Ruling Party

Algeria overturned the Arab Spring's revolutionary narrative with elections that bolstered the longtime ruling party and dashed Islamists' hopes of gaining power. The vote did something else, too: It burnished Algeria's democratic image with Western allies who rely on it to fight terrorism and supply natural gas. Few people turned out to vote in last week's elections, and the result did little to boost Algerian rulers' legitimacy at home. But analysts say Algeria needed to hold elections to show it was at least somewhat democratic in the midst of a region-wide push for greater freedoms.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - A long-time official of the governing party took an early lead in Sunday's presidential race as he faced off against a brash former president whose last term ended with the deepest economic crisis in the Dominican Republic's modern history. With 60 percent of the vote counted, Danilo Medina of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party led with 51 percent, and Hipolito Mejia, the former president, and his Dominican Revolutionary Party had nearly 47 percent.

TOKYO — The man who appeared on the cusp yesterday of becoming Japan’s next prime minister is everything Yukio Hatoyama was not — decisive, outspoken, and a populist with common roots. A day after Hatoyama’s sudden resignation, Finance Minister Naoto Kan emerged as the only major candidate to lead the country, with potential key rivals throwing their support to the 63-year-old political veteran. The ruling Democratic Party of Japan will hold party elections today to choose a new leader to replace Hatoyama, who succumbed to public disgust over broken campaign promises after just eight...

A governing party official appeared to have scored a first-round win in the Dominican Republic's presidential election but supporters of his main opponent complained of vote-buying and other forms of fraud and said they would challenge the results. Danilo Medina of the current president's Dominican Liberation Party received just over 51 percent of Sunday's vote with 83 percent of the ballots counted, according to the Caribbean country's Electoral Commission. His main rival, former President Hipolito Mejia of the Dominican Revolutionary Party, had nearly 47 percent.

TOKYO - Japan’s ruling conservative party, battered by a laggard economy and voter desire for change after more than half a century of virtual one-party rule, was expected to suffer an overwhelming defeat today in parliamentary elections. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for all but 11 months since 1955, went into the elections with polls projecting they would lose control of the lower house of parliament. That would probably mean the fall of Prime Minister Taro Aso and his Cabinet and the creation of a new government headed by centrist Democratic Party of Japan chief...

TUNIS — Tunisia took a step toward democracy and reconciliation yesterday, promising to free political prisoners and opening its government to opposition forces long shut out of power, but the old guard retained the key posts, angering protesters. Demonstrators carrying signs reading “Get Out!’’ demanded that the former ruling party be banished, a sign more troubles lie ahead for the new unity government as security forces struggled to contain violent reprisals, shootings, and lootings three days after the country’s longtime...

BEIJING - China's ruling Communist Party offered the media a rare glimpse of two rising political stars yesterday, giving them a chance to show themselves as self-effacing, businesslike and worthy for promotion to the senior leadership. The public appearances by Li Keqiang and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a major party congress were likely no coincidence, given the secretive party's penchant for carefully stage-managed public events. It came as senior party members held closed-door discussions on appointments to the Politburo...

The behind-the-scenes powerbroker in Japan's ruling party has been hospitalized with ureter stones hours after going on trial in a political funding scandal. Doctors said Friday that Ichiro Ozawa would need to be hospitalized for about a week. They said 69-year-old Ozawa was rushed to a hospital Thursday night with severe back pain and vomiting. Ozawa engineered the Democratic Party of Japan's 2009 rise to power. He pleaded not guilty to political funding violations at Tokyo District Court on Thursday in a scandal that could undermine his...

TUNIS — Tunisia’s interior minister suspended all activities of the country’s former ruling party yesterday amid the most serious protests since the country’s autocratic president fled into exile less than a month ago. Fahrat Rajhi suspended all meetings of the Democratic Constitutional Rally, known as the RCD, and ordered all party offices or meeting places it owns closed, a ministry statement said. The RCD embodied the policies of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former president who fled into exile Jan. 14 after a month of nationwide antigovernment protests.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Veteran politician Dissanayake Mudiyansalage Jayaratne took the oath of office as Sri Lanka’s 20th prime minister yesterday after the ruling party won a large parliamentary majority. President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United People’s Freedom Alliance increased its parliamentary gains to 144 seats in a 225-member Parliament after new voting but fell short of the two-thirds majority it sought to make constitutional changes. A revote was held Tuesday in some areas affected by fraud.

A long-time governing party official took the lead late Sunday in vote counting from the Dominican Republic's presidential election, leading a brash ex-president whose last term ended with the deepest economic crisis in the country's modern history. With 60 percent of the vote counted, Danilo Medina of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party led with 51 percent, while former President Hipolito Mejia and his Dominican Revolutionary Party had nearly 47 percent. The winner needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff.

Thousands of college-age demonstrators marched down Mexico City's main boulevard Saturday to protest a possible return of the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which held Mexico's presidency without interruption from 1929 to 2000. PRI presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto leads in polls ahead of the July 1 election, but he was heckled by young protesters during a recent appearance at a university. Students blamed him for a violent crackdown on protesters outside Mexico City in 2006.

Algeria overturned the Arab Spring's revolutionary narrative with elections that bolstered the longtime ruling party and dashed Islamists' hopes of gaining power. The vote did something else, too: It burnished Algeria's democratic image with Western allies who rely on it to fight terrorism and supply natural gas. Few people turned out to vote in last week's elections, and the result did little to boost Algerian rulers' legitimacy at home. But analysts say Algeria needed to hold elections to show it was at least somewhat democratic in the midst of a...

Former Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie led the main opposition party to victory on Monday, ousting the ruling party in elections dominated by unhappiness over rising crime and joblessness. Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who was seeking a second consecutive term, conceded defeat Monday night after exit polls projected a win for the opposition Progressive Liberal Party. "The Progressive Liberal Party has won the election," Ingraham told supporters at party headquarters.

The front-runner in Mexico's presidential race fended off rivals' attempts to paint him as a liar with corrupt backers, emerging from the first of two debates with analysts saying his large lead appeared safe. Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate seeking to return Mexico's former ruling party to the nation's highest office after 12 years, was accused of lying about his record as governor of the state of Mexico and maintaining ties to unsavory elements of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He came under particularly relentless attack from Andres...

Rivals of the front-runner in Mexico's presidential race attacked him Sunday night as a liar with ties to corrupt figures in the country's former ruling party, filling the first candidates' debate with acrimonious exchanges of accusations and counter-accusations. The tone heated up nearly halfway through the two-hour debate as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the third-place candidate of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, reached behind his lectern and pulled out a photo of Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional...

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo’s incumbent prime minister, Hashim Thaci, claimed victory yesterday in the first general election since the province declared independence from Serbia. An independent exit poll showed his Democratic Party of Kosovo 6 percentage points ahead of the next party. “This is a vote for a European Kosovo,’’ Thaci said. “It is a referendum for good governance.’’ According to the poll, conducted by Gani Bobi Center of Kosovo, Thaci’s party won 31 percent of the vote, with its former coalition partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo, trailing at 25 percent.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Battle-weary citizens chose an opposition leader as their next president, voting against the party that ushered the country out of a devastating war in 2002 and for the promise of less corruption and more jobs. Ernest Bai Koroma was sworn in yesterday hours after election officials declared him the winner of a tense run-off vote with 55 percent of 1.7 million ballots cast, compared with 45 percent for the ruling party candidate, Vice President Solomon Berewa.