AZERBAIJAN
In a referendum held on 18 March 2009, 87 per cent of voters approved constitutional amendments that included the lifting of the two-term presidential limit. President Ilham Aliyev has been serving his second five-year term since October 2008.

BOLIVIA
On 25 January 2009, Bolivians approved a new constitution in a referendum by 61 per cent of the votes. The new Constitution grants greater autonomy to the nine administrative departments and to indigenous communities, while reinforcing State control over key economic sectors. On 7 February, President Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous President, enacted the Constitution, pledging to “re-found the new united Bolivia”. Under the new highest law of the land, early presidential and parliamentary elections are due on 6 December 2009. Since the presidential term served under the previous constitution is not counted, Mr. Morales remains eligible for re-election.

BULGARIA
On 14 April 2009, the 240-member parliament adopted a mixed electoral system under which 31 members will be elected by the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system and the remainder under the proportional representation (PR) system. Vacant FPTP seats will be filled through by-elections. However, if a member elected under the FPTP resigns to take up a ministerial post, his/her seat will be filled by the “next-in-line” candidate of the same party from the PR system.

COMOROS
On 11 February 2009, President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi called a constitutional referendum for 22 March, which was subsequently postponed to 17 May. In the referendum 93.8 per cent of voters approved the amendments, which extend the term of the Federal President from four to five years. The amendments also replace the president of each of the three component islands of the Comoros, with a governor each. The Federal President is also allowed to dissolve the Assembly of the Union, whose statutory membership has been reduced from 33 to 24. President Sambi, whose term was due to end in May 2010, will remain in power until 2011.

FIJI
On 9 April 2009, the Court of Appeal ruled that the military government, established following the December 2006 coup, was illegal and should be replaced by an interim government. The Court added that the interim government should be not be led by Mr. Laisenia Qarase (former prime minister deposed by the coup) or Mr. Frank (Voreqe) Bainimarama, the coup leader.

In December 2006, Mr. Bainimarama had dissolved parliament and dismissed the Prime Minister and President Ratu Josefa Iloilo. However, in January 2007, he reinstated Mr. Iloilo as President, who then appointed him as caretaker Prime Minister. The April 2009 ruling declared that the dismissal of Mr. Qarase and his cabinet, as well as the dissolution of parliament, were unlawful and in breach of the Constitution. Mr. Bainimarama immediately relinquished the premiership and dissolved his cabinet.

On 10 April, President Iloilo appointed himself as Head of State and announced that an interim government would prepare the country for truly democratic elections by September 2014 at the latest. He abolished the 1997 Constitution, revoked all judicial appointments, and declared that he had assumed all governing power. The following day, he reappointed Mr. Bainimarama as caretaker Prime Minister.

GUINEA
On 23 December 2008, President Lansana Conte, who had come to power in a military coup in 1984, passed away. Within hours of his death, the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), comprising 26 senior and middle-ranking military officers and six civilians, announced that Guinea's Constitution was suspended and the Government and the institutions of the Republic were dissolved. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara named himself as the new President, announcing that the CNDD would run the country until presidential elections were held in December 2010, then Mr. Conte's term will end. Amid international pressure, in late March 2009 the CNDD announced that there would be parliamentary elections on 11 October 2009 and presidential elections on 13 December 2009 (with a possible second round on 27 December). Parliamentary elections had been due by June 2007 but had been postponed several times.

KAZAKHSTAN
On 12 and 15 January 2009 respectively, the House of Representatives and the Senate approved a government- sponsored law amending the electoral law. The new law guarantees the representation of at least two political parties in the House of Representatives. Although the new law retains the 7 per-cent threshold to win parliamentary representation, it grants parliamentary seats to the party coming in second place if only one party surpasses the threshold. In the previous elections held in August 2007, the ruling National Democratic Party “Nur Otan” won all 98 directly elected seats.

MADAGASCAR
On 14 March 2009, following a protracted political crisis, Mr. Andry Rajoelina, mayor of the capital Antananarivo, declared himself President, effectively ousting the incumbent President Marc Ravalomanana. On 18 March, the Constitutional Court (HCC) endorsed Mr. Rajoelina as President of the Republic and swore him in on 21 March. In the meantime, on 19 March, Mr. Rajoelina suspended the National Assembly and the Senate and announced that legislative power would be exercised by the Higher Transitional Authority, the Council for Economic and Social Recovery and the government. Initially, he had announced plans to organize elections within 24 months. However, on 30 April, he promised the special envoy from the African Union that elections would be held before the end of 2009. Discussions over the formation of a transitional government are under way.

MAURITANIA
On 2 June 2009, supporters and opponents of the coup leader, General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz, agreed a peace accord in Dakar, Senegal. This deal followed a ten-month stalemate that had ensued when General Abdelaziz seized power in a coup from the country's first democratically elected president, Sidi ould Cheikh Abdallahi, in August 2008. The agreement, brokered by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, the facilitator of the African Union and the International Contact Group (ICG) on the Mauritanian crisis, provides for the formation of a transitional government of national unity, which would be tasked with organizing presidential elections on 18 July 2009, with a possible second round on 1 August.

Although General Abdelaziz did not suspend parliament upon seizing power, the institution had been plagued by internal divisions between supporters of the ousted president, mainly over the formation of a new government. Many of his supporters in parliament walked out of the party that had supported him during the March 2007 presidential elections, thus depriving him of a parliamentary majority. Subsequently, the normal functioning of parliament continued to be hampered by numerous boycotts, including by the Speaker of the National Assembly, an opponent of the August 2008 coup.

SOMALIA
In August 2008, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and a Djibouti- based moderate Islamist group, the Islamist Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), signed a peace agreement providing for the formation of a unity government. They further agreed on 26 November to double the statutory number of members of the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) to 550 in order to include 200 members from the ARS and 75 from civil society, including opposition groups not represented in the ARS. The agreement also provides for the extension by two years of the TFP's term, which was due to expire in August 2009. The TFP approved these decisions on 26 and 28 January 2009.

In the meantime, in January 2009, Ethiopian troops, which had been fighting the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), withdrew from Mogadishu in keeping with the peace agreement. On 26 January, the military wing of the UIC, Al-Shabab (“the youth”), seized Baidoa, the seat of the TFP. On 12 March, the TFP started to hold its session in Mogadishu. As at 29 April, 523 members had been sworn in. The vacant seats were expected to be filled in June 2009.

VENEZUELA
On 15 February 2009, 54 per cent of voters approved via referendum constitutional amendments, including the lifting of term limits for the president, mayors and governors. President Hugo Chavez can now stand for re-election in 2012. In a December 2007 referendum, a proposal to lift only the presidential term limit had been rejected.

YEMEN
On 26 February 2009, the House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment to postpone parliamentary elections by two years. The elections were due to be held on 27 April 2009. The amendment had been proposed by President Ali Abdullah Salih in a bid to resolve a political crisis, involving opposition- led street protests demanding electoral reform. Opposition parties had threatened to boycott the 2009 elections. On 27 April, the House of Representatives approved the extension of its current term by two years without modifying the statutory term of the House.