Politics Factlets and Trivia: World Politics

As we here in Oz approach Saturday's Federal election, it seems appropriate to have a post or two on politics. . . 

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Largest Political Division:

The Commonwealth of Nations, commonly known as the Commonwealth, covers an area of 31,462,574 km2, 12,147,768 square miles. It's a free association of 53 independent sovereign states, most of which are former British colonies, with the exceptions being the United Kingdom and Mozambique.

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The Most Decisive Election

North Korea's general election on 8 October 1962 recorded a 100% turn-out of electors and a 100% vote for the Workers' Party of Korea.

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The Largest Election

The largest elections of any country were those beginning on 24 December 1984 for the Indian Lok Sabha (“House of the People”) with 542 elective seats. The government of Rajiu Gandhi was returned in polls where 379,000,000 electors were eligible to vote. There were 480,000 polling stations for 5,301 candidates manned by 2.5 million staff.

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The Most Bent Election

President Charles D.B. King won the Liberian presidential election on 1927 with an officially announced figure of 234,000 - a majority over his opponent Mr. Thomas J.R. Faulkner of the People's Party. The President thus claimed a 'majority' more than 15.5 times greater than the entire electorate.

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The Closest Election

On 18 January 1961, in Zanzibar, the Afro-Shirazi Party won by a single vote the seat of Chake-Chake on Pemba Island,  the closest general election ever.

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Narrowest win

On 7 August 1979 in Mississippi, USA, Robert E. Joiner was declared the winner over W.H. Pyron with 133,587 votes to 133,582. That's the narrowest recorded percentage win in an election. The loser got more than 49.999% of the votes for the office of Southern District Highway Commissioner.

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The Highest Personal Majority Election

In March, 1977, Ram Bilas Paswam, 30, the Janata candidate for Hajipur in Bihar, India set the highest ever personal majority by any politician, 424,545. The electorate was 625,179.

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The Largest Communist Party

Partito Comunista Italiano has been the largest national Communist party outside USSR and communist states. It has a membership of 2,300,000 in 1946.

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The Most Mature Electorate Election

In Andorra, a person must be at least 25 years of age to be eligible for voting.

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The Largest Ballot Paper

The State Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) elections in Karnataka on 5 March 1985 had 301 candidates for Belgaum city.

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The Most Coups 

On 30 June 1984, President Hernan Silez Zuazo, 70 was kidnapped by more than 60 armed men from his official residence. That's the 191st coup in Bolivia since it became a sovereign country in 1825.