LETTER N° 18

From 30 April to 6 May

30 Denmark		Former prime minister (1973-75) Poul Hartling dies.
30 Austria		Susane Riess-Passer new chairman of FPÖ, elected in party congress which took place in Klakenfurt, Carinthia.
1 Turkey		Ahmet Necdet Sezer gets 281 votes in the first round of voting for president. In the second round, he receives 314 votes, still short of the necessary two-thirds majority (367 votes) in the 550-seat parliament.
2 Armenia		President Robert Kocharyan fires Prime Minister Aram Sarkisyan.
2 U. S. A.		Anchorage, Mayoral runoff election. Anchorage Assemblyman George Wuerch held what appeared to be an insurmountable lead over former Assemblyman Mark Begich in yesterday's runoff election for mayor. But with absentee and questioned ballots not to be counted until today, Wuerch stopped short of proclaiming victory and Begich refused to throw in the towel. With all precincts reporting, George Wuerch had 33,346 votes for 52.42% and Mark Begich 30,264 votes for 47.58%.
3 Italy		Prime Minister Giuliano Amato's government wins a confidence vote in the Senate (179-112).
3 Slovenia		Parliament elects Andrej Bajuk prime minister (46-44).
4 United Kingdom England		London, Mayoral and Greater London Assembly elections. Ken Livingstone (Ken The Red), 54, is London's first directly-elected mayor, official poll results showed. Livingstone, standing as an independent after being thrown out of the ruling Labour Party for running against its official candidate, took 776,427 votes, ahead of opposition Conservative candidate Steven Norris with 564,137 votes. Turnout was 33.6 percent of the more than five million people eligible to cast ballots.
4 Iran		Parliamentary elections. SKF - Second Khordad Front (Reformist) gains 71 percent of votes in run-off election. Only 15.15 percent are from the conservative camp. Out of the 66 seats contested in friday's run-off, 36 candidates are from the SKF , 11 from the groups affiliated to SKF, 10 from the conservative front and 9 were independents. Taking into account the run off results, and excluding the Teheran constituency, whose result has not been announced in addition to the 89 SKF candidates who were elected in the first round, the sixth parliament will include a total of 172 representatives from SKF. 56 representatives will belong to the rival faction and 18 will be independents. The Tehran vote covers a further 30 seats.
5 Latvia		Parliament approves Andris Berzins as prime minister. Gundars Berzins becomes finance minister.
6 Saint Kitts and Nevis	awaited	Former prime minister (1979-80) Lee Moore dies.
6 Canada		Pat Duncan is sworn in as government leader of the Yukon Territory.