An award winning daily internet news service of Klipsan Press , publishers of reference works on electoral history and politics . A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America , by J. Anthony Lukas. During the Nineteenth Century , by Mary P. Ryan. Voters here went to the polls yesterday to choose all 120 deputies and 20 of the 38 elected senators.
Officials say voting was orderly but slow.
Agence France-Presse on 12 December reported that Chileans renewed the ruling coalition's mandate in a legislative vote with the centrist alliance winning more than half of the votes for congressional seats, according to nearly complete returns. The BBC on 12 December reported that in elections for the Senate, which can veto all legislation, the coalition appears to lack enough votes to wrest control from right-wingers sympathetic to the military. Associated Press on 12 December reported that under Chile's complex tabulation procedures, a party must win twice as many votes as its opponent to gain the two Senate seats in a given district. Reuters on 11 December reported that Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene was quoted on Thursday as saying his government would ride out its term and call elections in June 1999. Belgian media have repeatedly suggested Dehaene is aiming for early elections in 1998 to allow the government to start with a clean slate ahead of the launch of European monetary union in 1999.