Elections Follow

The ballot papers for the general secretary and national executive positions in the University and College Union (UCU) are due to be sent out next week. The ballot runs from 7 February to 7 March.

Respect is encouraging supporters from across north west England to come to Preston on Sunday 28 January to campaign for May’s council elections.

Respect members in Birmingham have started selecting candidates for the May council elections. In each ward one council seat out of three is up for re-election.

May 2007 sees the next elections to the Scottish Parliament.

Hugo Chavez has once again been elected to the presidency of Venezuela with just under 62 percent of the total vote, an increase on previous elections and referendums. More than ever, it was an election posed in stark class terms.

The elections of 23 November resulted in a historic breakthrough for the Socialist Party (SP). For the first time, parties to the left of Labour received a combined vote higher than Labour itself. The SP is now the third biggest party in parliament. All the ruling parties have lost seats and none of their planned coalitions will be able to form a majority government.

Left wing candidate Rafael Correa looks set to become Ecuador’s president following elections last Sunday.

Elections for the Scottish Parliament take place next May. Recent opinion polls suggest that 51 percent of Scots support independence and that 36 percent of them would vote for the Scottish National Party (SNP) against 29 percent for Labour.

Suddenly, debate on both sides of the Atlantic centres on what was once seen as impossible – withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq.

The growing crisis faced by the US occupation of Iraq was the key issue in midterm elections, taking place in the US as Socialist Worker went to press.

The consequences of the occupation of Iraq came home to US president George Bush this week as his Republican Party suffered major defeats across the US in Congress elections. Until very late in the campaign, Bush was seen as a pariah for his own party’s candidates.

There is a real chance that the Democrats will win both Houses of Congress in the US mid-term elections on Tuesday of next week. This would reverse the historic defeat they suffered in 1994 at the hands of Newt Gingrich’s "Republican revolution".