Leading Off
● New Zealand – parliament (Sept. 23)
New Zealand's center-right National Party was comfortably on its way to a fourth term in office, this time under the leadership of new Prime Minister Bill English, who took over last December. Then, seven weeks before election day, center-left Labour leader Andrew Little stepped down (due to poor poll numbers and questions about his leadership) and deputy leader Jacinda Ardern stepped up.
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Since Ardern took over, the Labour party has been re-energized by "Jacindamania," rocketing up in the polls from the upper 20s to around 40 percent, and at the end of last month, one poll even showed Labour ahead of the National Party for the first time since March of 2007. At 37, Ardern is the youngest Labour leader ever and only the second woman after Helen Clark. Ardern has vowed to decriminalize abortion (while abortion is available in New Zealand, the law puts onerous requirements on women to receive one), offer free university education, and cut fees for doctor's visits.
The most recent polling also puts the National Party at around 40 percent of the vote, which would leave both parties short of a majority in New Zealand's proportional system. Labour can count on the support of the left-wing Green Party, but Jacindamania has hurt the Greens' standing as leftists have flocked to Labour. Right now, polls show the Greens getting about 5 percent of the vote, which is right around the threshold needed to enter Parliament.
The country's other significant party is New Zealand First (commonly known as NZ First), which is—as you almost certainly guessed by its name—a right-wing populist party that wants to limit immigration. NZ First, which has actually been a junior partner in government under both the Nationals and Labor, is polling in the high single digits. A handful of minor parties (including an indigenous rights-based Maori Party) could also win individual seats thanks to New Zealand's system of combining geographical districts with seats awarded via nationwide proportional lists.
Labour's rapidly moving poll numbers make predicting the outcome difficult. Labour could just as easily come back down to earth and see the National Party win re-election comfortably, or it could continue to rise and win its own majority or form a coalition with the Greens. And if both sides fall short and cannot form a government, then NZ First could come into play.
Oceania
● Australia – non-binding same-sex marriage survey (Oct. 27)
Center-right Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia's Liberal Party is in a tricky spot. Polls show the Australian people support same-sex marriage. All the other parties support same-sex marriage. Turnbull (and some other Liberal MPs) support same sex-marriage. But a majority of the Liberal Party doesn't, and in a country where internal party coups have become the norm, you don't want to anger your own side.
So Turnbull and the Liberals have instead decided to complicate everything with a convoluted non-binding survey of the Australian people. Presumably, Turnbull hopes to use the survey result to allow same-sex marriage a vote in Parliament without getting blamed for it by his party's right-wing.
Same-sex marriage proponents hate this plan because they believe that their rights should not be put up to a vote, and they think Turnbull's proposal will lead to a divisive campaign. And it's voluntary in a country where voting has normally been compulsory for nearly a century, which risks turnout playing a key factor in a way that Australia isn't used to.
All that said, the survey will probably go ahead, and it will probably show a majority of Australians in favor of same-sex marriage (polling has found most Australians approve of the idea). Turnbull will then probably allow a vote and it will probably pass. But that's a lot of "ifs" for the Australian LGBT community, which, along with its counterpart in Northern Ireland, is the last in the Anglosphere to not have the right to marry.
Asia
● China: Hong Kong
Hong Kong politics have simmered with turmoil over the last few years as the Communist Party government in mainland China has sought to exert greater control over political affairs in the nominally autonomous former British colony. In August, Beijing threw more fuel on the flames when it successfully pushed a local court to hand down prison sentences to a trio of young activists in the city's pro-democracy movement, which itself enjoys broad support among the general public but is stymied by a stacked deck in local elections.
Though they were already ordered to perform community service and received suspended jail terms last year, the court sentenced Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow to prison for several months for allegedly fomenting unrest during the 2014 mass demonstrations known as the Umbrella Movement. Law himself had previously been elected to serve in the city legislature in 2016, but the 24-year-old and three others were disqualified from serving after modifying their swearing-in oaths to protest China's suppression of Hong Kong's democracy. These prison terms now forbid Law and his compatriots from holding elected office for five years.
These three young men have thus become Hong Kong's first political prisoners under mainland Chinese rule, prompting tens of thousands to take to the streets in protest against Beijing's subversion of the rule of law in a city-state that formally operates under the legal arrangement of "one country, two systems" until at least 2047. It remains to be seen, though, whether these prison sentences and subsequent protests have the ability to unify and galvanize Hong Kong's pro-democracy opposition, which has so far been fragmented among many competing groups.
Middle East/North Africa
● Iraq: Kurdistan – independence referendum (Sept. 25)
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq will hold a referendum on establishing an independent state later this month. The referendum will take place both in areas that are formally part of the regional government as well as in several disputed territories under its control, including the key city of Kirkuk. Kurdish leaders believe that a strong vote for independence will strengthen their hand in negotiations with the central government in Baghdad.
The referendum is expected to pass easily, but it's strongly opposed by the Iraqi central government, as well as Turkey, Iran, and Syria (all neighboring countries with Kurdish minorities). These three nations fear that an independent Kurdistan based in Iraq will eventually work to incorporate Kurdish areas in those countries. Western governments have also generally opposed the referendum since the Iraqi government has not consented to it.
Europe
● Germany – parliament (Sept. 24)
World leader after world leader has risen and fallen in the 12 years since Angela Merkel became chancellor of Germany in 2005. But despite political crises harrying just about every corner of the globe—and even some in her own country—Merkel just keeps rolling along. After a brief scare in the spring when the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) named Martin Schulz its new leader, Merkel and the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) regained a comfortable lead in the polls over the summer and are almost certain to continue governing the country.
The main question at this stage in the election is who CDU's coalition partner will be. During Merkel's first and third terms, she was forced into a grand coalition with the SPD, while during her second term she was able to govern with the center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) instead. The CDU would definitely prefer to return to a coalition with the FDP if possible, and recent polling shows the two parties together are on the cusp of a majority. If that pairing falls short, Merkel could conceivably turn to the center-left Greens in a CDU-FDP-Green alliance (called a "Jamaica coalition" for the three parties' colors of black, yellow, and green, which are also found on the Jamaican flag), but more likely would wind up in another grand coalition with the SPD.
Two other parties are expected to win seats in parliament, albeit without any chance of winding up in the next government. The far-left Die Linke (literally "The Left") could conceivably join an SPD-Green-Left coalition someday (something that's already happened at the state level), but current polling numbers leave such a grouping well short of a majority. Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), an Islamophobic and anti-immigrant party, will like enter the Bundestag for the first time, but no other party will agree to work with them.
● Norway – parliament (Sept. 11)
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg's center-right Conservative Party is seeking a second four-year term at the helm of its first-ever coalition with the right-wing populist Progress Party, which in turn relies on the support of two smaller, more traditionally center-right parties. Leading the opposition is the social democratic Labour Party, which forms a bloc with two smaller allies, the left-wing Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party, which has seen a sharp uptick in support on a centrist populist platform that advocates decentralizing power away from the capital of Oslo, in contrast to the bigger parties.
Oil exports play a central role in Norway's economy, with the government steering royalties from the partly state-owned oil company Statoil into a sovereign wealth fund. This nearly trillion-dollar fund invests in foreign assets, then uses its profits to fund Norwegian pensions, making it one of the world's boldest social security schemes. As such, both oil production and the fund's management have played a key role in this election campaign's debates.
The conservative governing coalition has pursued free-market policies that have cut taxes and controversially drew on the wealth fund to plug ensuing budgetary gaps without slashing spending. But thanks to a global drop in oil prices, the government has taken a major blow in the polls since its 2013 victory. However, despite trailing for much of 2017, polls in recent weeks have shown the four right-of-center parties clawing back against the opposition, with some even suggesting they could win a majority of the vote thanks in part to rebounding economic growth.
Two minor parties that have grown in support could also complicate things for Labour, depending on whether they're able to break the 4 percent support needed to win seats in parliament under Norway's system of proportional representation. Polls show the far-left Red Party growing from irrelevancy to falling just shy of the 4 percent threshold, while the centrist Greens are poised to pass that threshold for the first time. The latter's radical proposal to phase out oil production within 15 years leaves a lot of distance to make up in negotiations with either the left or the right if the Greens end up playing kingmaker, as some polls predict.
● Spain: Catalonia – independence referendum (Oct. 1)
In early September, lawmakers in Catalonia's regional parliament voted to call a binding referendum on independence on Oct 1. Pro-secessionist parties hold a majority in the regional parliament, but polls have long showed the electorate to be more deeply divided on the issue, calling into question whether the referendum will pass ... that is, if it even takes place. Spain's national government ostensibly must assent before a legal independence vote can take place, much like Scotland required the consent of the United Kingdom ahead of its own (unsuccessful) independence referendum in 2014, and that permission is very much not forthcoming.
Spain's conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has steadfastly maintained that this planned vote is illegal, and he swiftly turned to the national constitutional court, which issued a ruling to suspend the referendum. The national government's chief prosecutor also said he was preparing legal action against top Catalan officials themselves for disobeying past court orders barring their independence measures.
Despite the court’s ruling blocking the referendum, Catalan leaders vow to press forward. In the face of all this pressure, it's therefore not clear whether the vote will even happen, whether opponents would boycott if it does take place, or what the ramifications would be if Rajoy, whose government is very unpopular in Catalonia, takes extreme steps such as suspending the Catalan regional government.
Sub-Saharan Africa
● Kenya – president and legislature (Aug. 8) & presidential re-vote (Oct. 17)
In early August, Kenya held a vote that saw incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, a member of the conservative Jubilee Party who hails from the Kikuyu ethnic group, win re-election handily by a 54-44 margin against former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is ethnically Luo and leads the center-left Orange Democratic Movement. International observers generally validated the outcome as genuine, but in a shocking development, Kenya's Supreme Court annulled the election and ordered it to be run again within 60 days.
Odinga's campaign successfully convinced the court that there were numerous irregularities in vote counting, which it had feared would happen following the brutal torture and murder of the senior manager in information technology at the country's national election administration agency mere days before August's vote. Kenyatta has pledged to respect the court's decision, which could prove key to helping further establish Kenya's fledgling democracy as one with the rule of law and separation of powers. However, the president took a page from Donald Trump and lambasted the judges, telling his supporters, "They have been paid by white people and other trash."
As Kenyatta and Odinga prepare for their third bout (the two also faced each other in 2013), tensions remain high in a country where inter-ethnic violence related to elections isn't uncommon. Roughly 1,200 people were killed and 600,000 forced from their homes after the disputed 2007 elections, but analysts generally did not forecast similar violence after this summer's vote. While that expectation fortunately proved correct, the court's ruling only further raises the stakes for what will likely be a more heated October matchup.
Should this fall's rerun go more smoothly, especially if Odinga does indeed prevail and Kenyatta concedes, then it truly could mark a turning point in Kenyan democracy, since the peaceful transfer of power is a key sign of democratic stability. But regardless of the outcome, Kenya will likely be left with ethnically and tribally oriented political factions that deeply distrust each other, meaning democratic consolidation still has a long way to go.
● South Africa
South African President Jacob Zuma of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) survived a no-confidence vote in parliament last month by a narrow margin, with 177 MPs voting for the measure, 198 against, and nine abstaining, meaning that 51 members of Zuma's own party failed to back him. Had Zuma lost, he and his cabinet would have been forced to resign. South Africa's next election is scheduled for 2019, and Zuma cannot run for a third term, but his party, which has never won less than 62 percent of the vote since the first post-Apartheid elections in 1994, could face major losses.