Hi, all. There are no forthcoming national elections for the rest of July, and neither Anna nor I were feeling particularly passionate about any new issues or situations, so I thought it’d be a good idea to go back and give the results of some of the elections we’ve previously covered.

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Anti-Beijing President Tsai Ing-wen was re-elected in a landslide following reports that Mainland China was attempting to rig the election in favor of her conservative rival Han Kuo-Yu. This is a huge victory for pro-democracy movements worldwide. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party actually lost a few seats, but this is a multi-party system.

Republic of Ireland

The Irish election resulted in a hung parliament for several months, following a virtual tie between the moderate Fianna Fáil and a surging (and Gerry Adams-free) Sinn Féin. Not wanting to give Sinn Féin any real power, a coalition agreement was finally made in June between Fianna Fáil, its chief rival Fine Gael, and the Green Party. Micheál Martin has succeeded Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach (Prime Minister).

Iran

The second round of Iran’s parliamentary election has been postponed to September due to the pandemic.

Israel

I live in Israel and voted in this election and the outcome is still too complicated to explain.

Artsakh (disputed)

Elections in the disputed Armenian client state of Artsakh resulted in a landslide victory for Arayik Harutyunyan and his centre-right Free Motherland-UCA.

Mongolia

As expected, the ruling Mongolian People’s Party maintained its crushing majority. Unexpectedly, it lost a few seats, when the new plurality at-large voting system was expected to make opposition harder. The new National Labor Party even won a seat.

Russia

Russia’s half-awful, half-boring constitutional reforms passed with a whopping 78.56% of the popular vote. Putin is going nowhere.

Dominican Republic

Luis Abinader and his centre-left Modern Revolutionary Party shot from obscurity to overwhelming majorities, taking the Presidency and the Senate, but fell just short of a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which is now mainly divided between them and the also-centre-left Dominican Liberation Party.

Poland

Capitalizing on spurious rumors that his opposition was funded by a gay and Jewish conspiracy, right-wing President Andrzej Duda was re-elected with 51% of the vote.

Syria

In one-party states where voter participation is a sign of public will, Bashar al-Assad’s National Progressive Front did dreadfully, with only 33% of eligible voters even showing up. Even among those who did, the NPF lost 23 seats to independent candidates. He still has his majority, obviously, but by the standards of a dictatorship, this is a humiliating defeat.