Mauritania
On 19 November 2006, Mauritania held its first parliamentary elections since the coup d'état of 3 August 2005. A total of 25 political parties participated in the elections to an enlarged 95-member National Assembly. Indirect elections to the Senate are due to take place on 21 January 2007, to be followed by presidential elections on 11 March 2007. At a referendum held on 25 June 2006, voters had approved a new constitution by 96.94 per cent. Among other provisions, the Constitution limits the President's mandate to two fiveyear terms. Turnout at the referendum was recorded at 76.46 per cent of the nine million eligible voters.

Kyrgyzstan
On 9 November 2006, President Kurmanbek Bakiev signed into law a new constitution limiting presidential powers in favour of the parliament. The draft had been approved on 8 November by 65 of the 68 members present in 75-member parliament, the Supreme Council. The new Constitution removes the President's right to dissolve parliament, and entrusts parliament with the responsibility of appointing the prime minister and the cabinet. Starting from the next elections scheduled for 2010, the statutory number of members of parliament will be increased to 90, to be elected by a mixed system (half are elected from single-member constituencies, and the other half using the proportional representation system). The adoption of the Constitution broke a long political stalemate between President Bakiev and the Supreme Council, accompanied by weeks of street protests. A compromise was reached on 7 November when the Supreme Council agreed to the President's proposal to increase the qualified majority of votes required to impeach the President from two-thirds to three-quarters of the members of the Supreme Council.

Russian Federation
On 15 November 2006, the State Duma, the Lower Chamber of the Federal Assembly, adopted a series of amendments to the electoral law on "Basic Guarantees of Election Rights and Russian Citizens' Right of Participation in Referendums." The amendments bar anyone convicted of extremist crimes from standing for election. They also abolish the requirement for a minimum voter turnout at elections, currently fixed at 25 per cent for elections to the State Duma, and 50 per cent for presidential elections. Opposition parties complained that the new provisions would strip voters of a "protest tool": boycotting elections. The amendments also abolished early voting, which was seen as facilitating rigged election results.

Serbia
On 8 November 2006, the parliament, known as the National Assembly, ratified the country's new constitution, replacing the 1999 constitution drafted under former president Slobodan Milosevic. The 206 article Constitution had been unanimously adopted on 30 September by the 242 MPs present in the 250- member parliament, and approved by referendum on 28 and 29 October. Over 97 per cent of voters approved the Constitution, although turnout was recorded at a mere 54 per cent. The Constitution specifies that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia. The referendum was strongly condemned by ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 per cent of Kosovo's two million inhabitants. On 10 November, President Boris Tadic announced that parliamentary elections would be held in Serbia on 21 January 2007.

Thailand
Following the coup d'état of 19 September 2006, the parliament was dissolved. An interim constitution was promulgated on 1 October 2006. It provides for a 242- member transitional legislative body, the National Legislative Assembly. Members of this Assembly were appointed by the King on 12 October 2006. The Assembly is composed of representatives of the government and the public sector (judiciary, military, police and State enterprises; the private sector (banks, industry and lawyers); the social sector (political parties, media, labour organizations and NGOs) as well as from the academic community.

	Legislators from South-East Asia and Asia-Pacific discuss security challenges The security architecture of Asia is outdated and ill-suited to the current security context. Indeed, the mismatch of regional mechanisms and conventional tools in the form of traditional State alliances is not designed to tackle present-day transnational security threats. Parliamentarians can help address this gap by pressing for the establishment of effective regional institutions that are in tune with today's security agenda. Parliamentarians can also encourage the creation of a regional parliamentary mechanism to oversee security developments and assist in the establishment of a regional study and research centre on human security. Those were some of the recommendations made at the first ever regional seminar on security sector reform for parliamentarians from South-East Asian and Asia-Pacific countries, which took place in Phuket, Thailand, on 1 and 2 September 2006. The seminar was convened by the IPU and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and hosted by the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Thailand. Legislators generally emphasized the fact that times had changed from the days when civilians were not allowed to deal with security matters. Security having become a collective responsibility, parliamentarians - as representatives of the people - must be involved in order to ensure transparency and accountability. They also have an important role to play in legislating provisions that guarantee fundamental rights in security operations. This is particularly important in the national context, but also increasingly so in the international context, where security forces are called upon to carry out peacekeeping duties in other countries. Unfortunately, recent events in Thailand have belied the strong message that came across during the seminar, namely that in a democracy worthy of the name, the security forces, including the police and the armed forces, should be under civilian control. The IPU hopes that parliamentary democracy will be restored rapidly in this country.