The Daily Kos International Elections Digest is compiled by Stephen Wolf and David Beard, with additional contributions from James Lambert, Daniel Donner, and Julia van Hoogstraten, and is edited by David Nir.
Leading Off
● Italy – government formation
After an inconclusive March election that saw both the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League claim victory, the two populist parties cemented an agreement to form an alliance and now look to bring Italy into uncharted territory. The Five Star Movement dominated southern Italy and emerged as the largest individual party, but the League, which dominated northern Italy, wound up at the head of the largest coalition (along with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia). The center-left Democratic Party, meanwhile, finished far behind both Five Star and the League's bloc.
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Two hiccups nearly cost the two parties the chance to govern and could have led to new elections. At first a deal was held up because Five Star refused to enter into a government with Forza Italia over Berlusconi's well-deserved reputation for corruption, but once Berlusconi agreed to support the coalition from the outside, an arrangement was reached.
Then, in a dramatic development, Italian President Sergio Mattarella rejected the coalition's proposed finance minister, Paolo Savona, for his hostility toward the European Union's common currency, the euro. Mattarella concluded that that the issue of the euro—and whether the country should stop participating in it—had not been part of either party's electoral campaign and it was therefore inappropriate to green-light a government that might seek to exit the so-called "eurozone" without having properly put the matter before voters. After much back and forth, however, the coalition relented and submitted a new cabinet, paving the way for the government's formation.
That made this new ruling coalition the first populist government in Western Europe in modern times, and with League leader Matteo Salvini as interior minister, it has already made disturbing moves after only weeks in power. Earlier this month, Salvini refused to allow a ship that had rescued 600 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea to dock in an Italian port. Salvini has long complained that Italy (along with Greece) has been forced to shoulder the burden of the European migration crisis without help from the rest of the continent. New Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (see more on him in our Spain item below) eventually rescued the vessel and allowed it to dock in Spain, but Salvini has vowed to reject more ships going forward.
Salvini's nationalist campaign has also targeted those already in the country. He has announced plans for a census of the Roma community in Italy, with the intention of deporting any Roma without Italian citizenship. In his words, Italy must "unfortunately" allow Roma with Italian citizenship to stay. While Five Star won significantly more votes that the League, the League has served in government before (under Berlusconi), and Salvini has placed himself in a position to enact many of his top priorities. It remains to be seen how far Italy and Salvini's anti-immigrant, anti-minority campaign will go before Five Star objects or the rest of Europe gets involved.
Notable Developments
● Canada: British Columbia – proportional representation referendum
British Columbia will hold a referendum on electoral reform this fall on the question of whether or not to adopt a one of three variants of proportional representation in future provincial elections. The vote was approved by the province's governing New Democratic Party, which relies on the support of the tiny Green Party caucus in order to have a numerical edge in the legislature. (The Greens, who stand to make major numerical gains if proportional representation is adopted, demanded a referendum on the subject as a condition for their support of the NDP government.)
Green and NDP voters, who made up a majority of voters in the 2017 provincial election, would seemingly have an incentive to support reform in order to prevent the right-wing Liberal Party from taking advantage of a center-left vote split, as has happened in the past. However, it is worth noting that voters in British Columbia have twice voted on the issue of electoral reform in the past, and voters declined to embrace a different reform—that of a single transferable vote system—in both 2005 and 2009, so there are no guarantees that voters will choose to upend the status quo this time.
● Canada: Ontario – provincial parliament (June 7)
The Ontario Liberal Party's 15-year reign ended in spectacular fashion this month, with the right-leaning Progressive Conservatives surging to power under the leadership of ex-Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford, the brother of deceased crack-smoking populist Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. The Conservatives captured a majority of the legislature's seats despite winning under 41 percent of the province-wide popular vote, while the left-leaning NDP claimed second place with 34 percent. Incumbent Premier Kathleen Wynne, who remarkably conceded defeat prior to the June 7 vote, saw her Liberals fall to 7 seats in the 124-member legislature, while the Greens scored their first ever victory in the province, picking up a single seat.
● Colombia – president (May 27)
In a dismaying outcome for the prospects of Colombia's historic 2016 peace agreement to end its five-decade civil war with the far-left FARC rebels, right-wing populist Ivan Duque won this month's presidential runoff by a 54-42 margin over leftist Gustavo Petro, who himself was a onetime guerrilla and former mayor of Bogota. An ally of former President Alvaro Uribe, Duque owes his victory in large part to the fact that he didn't have to face center-left candidate Sergio Fajardo, who would likely have proved a tougher opponent but narrowly trailed Petro 25-24 in the first round, thus missing the runoff.
Duque's win is a major rebuke to outgoing center-right President Juan Manuel Santos, who negotiated the peace deal. Consequently, we could see the Colombian government take a much harsher stance toward the former rebels and likely push to renegotiate the deal. As a staunch social conservative, Duque has also vowed to reinvigorate the war on drugs.
● Ireland – abortion referendum (May 25)
Thirty-five years after passing a draconian abortion ban into the country's constitution, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to repeal the amendment and allow the country's parliament to instead regulate the procedure. A lopsided 66 percent of voters supported the repeal with only 34 percent opposed. Recent decades have witnessed the once overwhelmingly conservative and Catholic country become more secular and more socially liberal, as previously seen in the similarly one-sided vote to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015.
Because Ireland doesn't allow any type of absentee voting from abroad, thousands of Irish citizens from across Europe and the rest of the world traveled home to vote in the referendum, a remarkable display that lit up social media. (Many were women hoping to overturn the ban.) Following the repeal, the Irish parliament plans to introduce legislation in July and pass it into law in the fall. The new law is expected to legalize abortion under any circumstance for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and later if the woman's physical or mental health is at risk.
● Macedonia – naming dispute
The Balkan nation of Macedonia might change its name in a referendum this fall if a new deal with Greece to end one of the world's most bizarre diplomatic disputes goes forward. Ever since the Republic of Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Greece has objected to its northern neighbor's use of that name because some nationalists believe it implies territorial claims over Greece's own neighboring region—also called Macedonia—and the historical legacy of Alexander the Great. (Remember his father from eighth-grade history? That would be Philip of Macedon.) As a result, Greece had long blocked the Republic of Macedonia from joining the European Union and NATO.
To get around this problem, this new proposal would see the Republican of Macedonia change its name to North Macedonia, but it could face a tough road. Prior to the referendum, the change needs to be approved by the parliaments in both countries. However, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's center-left governing coalition lacks the two-thirds supermajority needed to pass constitutional amendments, so he'll need some support from the right-wing nationalist coalition he ousted in 2016's historic elections.
The Greek parliament, meanwhile, would only need to back the measure with a majority vote, but even that might be difficult for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's radical-left Syriza party without the support of its populist right-wing coalition partner. And even if both parliaments agree, Macedonian voters would still have to approve the change.
● Mali – president (July 29)
The landlocked West African nation of Mali will hold its next presidential election on July 29, with a runoff on Aug. 12 if no candidate takes a majority. Incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of the Rally for Mali party is seeking a second five-year term after years of battling Islamic militants, who still control sizable portions of the country. Former Finance Minister Soumaila Cisse of the Union for the Republic and Democracy is seen as Keita's main rival, while Sikasso Mayor Khalifa Sanogo of the Alliance for Democracy in Mali is also running.
● Mexico – president & legislature (July 1)
Thanks to a one-term limit, Mexicans will elect their next president and an entirely new Congress next month. Outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto's centrist PRI party has become deeply unpopular, and polls show leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, is poised to become the nation's first leftist president in eight decades. AMLO could even attain an outright majority, even though it only takes a plurality to win, but it's unclear whether his Morena party and its allies will be able to secure majorities in the bicameral Congress.
● Pakistan – parliament (July)
Pakistan will elect its next parliament in July after the ruling conservative Pakistan Muslim League (PML) stepped down following five years in power. The PML's departure will allow a nonpartisan caretaker government to administer the upcoming elections in order to allay fears over manipulation, a move that also occurred in 2013 when the center-left opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had been in power. These two parties have long dominated Pakistani politics, and they'll be competing with the populist and centrist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI).
Leading the PML is Shehbaz Sharif, the chief minister of the province of Punjab whose family has long dominated the PML. However, he'll be contending with the recent legacy of his brother, Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from the prime minister's office in 2017 by the Supreme Court and is currently on trial for corruption. Meanwhile, the PTI has accused the Sharif family of rigging elections, and its leader, Imran Khan, is a former national cricket star who has seen his popularity as a top opposition figure rise, likely at the expense of PPP.
● Slovenia – parliament (June 3)
Slovenia's elections were yet another in a long line that produced fragmentation and turnover, with the outgoing center-left coalition shedding scores of seats while no ideological bloc came close to winning a majority. Former Prime Minister Janez Jansa's radical-right Slovenian Democratic Party became the largest party after running an anti-immigrant campaign with Hungary's radical-right, authoritarian government as its role model, but it still only won 25 percent of the vote and will likely struggle to form a government without a major change in course on the part of other players.
Centrist and left-leaning parties won another majority, but their composition changed dramatically as the Modern Centre Party of former Prime Minister Miro Cerar plummeted to just 10 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, the anti-establishment center-left party named after its leader, Marjan Sarec, debuted with 13 percent of the vote, while the radical-left The Left improved to 9 percent and the center-left Social Democrats grew to 10 percent. But even those four parties together would still need to rely on at least one more centrist party, while no center/center-left coalition is possible without The Left.
● Spain – government formation
In a surprising turnaround, Spain's left-of-center opposition parties and several small regional nationalist parties agreed to oust the minority government of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP), leading to the center-left Socialists taking power under new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. The Socialists gained traction thanks to rampant corruption scandals and also a backlash in part due to Rajoy's heavy-handed response to Catalonia's disputed 2017 independence push that saw his party's support dwindle.
However, Sanchez and the left still have a tough road ahead of them. The Socialists and the left-wing Unidos Podemos only hold 43 percent of the seats in parliament combined, and to stay in power, they have to rely on Basque and Catalan nationalist parties, some of whom are center-right and opposed to left-wing economic policies. Furthermore, it's unclear if this new Socialist minority government will persist until the 2020 elections or decide to call early elections of its own.
Since the Catalonia crisis last year, the center-right Citizens party, which is more socially liberal than PP but is stridently opposed to Basque and Catalan autonomy, has surged in support at PP's expense. However, the outcome of any early elections would still be in suspense. With the left depending in part on Catalan nationalists in particular, they will face pressures to change the national government's stance toward that region, though doing so could alienate centrist voters in the rest of Spain whom the Socialists rely on.
● Turkey – president & legislature (June 24)
Turkey is conducting its first presidential election since moving from a semi-presidential system, where the president had shared power with the prime minister, to a full presidential system under which most state power lies with the president. Right-wing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics since becoming prime minister in 2003, is facing five other candidates, with center-left opposition leader Muharrem Ince polling in second place. Those same polls have shown Erdogan in the mid- to upper 40s, and he could conceivably win the election outright, but it's more likely that he and Ince will advance to a runoff on July 8. The election is being conducted under a state of emergency that creates numerous disadvantages for the opposition.
