For those of you who have been following the latest international news and the elections taking place in Poland and Switzerland today some results are already in.
More info below the fold.
In Poland today, a snap election took place 2 years early as a result of a corruption scandal; all seats in the 460 lower house of parliament and 100 seat senate are up for grabs. Some of you may know that the prime minister and president are twin brothers Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski respectively. Their Law and Justice Party is generally regarded as an arm of the Catholic Church in Poland and strongly right wing and euroskeptic. Their rule has been highly controversial with respect to gay rights, them being extremely homophobic and promoting anti-gay policies with a nod from the Church, going as far as to ban the "teaching" of homosexuality in schools and banning pride marches in major Polish cities. They are also strongly anti-communist and have instituted purges of communists as well. According to the BBC the center-right opposition Civic Platform Party has garnered 44% of the vote while Law and Justice 31% putting the prime minister out of office.
Per the BBC article:
Poles have became disillusioned with democracy following a succession of unhappy coalition governments, says the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw.
The country is polarized over the figure of the 58-year-old prime minister, who commands both strong support and deep opposition, says our correspondent.
He has given extra power to anti-corruption agencies and purged former communists, while promoting an assertive foreign policy and traditional Catholic values.
It's certainly sad to see any sort of disillusionment with democracy anywhere, let's hope that maybe the new government will be less hostile to people and get some credibility with Poles.
On the Swiss front, an election is taking place today to fill all of the 200 seats in the General Council. This has been one of the most controversial election in Europe in recent memory, with the largest vote getter last time around being the Swiss People's Party who are perceived to be racist and xenophobic. Almost 20% of Swiss residents are foreign born. One particular source of controversy was the following campaign poster:
It depicts a black sheep as a foreign criminal being kicked out of the country and says "for more security). The poster brought international attention and a recent New York Times article gave some background:
The message of the party resonates loudly among voters who have seen this country of 7.5 million become a haven for foreigners, including political refugees from places like Kosovo and Rwanda. Polls indicate that the right-wing party is poised to win more seats than any other party in Parliament in the election, as it did in national elections in 2003, when its populist language gave it nearly 27 percent of the vote.
"Our political enemies think the poster is racist, but it just gives a simple message," Bruno Walliser, a local chimney sweep running for Parliament on the party ticket, said at the rally, held on a Schwerzenbach farm outside Zurich. "The black sheep is not any black sheep that doesn't fit into the family. It's the foreign criminal who doesn't belong here, the one that doesn't obey Swiss law. We don't want him."
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As part of its platform, the SVP party has begun a campaign seeking the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to let judges deport foreigners after they serve prison sentences for serious crimes. The measure also calls for the deportation of the entire family if the convicted criminal is a minor.
Some preliminary results have now come in, and it looks like the Swiss People's Party campaign has worked:
The Swiss People's Party, or SVP, which campaigned on an aggressively anti-immigrant ticket featuring posters that showed white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag, received about 29 percent of the vote and 61 of the 200 seats in Parliament, projections showed, up from 27 percent and 55 seats in 2003. It was comfortably ahead of the Social Democratic Party, which dropped from 23 percent of the vote to 19 percent and was projected with 43 seats, as opposed to 52 in the most recent Parliament.
http://www.iht.com/...
I'm not sure what the consequences of this election will be, but it does speak to the larger and very hot Europe-wide issue of immigration (especially Muslim) and assimilation. Our immigration debate seems to be minuscule compared to what's being debated in Europe. The rise of far right xenophobic parties is something we will probably be seeing more and more over time in many European countries.