Prior to the election, more than fifty of Doe's opponents were murdered.

Prior to June 2005, the Maldivian political system was based on the election of individuals, rather than the more common system of election according to party platform.

Prior to the election of the Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II in 1978, the last non-Italian was Pope Adrian VI of the Netherlands, elected in 1522.

Prior to the 2000 election the media typically alternated which color represented which party each presidential election cycle.

Prior to his election, Stephen had been the cardinal-priest of St Anastasia in Rome.

Prior to his election as FIFA President, Blatter was a senior FIFA official for 23 years.

Meanwhile, a delegation from the African Union Commission praised the election for taking place with " calm and serenity " Prior to the 2009 election, Tunisia amended its constitution to allow more candidates to run for president, allowing the top official from each political party to compete for the presidency regardless of whether they held seats in parliament.

Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin had been elected President of Russia in June 1991 in the first direct presidential election in Russian history.

Prior to Prince's election black clergy made political endorsements and served as appointees to the Richmond School Board and other boards throughout the city.

Prior to the 2002 election Queen Anne's County was run by three Commissioners.

Prior to his election as president in 1948, Chiang Kai-shek had insisted that he be premier under the new Constitution, while allowing the president ( to which Chiang nominated Hu Shih ) be a mere figurehead.

Prior to Aristide's election in 1990, there were just 34 secondary schools nationwide.

Prior to the election of Aristide, health care services had been primarily concentrated in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Following the election of Prior Ernulf in 1096, Lanfranc's inadequate east end was demolished, and replaced with an eastern arm 198 feet long, doubling the length of the cathedral.

Prior to the start of the 2011 – 12 season, Athletic Club's socios ( full members ) held their latest presidential election, which saw incumbent Fernando García Macua defeated by former long-serving player Josu Urrutia.

Prior to the 2006 general election, the county was a dry county, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Prior to Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry's selection of Senator John Edwards, Vilsack was thought to be high on the list of potential running mates for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Prior to the 2004 election, Buchanan announced he once again identified himself as a Republican, declared that he had no interest in ever running for president again, and reluctantly endorsed Bush's 2004 re-election, writing:

Prior to his election as President, Köhler had a distinguished career in politics and the civil service and as a banking executive.

Prior to the 2006 election the party's Central Committee relinquished control of selecting the Knesset list to the ' rank and file ' members at Netanyahu's behest.

Prior to his call for an election, Charest revealed his platform which included income tax cuts of about $ 250 million dollars.

Prior to entering provincial politics, Klein considered himself a Liberal Party supporter, although he did support the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney in the 1988 federal election .< ref >

Prior to 2012, the coin consisted of an aluminium bronze inner core with a pure nickel outer ring ; however in spring 2012 the composition of the inner core switched to aluminium bronze coated with multi-ply plated brass, and the outer ring switched to steel coated with multi-ply plated nickel.

Prior to their taking the stage, Queen's sound engineer covertly switched out the limiters that had been installed on the venue's sound system so the performance would be louder than the others.

Prior to the invention of the SVC, power factor compensation was the preserve of large rotating machines such as synchronous condensers or switched capacitor banks.

Prior to Decimal Day the double pricing was displayed as e. g. 1s ( 5p ); from Decimal Day the order was switched to 5p ( 1s ).

Prior to Terrahawks and throughout the entirety of the 1960s, Anderson's series were noted for their use of his patented Supermarionation technique, which made use of electronically augmented marionettes ( the final series to use this technique was the live action / Supermarionation hybrid The Secret Service in 1969 ; Anderson switched to live action production beginning with 1970's UFO ).

Prior to this, he was chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts from October 2005 until December 2009 when he switched positions with Thomas O. Staggs.

Prior to tickets going on sale in the United States, venues were switched from arena shows, to small and more intimate theater stops.

Prior to the 2011 season, Braun Racing was acquired by Turner Motorsports and the team switched manufacturers from Toyota to Chevrolet.

Prior to the 2004 season, he switched to cornerback.

Prior to the start of the 1955 season, Terwilliger switched teams again after the New York Giants purchased him from the Senators.

Prior to the Revolution, New Englanders consumed large quantities of rum and beer, as maritime trade provided them relatively easy access to the goods needed to produce these items: Rum was the distilled spirit of choice, as the main ingredient, molasses, was readily available from trade with the West Indies.

Prior to major influence from outside, there were approximately 25, 000 Aleuts on the archipelago.

Prior to the release of the VHS Volumes, a laserdisc titled Beavis and Butt-Head: The Essential Collection was issued in 1994, containing sixteen episodes from the second and third seasons.

Prior to the Smartmodem, modems were almost entirely manual in operation, having developed from acoustic couplers that used a traditional telephone for dialling and hanging up.

During an absence from Clairvaux, the Grand Prior of Cluny went to Clairvaux and enticed away Bernard's cousin, Robert of Châtillon.

Prior to 1931, New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook, allegedly in the interests of research, obtained from a hospital intern at the Sorbonne a chunk of human meat from the body of a healthy human killed in an accident, then cooked and ate it.

* Woodson, C. G., The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War.

Prior to 1947, the only definition of first-class cricket had been one in Great Britain that dated from a meeting at Lord's in May 1894 between the Marylebone Cricket Club ( MCC ) committee and the secretaries of the clubs involved in the official County Championship, which had begun in 1890.

Prior to rising to power, from 1939 to 1941, Peron had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian Fascist economic policies.

Prior to this discovery, biologists had been largely unable to establish a family tree of cats from the fossil record because the fossils of different cat species all look very much alike, differing primarily in size.

Prior to the Crucifixion the Jews are called Israelites, the honorific title of God's chosen people ; after it, they are called " Ioudaioi ", Jews, a sign that through their rejection of the Christ the " kingdom of Heaven " has been taken away from them and given instead to the church.

Prior to that, hunting by local natives can be documented from Late Stone Age Scandinavia and eastern North America, as well as from early 5th century Labrador, where the bird seems to have occurred only as a straggler.

Prior to satellite geodesy era, the coordinate systems associated with a geodetic datum attempted to be geocentric, but their origins differed from the geocentre by hundreds of metres, due to regional deviations in the direction of the plumbline ( vertical ).

Prior to Gardner's investigations, no serious archaeological excavation had occurred at the city, though he himself soon unearthed four miles of earthworks, and uncovered finds that included tombs, pottery, and porcelain dating from Ming China.

Prior to the separation of the colony of Victoria from New South Wales in 1951, the area was called the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.

Prior to Verdi's body's being driven from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final resting place at the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, Arturo Toscanini conducted a chorus of 820 singers in " Va, pensiero ".

Prior to Parsons ' departure from The Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge ( along with McGuinn and Hillman ) in the English county of Wiltshire, where Richards had a house near the ancient site.

Prior to his death, Parsons stated that he wanted his body cremated at Joshua Tree and his ashes spread over Cap Rock, a prominent natural feature there ; however, Parsons ' stepfather arranged for a private ceremony back in New Orleans and neglected to invite any of his friends from the music industry.

Prior to the start of the Great Depression, Hoover's first Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, had proposed and seen enacted, numerous tax cuts, which cut the top income tax rate from 73 % to 24 % ( under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge ).

Prior to the start of the season the Astros acquired outfielder Billy Hatcher from the Cubs for Jerry Mumphrey.

Prior to the introduction of the Latin term, incest was known in Old English as sibbleger ( from sibb ' kinship ' + leger ' to lie ') or mǣġhǣmed ( from mǣġ ' kin, parent ' + hǣmed ' sexual intercourse ') but in time, both words fell out of use.

Prior to the 386, the difficulty of manufacturing microchips and the uncertainty of reliable supply made it desirable that any mass-market semiconductor be multi-sourced, that is, made by two or more manufacturers, the second and subsequent companies manufacturing under license from the originating company.