Ruling Party

The leadership of Egypt's ruling party resigned Saturday, a purge that would have been beyond Egyptians' imaginations a few short weeks ago but was unlikely to placate a hard-core opposition frustrated by what it sees as costume changes in the government of President Hosni Mubarak. The dismantling of the National Democratic Party's power structure is a dramatic indication of the pressure on new Vice President Omar Suleiman to remove the vestiges of Mubarak's power and snip the ambitions of his son Gamal, a deeply unpopular figure who was among those resigning their posts.

MOSCOW - In a sign that Russia's ruling party will face greater challenges when Vladimir Putin begins his third term as president, an independent candidate supported by the opposition won a landslide victory in a weekend mayoral election. The preliminary results announced Monday in the runoff election gave Yevgeny Urlashov, a charismatic 44-year-old lawyer, about 70% of the vote in the city of Yaroslavl, about 150 miles northeast of Moscow. He defeated a local tycoon from Putin's United Russia party.

This ancient city of congenial smiles is cranky. Scuffles and the boots of riot police rattle through streets ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections that are not likely to ease public anger over President Hosni Mubarak's squeaky, but powerful, political machine. There is no doubt the National Democratic Party will sweep to victory from the southern deserts to the Nile Delta. Egypt is not known for cliffhangers. Limits on political freedom and three decades of emergency law have turned party challengers into mere annoyances.

  In a race widely deemed his to lose, Enrique Peña Nieto's greatest hurdle may be his own party. Mexico'sformer ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, hopes to ride back to power behind its handsome young presidential candidate and a rejuvenated image. But new allegations of drug payoffs to a former PRI governor have shoved the party's often-shady legacy to the forefront of the campaign, reminding voters of the sort of graft that marked the party's rule before it was booted in 2000 after seven decades of near-absolute control.

An angry populace, a longtime ruler running scared, a major political shift in the making: You don't have to look for this combustible mix only in the Arab world. Voters in Ireland went to the polls Friday in elections that all indicators show will wreak a terrible vengeance on the country's ruling party, Fianna Fail, which has been in power for 61 of the last 79 years. Public outrage over a decimated economy and a humiliating international financial bailout has put the party on course for the worst electoral defeat in its history, a thrashing so thorough that analysts predict it will struggle to hold on to even a third of the parliamentary seats it won last time when final results become clear late Saturday or early Sunday.

Turkey's Islamist-leaning ruling party easily won municipal elections across most of the country Sunday but saw its overall margin of victory shrink and managed only a narrow win in Istanbul, the largest and most cosmopolitan city. The vote, a week before a planned visit by President Obama, highlighted the ongoing struggle between secular-minded Turks and their more devout compatriots. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, but since its founding has observed a strict separation of mosque and state.

In an election marred by boycotts and accusations of widespread fraud, Egypt's ruling party strengthened its hold on power by winning all but a few seats in the parliament, according to unofficial results announced Tuesday. The victory of the National Democratic Party was never in doubt, but its near-sweep of the legislature was a stunning defeat for the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement. The Islamist organization said it lost 62 of its 88 seats, with the remaining 26 to be decided in a runoff Sunday.

Japanese voters today handed a historic and humiliating defeat to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its half-century of nearly unbroken rule, opting for an untested opposition party that pledged to revive the nation's ailing economy. Signaling frustration over a declining quality of life, a record-high unemployment rate and unraveling social services, voters rebuked Prime Minister Taro Aso and a party that had dominated national politics here since the Eisenhower administration.

Tunisia's new interior minister on Sunday ordered the party of ousted President Zine el Abidine ben Ali to shut its offices and suspend all activities pending its formal dissolution as part of the purge of all vestiges of the former regime, state television reported. Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi, a former criminal court judge, has been a particularly zealous advocate of forcing former regime loyalists from power and has already purged his own ministry of top officials. He blamed members of the Constitutional Democratic Rally, the former ruling party, for a fresh outbreak of violence in the provinces that has left two dead in recent days.

The country's former ruling party announced the dissolution of its leadership committee and has voiced support for the new government, state television reported Thursday, as thousands rallied against the party in the capital and other cities. The national unity government also approved a blanket amnesty law for outlawed political parties and exiled dissidents, state television reported. In addition, all Cabinet members who were members of the former ruling party resigned from it. For 23 years, President Zine el Abidine ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally held sway over political and public life in Tunisia.

  The African National Congress expelled Julius Malema, the president of its youth wing, on Wednesday for sowing divisions and bringing disrepute to the South African ruling party. The controversial Malema clashed with the leadership of the ANC and lost. His problems are not over: Multiple investigations of his alleged financial misdeeds are underway. Wednesday's decision is subject to appeal but, if upheld, would leave Malema little alternative but to start his own party.

Writer Vladimir Voinovich has spent decades skewering Russia's bureaucracy and power structure — and in some cases predicting the future with uncanny accuracy. Soviet officials punished him by stripping him of his citizenship in 1980 and expelling him. Six years later, writing from exile, he published the novel "Moscow 2042. " It described a shrunken, post-Soviet Russia run by a former KGB spy who had been stationed in Germany. That was years before Vladimir Putin, a former spy based in Germany, actually did rise to power.

Manuel Fraga Iribarne, 89, a blunt-talking politician who founded Spain's ruling conservative party and was the last surviving minister from Gen. Francisco Franco's right-wing regime, died Sunday of heart failure at his Madrid home, according to the Spanish news agency Europa Press. In a career spanning 60 years, Fraga served as Franco's information and tourism minister and as Spain's interior minister after the dictator died in 1975. He helped write the country's post-Franco, democratic Constitution that was passed in 1978 when democracy was restored.

Thousands of Russians took to the streets here Monday to voice their anger at polling irregularities they fear will allow the ruling party to maintain control of parliament's lower house, despite a relatively weak showing in elections Sunday. Accusations of ballot stuffing and voter fraud were voiced by the demonstrators as well as international observers, on a day when election officials said preliminary results could give the United Russia party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev 238 seats in the 450-seat State Duma, with over 49% of the vote.

Russia's ruling party appeared to have lost significant support among voters and was barely winning a majority in the lower house of parliament, according to exit polls and preliminary ballot counts in elections held Sunday. With 85% of the ballots counted, the United Russia party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev was leading its rivals with about 50% of the vote, far below the 64% it won in 2007. The Communist Party trailed with almost 20% of the vote, followed by Just Russia, with about 13%, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, with about 12%. If the totals hold up, the results will be a stinging defeat for Putin, who has announced plans to run for president early next year.

The ruling African National Congress pushed a secrecy law through Parliament on Tuesday over the objections of Nobel laureates, opposition politicians and editors who complained that it will have a chilling effect on whistle-blowers and investigative journalism in a country rife with corruption. Critics said the law, which makes it illegal to reveal state secrets, lacks a provision allowing a legal defense for acting in the public interest by exposing criminality, corruption or incompetence.

Pakistan's ruling party demanded an apology for an alleged CIA airstrike that killed at least 17 people. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, condemned the strike on a village near the Afghan border, which intelligence officials said targeted Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant. Aziz said he was scheduled to leave today for the United States to talk about security issues and meet with business leaders.

Despite stagnant wages and growing inflation, Aruba's ruling party kept its majority in parliament as islanders voted on all 21 seats, election officials reported. Prime Minister Nelson Oduber's People's Electoral Movement won 43% of the vote and 11 seats in Friday's election, while the main opposition Aruban People's Party won 33% and eight seats. The ruling party previously held a 12-6 edge over the main opposition.

Manfred Gerlach Last East German head of state Manfred Gerlach, 83, who was the last head of state of East Germany, died Monday in a Berlin hospital after a long illness, his family and friends told the German media. When the once-monolithic East German power structure began crumbling before the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, Gerlach won the support of ordinary East Germans for speaking out against the ruling party and the oppression of anti-communist activists.

India's ruling Congress party, facing one of its biggest political crises in years, spent much of Wednesday negotiating with Anna Hazare, a popular anti-corruption activist who refused to leave his jail cell until he reached a deal early Thursday. The negotiators' task wasn't helped by tens of thousands of his supporters, who gathered in cities and towns across India, chanting, banging pots, waving flags and holding candlelight vigils in support of the septuagenarian devotee of Mohandas Gandhi.