ELECTIONS held to the Italian parliament on March 4, had followed the recent electoral trends of the European continent. One, these elections, by Italian standards, witnessed large scale voter abstention. Two, election results show that the ‘establishment parties’ lost badly, while those challenging these parties have won by significantly increasing their vote share. And finally, the voters did not give any party complete majority, thus throwing up a hung assembly.

WHILE the heads of States of various countries and economic honchos are meeting at Davos in the World Economic Forum, discussing the ways and means to further their exploitation of resources and markets, people in various parts of the globe are coming out in protests. Determined and militant protests are seen in countries like Sudan and Turkey, initiated by the communists. The dictatorial and authoritarian governments, led by religious fundamentalist forces in these two countries are trying to quell these protests unleashing brutal repression.

IN the run-off for Chilean presidential elections held on December 17, right-wing, businessman Sebastian Pinera (representing the coalition ‘Let's Go Chile’) won securing 54 per cent of the votes. He has defeated centre-left ruling coalition (New Majority) candidate Alejandro Guillier. The run-off was called as the election could not be decided in the first round with no candidate able to secure the mandatory 50 per cent of the polled votes. With Pinera’s victory, Chile joins the list of South American countries with conservative leaders, Argentina, Brazil, and Peru.

IN the recent past, a slew of elections were held in various countries. A study of these election results will help us in understanding the political developments.

THE six-year devastating Syrian war is reaching a conclusive stage. The eighth-round of UN-mediated talks between the government of Syria and the opposition that began in Geneva on November 28, signify a decisive phase in the nearly six years of Syrian War. These talks are to continue till December 15 and widely expected to bring the curtains down on the war that had led to the killing of over 3,30,000 citizens and the displacement of millions of people.