to influence electoral narratives.
The Honorable Members and secretarial staff of the National Council of Bhutan attended a weeklong training program aimed at improving the use of public hearings—a formal proceeding designed to receive testimony from all stakeholders—in the house proceedings to improve oversight, scrutiny, and public engagement.
Under the theme of ‘Taking Parliament to the People’, International IDEA and Bhutan’s Parliamentary Secretariat jointly hosted a three-day workshop for members and staff of the country’s parliament. Held from 20-22 May 2022, the workshop was designed to increase the use of public hearings in Bhutan’s parliamentary process.
On the evening of 15 February 2022, reports emerged that key police and military officials in Djibouti were put under house arrest, reportedly amid fears of a coup d’état. This was the latest in the string of successful and attempted coups in Africa—from Mali to M
A five-day workshop was held in October 2021 for 22 secretariat staff of the National Assembly (NA) and National Council (NC), the two parliamentary houses of Bhutan. The workshop aimed at identifying the Parliament of Bhutan’s communication needs and explore opportunities of leveraging new possibilities provided by the mainstream and social media platforms for effective parliamentary communications.
The number of democracies in the Americas remains the same as two years ago despite the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, most of the democracies in the region demonstrated great resilience in the face of the pandemic. Parliaments, the judiciary and the media of most democracies in the region managed to adapt and continue to exercise their control functions, even in the midst of numerous restrictions that hampered their work.
On 15 August, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a snap election. This September election, a full two years before the next elections were due, was an opportunistic move. As leader of the Liberal Party, Trudeau had been governing with a plurality (but not a majority) of the seats in the House of Commons since 2019. In the summer of 2021, the Liberal Party was polling well, and the election call was an attempt to translate that polling support into a majority government.
The G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad) will organize elections in 2020 and 2021.
These elections will take place in a context in which all are facing serious humanitarian and security challenges, aggravated by the fragility of their institutions. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its socio-economic impacts worsen the situation and even raise questions about the possibility to organize elections in so volatile an environment.
Identifying obstacles and focusing on long-term solutions to propose strategies for equal representation
The health of a democracy can be measured from the engagement of its citizenship. In Bhutan, this wisdom is well received because it is traditionally accepted that citizens have to contribute towards the welfare of the communities and the society they live in. Previously, this contribution took varied forms, including active and regulated voluntary services.
Centre-left Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) will form the third elected government of Bhutan following Lotay Tshering’s win in the 18 October parliamentary election. With the ruling People’s Democratic Party eliminated in the first of the two rounds of the election, the country voted between DNT and the Druk Phunsum Tshogpa (DPT), which governed between 2008-2013.