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18 October 2020 Bolivia
According to various exit polls, the candidate of the left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), Luis Arce, attracted more than 52% of votes in the presidential election. Unofficial results gave him a 20-percentage point lead over his closest rival, former President Carlos Mesa, representing the centrist Comunidad Ciudadana coalition, enough to avoid a second round of voting. Although official results were yet to be released, Mesa conceded defeat soon after the polls closed. Acting President Jeanine Añez, who had assumed office in 2019 following disputed polls that sparked widespread protests and had resulted in the previous head of state, MAS leader Evo Morales, leaving the country, offered her congratulations to Arce.
18 October 2020 Cyprus
At the second round of voting in a delayed presidential election, ‘TRNC’ Prime Minister Ersin Tatar won 51.7% of the valid votes cast, defeating the incumbent President, Mustafa Akıncı. Voter turnout was recorded at 67.3%. At the first round, held on 11 October, the National Unity Party’s Tatar had emerged as the leading candidate, with 32.3% of the vote, while the independent Akıncı took 29.8%. A total of nine other candidates contested the first round of the poll, which had been postponed for six months owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tatar was expected to be sworn into office as President on 23 October.
16 October 2020 Kyrgyzstan
The recently appointed Prime Minister, Sadyr Japarov, was additionally elected Acting President by the Supreme Council (legislature). This appointment marked the culmination of a series of events that followed the holding of legislative elections on 4 October, the declared preliminary results of which had awarded 107 of the 120 elective seats to three parties supporting the incumbent President, Soorenbay Jeenbekov. Several other parties disputed the plausibility of the results, and led protests in the capital city, Bishkek, which degenerated into violence in which at least one person was killed and several hundred injured. On 6 October the election results were formally annulled, and the Prime Minister, Kubatbek Boronov, resigned, while members of the outgoing legislature were to remain in place. After the Supreme Council voted to elect Jarapov (an opposition activist whom protesters had freed from gaol during the unrest) as premier on 13 October, Jeenbekov, having previously rejected the nomination, endorsed the appointment, and announced his own resignation. New legislative and presidential elections were to be held in 2021, following the approval of constitutional amendments.
1 October 2020 Belgium
A new Government was sworn in under Alexander De Croo, hitherto the Open Vld Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. An agreement had finally been reached on 30 September, some 16 months after a general election held in May 2019, on a governing coalition. The caretaker administration under Sophie Wilmès of the Mouvement Réformateur (MR) had from March 2020 been accorded special powers to deal with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis. The new Government comprised seven parties: Open Vld, the Parti Socialiste, the MR, the Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams, the Flemish Socialistische Partij Anders and two environmentalist parties, Ecolo and Groen.
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29 September 2020 Kuwait
The Amir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, died after suffering following an unspecified long-term illness. In July he had undergone surgery in Kuwait, before travelling to the USA to receive further treatment. Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, hitherto the Crown Prince and Deputy Amir, was swiftly confirmed by the Government as the new Amir and was sworn in to the role on 30 September.
22 September 2020 Mali
The Comiteé National pour le Salut du Peuple (National Committee for the Salvation of the People), which had been established to temporarily govern the country following the ouster of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in mid-August, announced the appointment of Col-Maj. (retd) Bah N’Daw as Transitional President. N’Daw was inaugurated on 25 September along with Transitional Vice-President Col Assimi Goïta, who had served as head of state since Keïta’s removal from office. Two days later Moctar Ouane, a former minister of foreign affairs, was appointed to the post of Prime Minister, and on 1 October a Transitional Charter was published, which envisaged an 18-month transitional period; upon its conclusion legislative and presidential elections would take place at which neither N’Daw or Goïta would be permitted to stand.
16 September 2020 Japan
Yoshihide Suga was elected Prime Minister by the House of Representatives after being selected as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on 14 September. His election followed the resignation on the grounds of ill health of Japan’s longest serving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had been in office since December 2012. Suga, who had been Chief Cabinet Secretary to Abe, retained the principal ministers from Abe’s administration and appointed Nobuo Kishi as Minister of Defense and Katsunobu Kato as his own successor as Chief Cabinet Secretary.
3 September 2020 Jamaica
According to preliminary results released by the Electoral Commission, the incumbent Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) increased its majority at the general election, securing 48 of the 63 seats in Parliament. The opposition People’s National Party’s representation fell further, from 31 seats to 15. It was the first time that the JLP had secured a consecutive term in office, and the Government’s popularity was attributed to its early, decisive response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as well as its pre-pandemic handling of the economy. JLP leader Andrew Holness was to be sworn in for a further term as Prime Minister on 7 September.
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