Haitian history became the immensely complex tale of factional struggles to control the state, with factions often defined by an intricate politics of skin color.
Cleveland's factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state, including full control in Illinois and Michigan, and made major gains in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and other states.
"The landslide victory of Koizumi in the party primaries contains a message from the rank-and-file membership of the L.D.P.: they do not like factions to control everything, and they want a change from factional politics," said Hideaki Omura, a legislator from the Hashimoto faction, the party's largest.
It was the first time Labor threw its leadership open to an election that weighed votes cast by all party members, thereby robbing factional bosses of control.
"The best way to see off the factionalists is to open up the party – the more members we've got, the harder it is for the factional warlords to control.
It sent about 7,000 soldiers into Beirut on Feb. 22 to end a weeklong factional war for control of mostly Muslim western sector of the capital.
Heavy fighting left dozens dead in the north on Wednesday as factional militias battled for control of a local district, officials there said.
In June 2007, after a brief but bloody factional war, Hamas seized control of Gaza, routing the pro-Fatah forces loyal to Mr. Abbas.
For its critics – very numerous among Labour MPs – Momentum's real objective is, through a mixture of intimidation, abuse and factional manoeuvring, to seize control of the party.
In the barren political landscape that is the legacy of Colonel Qaddafi's 42 years in power, the weak interim government has struggled to calm incendiary regional and factional disputes or exert control even over its own militias.
