Saturday, June 29, 2019

Quick note on the Greek elections

On the 7th of July, Greece votes on a new government. I've not been following it very much for one good reason - the winner has been obvious for years.

New Democracy, the Christian Democratic party, has a healthy lead in the polls. So strong, in fact, that when accounting for the threshold, and the Greek electoral system, they are on the cusp of a Majority. Even if it is a few seats short, it has coalition opportunities.

The good news is the NAZI-like Golden Dawn party is down in the polls and is expected to lose seats. For any more, we will need to wait for the official results.

Friday, June 28, 2019

Denmark - Update

Elections, which took place on the 5th, have produced a new government, which is as follows:

government: 48
48 - Social Democrat (Social Democrat)

supported by: 43
16 - Social Liberal Party (Liberal)
14 - Socialist People's Party (Socialist)
13 - Red-Green Alliance (Greens)

"Gov" Subtotal: 91

opposition: 84
43 - Venstre (Christian Democrat)
16 - People's Party (Nationalist)
12 - Conservative People's Party (Conservative)
5 - The Alternative (Progressive)
4 - The New Right (Nationalist)
4 - Liberal Alliance

other: 4
4 - Faroe and Greenland Parties

"Oppo" Subtotal: 88

In the election itself, the largest movement was in the Peoples Party, which lost more than half of their seats. Both the Social Liberals and Socialists doubled their seat totals, but, this only returned them to roughly the level of support they had in 2011, whereas the Peoples Party has not been this low since the 1998 election.

Interestingly, in that election the "Progress Party" won only 4 seats, down from 11. The old Progress Party leader was, in fact, the first leader of the Peoples Party. The Progress Party was a Nationalist party, one that first ran in 1973, where they won 28 seats; in the election the leader, known as an anti-tax protester, who had a 'kooky' personality, lead the party to a second place finish. Prior to this, no nationalist party in the modern vein existed. 

Thus the largest share of seats ever won was in 2015 when the Peoples Party won 37 seats (Denmark's legislature has not changed size in the past few decades, unlike Canada) 

As to what exactly lead to this drastic sudden fall in support, I am still unclear. The best I can find is a change in immigration policy of the other parties, including the new Government, with the new Prime Minister having previously said that Islam was a barrier to integration, and accusing Muslims of not respecting the judicial system.

While the Social Democrats themselves didn't see a huge upswing in vote, it is not unreasonable to think that incoming nationalist voters simply displaced outgoing progressive ones, and this would explain the dramatic shift to the left-wing parties that polls have shown. 

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Israel - Update

Just a quick update on the coming Israeli election; Ehud Barak has announced he plans to start a new party, and it is already polling above the threshold. The most recent poll shows the following result (which includes the re-formation of the arab Joint List)

32 - Likud & Kulanu
32 - Blue & White
12 - Joint List
7 - Yisrael Beiteinu
6 - Ehud Barak's new Party
6 - UTJ
6 - Shas
6 - Meretz
5 - Labour
4 - United Right
4 - New Right

In sum, this is as follows:

52 - Conservatives
49 - Progressives
12 - Arabs
7 - Avigdor Lieberman

this would make any coalition difficult, however, not impossible.

Friday, June 21, 2019

Ukraine - Parliamentary projection

I happened to notice, on one of my regular checks, that the polls in Ukraine are quite stable. This allows me to offer you a quick projection. Note that I've done some minor rounding - 5 seats or so - to help show which parties are neck and neck and which parties are ahead of the pack. Also note that instead of party names, I'm mostly going with the name of the leader, as, this tends to be how politics work in Ukraine.

250 - Zelensky (President)
40 - Opposition (Pro-Russian)
25 - Tymoshenko (Pro-West)
25 - Poroshenko (Former President)
25 - Vakarchuk (Progressive)
56 - Others, mostly Independents

This would give Zelensky a majority, a feat last matched in the mostly-free 1990 election by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Ukraine) or CPSU-(U) which won a large majority in Parliament.

This majority would be lost when that Parliament voted to ban the CPSU-(U), with the party's members joining or forming various other parties, or, becoming Independents.

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Upcoming elections

The next local elections I may look at are in Brandenburg and Saxony, in Germany.

I am still keeping track of the Danish election, which is complete, to see who forms the next government; and, still trying to find ways to present the EU election data.

Greece votes on the 7th of July, a little over a month from now.
Polls have been fairly stable and suggest a victory by ND, the more Conservative party, which could win a majority on its own.

Ukraine votes on the 21st, but polls have been somewhat sparse. What we do have suggests a strong finish for Zelensky, the new President. His party may take 45% of the vote, which, due to thresholds, could be enough for an outright majority. The Pro-Russia opposition sits at a little over 10%, while both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko are polling consistently above the threshold (parties in Ukraine tend to rally around a single person rather than a single ideology) The only other party to pass the threshold recently is Voice, a new Liberal party lead by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk.

Japan will hold upper house elections some time in July, the 21st currently appears most likely. This will see half the upper house elected. Polling in Japan is strange. Take the 2017 election, where the final full poll showed the LDP at 32%. They took 33% in the election. However the CDP polled at 7% and took 20%. Kibo polled at 6% and took 17%. Komei at 4%, but took 13%. so what gives? The answer is that polls in Japan tend to ask not "how are you planning to vote" but "what party do you most approve of". The result of this is that votes for the LDP tend to be what is shown in the poll, but opposition parties need the "other/don't know/none" distributed. Distributing this to the LDP as well simply makes the poll inaccurate. Applying this to the coming election we can expect to see the LDP take between 40%-45% of the vote, and their coalition partners Komei between 10%-20%. CDP, the main opposition, could take 20%-25% while both Ishin and the Communists could take around 10%. This would mean a result similar to the last upper house election. I will look at the election in more detail and provide a 'guess' of the result at that time.

August is an off month, and we return in September with an election on the 17th in Israel. Given how far out we are from the election, polls are not yet frequent, but polling suggests that Bibi could form the government he wanted (the one that was voted down causing this election) on these results.

Austria is next, perhaps, as their election is simply 'sometime' in September, and, may, in fact, be before Israel. The OVP is up, while both the SPO and FPO are down. The coalition math, however, does not change for the OVP. It could however if NEOS, a Liberal party, and the OVP, can increase their combined vote total.

This takes us to October, which is over 110 days away. The next elections will then me Portugal, and Switzerland, followed, of course, by the Federal elections here in Canada. Then it is off to Poland in November.

Monday, June 10, 2019

Italy update

In my earlier post I noted possible movement that I never followed up on as Italy bans polls in the run up to an election and the EU just had one of those.

Since then, polls have confirmed the basic trends from that election which are as follows:

Lega Nord is up across the country, including in the south. They are now polling as high as 37% support. 

M5S has continued to fall and now are polling as low as 16%.

FdI is also up, while FI is down; the former being more nationalist in nature and the latter, generally conservative, the party of Berlusconi. These two parties, along with LN, form the right-wing in Italy. Polls are now showing that the right-wing could win a majority in an election and such a coalition would be expected in the event of such a result. 

PD, the Progressives, are now solidly in second place.

If trends continue normally, LN and PD will become the two main parties, but, trends have done anything but 'continue normally' in Italy as of late. 

Friday, June 7, 2019

Various updates

Besides the chaos in the UK, the most notable thing going on right now is in Germany where the Greens have pulled level with the leading CDU

Saturday, June 1, 2019

What would I do if I was running for UK PM?

The tory leadership race in Britain will decide the next Prime Minister - assuming the government does not somehow collapse before then. This article caught my eye and it started me wondering what I'd do if I was running.

My view of the problem is thus: No one 'idea' has whippage force of 50%+1 of the Parliament. This causes "chaos" and is a bigger problem than Brexit itself. It is this that is the "mess" that everyone is referring to. 

As such my campaign would be as follows.

First, I think Brexit is an awful, awful idea. I think the nation was stupid for voting for it and once Brexit is said and done, I'm going to move to Scotland and campaign for Independence so that I can rejoin the EU. This will mean, of course, my term as PM will end. During my term I will do one and only one thing and that is pull the UK out of the EU. Why?

Because we had a referendum and that's how people voted. "But you think the people chose wrong!" Aye, I do, but we are a democracy and it is their fundamental right to be wrong. Government is simply there to fulfill the will of the people.

To this end I will do 3 things. First. As soon as I take office I call a meeting of the Parliamentary Party. This will be an open meeting, meaning public cameras. Attendance will be required. Any member not attending and not having a damn good excuse - like being laid up in hospital - will be assumed to have quit the party, and have the whip removed, and their membership card declared invalid.

At this meeting I will ask a simple question. "May's Deal or No Deal" and we will vote on these, and only these, two options. I will not vote. In the event of a tie, I will vote and thus break the tie. In the event of abstentions, whichever proposal has more votes, even if less than half, is adopted.

Next, I inform the party that this is now our official party stance. And that any member unwilling to vote this way in Parliament needs to hand in their membership card and resign the whip. This is key. I fully expect to lose a few dozen members. This is when we go to the next stage.

I attempt to see if I can get a majority in Parliament for my proposal. Any members that lied to me (IE said they could support it but then oppose it) are removed from the party. If I can get a majority, hurrah. I then do everything possible to ram it through the lords - if even necessary - and stay PM until the bill passes, and the EU says "okay, goodbye" if no deal, or "alright its a deal" if may's deal. Then, Brexit is over. I call a leadership election for the Conservative party, and purchase property west lothian.

If I do not get a majority, I put the property purchase on hold while I hold a general election. I will campaign on one and only one thing - that my party will do what my party said it would do, and, then I will resign. If I lose the election, which is bloody likely, I resign as leader on election night and refuse to take my seat (or, resign it, if I can't refuse it). If I win, I then, again, try to pass whatever we agreed to, by making it the entirety of my throne speech and my first bill, and if it fails again, I inform her majesty of the failure, suggest the opposition leader might have a better crack at it, and resign as PM, as leader, and my seat, knowing that I've done all I can as Conservative leader to get Britain out of this fucking mess.

Computer died again.

As outlined on my personal blog, my computer has died again. Unlike last time, this will not decrease the posting here, as, I have nothing that has been lost, and, in fact, may increase posting as I have less to distract me. I am hoping to have the EU election post ready once I figure out how I want to present it.