On the loya jirga's first day, Mr Karzai declared he had been elected head of state although no vote had taken place before retracting.

ECONOMIST: A loya jirga or a fix? | The

After the recent state elections - in three states and one union territory - elected legislators declared that that the average amount of money spent in their campaigns to be only between 39% and 59% of their limits in their official declarations.

BBC: Why India is in dire need of electoral reform

That month, Greece's newly elected Socialist government declared the country's 2009 budget deficit was heading for 12.5% of gross domestic product more than three times the previous government's official forecast.

WSJ: EU Set a Secret Group to Save the Euro

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a Delhi-based campaign group, a third of India's 4, 835 elected representatives have declared criminal charges against them - many of them face serious cases like murder, rape and kidnapping.

BBC: The Indian politicians facing criminal charges

Though elected in 1998 as a self-declared reformer who promised to fix the school system and improve child welfare, Mr Bush is now vulnerable on both counts.

ECONOMIST: Florida's gubernatorial race

Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989, himself once declared the popular vote a measure of legitimacy and allowed for an elected parliament and president, as well as an Assembly of Experts theoretically charged with monitoring the supreme leader.

ECONOMIST: A debate rages about the nature of clerical rule

Though ever more militant, on March 22nd the Kosovo Albanians nonetheless re-elected their pacifist leader, Ibrahim Rugova, as president of their self-declared republic.

ECONOMIST: Serbia and Kosovo

He hasn't declared a candidacy but regularly appears at mayoral forums and speaks about what he would do if New Yorkers elected him to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

WSJ: Trial Tied to Liu Delayed