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 – Conservative Party leadership election (June-July)
Boris Johnson comfortably won election to become both the new leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister of the United Kingdom last week, earning 66% of the Tory party membership vote to runner-up Jeremy Hunt's 34% to succeed Theresa May, who announced her resignation in May.
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Upon taking office, Johnson radically overhauled the government, dismissing nearly every Cabinet member who had not supported both Johnson in the leadership election and the concept of a "no-deal" Brexit. The new, much more right-wing ruling coalition will, however, struggle to pass any notable legislation with just a single-digit majority in Parliament, which means new elections are likely within months.
Johnson has repeatedly committed to taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union on the revised date of Oct. 31, with or without a transition agreement. As the European Union has long refused to make major changes to the previously negotiated withdrawal agreement, it's nearly certain that Johnson will attempt to leave the EU without any sort of deal, which would reset tariffs between the U.K. and the EU to standard World Trade Organization rates.
All signs show, though, that Johnson cannot command a majority in favor of a no-deal Brexit: Not only do many Tories strongly oppose it, but lawmakers voted to reject the idea in the form of a nonbinding resolution back in March. However, Parliament may struggle to prevent this hardest of Brexits from taking place. A no-deal Brexit is currently the law, so Johnson may simply be able to run out the clock or evade whatever restrictions Parliament attempts to place on him.
The next steps are easy to predict, though the key outcomes remain in doubt. Johnson will almost certainly try for no deal, which Parliament will in turn attempt to block by forcing Johnson to request another extension from the EU. Whatever happens, though, Johnson will likely call new elections soon after.
If the U.K. were to leave the EU without a deal, however economically disastrous such an outcome would be, Johnson will campaign as having carried out the wishes voters expressed in the country's fateful 2016 referendum. If, on the other hand, Parliament blocks a no-deal Brexit, Johnson will argue that he needs a new majority to finish the job.
Johnson will almost certainly succeed at one major Conservative goal, though, which is to turn back the existential crisis on the Tories' right flank presented by Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party. The rising frustration over a delayed Brexit and an insufficiently hardline withdrawal agreement had put the Tories at risk of losing their base to the new party, which burst onto the scene with a 32% plurality in May's EU elections.
Johnson's strident support for no deal and his commitment to the Oct. 31 date, however, should largely neutralize that threat, particularly if Brexit does indeed transpire without any agreement. However, with this positioning, Johnson risks losing moderate Tories to the surging Liberal Democrats, making a hung Parliament with no party winning a majority a real possibility after the next election.
Amid this drama, the Lib Dems also picked a new leader, Jo Swinson, who became the first U.K. party leader born in the 1980s. Swinson was among the many Liberal Democrats who lost their seats in the party's 2015 shellacking, but was one of the few to win hers back in 2017. She is expected to continue the Lib Dems' policy of strong support for remaining in the European Union, making hers the most prominent nationwide party to unambiguously advocate against Brexit. (It also leaves Labour as the only major party to never have elevated a woman as its leader.)
Notable Developments
● Canada: Newfoundland and Labrador – government formation
Following a recount in which a candidate for the center-left New Democratic Party prevailed by just two votes, Newfoundland and Labrador's centrist Liberals have lost their majority by a single seat. Consequently, with half of the seats in the chamber, the Liberals formed a minority government.
● Denmark – parliament (June 5)
Just as the polls predicted, Denmark's center-left alliance won a smashing victory to oust the previous center-right Venstre party minority government. Forty-one-year-old Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen became Denmark's youngest-ever prime minister and the second woman to ever hold the post, leading a minority government supported by the centrist Social Liberal Party, the left-wing Socialist People's Party, and the far-left Red-Green Alliance, along with a few minor regional parties.
The far-right Danish People's Party collapsed from 21% of the vote in 2015 to just 9%, but that came at a cost: Many of the DPP's anti-immigrant policies have since been mainstreamed by Venstre and even the Social Democrats. However, under pressure from their left-leaning allies, the Social Democrats have agreed to soften their support for such policies, but that may prove politically problematic since the party campaigned in favor of immigration restrictions. Nevertheless, the new government plans to also prioritize social welfare services, higher taxes on the rich, and a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
● Finland – government formation
Following April's elections, the Social Democrats have formed Finland's first predominantly center-left government in decades after securing a coalition with the centrist Centre party, the center-left Greens, the left-wing Left Alliance, and the centrist Swedish People's Party. New Social Democratic Prime Minister Antti Rinne has vowed to reverse the austerity policies of the previous center-right government by increasing social welfare spending and taxes, along with making a stronger commitment to combating climate change.
● Greece – parliament (July 7)
Greece's center-right New Democracy party retook power in July's elections, ending four years of rule by the left-wing Syriza party. Syriza won in 2015 on an anti-austerity platform, only to see its policies blocked by the European Union, which insisted on severe financial restrictions to continue its bailout of the country.
While Syriza successfully avoided default, kept Greece on the euro, and ended the bailout last year, ongoing austerity weakened the party electorally. New Democracy took advantage, turning to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the son of a 1990s prime minister, who promised to spur economic growth and lower unemployment, which currently sits at 18%.
Syriza had managed to partially close what had been a massive polling gap over the course of the election, ultimately losing by about 8 points after having trailed by as much as 20. In fact, a majority of voters supported a party to the left of center, as is seen when the votes for Syriza, the center-left Movement for Change, the far-left Communist Party, and left-wing MeRA25 are combined. However, in Greece, the largest party wins a 50-seat bonus in the 300-seat parliament, which assured New Democracy of a majority. Notably, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party fell just below the 3% threshold and lost all of its seats.
● Guatemala – president and legislature (June 16 and Aug. 18)
Former first lady Sandra Torres of the center-left National Unity of Hope (UNE) party and Alejandro Giammattei of the right-wing Vamos party have advanced to an August runoff in Guatemala, taking 26% and 14% of the vote respectively. UNE also doubled its share of seats in the country's unicameral Congress, taking 54 of 160, while the National Convergence Front of outgoing right-wing President Jimmy Morales lost most of its representatives. However, the remaining seats were split among more than a dozen parties, so it's unclear what the overall ideological lean of the new Congress is.
Voter outrage over corruption has played a large role in this election, but voters weren't given a chance to back one of the most stalwart anti-corruption candidates after former Attorney General Thelma Aldana was disqualified from running on dubious grounds. The remaining contenders, meanwhile, have their own issues on this front: Torres herself has faced accusations of misconduct, and Giammattei would likely get rid of the country's United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission if elected. Giammattei has promised to crack down on crime, but he was previously accused of involvement in the murder of 11 inmates when he served as Guatemala's prison chief.
● Israel – parliament (Sept. 17)
As Israel heads towards its unexpected second election of 2019, a number of parties and politicians have shifted their positioning in the wake of April's results.
Most notably, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced his return to politics with the new Israel Democratic Party. Barak, who served as the Labor Party's last prime minister from 1999-2001, has not been active in politics since 2013, but he has been sharply critical of right-wing Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak's new party has allied itself with the left-wing Meretz party and prominent Labor politician Shav Shaffir to form an electoral coalition called the Democratic Camp.
Labor, meanwhile, won only six seats in April—the worst showing ever for the once-mighty party that governed Israel for decades—and some want its remaining members to join the Democratic Camp alliance. Amir Peretz, Labor's new leader, has so far resisted such calls and has instead placed the party in an electoral coalition with a small party that missed the electoral threshold in April, the centrist Gesher party.
At the same time, the two Arab coalitions, Hadash-Ta'al and Ra'am-Balad, which collectively won 10 seats in April, have announced plans to re-establish the Joint List alliance that they used in 2015 to successfully win 13 seats and come in third.
Finally, the far-right remains in an uncertain state. The United Right coalition won five seats in April, but the ultra-right and openly racist Otzma Yehudit party left the bloc after it didn't receive a seat in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. A separate party called the New Right, which missed entering parliament in April by only a few thousand votes, called for a coalition between itself and the United Right, but that has not yet occurred.
None of this has affected the ongoing political reality, in which polling still shows Netanyahu theoretically winning enough seats to form a government but needing both the Orthodox Haredi religious parties and Avigdor Lieberman's secular right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party to do so. It was a venomous split between those two factions, however, that led to Likud's failure to establish a new governing coalition in April and Netanyahu's decision to call new elections.
● Japan – House of Councillors (July 21)
There was little change after Japan held elections earlier this month for half of the seats in the country's upper chamber of parliament, the House of Councillors. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's center-right Liberal Democratic Party, which has run the country for most of the last 65 years, won 57 of 124 seats, and its coalition partner Komeito won an additional 14 seats. The two allies lost a combined nine seats compared to the last election but still comfortably held on to power. (They also hold a wide majority in Japan's lower chamber, the House of Representatives, which was last elected in 2017.)
The new Constitutional Democratic Party, formed from a split of the old center-left Democratic Party, outperformed its more right-leaning rival, the Democratic Party for the People, 17 seats to six. The neoconservative Japanese Innovation Party, meanwhile, won 10 seats, and the Communist Party won six.
The ruling coalition did lose its two-thirds majority, which means it can no longer pass constitutional amendments without opposition support. This is in theory a blow to Abe's long-standing goal of revising Japan's pacifist constitution, but given Komeito's resistance to the idea, the changes in question have never actually come close to passing.
● Moldova – government formation
In a dramatic turn of events centered around a dayslong constitutional crisis, Moldova finally has a new governing coalition following February's elections. The new government, led by a seemingly unlikely coalition between the liberal, pro-Western ACUM alliance and the pro-Russian Socialists, ousted the Democratic Party-led government that was tied to powerful oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.
The outgoing Democratic government had tried to remain in power by using its influence over the country's constitutional court to remove Socialist President Igor Dodon from office so that it could order new elections, but the party finally backed down after several days of pressure from both European Union member states and Russia. Consequently, Plahotniuc fled the country to avoid criminal prosecution for corruption.
While the new government's formation is a victory for the rule of law in a country plagued by weak democratic institutions, it remains to be seen just how durable it will be or what policies it will produce given the vast ideological and geopolitical differences between ACUM and the Putin-supporting Socialists.
● Turkey – Istanbul mayor (June 23)
In a sign that democracy in Turkey may not be completely dead yet, the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) won a rerun of the Istanbul's mayor race by nearly 10%, a considerably larger margin than was seen in the first vote, held in March. Ekrem Imamoglu, the center-left CHP candidate, had won the first vote by just 0.2% over a candidate from Turkish President Recep Erdogan's party, but Erdogan successfully pressured the country's Electoral Council to void the result on bogus grounds.
Many worried that Erdogan would do whatever was necessary to hold on to the prominent and powerful mayoralty, which had in fact launched his own political career in the 1990s. Istanbul is not only Turkey's largest city and financial center, but it's also long been a stronghold of Erdogan's radical-right Justice and Development Party (AKP), making last month's results even more notable.
In the short term, Erdogan still retains complete control of the national government as well as of the Istanbul city council, which can hamstring Imamoglu's initiatives. But the result has revived the spirits of the opposition and raised new questions about Erdogan's long-term hold on power as the Turkish economy continues to falter.
● Ukraine – parliament (July 21)
Recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky's new Servant of the People party won an outright majority in July's parliamentary elections, a first for any party since Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The election hands Zelensky a firm mandate to pursue his agenda, the details of which the actor-turned-politician kept vague during the campaign. Zelensky does favor stronger ties with the European Union and NATO, though, and his rise has drawn comparisons to that of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Zelensky ran on a populist platform of taking on corruption and the oligarchs who dominate Ukraine's politics and economy, and many of the candidates elected in his party were, like him, new to politics. However, it's not clear what those promises will entail, and Zelensky himself faced accusations during the presidential race that he was under the influence of an oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky.