Leading Off
● Cyprus—president (Jan. 28 & Feb. 4)
● Northern Cyprus—legislature (Jan. 7)
Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades of the center-right Democratic Rally is in a good position to prevail in this month's runoff and win a second five-year term after he finished with a 36 percent plurality of the vote in round one. Most important for the incumbent's chances is a split in the opposition. The second-place finisher ended up being leftist independent Stavros Malas, who has the support of the communist AKEL party. Malas won the second runoff spot by a 30-26 margin over Nikolas Papadopoulos of the center-right Democratic Party, which later refused to back either candidate in the second round.
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Anastasiades has made a key promise to restart failed reunification talks with the Turkish-majority breakaway republic in the north of Cyprus if he wins another term. However, Papadopoulos and his party had long taken a much more nationalist hard line against a potential deal with the north that they would view as too lenient. Had Papadopoulos snagged the second runoff spot, he might have drawn a stronger contrast with the incumbent over the issue of reunification, and he also could have stood a better chance of winning over voters on domestic issues who aren't eager to return AKEL to power.
Cyprus is unusual in Europe in that its main left-of-center party has long been a democratic communist party instead of a traditional center-left one, and AKEL even held the presidency from 2008 to 2013 under Anastasiades' predecessor, Demetris Christofias. However, Christofias took power as Europe plunged into a continent-wide financial crisis, and his tenure saw Cyprus forced to agree to an international bailout and tough austerity measures. AKEL subsequently suffered a crushing blow to its popularity, and Anastasiades defeated Malas by a wide 57-43 margin in the 2013 runoff after Christofias didn't seek a second term. With an economy that has finally begun to recover from years of austerity and stagnation, Anastasiades is favored to win another term.
However, elections in Northern Cyprus, which is internationally recognized only by Turkey, left supporters of reunification with much less reason to feel sanguine. President Mustafa Akinci's center-left allies suffered heavy losses, with the Republican Turkish Party falling from the largest party to a distant second place behind the right-wing Turkish nationalist National Unity Party, which opposes reunification. However, Akinci himself doesn't face re-election until 2020.
A good deal of this sharp drop in support for the center-left may stem from domestic politics, too. The Republican Turkish Party had previously formed a coalition with the center-right nationalist Democratic Party after the 2013 elections, but that coalition collapsed amid infighting in 2016. The National Unity Party subsequently formed a new coalition with the Democratic Party prior to 2018, but voters punished the latter even more thoroughly than they did the center-left, with the Democratic Party losing the vast majority of its seats.
It's unclear what the new balance of power will look like in domestic affairs, with the new populist centrist People's Party surging to become the third largest. However, in diplomatic affairs, where the president's powers are stronger relative to Parliament, foes of reunification have certainly received a major boost. If the two presidents in the north and south can finally secure another unification deal for the island, they may face a very tough time getting their respective legislatures and electorates to go along with them, just as happened with a failed 2004 effort.
Europe
● Czech Republic—president (Jan. 12-13 & Jan. 26-27)
Czech President Milos Zeman has defied the odds to pull off a 51-49 upset victory against challenger centrist Jiri Drahos, who favored closer ties to the European Union. Despite hailing from the center-left Party of Civic Rights, Zeman is an unabashed Islamophobe who favors closer ties with President Vladimir Putin's Russia and authoritarian China, and has praised Donald Trump. Although the Czech Republic mostly relies on a parliamentary system of government, its president has come to play a major role in public affairs.
Zeman's pro-Putin stance led the Russian government to apparently engage in the same sort of propaganda campaign to support him as they did for Trump in America's 2016 presidential election. Zeman led with 39 percent in the first round to just 27 percent for Drahos, but a sizable majority of the vote went to candidates who opposed Zeman's ultranationalist, pro-Russian stances, giving his opponents hope for the runoff.
However, Zeman had the support of populist center-right ANO party Prime Minister Andrej Babis and the far-right SPD party, while the beleaguered remains of the traditional center-right parties favored Drahos. Zeman was able to motivate his supporters to eke out victory in what can only be viewed as a win for Russian attempts to exert greater influence on European geopolitical affairs. Indeed, Zeman has opposed sanctions against the Putin regime.
Zeman's successful bid to win a second term may also have consequences for Czech parliamentary politics. Babis' anti-establishment ANO became the largest party and won its first-ever term in government after elections last October. However, an ongoing fraud investigation into Babis' business interests and record-high political fragmentation left no other party willing to form a coalition with him or able to form one without him, leading Zeman to appoint Babis to head a minority government. Babis lost a no-confidence vote in January, but Zeman has pledged to reappoint him rather than call for new elections to break the stalemate.
● Italy—Parliament (March 4)
Since Italy's 2013 elections, three center-left prime ministers from the Democratic Party have seen Italy through the past five years of coalition government. The second and longest-serving of those three, Matteo Renzi, is leading his center-left coalition into the next election, but his alliance faces an uphill climb and is at serious risk of coming in third. Despite economic success during the past five years, the Democratic Party has gradually lost ground since its high point at Renzi's installation in 2014.
Meanwhile, on the other side, what's old is new again, as former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi once again heads a coalition of center-right and far-right parties as he seeks to lead the country for a fourth time since 1994. His main coalition partner is the far-right League (formerly the pro-secessionist Northern League), led by Matteo Salvini, who has prime ministerial ambitions of his own after his party had previously played second-fiddle to Berlusconi's in past center-right governments. Berlusconi's bloc also includes a smaller far-right party called Brothers of Italy. The center-right coalition currently holds a plurality in the polls but is unlikely to win a majority in Parliament.
The third major player in Italian politics is the populist Five Star Movement, founded by former comedian Beppe Grillo in 2009 and now jointly led with Luigi Di Maio, a 31-year-old member of Parliament. Five Star's anti-establishment message was widely successful and won it a quarter of the vote in 2013. However, the party's opposition to alliances with any other party (which may be waning) has made it difficult for it to win elections. More recently, Five Star won the mayoralty of Rome and Turin (the country's largest and fourth-largest cities, respectively), but it has faced struggles transforming itself into a governing party.
Recent polling has placed the center-right coalition in the mid-to-high 30s, with both the center-left and Five Star in the high 20s. A dissident left-wing coalition called Free and Equal is the only other group registering in the polls, though it's far behind the others, at just 6-7 percent. It likely will only come into play if the center-left alliance overperforms on election day and needs to hunt for allies.
If current polling holds and no party or coalition wins a majority, it's unclear what sort of governing coalition might form. Much depends on whether the Five Star Movement is willing to involve itself in the messy business of coalition-building. If not, some sort of left-right grand coalition led by a center-right politician is most likely.
● Ireland—abortion referendum (May or June)
The Republic of Ireland has long had one of the most restrictive abortion policies in the Western world, written into the country's constitution in 1983. Abortion is illegal in all cases except when the life of the mother is at risk. While Irish women (who can afford it) can travel to the U.K. or elsewhere in Europe where abortion is legal, efforts have intensified in recent years to repeal the language in the constitution around abortion.
A chance to do so will finally happen this May when Ireland will vote in a referendum on whether to eliminate this restriction. The leaders of both major center-right parties (Fine Gael and Fianna Fail) are supporting repeal, as are the left-of-center Sinn Fein, Labour, Social Democrats and the Greens, who all signed a 2016 election pledge in support of a rollback. Limited polling has shown repeal leading by a comfortable margin, but the campaign has yet to heat up. The anti-abortion movement has long been a powerful force in Ireland and should not be taken lightly.
If the vote is successful, the Irish Parliament plans to pass a new law regulating abortion, though the final form of that law is still unclear. The government's initial plan is to allow abortion for the first twelve weeks of pregnancy and then more strictly control it after that, but it's unclear if that's what would in fact come out of Parliament.
North America
● Canada: Ontario—legislature (by June 7)
Ontario's political world turned upside-down in January when Patrick Brown, the leader of the province's Progressive Conservative Party (better known as the Tories), resigned after being accused of sexual assault during his tenure as a federal politician. Brown initially tried to weather the storm by denying the allegations, but after most of his closest advisors and staffers resigned in response, he ultimately bowed to reality.
It remains unclear, though, what effect, if any, Brown's departure might have on the upcoming provincial elections, which must be held by no later than June 7. Ontario's governing Liberal Party has held power for four consecutive terms beginning in 2003, but a fifth term has appeared unlikely according to opinion polling.
The PCs, a center-right party (despite the confusing "progressive" moniker), must first hold a new leadership election on March 10 to replace Brown. The race may feature some familiar-sounding names: former Toronto city councilor Doug Ford, brother of deceased crack-smoking right-wing populist Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, has announced that he will run, and lawyer Caroline Mulroney, the daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is rumored to be considering the race.
● Canada: Saskatchewan--Saskatchewan Party leadership election
It's officially the end of an era in Canada's western prairie province of Saskatchewan: Long-serving Premier Brad Wall announced last summer that he would be resigning his post, barely a year after winning his third term in a sweeping victory in the 2016 provincial elections. Wall, who consistently polled at or near the top of Canadian premiers in terms of favorability, made his resignation official on January 27, when members of the center-right Saskatchewan Party elected Scott Moe, a former cabinet minister in Wall's government, to replace him.
Moe beat out five challengers on the fifth ballot in order to secure the win. While he does inherit a healthy legislative majority of 49 seats to the center-left New Democratic Party's 12, he also faces fiscal challenges, including a weakened economy due to sagging oil prices, that Wall largely avoided during his tenure. Some polling indicates that the next general election could be competitive, though it does not need to be held until November of 2020.
Central America/Caribbean
● Costa Rica - president and legislature (Feb. 4 & April 1)
Costa Rica elects its next national government on Feb. 4, with an April 1 runoff for president if no candidate earns more than 40 percent of the vote. We won't have the results in time for this month's International Digest because it falls on the same day we publish, but you can read our preview of the contests from last month. We'll cover the outcome of these elections in our March edition.
Grab Bag
● Ireland/Northern Ireland: Gerry Adams, who has served as president of Sinn Fein since 1983, has stepped down, and Mary Lou McDonald has been tapped to replace him as leader. McDonald has served in the Irish Parliament as a member of parliament from Dublin since 2011. Sinn Fein is a left-wing nationalist party that runs candidates in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. It has long advocated for a united Ireland, and it served as the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army terrorist organization during the violent period known as "the Troubles" in the late 20th Century.
● New Zealand: New Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who at 37 became New Zealand's youngest prime minister in 150 years in October, has announced that she is pregnant with her first child. She is planning to take six weeks of maternity leave starting in June; coalition partner Winston Peters of the New Zealand First party will serve as acting PM while she's away. A country's elected leader giving birth is rare but not unprecedented: Benazir Bhutto gave birth to a daughter while serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1990.