2005 in politics

These are some of the notable events relating to politics in 2005.

Events

January

• January 1
  • The Freedom of Information Act 2000 comes into force in the United Kingdom.
  • In Germany, stage IV of the Hartz concept brought together unemployment benefits and social security benefits, despite protests.
  • In Switzerland, Ruth Lüthi becomes president of the Council of State of Fribourg; Heinz Albicker becomes president of the government of Schaffhausen; Anne-Catherine Lyon becomes president of the Council of State of Vaud; Brigitte Profos becomes Landammann of Zug.
• January 2 – Aníbal Acevedo Vilá takes office as governor of Puerto Rico.
• January 4 – Violence in
  Ali al-Haidri
  .
• January 5 – Adam Daniel Rotfeld is sworn in as Foreign Minister of Poland.
• January 7 –
  West Congo
  .
• January 14 – Sergey Morozov is inaugurated as governor of the Ulyanovsk Oblast.
• 15 January –
  Palestinian Authority
  .
• 20 January –
  President of the United States of America following his 2004 election victory
  .
• January 24 – Yulia Tymoshenko is named Prime Minister of Ukraine.
• 30 January – The people of
  Iraqi National Assembly
  .

February

• 8 February – In
  General Election, defeating the Social Democrats under Mogens Lykketoft
  .
• 16 February – In the United States, the school board in Staunton, Virginia voted to continue classes in Weekday Religious Education. This was a milestone in the issue of Separation of church and state in the United States.
• 20 February –
  approves the European Constitution in a consultative referendum
  , though with a low turnout of 42%.

• 4 April –
  resigns as President of Kyrgyzstan
  following weeks of popular unrest.
• 24 April – Presidential elections in
  Faure Gnassingbe to power two months after he was installed by the military following the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma

• 5 May –
  General Election in the United Kingdom sees Tony Blair's Labour
  government returned to office with a reduced majority of 66.
• 18 May – Spanish parliament completes the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
• 29 May –
  rejects the European Constitution by 55% to 45% in a legally binding referendum, pitching the European Union
  into a crisis and dealing a serious blow to the ratification process.

• 1 June
  • The United Kingdom assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union.
  • The
    French referendum
    on 29 May, compounds the crisis surrounding the ratification process.

July

• 10 July –
  approves the ratification of the European Constitution in a consultative referendum
  by 57% to 43%.

• 6 August – Conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in as president of Iran, succeeding Mohammad Khatami.

September

• 17 September –
  Māori
  parties.
• 18 September –
  Social Democratic Party
  .
• 21 September – José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, says that the European Union will probably not have a Constitution 'for two to three years' [1].

October

• 27 October – Political establishment in
  immigrant communities in suburbs
  of the major cities.

• 4 November –
  resigns
  from the Cabinet for the second time in a year, this time over allegations of improper business dealings.
• 6 November –
  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  .
• 8 November – French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declares a state of emergency to allow municipal authorities to cope with the rioting across the country.
• 21 November – Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, resigns from the governing Likud party and founds his own new movement, Kadima.
• 22 November – After weeks of negotiations,
  Chancellor of Germany – the first woman and the first East German to hold the post – succeeding Gerhard Schröder
  .
• 23 November – Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki dismisses his entire Cabinet after losing a key referendum on constitutional reform.

December

• 6 December – David Cameron becomes the 26th Leader of the British Conservative Party
• 15 December – Parliamentary elections are held in Iraq.
• 17 December –
  Eduardo Rodríguez and becoming the country's first indigenous
  leader.

Deaths

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2009)

• January 1 –
  U.S. Congress
  (born 1924)
• January 1 –
  U.S. Congress from Sacramento, California
  (born 1941)
• January 4 –
  Ali al-Haidri
  , Governor of Baghdad
• January 10 – James Forman, American civil rights activist (born 1928)
• January 17 – Zhao Ziyang, reformist Premier of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (born 1919)
• February 2 – Zurab Zhvania prime minister of Georgia, is suffocated in a gas leak at a friend's home
• February 6 – Gnassingbé Eyadéma President of Togo since 1967, dies of an illness
• February 14 – Former
  Rafiq Hariri is assassinated in Beirut
  in a massive car bomb explosion.
• February 24 – Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, German politician
• March 8 – Aslan Maskhadov rebel President of Chechnya is killed in battle with Russian troops
• March 28 – Howell Heflin former United States senator from Alabama
• April 2 –
  Roman Catholic Church and chief of state of the Vatican City
  dies of heart failure
• April 6 – Rainier III Prince of Monaco since 1948, second longest-reigning head of state in the world at the time of his death
• August 19 – Mo Mowlam, British MP (born 1949)

See also

• List of years in politics