Hello Friend --

With several elections taking place around the world in this month, I wanted to update you on some of the work ICAN is doing to leverage these elections to pressure states to change their outdated and dangerous policies on nuclear weapons and join the TPNW. 
 
Norway

With the landslide win of Norway's left-wing opposition in the general election last week, there are considerably more supporters of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in the new Norwegian parliament! Once the governing coalition is formed, this will increase the pressure on the government to sign and ratify the TPNW, particularly as the party was openly supportive of the treaty in its party programme. 
 
This new opportunity for the TPNW didn’t happen by accident, ICAN campaigners in Norway have been pushing hard to get widespread political support for the treaty ahead of the elections, and getting candidates to publicly declare their position, and passing that information on to voters. Special shout out goes to the victorious Labour Party’s youth wing, Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking (a partner organisation of ICAN), for their successful push for positive language around the TPNW in the party programme. 

Germany

With elections in Germany taking place at the end of this month, ICAN campaigners are going all in to make the nuclear weapons stationed in their country an election issue, rather successfully.

Most recently, Greens candidate Annalena Baerbock publicly declared that those weapons should be removed, and Germany should sign the TPNW eventually, in accordance with negotiations with allied partners. Yes, that caveat is larger than we’d like, but it’s a clear deviation from the ‘no’ other NATO states are pressured to give, and a clear sign that the public pressure in Germany to get rid of nuclear weapons and support nuclear disarmament is getting through to the politicians.  

Other elections 

It's not just in Norway and Germany that ICAN campaigners use election season, and the lead up to it, to build up support for the TPNW:

• In Sweden, the governing Social Democratic Party will be holding its party congress in November, which could determine the path the government will take on the TPNW. So our campaigners are pushing hard to have members speak up favourably about the treaty.
• In Canada, over 60 MPs and senators have now joined the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge ahead of yesterday's national elections. 

In the end, our goal around the world is to capture that enormous public pressure to end nuclear weapons and join the TPNW, and make sure the governments feel it. Will you consider supporting ICAN's work on parliaments by making a contribution? 

Yes, I'll donate

There are so many different ways to get governments on board with the treaty. We're putting poll results under politicians’ noses, getting cities and towns to call on the government to join the treaty, asking MPs to pledge to support the treaty and then giving them follow-up actions to take, running digital campaigns asking specific voter bases to push their candidates to take the pledge, getting religious leaders to speak up, and much more. 

We’ll keep you up-to-speed on the latest developments.

Best,

Daniel Högsta
Campaign Coordinator
ICAN

It’s time to end nuclear weapons.

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