The Daily Kos International Elections Digest is compiled by Stephen Wolf and David Beard, with additional contributions from James Lambert and Daniel Donner, and is edited by David Nir.
Leading Off
● United Kingdom – Independent Group formation
Eleven members of parliament (MPs)—eight from Labour and three from the Conservatives—left their respective parties and intend to set up a new, centrist party. Currently calling themselves the Independent Group (TIG), the defectors primarily cited Brexit, which they oppose and would like to soften or reverse, and the movement of the major parties away from the center and to the left and right. The Labour MPs also cited the party's ongoing struggle with anti-Semitism under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, whom they say has passively allowed the problem to grow more prevalent.
Campaign Action
This is not the first time the British Parliament has seen a split, but the most recent example does not bode well for TIG's prospects. In 1981, four prominent centrist Labour MPs split and formed the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP eventually gained 29 MPs through defections, 28 from Labour and one from the Conservatives. As the 1983 general election approached, the SDP formed an electoral alliance with the Liberals (the precursor to today's Liberal Democrats), and the alliance managed an impressive 25.4 percent of the vote, only a few points behind second-place Labour.
However, the United Kingdom's first-past-the-post system, like America's, is extremely unforgiving of third parties and the SDP-Liberal Alliance won only 23 seats out of the 650 in Parliament, and only six of those were SDP MPs. After a similar result in 1987, the two parties merged to form the modern Liberal Democrats, all but erasing the SDP from existence. It's hard to see how TIG, currently polling in the low teens, can succeed where the SDP failed.
Nevertheless, even if TIG doesn't succeed in winning seats, its presence on the ballot has the potential to take votes from the major parties, possibly hurting Labour. Apparently feeling the political pressure, Corbyn announced in late February that Labour would finally call for a second referendum to stop or soften Brexit. However, after years of Labour failing to lead against Brexit, the political damage that prompted the TIG split may be too late to reverse.
Notable Developments
● El Salvador – president (Feb. 3)
Left-leaning independent Nayib Bukele, the mayor of San Salvador, won El Salvador's presidency last month, becoming the first winner from outside the country's two major parties since the 1980s. Bukele, who has cultivated a digital-friendly image and has 1.3 million Facebook followers—a huge number in a nation of just 6.4 million residents—has promised to turn the page on the country's postwar period and tackle rampant corruption, violence and poverty.
Bukele won 53 percent, barely avoiding a runoff, while Carlos Calleja of the conservative ARENA party took 32 percent and Hugo Martinez of the left-wing FMLN finished with just 14 percent. Both of these major parties emerged out of El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s and have held power ever since. Bukele had been a member of FMLN when he was first elected mayor in 2015, but was kicked out of the party in 2017 for speaking out against the party and "promoting internal division." When his attempt to form his own party and run for the presidency was thwarted, he joined up with the small, center-right GANA party in order to get on the ballot.
Bukele has proposed that El Salvador create an international anti-corruption commission similar to the United Nations-administered one Guatemala had until recently, as well as large infrastructure projects such as a new airport and new rail lines. However, he hasn't fleshed out many details, and during the campaign, he avoided many interviews with journalists and did not participate in candidate debates. Bukele takes office on June 1.
● Estonia – parliament (March 3)
The small Baltic nation of Estonia will go to the polls on March 3, where the centrist-to-center-left Centre Party is defending its coalition majority with the center-left Social Democratic Party and the conservative Pro Patria party. Roughly one-quarter of Estonia's population is ethnic Russian, a demographic that heavily supports Centre. Most of the other parties had boycotted it over its ties to Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin until Centre reached an agreement to oust the previous center-right coalition in 2016.
The main opposition party is the center-right Reform Party, but polling has shown the far-right Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) surging since the 2015 elections, with the potential to double its share of the vote to as much as 20 percent. However, it's unclear whether EKRE will be able to deny the current coalition another majority since a smaller center-right party has lost most of its support over the last few years. Like many European far-right parties, EKRE is ultranationalist, hostile to the European Union, and anti-immigration, but thanks to the atypical dynamics of Estonian politics and history, they're also anti-Russian.
● Israel – parliament (April 9)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, the country's attorney general has announced. The most significant charges stem from allegations that Netanyahu and his confidants traded their support for regulatory changes in return for favorable press coverage from a prominent businessman. The formal indictment will likely occur later this year, after the upcoming elections.
Netanyahu's party, the right-wing Likud, went to the country's Supreme Court to stop the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, from unveiling his plans but was rejected. After the announcement, Likud called the charges a "witch hunt" and has otherwise stood by Netanyahu, who has, without evidence, accused Mandelblit of buckling to pressure from his political opponents. While it's unclear whether Netanyahu can continue to serve as prime minister after the official indictment comes down, the more pressing concern is how the news will affect the elections taking place in just over a month's time.
Netanyahu was already facing his biggest challenge since taking office in 2009. The past decade has seen Netanyahu benefit from the rise of far-right parties such as The Jewish Home that have bolstered right-wing coalitions; the divisions over the treatment of strictly Orthodox "Haredi" Jews that have driven parties representing those voters to support him; and the decreasing relevance of the once-dominant Labor Party on the center-left.
However, the merger of Yair Lapid's centrist Yesh Atid party and former Israeli Defense Forces General Benny Gantz's new Israeli Resilience Party has become a serious threat to Netanyahu. The combined party, named Blue and White after the colors of Israel's flag, has already been shown outpolling Likud, and in some polls, it even stands to deny the current right-religious coalition of the needed 61 of 120 seats to stay in power. If the indictment announcement weakens Likud's support any further, there is a good chance Netanyahu will not be able to stay in power.
Netanyahu is clearly feeling the strain, as he intervened to convince the far-right Jewish Home party to ally with the far-far-right Otzma Yehudit party in order to ensure that no right-wing party misses the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent (the minimum nationwide vote needed for a party to win any seats in parliament). Otzma Yehudit is led by followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from running in the 1998 elections due to his racist ideology and eliminationist rhetoric about Arabs. Netanyahu's cozying up to these ultra-extremists has drawn widespread condemnation, even among some of his typical supporters in the U.S. and elsewhere.
● Moldova – parliament (Feb. 24)
No party won a majority in Moldova's recent elections, which means that the country will either need to find a coalition government that can command a majority or face the prospect of new elections later this year. The pro-Russian Party of Socialists won 34 of 101 seats, while the center-left, pro-EU Democratic Party won 30 seats, and an anti-corruption, generally center-right coalition of parties named ACUM won 26 seats. ACUM actually won more votes than the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party did better among the 51 out of 101 seats elected in a single-member constituencies (like congressional seats in the U.S.).
That may matter as a Democratic/ACUM coalition is the most likely government to come out of these elections. The two groups share a pro-EU outlook, but the Democratic Party has been dogged by corruption issues and is largely under the control of oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc. The Democratic Party will likely want to retain the prime minister's office and will argue it won the larger share of seats, while ACUM may counter that it won more total votes.
In addition to the three major blocs, seven seats were won by Ilan Shor's new conservative, somewhat pro-Russian party, and three seats were won by independents. Shor is best known for being convicted for money laundering, fraud, and breach of trust in what the local media called the "crime of the century" when $1 billion was stolen from three of the country's biggest banks, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.
Both the Party of Socialists and ACUM have criticized the validity of the election results. According to Reuters, "The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the elections were 'generally well-run' but 'tainted by allegations of pressure on public employees, strong indications of vote buying and the misuse of state resources.'"
● Nigeria – president and legislature (Feb. 23-24)
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari won re-election over his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar, by a 56-41 margin to secure a second four-year term, and his center-left All Progressives Congress (APC) also maintained it majorities in the National Assembly over Abubakar's center-right People's Democratic Party (PDP). However, Abubakar and his supporters quickly decried the results as fraudulent, noting that turnout plummeted in his party's base in southern Nigeria compared to 2015, when Buhari had defeated then-PDP President Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria's first democratic transfer of power.
It's unclear just how much truth there is to Abubakar and the PDP's cries of fraud, but in a controversial move, the elections were delayed a week and saw dozens of instances of deadly violence. However, some international observers haven't noted irregularities widespread enough to change the results.
Buhari's victory seemed unthinkable at certain points in his presidency, since Nigeria's economy, which is heavily dependent on oil exports, suffered a recession in the first half of his term despite a fast-growing population, and the subsequent recovery in Africa's most populous country has done little to lower an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent. However, Nigeria is also notorious for corruption, and Buhari's reputation as an anti-graft crusader may have helped him prevail over Abubakar, a wealthy businessman who has been accused of acquiring much of his fortune through malfeasance.
Another factor aiding Buhari's re-election is the polarization in party support along religious and ethnic lines. Although both men are Muslims from northern Nigeria, Buhari's APC had strong support in the predominantly Muslim north, while Abubakar's PDP performed best in the mainly Christian south. Among the three biggest ethnic groups, Buhari earned significant backing among the Hausa in the north and the Yoruba in the southwest, while Abubakar did best among the Igbo in the southeast, who were insufficient by themselves to power him to victory.
● Spain – parliament (April 28)
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was forced to call early elections for April 28 after his center-left Socialist Party's minority government failed to pass a budget and couldn't overcome the gridlock without the support of the Catalan separatist parties that helped him oust the previous right-wing minority government of Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) last year.
Under Rajoy and the PP, Spain's national government had responded with a heavy hand to crush the Catalan separatist movement after the region voted to succeed in a non-binding 2017 referendum that the right vociferously argued was conducted against the law. The secessionist parties demanded greater concessions from Sanchez that he was not willing to grant even though he had attempted to maintain a dialogue with them in contrast to Rajoy's approach.
Unfortunately for the Socialists, the left-wing Podemos, and even the Catalan separatist parties, the upcoming election is shaping up to be an electoral disaster according to recent polls. That's because the far-right Vox party is poised to enter parliament for the first time—a dismaying milestone, since it will also be the first time that any far-right party has won seats since the end of Franco's fascist dictatorship in the 1970s. Vox surged onto the scene in last December's regional election in Andalusia, Spain's most populous region, ousting the Socialists after four decades of rule by forming a coalition with PP and the center-right Citizens.
While Citizens has branded itself as a centrist party, it's strongly in favor of right-leaning economic policies and adamantly against Catalan nationalism, let alone secession. Consequently, there's a strong risk that it will make a deal with the far-right to form a similar coalition with PP if the three parties win a combined majority, as expected.
● Ukraine – president (March 31 and April 21)
Ukraine's presidential contest will be its first since the pro-European Ukrainian government's battle against Russian-backed insurgents began in the eastern Donbass region. That armed conflict commenced after the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution ousted Russian-aligned President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia invaded and illegally annexed the Crimea region five years ago. Ukraine has struggled economically ever since, with corruption and kleptocracy rampant, forcing the country to agree to an International Monetary Fund bailout in exchange for austerity measures in December.
Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is deeply unpopular and is facing a large field of challengers, which may leave him shut out of an all-but-certain April runoff between the top two finishers, although polling is historically far less reliable than in more established democracies in Western Europe. Surveys show that one of Poroshenko's main rivals is former Prime Minister (and presidential runner-up) Yulia Tymoshenko, who was a leader in the 2004 Orange Revolution against Yanukovych and is running as a populist, claiming she'll succeed in containing Russia and increase living standards.
However, the race has been shaken up following the entry of actor and comedian Vladimir Zelenskiy, who has garnered widespread recognition by playing a Ukrainian president on a popular TV show. Zelenskiy is making the most of his fictional character's image as an honest and trustworthy politician to argue he's best positioned to take on Ukraine's oligarchs, but his critics have charged that he is instead the puppet of one of those very oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoisky, whose TV channel distributes the candidate's show. It's unclear who among the three candidates will make the expected runoff.
