2005 in politics

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 Iraq, assassination of the Governor of Baghdad, Ali al-Haidri.
• January 5 – Adam Daniel Rotfeld is sworn in as Foreign Minister of Poland.
• January 7 – Isidore Mvouba becomes Prime Minister of West Congo.
• January 14 – Sergey Morozov is inaugurated as governor of the Ulyanovsk Oblast.
• 15 January – Mahmoud Abbas is inaugurated as President of the Palestinian Authority.
• 20 January – George W. Bush is sworn in for a second term as 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 Iraq vote in elections to choose 275 members of the inaugural Iraqi National Assembly.

  February

• 8 February – In Denmark, the centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is returned to power in a 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 – Spain approves the European Constitution in a consultative referendum, though with a low turnout of 42%.

  April

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

  May

• 5 May – A General Election in the United Kingdom sees Tony Blair's Labour government returned to office with a reduced majority of 66.
• 18 May – The Spanish parliament completes the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
• 29 May – France 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.

  June

• 1 June
• * The United Kingdom assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union.
• * The Netherlands rejects the European Constitution by 62% to 38% in a consultative referendum. The result, following closely after the French referendum on 29 May, compounds the crisis surrounding the ratification process.

  July

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

  August

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

  September

• 17 September – New Zealand holds a general election, which Helen Clark's left-wing Labour Party wins, in coalition with the Progressives Party, with confidence and supply from New Zealand First and United Future, with further support from the Green and Māori parties.
• 18 September – General Election in Germany produces an inconclusive result, with a narrow majority for the Christian Democratic Union over the governing 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' .

  October

• 27 October – The political establishment in France is rocked by the spread of rioting among poor immigrant communities in suburbs of the major cities.

  November

• 4 November -British Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett resigns from the Cabinet for the second time in a year, this time over allegations of improper business dealings.
• 6 November – Bob O'Connor Democrat defeats Joe Weinroth, Republican for Mayor of 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, Angela Merkel is sworn in as the eighth 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 – Evo Morales wins the presidential elections in Bolivia, ousting incumbent Eduardo Rodríguez and becoming the country's first indigenous leader.

  Deaths

• January 1- Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress
• January 1- Robert Matsui, Member of the U.S. Congress from Sacramento, California
• January 4 – Ali al-Haidri, Governor of Baghdad
• January 10 – James Forman, American civil rights activist
• January 17 – Zhao Ziyang, reformist Premier of the People's Republic of China and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
• 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 Prime Minister of Lebanon 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 – Pope John Paul II, Head of the 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