Elections are a much simpler process in a single-party system. Of course. As the president, you designate who you want to succeed to you, and “boom”, you’re done.
You’re allowed to designate your brother (as in the case of Raul Castro), your son (as Bashar Al-Asad in Syria) or even yourself for eternity (as the “Eternal President of the Republic” in North Korea).
In those cases, elections (if any …) are quite straight-forward. Declare who will replace you, have people vote for your protégé (or imprisoned as independent lawyers and judges in Pakistan during the 2008 elections, or killed as some political opponents in Guatemala for the 2007 elections, …), and you’re done. Continue reading ‘Russia’s edge over the U.S. primaries: the single-party system’
Squash is my preferred sport. It’s a complete burst of energy, it needs agility, strength, endurance, perseverance, and A LOT OF FUEL to burn. The average rally is of 7 to 12 seconds for a normal / pro player, and the average distance is around 1,000 meters/yards per game. I usually play 8 to 12 games in a 90 minutes period. On average, the active part of the game is around 55%. So bottom line, I sprint like crazy for 50mn and cover a distance of 8km to 12km (5 to 7.5 miles) in that period.
Continue reading ‘Barack and Hillary should play squash’
I was away last week-end for four days, and look what happens when I’m gone !
The Pakistani legislative elections last Monday were a key turn in Pakistan (officially the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”) politics as President General Pervez Musharraf saw his government falling to the opposition. Cooperation with the U.S. highly in question …. As a reminder, Musharraf didn’t win the presidency through traditional elections, but launched a coup d’Etat in October 1999. Musharraf has been working closely with the U.S. against terrorism, as Pakistan has a border with Afghanistan and Iran.
Continue reading ‘So I leave for 4 days and look what happens !’
Yesterday, during the “Potomac Tuesday“, we saw Barack Obama pass Hillary Clinton again in the race to the nomination at the Democratic convention.
Continue reading ‘1,312 delegates to go !’
Half a billion in advertising
The subject of the candidates’ campaigns finance and budgets have been discussed a lot recently. I decided to dig a little deeper, checking the previous elections as well as the ratios to their success (or failures …). Here is the spreadsheet I created.
Continue reading ‘A $572M absurdity: the presidential campaigns fundraising’
Notes: all figures are from February 7th, 10am
As said yesterday, I started doing some maths on the ratios, averages, representations of each Democratic candidate during the super-tuesday. My aim was to illustrate what I claimed two days ago: all votes are not equal.
Continue reading ‘Doing my math on the delegates’ count: WTF ??!!’
Following yesterday’s post on the difference between super-delegates and pledged delegates and the fact that the number of delegates per State is not linear (proportional) from one state to another, I am analyzing the results of Super-Tuesday and discover some strange numbers. I will post as soon as the results of yesterday primaries are officials.
Continue reading ‘Who really won Super-Tuesday ? The Super-Delegates.’
Read also: how much does a delegate cost ? The candidates’ campaigns’ budgets.
How many delegates per state ?
I raised the question here earlier on how the number of delegates was calculated for each state. And I didn’t really find an answer, besides the fact that the method was obscure and complicated - and not really democratic. And I am not the only one to say that … Continue reading ‘All delegates are equal, but some are more equal than others’
Tonight, we saw the 21st Democratic debate for the 2008 presidential elections. And tonight, we saw an African-American and a woman discuss the issues of the country.
Continue reading ‘The US: a true democratic example ?’
We’ve all heard of the movie 300. Some of us even liked it. I, personnaly, saw it twice in the week it came out, on an imax screen, and already a few times on DVD. Visually, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve seen on a screen.
In brief, 300 tells the story of 300 Spartans who held millions of soldiers of the Persian army invading Greece. To do so, they find the perfect battle field: a narrow passage between steep cliffs and the sea. The battle happened in Thermopylae. They fought with courage and bravery, and managed to held the Persians for a few days, killing tens of thousands of soldiers.
Continue reading ‘The last stand of the … 301 - Or Bush vs Iran’
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