I haven’t followed this closely, but the apparent agreement of President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition to create a prime minister position may go a long way to defusing this matter.
As a matter of fact though, it’s pretty clear that Kibaki only won the election through fraud.
That’s what the Hillary Clinton Campaign has spent on consultants.
These folks are over appreciated, over paid, and over here. It needs to stop.
Go fee for service, and cut that fee. The Republicans have, and it’s a policy that works.
I’m not sure if his decision to run is hubris, or just the recognition that once he is out of power, lots of people will be eager to drop a dime on him.
Should be fun.
Note that this does not take them to the 2/3 necessary to amend the constitution or to remove Musharraf, but with a few smaller participating, they would be there.
Musharrar’s days are numbered.
The military was unwilling to stuff ballot boxes for him, and now the anti-Musharraf parties are talking coalition, and it looks like they will make it to the 2/3 necessary to remove him.
Musharraf has been hopeless on terror, buttressing his support, now gone, with Pakistani military rather than engaging in meaningful antiterror operations, so good riddance.
If the fat lady isn’t singing, at least she is doing vocal exercises in preparation to going on stage.
By about 11%.
Mark Penn is a moron.
It appears that Musharraf’s party has been absolutely crushed in Pakistani elections, here and here, and that there is now growing pressure for him to resign – USATODAY.com.
There are still some seats outstanding, but right now, the Pakistan People’s Party ( Benizir Bhutto) has won 87 seats, the Muslim League-N party (Nawaz Sharif) has won 66 seats, and Musharraf’s Muslim League-Q won only 38 seats.
There are 272 seats in the Pakistani National Assembly, so they need 137 for a majority, and 181 for the 2/3 vote to remove Musharraf, and t gether the parties have 155 seats right now.
There is a question as to whether the PPP and MLN can work together though, they are like the hatfield and the McCoys.
He is not running, but there is aDraft Lessig effort going on, and to this point, the potential candidate has been non-committal.
Congress needs someone who understands that the IP system has run amok, and better still that he would be from California, which typically produces legislators in the pockets of the movie and record industries.
Human Rights Watch has released a tape of an interview with the Pakistani AG saying this.
It appears that they were conducting a phone interview, and than Attorney General Malik Qayyum initiated a second phone call without terminating the first, and he was recorded saying, “They will massively rig to get their own people to win.”
Oops.
It appears fairly likely from the whole conversation that the “they” in question is Pervez Musharraf’s Pakistan Muslim League-Q party.
I think that Hillary got the better deal.
In any case, they finally finished counting the vote in New Mexico, and Romney endorses McCain.
Donna Edwards trounced corporate whore Al Wynn in MD-4, getting something over 50% in PG county, and over 60% in Montgomery county, which is about 1/3 of the district.
Gilchrist appears to have lost in a 3-way race by about 6% in MD-1, with state senator Andy Harris getting the nod in the largely Eastern Shore district.
Al Wynn is a bad, bad, man, both personally (won’t go into it) and politically (voted for the Terry Schiavo intervention), in addition to be horrifically bad at constituent service. There is no reason for a Bush Dog in one of the most reliably Democratic districts in the country.
As to MD-1, I think that Harris is a much better chance of a pickup than Gilchrist.
With one exception, paper ballots, Harris is positively Neanderthal (We really are talking Fred Flintstone here), and the Eastern shore has always been a bastion of relatively moderate Republicanism, so Harris is more vulnerable than a multi-term incumbent known for his relative liberalism.
On the Dem side, it will be Frank Kratovil, about whom I know nothing.
In MD-6, which is Western, and very conservative, Maryland, Jennifer Dogherty will Run against Roscoe Bartlett, she’s a former Mayor of Frederick, so hopefully she will be competitive. Bartlett is old, and this is not a Republican year.
The fact that she beat Andy Duck in the primary, and he has ran in, and had built on his organization from the previous election, indicates that she will run a good campaign, but it still a long shot.
That’s 29 in the past 13 months.
I guess that they have discovered it’s less fun to be anvil than hammer.*
*Quoting Goethe: Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein (“You must be Anvil or Hammer”)†
†OK, I’m actually quoting Patrick McGoohan’s marvelous serise, The Prisoner. I’m not that literate.
I’m hearing the fat lady warm up.
That’s what the election worker said when she opened the door about 5 minutes ahead of voting starting, and saw 12 of us waiting.
My guess is that she thought it was a lot of people. I know that she is a regular, I saw here in the previous primary and the general.
In my Maryland, in addition to the Congressional primary (and some unopposed judges in my district), you vote for the candidate, and 4 women and 3 men delegates.
One of the men was my friend Noel, who was uncommitted, who I voter for.
It appears that the Washington State Republican committee is doing its level best to fix the result of their caucuses.
The State Republican Party declared a victor with only 87.2% of the votes counted, despite the fact that the spread between McCain and Huckabee is only 1.8%.
The reason given by the Chair of the state party?
Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn’t said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses.
Huckabee is protesting and sending lawyers, additionally, he’s evoking the USSR in this matter:
I would also note that this is just plain stupid. It potentially takes a couple of delegates from Huckabee, but he makes it a cause celebre for Huckabee supporters, shoots holes in McCain’s “straight shooter” myth, and is the easiest possible way to split the party.
Why, yes, I am feeling some glee regarding the discomfort that this is causing!
This is obviously not a good sign for the campaign. It indicates some level of disarray and rebuilding within the campaign.
Besides, they should have gotten rid of Mark Penn first.
Good.
Al Wynn is corrupt, ineffective, and a horrible person, and his campaign has been despicable.
Any democrat who voted to intervene in the Terry Schiavo, as Al Wynn did, case needs to be out of a job.