Croatia
In April 17 snap elections for the 151-seat parliament, with 90 percent of the votes counted, the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of incumbent prime minister Andrej Plenković won 61 seats. The center-left coalition led by the Social Democrats (SDP) won 42 seats. The nationalist Homeland Movement party won 14 seats; the ultra-conservative Most party secured 11; and the green-left Možemo! (We can!) coalition won 10. The snap election was triggered in March after the country’s left-wing populist president, Zoran Milanović, announced his intention to run for prime minister for the SDP, and the parliament voted unanimously to dissolve. Milanović was technically barred from campaigning for parliament since he did not step down as president first, and the Constitutional Court banned him from becoming prime minister. Turnout was 61.8 percent, up significantly from 47 percent in the 2020 elections.
Kuwait
Snap elections were held on April 4 for the 50-seat National Assembly. All candidates officially ran as independents since political parties are illegal. The opposition bloc retained 29 seats; Shia legislators in the Sunni-majority country won 8 seats, up one from the previous election; and the Islamic Constitutional Movement, the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, secured only a single seat, down from its previous 3. The snap elections, the third in as many years, were triggered when the new emir, Mishal al-Sabah, dissolved parliament, claiming that members of parliament had made offensive and disrespectful remarks that breached his “inviable” status. Turnout was 62.1 percent.
Maldives
Parliamentary elections for the 93-seat, unicameral People’s Council were held on April 21. Preliminary results show the pro-China People’s National Congress (PNC) of President Mohamed Muizzu winning 66 seats — and together with its coalition partners, a total of 75 — in a landslide victory, and the opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) winning 12 seats, down 65 from the previous election in 2019. Turnout was 72.9 percent.
Senegal
In the March 24 presidential election, anti-establishment politician Bassirou Diomaye Faye won with 54.3 percent of the vote. Former prime minister Amadou Ba of the ruling Alliance for the Republic came in second with 35.8 percent, and seventeen other candidates split the remaining vote share. Outgoing president Macky Sall postponed the election originally scheduled for February 25, triggering a major political crisis and deadly protests across the country. Hundreds of political prisoners, President-elect Faye included, were released just ten days before the vote. At 44, Faye will become the youngest president in the country’s history, and the first opposition candidate to have won an election in the first round. He pledged to govern “with humility, with transparency, and to fight corruption at all levels.” Turnout was 61.3 percent.
Slovakia
In the presidential runoff on April 6, nationalist-left candidate Peter Pellegrini of the Hlas (Voice) party won with 53.1 percent of the vote. His opponent, the pro-Western former foreign minister Ivan Korčok, received 46.9 percent of the vote. Pellegrini’s victory gives Prime Minister Robert Fico’s ruling coalition total control over the executive and legislative branches. Voter turnout was 61.1 percent.
Solomon Islands
Elections for the 50-seat National Parliament took place on April 17. The Ownership, Unity, and Responsibility (OUR) Party of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare won 15 seats. Independents won 11 seats; the Democratic Party (SIDP) secured 8; the United Party won 6; and smaller parties split the remainder. The government had postponed the elections, originally scheduled for 2023, for a year, citing the country’s inability to host both the 2023 Pacific Games and an election in the same year. These elections were also the first since Prime Minister Sogavare signed a security pact with China in 2022, and were closely watched by China, the United States, and Australia. Turnout was around 50 percent.
South Korea
The liberal opposition Democratic Party (DP) led by Lee Jae-myung won 175 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly in elections on April 10. The ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP) won 108 seats, down 7 from the previous elections in 2022. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, a series of political scandals, and a doctors’ strike, the elections were seen as a referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeol. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other presidential advisers offered to resign after the PPP’s defeat. While the DP came up just short of the two-thirds needed for a supermajority — which would have allowed the party to override presidential vetoes and amend the constitution — the opposition’s majority is still enough to disrupt the president’s domestic- and foreign-policy agendas. Voter turnout was 67 percent, the country’s highest in 32 years for a parliamentary election.