Sierra Leone opposition politician released

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Authorities have released a prominent opposition politician in Sierra Leone who was accused of making statements that could undermine state security.

Charles Francis Margai had been detained after speaking about a land dispute he has with Sierra Leone's first lady. Margai said he would fight for his land and said he would be backed by militia forces loyal to him.

His lawyer, Robert Kowa, said Monday that Margai has been released on bail without charge though he must report to police every other day.

Margai was among the candidates who contested the presidential election in 2012 election and lost to incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma. Margai's party does not hold a seat in parliament.

Sierra Leone is still recovering from a brutal 10-year civil war that ended in 2002.

View the original article here

Sierra Leone: Opposition politician arrested

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — A Sierra Leonean police official says that a prominent opposition politician has been arrested for making statements to undermine state security.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Ibrahim Samura said on state radio Saturday night that Charles Francis Margai was detained for alleged subversion.

Margai earlier in the week spoke about a land dispklute he has with Sierra Leone's first lady, Sia Koroma. Margai said he would fight for his land and said he would be backed by militia forces loyal to him.

The threat of militia violence comes as Sierra Leone is recovering from a 10-year civil war that ended in 2002.

Margai was among the candidates who contested the presidential election in 2012 election and lost to Ernest Bai Koroma. Margai's party does not hold a seat in parliament.

View the original article here

Ontario unveils budget, opposition support not clear

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario's minority Liberal government unveiled a budget on Thursday that projected a narrower-than-expected 2013-14 deficit and included measures meant to secure opposition support and prevent an early election for Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Canada's most populous province, which accounts for about 40 percent of the country's economy, will run a budget shortfall of C$11.7 billion ($11.60 billion) in 2013-14 under the budget plan unveiled by Finance Minister Charles Sousa, who succeeded Dwight Duncan in February.

The deficit is below the government's year-ago forecast of C$12.8 billion, but above its 2012-13 shortfall of C$9.8 billion.

New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Andrea Horwath, whose support is needed to pass the budget and prop up Wynne's government, said she would consult with her party members before deciding what to do.

"This budget clearly reflects the budget proposal we put forward ... but what we want to make sure (voters) get those results," she told reporters.

With just 51 seats in the 107-seat Ontario legislature, Wynne's Liberals need NDP support to pass the budget. The right leaning Progressive Conservatives, who hold the second-most seats, will not support the document, leader Tim Hudak said.

Wynne, whose party saw its popularity jump when she took over from longtime Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty in January, has since watched poll numbers move in favor of the PCs, as her government has struggled with the fallout of a power generation spending scandal.

The PCs currently enjoy 36 percent support, followed by 33 percent for the Liberals and 26 percent for the NDP, according to an aggregation of recent polls published in the Globe & Mail newspaper on Tuesday.

As such, the budget featured more than a little input from NDP leader Horwath in certain areas, most notably a pledge to cut auto insurance premiums by 15 percent, as well as a C$295 million youth job creation program.

"We recognize that we're in a minority situation and we need to work with all sides of the house," Sousa told reporters.

The auto insurance reduction follows a ballooning in premiums in recent years, which insurers have blamed on rising claims and fraud-related costs.

Sousa said he has been in touch with insurance companies - Ontario's largest publicly-traded auto insurer is Intact Financial - and would hope to see rates start to come down within a year.

($1 = $1.0084 Canadian)

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Nick Zieminski)

View the original article here

Venezuela: Opposition to boycott vote audit

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles announced Thursday that his movement will boycott an audit of election results and push the government to hold a new presidential ballot.

He said the opposition would not participate in the audit because the National Electoral Council did not meet its demand for an examination of registers containing voters' signatures and fingerprints.

Capriles said the opposition would go to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the April 14 presidential vote, which was narrowly won by Hugo Chavez's political heir, Nicolas Maduro.

The electoral council, which is dominated by Chavista loyalists, announced last week that it would allow an audit of 46 percent of the vote not already audited. It said it would compare vote tallies from each machine with individual vote receipts from that machine.

"We consider this to be a joke," said Capriles, who contends the election was stolen from him.

"If we don't have access to the registers, we are not going to participate," he said.

Capriles said he was not optimistic that the Supreme Court, which also is packed with allies of the late Chavez, would overturn the election result.

"This is a fight for the truth," he said. "This fight is not over."

Earlier, Capriles had called on the council to allow his team to also examine registers containing voters' signatures and fingerprints. It would be impossible for the opposition's technicians to pinpoint irregularities without access to the registers, he said.

Allies of Capriles have received 3,200 complaints of irregularities — all by pro-government forces.

Opposition politician Diego Scharifker said a complete audit would reduce tensions on both sides of Venezuela's political divide.

"The country wants to end the election chapter, but with the truth," Scharifker, a former student leader, said in an email sent to The Associated Press.

As Capriles sought to pressure the council, Maduro's allies threatened to prosecute him over violence that erupted after the vote.

Iris Varela, an official responsible for overseeing Venezuela's penitentiary system, suggested that Capriles would soon be behind bars.

"We are preparing a cell for you because you must pay for your crimes," Varela said.

Capriles vehemently denies responsibility for isolated acts of violence committed by some of his supporters. On numerous occasions since his narrow election defeat, Capriles has said he's leading "a peaceful struggle" to force the council to agree to a complete audit.

___

Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

View the original article here

Options narrow for Venezuelan opposition

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's opposition watched its options dwindle Wednesday after the head of the Supreme Court said there could be no recount of the razor-thin presidential election victory by Hugo Chavez's heir, leaving many government foes feeling the only chance at power is to wait for the ruling socialists to stumble.

Opposition activists and independent observers called the judge's declaration blatant and legally unfounded favoritism from a purportedly independent body that is packed with confederates of President-elect Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's hand-picked successor.

The recount issue isn't before the court, but its president, Luisa Morales, appeared on television at midday to declare that the opposition call for an examination of each and every paper vote receipt had "angered many Venezuelans."

It was an unsubtle reminder that virtually every lever of power in Venezuela sits in the hands of a ruling party unafraid to use almost all means at its disposal to marginalize its opponents.

"In Venezuela the system is absolutely automatic, in such a way that manual recounts don't exist," Morales said.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles kept silent, shying away from what experts called his only remaining option: public protest. By late afternoon, the normally vociferous state governor had simply called on Twitter for his followers to remain calm and resist provocations to violence from the government.

A day earlier, Capriles canceled a march in the capital planned for Wednesday, saying the government planned to react with violence. That decision came after Maduro urged his own supporters to take to the streets Wednesday. With the Capriles march called off, only a small crowd of Chavistas rallied outside the electoral council's offices.

Maduro hectored the opposition during a 45-minute live appearance on state television Wednesday, calling his opponents "fascists" who are plotting to overthrow the government.

"Superman could not win an election here," Diego Arria, a former U.N. ambassador and conservative member of the opposition coalition, said resignedly.

"We're left with the option of calling the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, but that won't have any impact here," Arria told The Associated Press. "If the population stands down, we lose."

Political scientist Jorge Restrepo of the CERAC think tank in Bogota, Colombia, said Maduro's problem isn't institutional power but "the fragility that will come from the economic side."

The government's strength is in its absolute control of the world's largest oil reserves, Restrepo said. Yet Chavez's diversion of tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues to finance one of the world's most generous welfares states has not brought prosperity.

The PDVSA state oil company is saddled with mounting debt and declining profits while price and currency controls imposed under Chavez have failed to stem inflation or the flight of dollars and are strangling private firms and contributing to shortages of food and medicines.

Venezuela is also afflicted with one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping rates and chronic power outages that have worsened since Maduro took over from Chavez.

For the short term, however, the government appears politically strong and even the United States appeared to soften its insistence on a recount, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry leaving open the possibility of recognizing Maduro as president even the votes aren't reviewed.

The Obama administration has stood almost alone, along with Paraguay and Panama, in insisting on a recount as other governments congratulated Maduro, who is scheduled to be formally sworn in Friday. Maduro's government said 15 countries had confirmed they were sending high-level delegations, among them Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Haiti, Uruguay and Argentina.

Kerry said there was no plan to send a U.S. diplomat, but when asked about whether the U.S. would recognize Maduro as legitimate, he said, "I can't give you a yes-or-no answer on that."

"If there are huge irregularities, we're going to have serious questions about the viability of that government. But that evaluation has to be made, and I haven't made it yet," Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Capriles has not formally filed a request for a recount with the National Electoral Council, which on Monday ratified Maduro as the winner with 50.8 percent of the vote to Capriles' 49 percent.

Capriles has, however, presented a series of allegations of vote fraud and other irregularities that he contends easily add up to more than Maduro's 262,000-vote winning margin out of about 14.9 million votes cast. In addition, the electoral council says about 100,000 votes from abroad had not been counted by Wednesday, and Capriles got about 90 percent of such overseas ballots in the October presidential election won by Chavez.

The list of alleged problems includes:

— Government backers forced pro-Capriles observers out of 283 polling places at which 722,983 votes were cast, and the lack of witnesses raises the possibility of fraud, including double voting.

— Menacing bands of government supporters turned pro-Capriles voters away from the polls.

— There were 3,535 damaged voting machines, representing 189,982 votes.

— Voting rolls included 600,000 dead people.

Morales, the Supreme Court chief, said Venezuela's voting system is so automated that a manual count doesn't exist. Technically, however, a recount is possible as paper receipts are issued for every vote cast and can be checked against tallies done by each voting machine, voter registries and centralized records.

The non-partisan Academy of Political and Social Sciences at the Central University of Venezuela said paper ballots are explicitly described in Venezuela's election law as a tool for investigating vote irregularities. "Recounting votes, along with protests and peaceful demonstrations, is one of the legitimate means of democratic co-existence," it said.

Maduro and his ruling circle have accused Capriles of inciting post-election violence by "neo-Nazi gangs" that the government said claimed seven lives and injured 61.

Maduro has further charged that the violence was being bankrolled and directed by the United States.

On Wednesday, he took another dig at the United States, which he last month accused of somehow being responsible for Chavez's cancer.

"Enough interventionism!" he boomed. "Take your eyes off Venezuela, John Kerry! Get out of here!

___

Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo, Frank Bajak, Fabiola Sanchez and Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

___

Vivian Sequera on Twitter: http://twitter.com/VivianSequera

Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

View the original article here

Chavez heir barely wins; opposition rejects count

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Hugo Chavez's hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, won a razor-thin victory in Sunday's special presidential election but the opposition candidate refused to accept the result and demanded a full recount.

Maduro's stunningly close victory followed an often ugly, mudslinging campaign in which the winner promised to carry on Chavez's self-styled socialist revolution, while challenger Henrique Capriles' main message was that Chavez put this country with the world's largest oil reserves on the road to ruin.

Despite the ill feelings, both men sent their supporters home and urged them to refrain from violence.

Maduro, acting president since Chavez's March 5 death, held a double-digit advantage in opinion polls just two weeks ago, but electoral officials said he got just 50.7 percent of the votes to 49.1 percent for Capriles with nearly all ballots counted.

The margin was about 234,935 votes. Turnout was 78 percent, down from just over 80 percent in the October election that Chavez won by a nearly 11-point margin.

Chavistas set off fireworks and raced through downtown Caracas blasting horns in jubilation. But analysts called the slim margin a disaster for Maduro, a former union leader and bus driver in the radical wing of Chavismo who is believed to have close ties to Cuba.

In a victory speech, he told a crowd outside the presidential palace that his victory was further proof that Chavez "continues to be invincible."

But in a hint of discontent, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, who many consider Maduro's main rival, expressed dismay in a tweet: "The results oblige us to make a profound self-criticism. It's contradictory that the poor sectors of the population vote for their longtime exploiters."

At Capriles' campaign headquarters, people hung their heads quietly as the results were announced by an electoral council stacked with government loyalists. Many started crying; others just stared at TV screens in disbelief.

Later, Capriles emerged to angrily reject the official totals: "It is the government that has been defeated."

He said his campaign came up with "a result that is different from the results announced today."

"The biggest loser today is you," Capriles said, directly addressing Maduro through the camera. "The people don't love you."

Armed forces joint chief, Gen. Wilmer Barrientos, called on the military to accept the results.

A Capriles' campaign staffer told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the candidate met with the military high command after polls closed. But campaign official Armando Briquet later denied a meeting was held.

Capriles, an athletic 40-year-old state governor, had mocked and belittled Maduro as a poor, bland imitation of Chavez.

Maduro said during his victory speech that Capriles had called him before the results were announced to suggest a "pact" and that Maduro refused. Capriles' camp did not comment on Maduro's claim.

Maduro, a longtime foreign minister to Chavez, rode a wave of sympathy for the charismatic leader to victory, pinning his hopes on the immense loyalty for his boss among millions of poor beneficiaries of government largesse and the powerful state apparatus that Chavez skillfully consolidated.

Capriles' main campaign weapon was to simply emphasize "the incompetence of the state."

Millions of Venezuelans were lifted out of poverty under Chavez, but many also believe his government not only squandered, but plundered, much of the $1 trillion in oil revenues during his 14-year rule.

Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages, and rampant crime — one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping rates — that the opposition said worsened after Chavez disappeared to Cuba in December for what would be his final surgery.

Analyst David Smilde at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank predicted the victory would prove pyrrhic and make Maduro extremely vulnerable.

"It will make people in his coalition think that perhaps he is not the one to lead the revolution forward," Smilde said.

"This is a result in which the 'official winner' appears as the biggest loser," said Amherst College political scientist Javier Corrales. "The 'official loser' — the opposition — emerges even stronger than it did six months ago. These are very delicate situations in any political system, especially when there is so much mistrust of institutions."

Many across the nation put little stock in Maduro's claims that sabotage by the far right was to blame for worsening power outages and food shortages in the weeks before the vote.

"We can't continue to believe in messiahs," said Jose Romero, a 48-year-old industrial engineer who voted for Capriles in the central city of Valencia. "This country has learned a lot and today we know that one person can't fix everything."

In the Chavista stronghold of Petare outside Caracas, Maria Velasquez, 48, who works in a government soup kitchen that feeds 200 people, said she voted for Chavez's man "because that is what my comandante ordered."

Reynaldo Ramos, a 60-year-old construction worker, said he "voted for Chavez" before correcting himself and saying he chose Maduro. But he could not seem to get his beloved leader out of his mind.

"We must always vote for Chavez because he always does what's best for the people and we're going to continue on this path," Ramos said. He said the government had helped him get work on the subway system and helps pay his grandchildren's school costs.

The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela deployed a well-worn get-out-the-vote machine spearheaded by loyal state employees. It also enjoyed the backing of state media as part of its near-monopoly on institutional power.

Capriles' camp said Chavista loyalists in the judiciary put them at glaring disadvantage by slapping the campaign and broadcast media with fines and prosecutions that they called unwarranted. Only one opposition TV station remains and it was being sold to a new owner Monday.

At rallies, Capriles would read out a list of unfinished road, bridge and rail projects. Then he asked people what goods were scarce on store shelves.

Capriles showed Maduro none of the respect he earlier accorded Chavez.

Maduro hit back hard, at one point calling Capriles' backers "heirs of Hitler." It was an odd accusation considering that Capriles is the grandson of Holocaust survivors from Poland.

The opposition contended Chavez looted the treasury last year to buy his re-election with government handouts. It also complained about the steady flow of cut-rate oil to Cuba, which Capriles said would end if he won.

Venezuela's $30 billion fiscal deficit is equal to about 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Maduro focused his campaign message on his mentor: "I am Chavez. We are all Chavez." And he promised to expand anti-poverty programs.

He will face no end of hard choices for which Corrales, of Amherst, said he has shown no skills for tackling.

Maduro has "a penchant for blaming everything on his 'adversaries' — capitalism, imperialism, the bourgeoisie, the oligarchs — so it is hard to figure how exactly he would address any policy challenge other than taking a tough line against his adversaries."

Many factories operate at half capacity because strict currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.

Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses.

Now, dollars sell on the black market at three times the official exchange rate and Maduro has had to devalue Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, twice this year.

Meanwhile, consumers grumble that stores are short of milk, butter, corn flour and other staples.

The government blames hoarding, while the opposition points at the price controls imposed by Chavez in an attempt to bring down double-digit inflation.

___

Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez, Jorge Rueda, E. Eduardo Castillo and Christopher Toothaker in Caracas and Vivian Sequera in Valencia contributed to this report.

___

Alexandra Olson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alexolson99

Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak

View the original article here

Guinea: Opposition to protest election date

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — The Guinean opposition on Sunday called for a march to protest President Alpha Conde's announcement that elections will be held on June 30.

Opposition supporters will hold a peaceful demonstration in the capital, Conakry, on April 18 to protest the date of the elections, said Aboubacar Sylla, spokesman for the Guinean opposition.

"We are determinated to bar the way to any attempt of fraud perpetrated by the government. We will walk to express our dissatisfaction on Thursday to deal with this unilateral decision of the authority to set the date while negotiations are ongoing," said Sylla.

The presidential decree was read Saturday evening on national television following months of negotiations over the vote.

The West African country has not had a functioning parliament for four years, and it only held its first democratic presidential election in 2010. Disagreements over the electoral process already have spilled over into violent protests.

Originally the vote was scheduled for May 12, but the opposition said it was pulling out because of concerns over election procedures.

Guinea suffered decades of dictatorship and strongman rule before the 2010 vote. Ethnic tensions, however, have risen in the deeply impoverished country since the landmark election.

Guinea's 10 million people are among the world's poorest, even though the country has resources of diamonds, gold, iron and half the world's reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.

View the original article here

Venezuela opposition: Military can't take sides

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's presidential campaign on Wednesday veered between warnings of military meddling in the April 14 vote and opposition mirth at the acting president's suggestion that the spirit of Hugo Chavez visited him as "a little bird" while he prayed.

Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina presented a complaint to Venezuela's elections council, demanding it sanction officers who have publicly backed Nicolas Maduro, who has been acting president since President Hugo Chavez's death on March 5.

Marquina has alleged that Defense Minister Diego Molero and National Guard Gen. Antonio Benavides plan to use military resources to intimidate voters, especially those dependent on government services, to cast ballots for Maduro.

Maduro's campaign denies the allegations and there was no immediate comment from the council.

But the controversy was almost overshadowed in the press and chatter in the street by Maduro's latest move to draw an almost religious connection to Chavez, whom he served as foreign minister and vice president.

Maduro declared on Tuesday that a "little bird" appeared as he was praying alone in a little wooden chapel shortly after Chavez's death.

"It sang, and I responded with a song and the bird took flight, circled around once and then flew away, and I felt the spirit and blessings of Commander Hugo Chavez for this battle," said Maduro, who interspersed his remarks with sounds to simulate the flapping of the bird's wings and its whistle.

The message, delivered as he visited Chavez's hometown of Sabaneta in southern Venezuela, was intended for a national audience of Chavistas that reveres the late leader. It also fell in line with an electoral strategy in which Maduro repeatedly emphasizes his close ties to Chavez, who tapped him as his chosen successor.

But it prompted ridicule among many of his opponents.

Many newspapers led their campaign stories Wednesday with Maduro's bird remarks. The satirical website "El Chiguire Bipolar" said the statement was so strange that its own jokes could not compete: "If you laugh, it's not because of us."

Images of birds with Chavez's head circulated among government critics on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, prompting Maduro to defend himself.

"Now the bourgeoisie and the right are talking about Maduro's little bird. What do they think? That we're ridiculous? Show some respect, gentlemen," he said at a Tuesday rally in the western state of Zulia.

Maduro also defended what he called revolutionary unity with the armed forces at a rally Wednesday in the western state of Tachira, even as the opposition was filing its complaint.

"Civic-military unity is one of the greatest works that our supreme commander, Hugo Chavez, built," Maduro said, according to the government news agency.

Venezuela's Constitution bans military officers from publicly promoting politicians or political parties. But in his 14 years in power, Chavez co-opted the armed forces' leadership to ensure loyalty to his socialist government, especially after he was briefly ousted in a coup in 2002.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles and his supporters have lambasted top-ranking military officers, including Molero and Benavides, for publicly backing Maduro in the April 14 election.

But just one day after Chavez died, Molero said the military would follow instructions left by Chavez. He did not elaborate.

"The national armed forces will not fail Chavez," Molero declared. "Once elections are organized, we will honor his wishes and we will give the fascists a tough blow."

On March 21, the defense minister tweeted: "From this day on, we join the battle of ideas the Supreme Commander of the Revolution pushed forward."

On Tuesday, Maduro accused the opposition of attempting to create splits within the military. He did not provide details.

"They want to divide the armed forces," he told supporters. "Everyone, be alert."

Capriles, 40, is the governor of Miranda state. After losing a hard-fought October election to Chavez in October, he agreed to lead the opposition again in this month's election. His campaign has focused on separating Maduro from the enigmatic Chavez. Maduro has sought to ride Chavez's coattails into office.

___

Christopher Toothaker on Twitter:http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

View the original article here

Guinea's opposition pulls out of talks

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Aboubacar Sylla, a spokesman for Guinea's coalition of opposition parties, announced that the country's opposition is pulling out of talks with the ruling party, negotiations initiated by President Alpha Conde last month in an attempt to resolve the political feud that has consumed the West African nation since the 2010 presidential election.

Sylla called the dialogue with the ruling party "pure folklore" and said that Conde's party has failed to make good on a series of promises, including releasing political prisoners.

For weeks, Guinea's capital has repeatedly been immobilized by violent protests. At issue are the upcoming legislative elections, which have been postponed for years. Conde was elected in a deeply divisive 2010 presidential election. Though deemed the country's first democratic election, the vote devolved into ethnic riots.

View the original article here

Suu Kyi selected to remain Myanmar opposition head

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Aung San Suu Kyi was selected Sunday to remain head of Myanmar's main opposition party, keeping her leadership post even as the party undergoes a makeover to adjust to the country's new democratic framework.

The Nobel laureate was elected chairwoman of the National League for Democracy's new executive board on the final day of a landmark three-day party congress attended by 894 delegates from around the country.

The congress also expanded the group's Central Executive Committee from seven members to 15, in a revitalization and reform effort ahead of Myanmar's 2015 general election. The party is seeking to infuse its ranks with new faces, expertise and diversity without sidelining long-standing members.

"We have to see how effectively and efficiently the new leaders can perform their duties," said Suu Kyi, who has led the NLD since its inception in 1988. "We hope they will learn through experience."

Suu Kyi is the sole holdover from the party's original executive board when it was founded, but the other new members are also mostly long-serving party loyalists. A broader Central Committee of 120 members was elected by the delegates and endorsed the executive board, which was given five reserve members.

The party, which came into being as the army was crushing a mass pro-democracy uprising in 1988, won a 1990 general election that was nullified by the then-ruling military. The NLD boycotted a 2010 general election, but after a military-backed elected government took office in 2011 and instituted democratic reforms, it contested by-elections in 2012, winning 43 of 44 seats and putting Suu Kyi into parliament.

Emerging from repression that limited its actions — not least because Suu Kyi and other senior NLD members spent years under detention — Suu Kyi vowed in her opening speech Saturday to inject the party with "new blood" and decentralize decision-making.

She said the NLD would go through an experimental stage with the new leadership and should anticipate some obstacles but "not be discouraged."

Although the 2012 by-election results showed that the NLD still has broad and deep appeal, the party faces challenges.

The army-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party of President Thein Sein, besides being well-financed and enjoying the benefits of controlling the bureaucracy, has staked out a position as reformist.

It can boast of freeing the press, releasing most of the country's political prisoners and convincing foreign nations to lift most economic sanctions they had imposed against the former military regime for its poor human rights record. It hopes that opening up Myanmar, also known as Burma, to foreign investment will kick-start a moribund economy and win it popular appeal.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the NLD's agreement to play by parliamentary rules — in effect endorsing Thein Sein's reform efforts — leaves an opening for more hard-core anti-military activists to win over a share of disaffected voters who prefer a quicker pace of change than now allowed under the army-dictated constitution.

Speaking to the party meeting after her selection as chairman on Sunday, Suu Kyi said that in choosing executive board members there was an effort to include women, members of ethnic minorities and younger people, in addition to members with a record of continuous party service. Four women and several ethnic minority members are on the new board.

Suu Kyi acknowledged to reporters that younger members were underrepresented on the Central Executive Committee compared to the bigger Central Committee.

"We need experienced members who know the policies, tradition and history of the party and who had been in the party for the last 25 years," said Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest. "After some time, the younger generation will take over their place. There should be connectivity between the past, present and future."

Suu Kyi's colleagues expressed satisfaction with the meeting's results.

"The new CEC and Central Committee members will enjoy the trust of the majority because we are elected democratically. I believe we will be able to carry out our work more effectively," May Win Myint, a veteran NLD member jailed many times for her activities, said after being elected to the executive board.

Kyi Phyu Shin, a well-known film director who became an NLD member six months ago and was elected to the Central Committee, said she was "very confident that the NLD will become a tight organization, very active and competitive. The congress helps institute better democratic practices in the NLD."

View the original article here

Capriles to repeat as opposition candidate

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Opposition leader Henrique Capriles says he will run in April 14 presidential elections to replace Hugo Chavez.

During Sunday night's announcement, he accused opponent Nicolas Maduro of using Chavez's corpse as a campaign prop. Maduro is Chavez's hand-picked successor.

Capriles said supporters told him the odds are so stacked against him that running against the Chavista machine would be like being dropped into a meat grinder.

Chavez died Tuesday after defeating the 40-year-old Capriles in October elections with 56 percent of the vote. Capriles won 44 percent of votes.

It was the opposition's best showing ever against Chavez during his 14-year rule.

View the original article here

Source: Venezuelan opposition leader to run

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles is set to announce he will run in elections to replace Hugo Chavez, setting up a make-or-break encounter against the dead president's hand-picked successor, a close adviser to the candidate says.

"He will accept" the nomination, the adviser told The Associated Press. He spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the decision publicly ahead of a formal announcement scheduled for later in the day.

Other opposition sources refused to comment, but a political consultant at ORC Consultores, which advises Capriles, also said he would run.

"He will put himself forward," said Oswaldo Ramirez. "History is giving Capriles Radonski an important role."

Venezuela's election commission has set April 14 as the date of the vote, with formal campaigning to start just 12 days earlier. Ramirez said the 40-year-old opposition leader would demand that officials extend the campaign period by moving up the start date by more than a week, and that acting president Nicolas Maduro not be allowed to abuse state resources to boost his chances during the campaign.

Maduro has already announced his intention to run as the candidate of Chavez's socialist party. On Sunday he picked up the support of Venezuela's small communist party as well.

Capriles faced a stark choice in deciding whether to compete in the vote, which most analysts say he is sure to lose amid a frenzy of sympathy and mourning for the dead president.

Some say a second defeat for Capriles just six months after he lost last year's presidential vote to Chavez could derail his political career. If he waits, a Chavista government led by Nicolas Maduro, the acting president, might prove inept and give him a better shot down the road. But staying on the sidelines also would have put his leadership of the opposition.

"If he says he doesn't want to run I could totally understand that," said David Smilde, an analyst with the U.S.-based think tank the Washington Office on Latin America. "He is likely going to lose and if he loses this election he's probably going to be done."

On a personal Twitter page that bore all the rah-rah adornments of a campaign site, Capriles wrote Saturday afternoon: "I am analyzing the declaration of the (electoral commission setting the date) and in the next hours I will talk to the country about my decision." A spokesman said Capriles would make an announcement in the early evening.

Analysts predict the next five weeks will increase the nasty, heated rhetoric that began even before Chavez's death Tuesday after a nearly two-year fight with cancer.

Maduro, who was named Chavez's vice president after the October election, was sworn in as this oil-rich country's acting leader Friday night. He is expected to file election papers on Monday

Opposition critics have called Maduro's ascension unconstitutional, noting the charter designates the National Assembly president as acting leader if a president-elect cannot be sworn in.

On the streets of Caracas on Sunday, opinion was as divided as always in a country that became dramatically more polarized during Chavez's 14-year rule.

"It's not fair," said Jose Mendez, a 54-year-old businessman of the choice the opposition leader faces. "(Maduro) has an advantage, because of everything they have done since Chavez's death, all the sentiment they've created ... But the guy has nothing. He can't hold a candle to Chavez."

But Ramon Romero said the opposition was just making excuses, and had no chance of victory in any case.

"Now their odds are even worse," said the 64-year-old waiter and staunch Chavez supporter. "They don't care about anyone, and we (the voters) have been lifted out of darkness."

___

Associated Press writers Paul Haven, E. Eduardo Castillo and Jack Chang contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Guinea opposition pulls out of election

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — A spokesman for Guinea's opposition says that it has withdrawn from the upcoming legislative election set for May 12.

Faya Millimono said the opposition coalition was pulling out to protest the government's administration of the election procedure.

He said the opposition is unhappy with preparations for the election, especially the selection of a South African company, Waymark, to draw up the list of registered voters. The company was approved by the National Electoral Commission last week and the opposition immediately protested, saying they suspected the company was open to manipulation by the government.

The election was to solidify the West African country's transition to democratic rule, after rule by the military since 2008. President Alpha Conde was elected in 2010, but the vote for the legislature has been delayed.

View the original article here

Ontario government reaches out to opposition, backs spending restraint

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario's Liberal government with its newly minted female premier pledged on Tuesday to work with its opposition parties to bring its spending under control.

Ontario, Canada's richest province, kicked off its new legislative session with a traditional speech from the throne that outlined the priorities of Premier Kathleen Wynne's government that could soon face a vote of confidence.

"For the benefit of the entire province, your government intends to work with opposition parties, in a spirit of renewed cooperation, to get the people's business done," said lieutenant-governor David Onley in a ceremonial speech.

"It does not believe that we are irreparably divided."

Wynn became the first female premier and first openly gay leader of a Canadian province in January, replacing Dalton McGuinty who stepped down amid controversy over costly cancellations of two natural gas power plants and battles to freeze teacher wages.

Canada's four most powerful provinces are led by women. British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec have female premiers, while women are also at the helm in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the thinly populated Arctic territory of Nunavut.

In the speech, the government reiterated its pledge to restrain spending and eliminate the deficit by 2017-2018.

"And after that, it will restrict overall spending increases to one per cent below GDP growth until the province's debt-to-GDP ratio returns to the pre-recession level of 27 per cent," Onley said.

Ontario will continue to promote renewable energy and work to end coal-fired energy generation in the province.

The center-left Liberals have been in power for nine years in Ontario, Canada's most populous province and home to most of Canada's banks and a large part of its manufacturing sector. But the party lost seats in the 2011 provincial election and needs support from at least one other party to stay in power.

The left-leaning New Democrats are the natural ally for Wynne, who has a reputation for seeking compromise and is viewed as being to the left of other Ontario Liberals.

The Liberals are facing a C$12 billion ($12 billion) budget deficit. They have vowed to curb growth in spending, as modest economic growth hurts revenues, and say it will take five more years to balance the budget.

Ontario accounts for roughly 40 percent of Canadian gross domestic product and is among the largest sub-national borrowers in the world, issuing bonds worth nearly C$35 billion in 2012.

(Reporting by Russ Blinch; Editing by James Dalgleish)

View the original article here