Elections

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has appointed a team of legal experts to start working on a new constitution with critics saying it could allow him to remain in power beyond 2028, when his current term ends. Erdogan, who has led Türkiye as president since 2014 and was prime minister for more than a decade before that, has advocated for a new constitution arguing that the current one, which was drafted following a military coup in 1980, is outdated and retains elements of military influence even though it was amended several times.

Following the parliamentary elections of October 2024, the ruling Georgian Dream party created favourable conditions for the growth of Russian influence in the region according to the annual report of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that has just been presented to the US Congress. The report says Moscow is almost certainly seeking to bring Georgia back into its sphere of influence and has already made progress through internal political developments in the country.

Sunday (18 May) marked a key electoral date in Europe with Romania holding its presidential runoff, and Poland and Portugal voting in the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections, respectively. The results underscored the current political landscape of Europe marked by both the resilience of pro-European Union (EU) forces and the rising influence of right-wing populist movements. This surge of right-wing populism is not a new phenomenon, but part of a trend building over the past 15 years. Sunday's vote should serve as a wake-up call: Europe can no longer afford to hit the snooze button on the rise of right-wing populism.

Romania’s presidential candidate Nicușor Dan won the country’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating his nationalist rival George Simion. With all votes counted, the centrist candidate won nearly 54% of the ballots cast, a clear win over Simion, a supporter of US President Donald Trump. Simion, who opposes providing military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the EU, looked on track to win the election after he swept the first round on 4 May. However, Dan gained ground after a televised debate with Simion.

The Catholic Church has a new leader. Robert Prevost was not discussed by the media before being announced as the new Pope on Friday. He will follow the Church’s mantra, that has served it well over two thousand years, to be as flexible as necessary and as rigid as possible Europe has fresh energy in the person of the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Despite the wobbly start in the German Parliament, Merz in the four days after his swearing-in met key European leaders, and laid the basis for his Chancellorship. Meanwhile, Donald Trump statements continue to hanker for the past. His call for the re-opening of the prison on Alcatraz is a case in point. Trump marks the end of the “American era”. The US will remain a rich and powerful country, but its global role will be much diminished.

Irakli Kobakhidze has once again become the chairman of Georgian Dream, the party founded by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2012 which has since been in power in Georgia. Ivanishvili is the party’s honorary chairman and is widely seen as the country’s shadow ruler. Kobakhidze is also the current prime minister of Georgia and had previously served as party chairman until February 2024. At that time, a political reshuffle took place with then Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili becoming party chairman, while Kobakhidze was nominated for the prime minister’s post.

Robert Francis Prevost became the first pope from the United States on Thursday, picking the papal name Leo XIV after cardinals from around the world elected him leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Tens of thousands of people packed in St Peter's Square cheered as Prevost appeared on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, waving with both hands, smiling and bowing. "Peace by with you," he told the crowds, before beginning his first address, where he called for "building bridges".

George Simion, a nationalist and vocal supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, won Romania’s first-round presidential election on Sunday by a landslide after capitalizing on widespread anti-establishment sentiment. The 38-year-old leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), will face a pro-Western reformist in a May 18 runoff that could reshape the European Union and NATO member country’s geopolitical direction.

With parliamentary elections in Armenia just over a year away, opposition figures and some analysts are increasingly questioning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s prospects for re-election. Critics argue that he has failed to fulfil his widely promoted peace agenda and hold him accountable for the exodus of approximately 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the former Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in late September 2023. They also point to unrealistic campaign promises made during the last parliamentary elections held in 2021, including the pledge to reclaim the strategic hilltop citadel of Shusha and pursue remedial secession for the separatist but now dissolved Karabakh — goals widely seen as unattainable from the outset.