Abdoulaye Wade subverted the democratic process by tweaking the rules on being allowed to run a third time, and then badly mistimed his attempt to change the rules to give him a chance of winning the election. He attempted to get the threshold for ‘winning’ in the first round to be just 25% to become president. His timing for the constitutional change was not ideal - just when the Arab Spring was kicking off.

It looks like his time is over, even though he won the largest share of the vote on the first round. Next round it will be “Anyone but Wade” driving the elections.

Fortunately the country does not have a history of violence, coups, etc. Fingers crossed it stays that way :)

Even if the election is not too far away, the situation is extremely unstable for Putin’s United Russia, the party of blatant election fraud.

How this plays out… don’t know. The problem is not Putin per se, but the entire system. The opposition is Kremlin appointed - so there is no real opposition. The system at the top has become rotten.

How to change? Double elections in 2012? One run now, and then run a new parliamentary election, forced on the new president in some way? Knock out blow to Putin in the elections in March? Tricky? Strategy will be needed… where is a good-guy Rasputin when you need him… ;)

Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ created terrorists / and the impression that anything associated in any way with Islam is automatically bad. Wrong-headed thinking. Congrats to Tunisia for running a good election, and good luck on the next stage of creating a stronger, fairer society with opportunities for all.