Activists raise alarm about E. Guinea elections

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea (AP) — Human rights groups are expressing concern about the fairness of legislative elections taking place later this month in Equatorial Guinea.

The tiny country is home to Africa's longest serving strongman, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

On Monday, Amnesty International, EG Justice, and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement saying they are already worried about how level the electoral playing field will be.

The groups cited the country's history of politically motivated arrests and lack of freedom of speech. The government has denied requests from opposition parties to hold political rallies.

Activists also are criticizing restrictions being placed on foreign observers who want to monitor the May 26 vote.

Obiang, who first seized power in a 1979 coup, has insisted that his government is committed to holding fair and democratic elections.

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Malaysian elections expose worrying social schisms

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — It was hardly the look of the victorious. Wearing a bright blue shirt and a grim expression, Prime Minister Najib Razak appeared before the media on Monday to somberly acknowledge that his coalition had won general elections for the 13th time in a row.

He had reason to be cheerless. The National Front coalition's victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections despite losing the popular vote has not only exposed the entrenched racial divide in the country but also a new schism — between the rural poor who preferred the status quo and the urban middle-class who wanted change.

Healing the divisions will be a big challenge for Najib, who took the oath of office Monday to begin his second five-year term after surviving the fiercest challenge to the National Front's 56-year rule. If left untended, the racial and social divisions could undermine the stability of Southeast Asia's third-largest economy.

On the face of it, the National Front appears to have done well. It won 133 seats in the 222-member Parliament — down a fraction from the 135 it held before the elections. The opposition People's Alliance coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim won 89 seats. But look deeper and the numbers carry a grim story for Najib:

— The National Front polled 5.24 million votes to the opposition's 5.62 million votes, according to the Election Commission.

— The National Front banked heavily on three states with large rural populations — Sarawak, Sabah and Johor — where many people from indigenous groups and the ethnic Malay majority are beholden to the government for handouts traditionally given to them. The three states alone, out of Malaysia's 13, accounted for more than half of the 133 seats won.

— People in many urban areas — especially Chinese who are Malaysia's second largest ethnic group — voted overwhelmingly for the opposition, reflecting the huge disenchantment with the government's affirmative action policies that favor Malays.

Speaking at the news conference, Najib blamed a "Chinese tsunami" for the coalition's performance.

"On the whole, the people's decision this time shows a trend of voting polarization," Najib said. "This worries the government, because if it's not handled well, it could spark tension."

Many opposition supporters also believe the coalition resorted to fraud to win, including using migrants from Bangladesh as illegal voters. The government and electoral authorities deny it.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department recognized the election result, calling it the "most competitive" in the Southeast Asian nation's history, although it did acknowledge the allegations of irregularities.

"We are aware of concerns about voting irregularities and note the opposition parties faced significant restrictions on access to the media. Addressing these issues is important for strengthening confidence in the electoral process. So we call on all parties to peacefully respect the will of the voters," department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters on Monday.

Despite losing the popular vote, the National Front benefited from gerrymandering of constituencies.

In Sarawak, on Borneo island, nearly all of the six constituencies won by the opposition had between 26,000 and 40,000 voters each. In contrast, only two of the National Front's 25 parliamentary seats in Sarawak had that many people vote Sunday.

"What we are seeing here is a regime that has used the trappings of power to stay in power," said Bridget Welsh, a political science professor at the Singapore Management University. "The reality is that many people will see this election as an election bought and stolen. There will be a huge trust deficit for the National Front."

The results also reflect the complexities of modern-day Malaysia, which evolved from a 1950s backwater of rice paddies and tin mines into a country where cities like Kuala Lumpur and its famous Petronas Twin Towers are only an hour's drive from rural rubber and palm oil plantations.

In recent years, the rural-urban divide has created groups whose political perspectives lie far apart. Traditional National Front loyalists comprise villagers who receive valuable cash handouts from the government ahead of elections and rely on government-linked TV stations and newspapers for information. Many among the rural Malays also fear the opposition will scrap affirmative action programs that provide scholarships, loans and other benefits for Malays.

In the cities, the opposition has made gains among middle-class voters who read and spread news about the government's failings including corruption scandals on independent news websites and blogs.

During campaign rallies this past month, the ruling coalition handed out sacks of rice to crowds who came to listen to speeches. Opposition candidates passed around empty bags seeking donations.

The National Front has held power for 56 years through a unique system of race-based politics. The coalition is dominated by Najib's United Malays National Organization, a Malay Muslim party, and supported by smaller parties representing the other ethnic groups. Traditionally, the Malays, Chinese and Indians voted for these parties, ensuring the National Front won every election since independence from Britain in 1957, usually with a two-thirds majority.

But in the 2008 elections, Anwar's opposition alliance changed the face of Malaysian politics to bring it in line with democracies elsewhere. It created a non-racial opposition that capitalized on anger against corruption and the abuse of affirmative action policies. That struck a chord not only with the Chinese and Indians but also with a large section of urban Malays who feel the affirmative action often benefits a group of the rich and well-connected elite.

Anwar also played on the anger against the government for two sodomy trials he has had to face. His supporters are convinced they were government plots to destroy him politically.

Following the election result, Anwar sent out a two-word message to his Twitter followers: "Wear black."

"It is a sad day for Malaysia," said Renee Choong, a public relations consultant. "Corruption will continue. The Chinese will be even more sidelined from now on. I fear there will be no place in the country for ethnic minorities."

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's biggest city, Anwar's alliance won nine of 11 parliamentary seats, losing the other two by slim margins. Farther north, in the ethnic Chinese-majority state of Penang, known for its electronics factories and beach resorts, the National Front was trounced so badly that its state chief immediately resigned.

"The National Front is even more reliant on Malay votes now. It is more UMNO now than ever before," said Ibrahim Suffian, head of the Merdeka Center opinion research firm.

Najib pledged to soon reveal a "national reconciliation" plan to heal racial rifts. Khairy Jamaluddin, a ruling coalition youth chief, tweeted that the victory was merely a "reprieve" and warned the National Front would lose the next elections if it fails to deliver positive changes.

It must be clear to Najib that to woo the Chinese he would have to take more serious steps than participate in the kind of events the National Front's corporate allies held for two Chinese constituencies before the elections -- a performance by South Korean rapper PSY and a dinner with Bond actress Michelle Yeoh.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report.

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C. African Republic leader OKs faster elections

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Central African Republic's self-declared president will hold elections within 18 months despite initially saying that he would rule until 2016, a spokesman said Thursday.

Michel Djotodia's overthrow of the government nearly two weeks ago forced Francois Bozize, the country's president of a decade, into exile and prompted fierce criticism from the United States, African Union and others.

A regional summit on Wednesday in neighboring Chad urged Djotodia to organize democratic elections within 18 months, and to establish a council that would lead the turbulent country during a transitional period until elections can be held.

"Djotodia has accepted the recommendations," government spokesman Crepin Mboli-Goumba said Thursday, following meetings between Djotodia and the foreign ministers from other countries in the region.

Djotodia had dispatched his prime minister Nicolas Tiangaye to attend this week's summit in Chad. The African Union has suspended Central African Republic's membership following the seizure of power and Djotodia faces AU travel restrictions.

He has now agreed to the establishment of an interim leadership council, Mboli-Goumba said, though Djotodia himself could still seek the presidency under that arrangement. The process of setting up the transitional body is now underway, Mboli-Goumba said.

Djotodia's rebel fighters seized control of the capital of Bangui on March 24, overthrowing Bozize, who had himself taken power after a rebellion a decade ago.

Djotodia first rose to prominence as a rebel leader in 2006 and was an integral part of the formation of Seleka, an alliance of several groups that joined together last December in an effort to oust Bozize.

The rebels first threatened to attack the capital back in January but later signed a peace agreement that created a government of national unity. Under that deal, Bozize was to finish his term in 2016 and Djotodia was to serve as defense minister. Tiangaye, a longtime opposition figure, became prime minister.

However, the deal swiftly unraveled amid allegations of broken promises by Bozize, and thousands of armed fighters invaded Bangui in an assault that also left 13 South African soldiers dead.

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Kerry praises plans for 'safe' Afghan elections

KABUL (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a show of unity Monday, shortly after the U.S. military ceded control of its last detention facility in Afghanistan, ending a longstanding irritant in relations between the two countries.

Kerry, in Afghanistan for an unannounced visit, said he and Karzai were "on the same page" when it comes to peace talks with the Taliban.

Karzai had infuriated U.S. officials by accusing Washington of colluding with Taliban insurgents to keep Afghanistan weak even as the Obama administration presses ahead with plans to hand off security responsibility to Afghan forces and end NATO's combat mission by the end of next year.

But Kerry told a joint news conference that "I am confident (Karzai) does not believe the U.S. has any interest except to see the Taliban come to the table to make peace."

"So we're on the same page. I don't think there is any disagreement between us and I am comfortable with his explanation," Kerry said.

For his part, Karzai said "today was a very good day," citing the turnover of the detention facility at the U.S.-run Bagram military base north of Kabul.

The two spoke at a joint news conference during which Kerry also praised what he said was Afghanistan's commitment to "safe, secure" and transparent elections, scheduled for April 2014.

During Kerry's 24-hour visit to the country — his sixth since President Barack Obama became president but his first as Obama's secretary of State — Kerry also planned to meet with civic leaders and others to discuss continued U.S. assistance to the country and how to wean it from such aid as the international military operation winds down, and upcoming national elections.

U.S. officials accompanying Kerry said he did not plan to lecture Karzai on his earlier rhetoric, which the U.S. had seen as jeopardizing progress in the war against extremism.

Kerry, who arrived in Kabul from Amman, Jordan, had hoped also to travel to Pakistan on his trip to the region but put it off due to elections there. Instead, he met late Sunday in Amman with Pakistani army chief for Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, officials said.

The pair had a private dinner at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Jordan as Pakistan continued to seethe in the aftermath of the return from exile to the country of former president Pervez Musharraf, himself a former army chief.

Earlier Monday, the U.S. military ceded control of the Parwan last detention facility near the U.S.-run Bagram military base north of Kabul, a year after the two sides initially agreed on the transfer. Karzai demanded control of Parwan as a matter of national sovereignty.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Joseph Dunford, handed over Parwan at a ceremony there after signing an agreement with Afghan Defense Minister Bismullah Khan Mohammadi. "This ceremony highlights an increasingly confident, capable and sovereign Afghanistan," Dunford said.

The dispute over the center threw a pall over the ongoing negotiations for a bilateral security agreement that would govern the presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 2014.

An initial agreement to hand over Parwan was signed a year ago, but efforts to follow through on it constantly stumbled over American concerns that the Afghan government would release prisoners that it considered dangerous.

They have reason to worry. Zakir Qayyum — a former Guantanamo detainee, was released into Afghan custody in 2007. He was freed four months later and rejoined the Taliban. He has reportedly risen to become the No. 2 in the Taliban.

A key hurdle was a ruling by an Afghan judicial panel holding that administrative detention, the practice of holding someone without formal charges, violated the country's laws. The U.S. argued that international law allowed administrative detentions and also argued that it could not risk the passage of some high-value detainees to the notoriously corrupt Afghan court system.

An initial deadline for the full handover passed last September and another earlier this month.

The detention center houses about 3,000 prisoners and the majority are already under Afghan control. The United States had not handed over about 100, and some of those under American authority do not have the right to a trial because the U.S. considers them part of an ongoing conflict.

There are also about three dozen non-Afghan detainees, including Pakistanis and other nationals that will remain in American hands. The exact number and nationality of those detainees has never been made public.

A new agreement, or memorandum of understanding, was signed at the ceremony by Dunford and Khan, but the U.S. military said it will not be made public. The agreement supplants one signed last March, which had been made public.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the new agreement "affirms their mutual commitment to the lawful and humane treatment of detainees and their intention to protect the people of Afghanistan and coalition forces," an apparent reference to the release of detainees deemed to be dangerous.

There are about 100,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan, including about 66,000 from the United States. American officials have made no final decision on how many troops might remain in Afghanistan after 2014, although they have said as many as many as 12,000 U.S. and coalition forces could remain.

The U.S. started to hold detainees at Bagram Air Field in early 2002. For several years, prisoners were kept at a former Soviet aircraft machine plant converted into a lockup.

In 2009, the U.S. opened a new detention facility next door. The number of detainees incarcerated at that prison, renamed the Parwan Detention Facility, went from about 1,100 in September 2010 to more than 3,000.

After Monday's handover, it was renamed the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan and the U.S. military said it would provide the Afghan army with advisers and $39 million in funding.

The United States has spent about a quarter of a billion dollars to build the Bagram facility along with Kabul's main prison located in the capital.

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Patrick Quinn in Kabul and Rahim Faiez in Bagram, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

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Nationwide Pakistani elections to be held May 11

By Clare Hutchison LONDON (Reuters) - Ten dresses worn by the late Princess Diana, including a velvet, midnight blue gown she famously danced in with John Travolta at the White House in 1985, fetched more than $1.2 million at a London auction on Tuesday. The Victor Edelstein creation worn at the U.S. gala dinner was the top lot of the sale, held by fashion specialists Kerry Taylor Auctions, selling for $362,470, within the pre-sale estimates. ...

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Pakistan to hold nationwide elections May 11

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan will hold nationwide parliamentary elections on May 11, said a presidential spokesman on Wednesday. The vote is expected to produce the country's first transition from one civilian government to another.

The president approved a proposal finalizing the May date for the upcoming election, said Farhatullah Babar.

The Pakistani parliament completed its term Saturday, making it the first democratically chosen body to finish a full five-year term in a country that has seen three military coups and persistent political turmoil since its 1947 independence from Britain.

The ruling Pakistan People's Party has been dogged by rumors that it would be deposed or forced to call early elections ever since it assumed office in March 2008. Its five-year term in office has been marked by near-constant political crises and a rocky relationship with the country's powerful military.

But President Asif Ali Zardari has shown a remarkable ability to hold together a warring coalition government whose members threaten to quit every few months or so. Zardari is the widow of Benazir Bhutto, the iconic PPP leader who returned from exile in 2007 only to be killed later that year during a campaign rally.

Zardari has managed a balance between the need for U.S. assistance amid a deteriorating relationship between the two countries and rising anti-American sentiment.

Washington needs Pakistan's help fighting al-Qaida and stabilizing neighboring Afghanistan, but a series of recent scandals have severely damaged ties. CIA contractor Raymond Davis shot and killed two Pakistani men in Lahore in early 2011, the U.S. unilaterally killed Osama bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad later that year and American forces accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops along the Afghan border in 2012.

The Zardari-led coalition government has had some success fighting Islamist militants along several fronts in Pakistan's northwest but it has been under tremendous pressure domestically due to rising inflation, a faltering economy and an acute energy crises.

Now that the parliament and government are dissolved, a caretaker government will run the country and oversee elections.

But so far the ruling PPP and the main opposition party headed by Nawaz Sharif, who served as prime minister twice, have failed to come up with a consensus candidate for prime minister. An eight-member committee consisting of equal members from both parties is meeting Wednesday to come up with a candidate they each agree on.

If the committee fails, the responsibility will then fall to the Pakistan Election Commission. The caretaker government is designed to ensure impartiality in the upcoming vote.

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Kenyans pray for peace on day before elections

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Five years after more than 1,000 people were killed in election-related violence, Kenyans on Monday will begin casting votes in a nationwide election seen as the country's most important — and complicated — in its 50-year history.

Clerics across Kenya gave sermons dedicated to peace on Sunday, and urged the country to prove wrong the "prophets of doom" who predict violence.

A barrier to a peaceful vote is that the country faces so many potential triggers of violence: A secessionist group on the coast is threatening attacks; Somali militants could launch assaults on voters, especially near the Kenya-Somalia border; and the tribes of the top two presidential candidates have a long history of tense relations.

In addition, 47 new governor races are being held, increasing the chances of electoral problems at the local level.

Perhaps most importantly, Uhuru Kenyatta, one of two top candidates for president, faces charges at the International Criminal Court for orchestrating the 2007-08 postelection violence. If he wins, the U.S. and Europe could scale back relations with Kenya, and Kenyatta may have to spend a significant portion of his presidency at The Hague.

Kenyatta's running mate, William Ruto, also faces charges at the ICC.

Kenyatta, a Kikuyu who is the son of Kenya's founding president, faces Raila Odinga, a Luo whose father was the country's first vice president. Polls show the two in a close race, with support for each in the mid-40-percent range. Eight candidates are running for president, making it likely Odinga and Kenyatta will be matched up in an April run-off, when tensions could be even higher.

At the Nairobi Chapel, an evangelical church in the capital, three pastors took turns Sunday praising the attributes of some tribes, drawing cheers from the congregation. The Kikuyus were praised for being entrepreneurial, the Luos for valuing education, and the Kalenjins — Ruto's tribe — for their loyalty.

"Tomorrow we celebrate our cultural diversity as a nation," Nick Korir said in his sermon. "A lot of things unite us as a church. A lot of things unite us as a country."

In the weeks leading up to Monday's vote, described by Odinga as the most consequential since independence from the British in 1963, peace activists and clerics have been praying that this time the election is peaceful despite lingering tensions.

Odinga's acrimonious loss to President Mwai Kibaki in 2007 triggered violence that ended only after the international community stepped in to mediate. Odinga was named prime minister in a coalition government led by Kibaki, with Kenyatta named deputy prime minister.

The candidates held their final rallies Saturday, a day of political attacks and denials following published comments attributed to Odinga that election violence could be worse than 2007-08 if the vote is rigged. On Sunday church leaders asked their congregations to disappoint those who suspect there will be violence.

"We ask you to shame all prophets of doom," a cleric at an evangelical church in Nairobi called Mavuno told a packed congregation. "This is a country we are all proud of despite the divisions that people talk about. There is a Kenya after tomorrow."

Some 99,000 police officers will be on duty during an election in which some 14 million people are expected to vote. Kenyans will also be electing new lawmakers, governors and other officials.

Kenyatta, 51, the son of Jomo Kenyatta, the country's founding president, is one of the country's wealthiest men. He studied at Amherst College in the U.S. before returning home to become a businessman and later his father's political heir.

In 2011 Forbes magazine listed him as the wealthiest Kenyan, worth at least $500 million, although he was dropped from a subsequent list because his personal wealth was hard to separate from that of his close relatives. The Kenyattas are said to own hundreds of thousands of acres of prime land across the country, a controversial point in a nation where millions do not own even a small plot of land.

Gladwell Otieno, a Kenyan who runs a think tank called The Africa Center for Open Governance, said it would "be difficult for (Kenyatta) to claim that he can do much" to tackle Kenya's historical land problem. But despite the baggage of wealth and the ICC charges, Kenyatta's team has done a good job of marketing him as "a youthful candidate" of hope, Otieno said.

"Our main concern has been the fact that he is indicted at the ICC," Otieno said. "A government led by him would immediately be paralyzed."

Odinga, 68, who has been prime minister since 2008, believes he was cheated out of victory in the last election. Odinga's refusal to accept the results of the 2007 election helped fuel tribal tensions, with many here seeing Kibaki's win as another example of the Kikuyu's overly broad influence.

A win by Odinga would make him the country's first Luo president, a feat never accomplished by his father, Oginga Odinga, who was Kenya's first vice president and himself a hero of the anti-colonial movement. The elder Odinga fell out with Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, straining Kikuyu-Luo relations for decades.

In a rally Friday in Kisumu, Odinga's hometown and the biggest Luo-dominated city, Odinga repeatedly used words like "freedom" and "change" to emphasize the epochal moment it would be for his people if he wins.

"Be prepared for freedom," he said. "This country is at the verge of total liberation."

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