Kenya opposition threaten boycott of election rerun

Lusaka residents react on the streets of the capital after Zambian business tycoon and veteran opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema scored a landslide victory in bitterly-contested presidential elections.

Chilean senate head and centre-left candidate, Yasna Provoste, meets with supporters in Santiago as the countdown to the presidential election in November begins. A handful of other rallies were also held in the capital.

A parliamentary committee has said holding the vote would be "impossible." The country's election board has now suggested January 24 as an alternative.

Kenya's incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta is backing his long-time rival Raila Odinga in the upcoming election. And opposition parties in South Africa protest the budget and World Bank loans. Finally, we head to Kinshasa, where Congolese rumba, which emerged in the 1940's, is still being celebrated today.

South Korea's presidential candidates formally began campaigning on Tuesday. It's set to be the tightest race in 20 years between the two main parties. The two leading candidates have been dogged by scandals and are plagued with high disapproval ratings.

The war in Ukraine may be keeping Emmanuel Macron off the campaign trail, but the benefit to the French president has been clear: for the first time, a poll over the weekend saw him getting more than 30 percent of votes in the first round. The conflict has given Macron an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership. Meanwhile, candidates from far-right Marine Le Pen to far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon have been stuck defending their past sympathies for Vladimir Putin and their calls to withdraw France from NATO. Andrew Smith, a senior lecturer in contemporary history and politics at the University of Chichester, tells us "it’s going to be a strange campaign".

South Koreans went to the polls on Wednesday March 9 to elect a new president. Perhaps unsurprisingly for one of the most connected countries in the world, candidates for the top job used technology in a bid to connect with as many voters as possible, especially younger ones. Our correspondents report on the digital tools that have shaped the election campaign, from AI-generated clones of candidates to metaverse virtual reality platforms.

South Korea's opposition conservatives have won the presidency after one of the most bitterly contested campaigns in recent history. Conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol took the vote by slightly less than 1%.

With less than four weeks to go ahead of the first round of voting in the French presidential election, we check in on the campaign with contemporary history and politics lecturer Andrew Smith. He explains that Emmanuel Macron's choice not to participate in a debate ahead of the first round is right in line with his strategy to stay above the fray. Meanwhile, right-wing candidate Valérie Pécresse and far-right Eric Zemmour face off in a televised debate hoping to revive their flagging campaigns.

The French presidential election is just around the corner. With the official campaign period in full swing, we explore a particularity of the French electoral system: a candidate's access to mass media. France has a very egalitarian view when it comes to a candidate's access to TV and radio. The idea is for candidates, big or small, to have an equal playing field and for voters to have access to a wide range of ideas. But is this complex system still in step with modern politics?

Presidential elections happen all over the world, but France has its own, unique way of doing things. While there's always some suspense around who will end up in the Élysée Palace, there are some pretty clear rules about getting there: whether it's campaign financing, how much media access the candidates get and how the vote happens on election day. In this episode of French Connections Plus, Florence Villeminot and Genie Godula take a closer look at the protocol governing the French presidential election.

Two weeks from now, France will know who is into the second round of the presidential election. The candidates will then enter a crucial final two-week period when the gloves are expected to come off in the battle to win votes. This weekend saw a last-ditch attempt by far-right pundit Eric Zemmour to win back support after losing momentum. Meanwhile, the far left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon is rising in the polls but incumbent Emmanuel Macron, the favourite to win, remains well ahead. Andrew Smith of Chichester University spoke to us about where the campaign stands.