World press on elections in Iran, Armenia and Russia (May 5-6, 2012)

The Washington Post reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s support in Iran’s parliament crumbled as final results released Saturday showed conservative rivals consolidating their hold on the legislative body in a runoff vote. Iran has touted a robust turnout for Friday’s vote as a show of support for the country’s religious leadership in its confrontation with the West over the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program. The result is also a new humiliation for Ahmadinejad, whose political decline started last year with his bold but failed challenge of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the choice of intelligence chief. Ahmadinejad’s opponents had already won an outright majority in the 290-member legislature in the first round of voting in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs in Friday’s runoff election, Ahmadinejad’s opponents won 41 while the president’s supporters got only 13 seats. Independents won 11, according to final results reported Saturday by state media.

The same agency published the article headlined “Vladi¬mir Putin returns to Russian presidency weaker than when he left it.” It says that Vladimir Putin returns to the Russian presidency Monday in the throne room of the czars, now a dangerously weakened autocrat. The protests of December shook his all-powerful countenance, setting off machinations by the powers behind him who are intent on preserving their authority and privilege despite demands for democracy and reform. That conflict portends difficult and uncertain days for Russia, with Putin pressured to display more muscle than compromise. By March, when he was elected president with a reported 64 percent of the vote, doubts had appeared about his legitimacy. Now, few expect anything but a long, tumultuous road for democratic reform. Many fear turmoil. No one knows what lies ahead after Monday’s inauguration for what now is a six-year presidential term. If Putin antagonizes the hard-liners, an assortment of security and military industrial insiders among them, he risks plots against him. If he cannot quiet the protests, he courts a popular upheaval.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's three-day trip to India, starting Sunday after a weekend stop in Bangladesh, comes amid reduced expectations and political distraction on both sides and a relationship increasingly marked by incremental movement on a variety of issues. Though India remains an important ally, few big-ticket nuclear and defense deals that the United States had hoped for have materialized. India is wary of becoming too closely aligned with the U.S. to the detriment of its relations with Russia and Iran. And politics, including the U.S. presidential campaign and the growing weakness of India's Congress Party-led government, has limited the scope of agreements.

The Turkish information agency Hurriyet published the article subtitled “Armenia heads to polls amid claims of foul play.” It says that Armenians are poised to cast their votes on May 6 in a parliamentary election that looks set to become a battle for supremacy between the governing party and its current coalition partner, led by an ultra-rich former arm wrestling champion. Opinion polls suggest that President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party, which currently controls the majority of seats in Parliament, is ahead of its ally in the outgoing coalition – the Prosperous Armenia Party, led by millionaire tycoon and former arm wrestler Gagik Tsarukian. Authorities have pledged an unprecedentedly clean contest for the 131-seat National Assembly in the mountainous country of 3.3 million people. The general perception among the public, however, tells a different story.

The same agency reported that As NATO prepares to announce the completion of the first important phase of its ambitious nuclear missile defense system during the alliance’s Chicago summit this month, Turkey’s decision last September to host the early warning radar system for the shield has proved to be a turning point in the government’s relations with the West, said Professor Mustafa Aydın, the rector of Kadir Has University. Aydın is also the head of the International Relations Council, which has been organizing brain-storming meetings on security issues in several cities throughout Turkey on the occasion of Turkey’s 60th year of NATO membership. By hosting the radars, “the government chooses its side. It gives the message to the world that Turkey will continue to act with the West,” he said. Meanwhile with his recent statement that Turkey will lead the wave of change in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has announced the end of the “zero problems with neighbors” policy.