Leading Off
● Ecuador – president and legislature (Feb. 19 & April 2)
Last month's general election in Ecuador saw former Vice President Lenín Moreno, the candidate of the leftist PAIS Alliance, just narrowly fail to avoid a second round against conservative CREO party candidate Guillermo Lasso, a banker who lost the 2013 election in a landslide against outgoing PAIS President Rafael Correa. Moreno would have needed to beat Lasso by 10 points with at least 40 percent of the vote in order to win outright; he managed the former but fell short on the latter, earning 39 percent to Lasso's 28, so now a runoff will take place in April.
Moreno is seeking to maintain PAIS's hold on power, which it's enjoyed since 2007. The term-limited Correa's populist left-wing social policies have won many supporters among the working class, but export-dependent Ecuador has endured a recession following the global drop in commodities prices since 2014, causing the administration to pursue unpopular austerity measures. Moreno's candidacy is also tainted by the stench of corruption and the stifling of dissent that have accompanied Correa's rule.
As a consequence, despite winning just 28 percent in the first round, Lasso stands a decent chance of prevailing next month. Conservative Social Christian Party candidate Cynthia Viteri finished third with 16 percent and subsequently endorsed Lasso, so if Lasso can consolidate Viteri's base, their combined 46 percent support would put him within striking distance of victory. However, PAIS maintained its majority in the country's unicameral National Assembly, which means divided government under a Lasso presidency could yield political instability.
Lasso had promised to evict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Ecuador's embassy in London, but he recently stepped back from that pledge and said he'd try to find another country willing to take Assange off Ecuador's hands. Correa granted Assange asylum back in 2012, allowing Assange to avoid extradition to Sweden to face rape allegations. Critics accused Correa of doing so to raise his own political stature, in part by thumbing his nose at the U.S.: Sweden could in turn extradite Assange to the United States to face espionage charges. WikiLeaks has been accused of knowingly publishing documents stolen by Russian intelligence from Western politicians opposed by Vladimir Putin, such as Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. However, Assange’s fate, while of interest to the political class in Europe and the U.S., has only played a minor role in the Ecuadorian election.
Asia
● East Timor – president (March 20)
As we discussed in January, the first round of East Timor's presidential election will take place March 20, with a runoff scheduled for April 20 if no candidate receives a majority of the vote. All three previous elections have been won by independent candidates, though in 2012, the center-left National Congress (CNRT) supported the successful candidacy of the current president, Taur Matan Ruak. The left-wing nationalist FRETILIN party, the nation's other major political party, has made the runoff in each of the last two presidential elections but has been unable to break 40 percent in the second round.
FRETILIN has now found a potential solution to its runoff problem, though, which is to ally with CNRT. The two parties reached a power-sharing agreement in parliament in 2015 and are now expected to back the same candidate for president, Francisco "Lú-Olo" Guterres, the head of FRETILIN. CNRT hasn't yet officially backed Guterres (who lost in the 2007 presidential runoff), but has not offered any candidate of their own either.
The idea of a FRETILIN-CRNT alliance controlling both parliament and the presidency has upset some people, in particular outgoing president Ruak. Ruak is planning to run for parliament as the leader of a new party, the People's Liberation Party (PLP). The PLP has yet to share much about its policy stances, but it will reportedly focus on fighting corruption and nepotism and creating jobs for young people (not exactly radical concepts for a political party).
● Hong Kong – chief executive (March 26)
Hong Kong maintains a partly democratic system of governance with some autonomy from the Communist Party government in mainland China, but Beijing has of late been trying to exert more control over the city-state's affairs. Voters elected stalwart pro-democracy advocates to Hong Kong's legislature in 2016, but pro-Beijing forces were guaranteed to keep their majority because civic and industry trade groups select almost half the body's seats.
The deck is similarly stacked for choosing the city's chief executive. Despite pro-democracy advocates' push to create a popularly elected chief executive during the 2014 "Umbrella Movement" mass protests, a committee of roughly 1,200 members consisting of various civic organizations and individuals still gets to pick the city's leader, and this very select constituency leans decisively toward Beijing. Democracy supporters have recently gained ground, but they still make up only about a quarter of the selection committee members.
So instead of fielding their own candidate, democracy supporters could throw their votes behind one of the pro-Beijing candidates to help pick whomever is the seemingly lesser evil. Former city Chief Secretary Carrie Lam is reportedly the mainland government's preferred candidate, but former city Financial Secretary John Tsang or former judge Woo Kwok-hing might be more acceptable to the pro-democracy faction. With no incumbent running and a secret ballot, the reformist bloc just might play kingmaker, forcing Beijing to either accept such an outcome—or further shred what's left of Hong Kong's democracy, risking even more popular backlash.
Europe
● Bulgaria – parliament (March 26)
Bulgaria will hold early parliamentary elections in March after former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov made good on his pledge to resign following his center-right GERB party's November loss for the mostly ceremonial presidency to a candidate from the center-left Socialist Party, which favors closer ties with Russia. GERB will likely tout its record of overseeing Bulgaria's recent economic growth, but the Socialists could have an opening to run against corruption.
Polling shows a close race between GERB and the Socialist-led bloc for first place, but with roughly 30 percent each, either would likely need coalition partners for a majority. If polls are correct, a right-leaning coalition might be more likely. Aside from the left-leaning Turkish minority-interest Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, most of the smaller parties are right-of-center, like the radical-right United Patriots.
● France – president (April 23 & May 7)
French presidential elections are known for being crowded affairs, as parties tend to measure their forces in the first round before forming alliances in the inevitable runoff between the top two vote-getters. But the looming threat of far-right extremist Marine Le Pen reaching the second round is forcing consolidation earlier than we've seen in the past.
The Green Party's candidate, Yannick Jadot, who had won a primary last fall, dropped out of the race in February and threw his support behind Benoit Hamon, the Socialist Party's choice. Jadot had only been polling at around two percent, but if Hamon is to have any chance of outpacing his rivals in the first round, coalescing the support of left-wing voters is absolutely essential.
However, negotiations between Hamon and another rival on the left, Left Front candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, never really took off. Both men are polling in the low-to-mid teens, making it difficult for either of them to consolidate enough support to finish in the top two. But with polls showing the leading candidates in only the low-to-mid-20s, Hamon would be in a strong position to make the runoff if Mélenchon were to drop out and support him. That, unfortunately, is not likely to happen.
There has also been some consolidation in the center. François Bayrou, a former center-right cabinet minister who ran three presidential campaigns as a centrist candidate in 2002, 2007 and 2012 (coming in third with a solid 19 percent in 2007), was considering mounting a fourth campaign. But, citing worries about Le Pen, he announced in late February that he would not run and instead proposed an alliance with Emmanuel Macron, outgoing President François Hollande's former economy minister who has been running an independent, "post-partisan" campaign.
Macron immediately accepted Bayrou's offer, which didn't seem to come with many strings attached beyond supporting the anti-corruption platform of Bayrou's political party, called the Democratic Movement. More importantly, Macron will now benefit from having a formal political institution backing his candidacy, and he should inherit most of Bayrou's support (he'd been polling at about 5 to 6 percent).
Finally, the chaos that the right has been plunged into ever since a major financial scandal engulfed its candidate earlier this year has only grown. François Fillon, the choice of the right-leaning Republicans party, just revealed that prosecutors will place him under formal indictment on March 15; previously, Fillon had said he'd drop out if he were indicted, but now he's insisting he won't withdraw.
The Republicans have until March 17 to not only convince him to do so but to ensure that a replacement candidate collects a sufficient number of signatures to make the ballot. If it can't, after that date, they'd be saddled with a candidate under indictment for the duration of a presidential campaign they were until recently favored to win.
However, even in the face of this scandal, the rules of French elections give Fillon a stronger chance than you might expect. Fillon is still polling at around 20 percent, just behind Macron, who's in the low 20s, and Le Pen, who's in the mid-20s. That puts Fillon very close to making the runoff, and in a hypothetical second round, polls show him beating Le Pen by about 15 to 20 points. Still, a runoff against a candidate under indictment is undoubtedly as rosy a scenario as Le Pen could hope for, especially since Le Pen herself faces charges of financial improprieties.
● Germany (Saarland) – state parliament (March 26)
Saarland is one of three German states to hold state elections this year ahead of federal elections this fall. It's also the only state of the three where Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is in power, leading a grand coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). While the CDU has been consistently losing voters in state elections over the past few years, the Saarland CDU seems likely to buck that trend and retain both its vote share and its role as the senior partner in its alliance with the SPD.
Polling has shown the CDU in the mid-30s, almost exactly the same as the 35 percent it received in 2012. It's the SPD that has suffered, falling from 30 percent to the mid-20s. Meanwhile, the far-left Die Linke (whose name translates as "the Left") and center-left Greens are stable at around 15 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Alternative for Germany (AfD), the new far-right, anti-refugee and anti-Muslim party, is expected to enter the state parliament, taking around 10 percent of the vote. Assuming that the SPD will not be able to form a coalition with the Greens and Die Linke, another grand coalition is all but assured.
● Macedonia – government formation
Macedonia's December parliamentary election left neither of the country's two main factions with a majority, and both the right-wing VMRO-DPMNE coalition and the center-left Social Democratic Union bloc struggled to find partners. VMRO-DPMNE had governed since 2006 and sought to renew its alliance with the largest party representing Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority, the Democratic Union for Integration. However, in a surprise development, the DUI and other smaller Albanian-interest parties appear to have agreed to join a Social Democratic-led coalition in exchange for new laws promoting the wider use of their language.
● Netherlands – parliament (March 15)
The Netherlands will see the first of several major tests for the populist radical right in the European Union this coming year. Prime Minister Mark Rutte's center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) currently governs in a grand coalition with the social democratic center-left Labour Party to maintain a so-called "cordon sanitaire" against the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV). Both governing parties will likely lose seats, but polls show Labour is facing electoral oblivion and is nearly certain to lose a large majority of its support.
Labour, VVD, and various Christian democratic parties have long dominated Dutch politics, but the Netherlands allows tiny parties to enter parliament with very low vote totals. That, combined with extreme dissatisfaction with the political establishment, could yield a historic level of partisan fragmentation, with perhaps more than a dozen parties winning seats in 2017. PVV and the center-left Green Left have surged at the expense of the establishment parties, while Labour could lose so many seats that it falls behind even the radical-left Socialist Party. Forming a governing coalition could thus prove incredibly difficult and produce an alliance that's fundamentally unstable.
And although there's no requirement that the largest party picks the prime minister, Rutte and PVV leader Geert Wilders have tried their hardest to turn the election into a two-man contest between themselves as they vie for first place. The flamboyant Wilders has a long history of Islamophobia and inciting hatred against immigrants, and he wants the Netherlands to leave the EU. In other words, he's the closest thing to a Dutch Donald Trump.
Some late polls have shown PVV's support dipping into more or less a tie with VVD, but Wilders' party could still do very well. As a consequence, keeping Wilders out of the government might require an ideologically incoherent grand coalition that runs the gamut from free-market fundamentalists to Christian democrats to social democrats to social liberals. The anti-Wilders bloc might even try governing as a minority, struggling to pass legislation with ever-changing partners.
At this point, the outcome is too difficult to predict, and we might not see a governing coalition emerge for weeks or even months afterward. It's also possible that if Wilders exceeds expectations, the firewall around him will collapse, leading to his party's entrance into the next government. If that happens, a country once renowned for its social liberalism could find itself taking dark steps to the right—and that could be a harbinger for where the rest of Europe is headed.
● United Kingdom
The nationalist Sinn Féin party forced a snap election for the Northern Ireland parliament by withdrawing from the government earlier this year, but the results did not significantly change the balance of power compared to 2016's elections.
The right-wing Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) did drop about 1 point to 28 percent of the vote in the wake of a scandal involving an energy savings program gone awry, which we covered in January. Sinn Féin, meanwhile, had its best-ever showing, up almost 4 percent and nearly tying the DUP. But the DUP remained both the largest unionist party and the largest party overall, which means that under Northern Ireland's cooperative style of governance, the DUP and Sinn Féin will still be forced to work together if a governing coalition is to be formed.
The centrist and non-sectarian Alliance Party also had a good showing, up 2 percent from 2016. Other parties largely remained close to their 2016 results. Specific seat allocations are still being determined through the country's single-transferable vote system, but should roughly reflect the vote percentage results.
If a government that satisfies both a majority of unionists and a majority of nationalists can't be formed, the British Secretary of the State for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire, would likely suspend the Northern Ireland parliament and return direct control of the area to the British government. While not good news, this has happened once before, from 2002-2007. There's a theory that Sinn Féin actually wants this to happen, so as to achieve some policy goals that the DUP has blocked.
While no one seems overly concerned at this turn of events just yet, Northern Ireland remains a sharply divided country with a history of sectarian violence that only came to an end with the passage of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. And combined with the questions as to how the country will fare as the U.K. negotiates its "Brexit" from the European Union, this indicates Northern Ireland has a highly uncertain political future.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Irish Channel, two by-elections (special elections) for seats vacated by members of Parliament from the center-left Labour Party returned very different results.
Let's start with the good news. Labour's Gareth Snell defeated right-wing populist UKIP leader Paul Nuttall in Stoke-on-Trent Central, even though this constituency overwhelmingly voted for "leave" during the Brexit referendum. The results were largely in line with 2015, with all parties within a couple of points of the previous result except for the centrist Liberal Democrats, who increased their vote share almost 6 points. The result should reassure Labour that UKIP may not be as close to overtaking them in the pro-Brexit Labour heartlands as was once feared.
Now for the bad news. Conservative Trudy Harrison won the other vacated Labour seat in Copeland, giving the incumbent government its first by-election seat pickup in 35 years. Similar to midterms here in the U.S., the incumbent party in the U.K. often performs worse in by-elections as voters use the opportunity to punish the government for various complaints. But in this case, the Conservatives increased their vote share by more than 8 points, while Labour went down by 5. Some of this churn came about due to a collapse in UKIP support (which cratered from 15 to 5), but there's no getting around what a bad result this is for Labour. Voters abandoning the opposition party to vote for the party in government is a terrible sign for the opposition party's current health.
It's also worth noting that the Liberal Democratic vote increased here as well, by about 4 percent. These two seats have added to the string of good results for the Lib Dems in the wake of the Brexit vote. The party has staked out a position as the only unified, pro-EU political bloc in the country, and while that may not be where a majority of voters are, a lot of U.K. voters are still passionately in favor of European unity.
The Daily Kos International Elections Digest is compiled by Stephen Wolf and David Beard, with additional contributions from James Lambert, Daniel Nichanian, and Daniel Donner, and is edited by David Nir.