LEADING OFF
● Iceland – legislature (fall)
The massive leak of private offshore financial documents known as the Panama Papers produced an equally massive political earthquake in Iceland after Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson was shown to have undisclosed financial assets. He quickly stepped down amidst the largest anti-government protests in Iceland since the 2008-09 financial crisis hit the country. The governing coalition of Gunnlaugsson's center-right Progressive Party and the right-wing Independence Party agreed to call early elections for the fall instead of waiting until April of next year, when new elections would be required. However, the opposition continues to demand more immediate elections, which every poll since early 2015 shows it would win.
Making this political crisis even more historic is who stands to gain from it. The current center-right government coalition is thoroughly unpopular, but the main center-left Social Democratic Alliance and left-wing Left-Green opposition parties were largely discredited from their disastrous handling of the economic recovery in the wake of the financial crisis. Consequently, the nascent Pirate Party—which you won't be surprised to learn is intensely anti-establishment—has surged in the polls and is well-positioned to lead a new coalition after the next election.
The Pirates, who have small sister parties in other European nations, have proposed a radical experiment in government transparency, direct democracy, digital privacy, and copyright reform—a platform almost perfectly suited to take advantage of the disgust over the Panama Papers revelations. While the Pirates intentionally avoid placing themselves on the left-right political spectrum, many of their other policy planks, such as support for the welfare state and reform of drug laws, put them closer to those on the left. With polls showing their support over 30 percent, the Pirates would easily have the numbers to form a coalition with one or both of the two left-leaning opposition parties, meaning Iceland could be in for a dramatic shift in policy whenever elections eventually take place.
See our earlier full story on Iceland for more extensive details on these developments and what they might mean both domestically and internationally. Needless to say, if it succeeds, Iceland's Pirate Party would be the first of its kind to hold power anywhere.
ASIA
● Philippines – president and legislature (May 9)
Filipinos head to the polls in a matter of days to vote in elections for a new president as well as every seat in the House of Representatives and half the Senate. While the large number of parties and constantly changing coalitions make the legislative elections all but impossible to preview, the presidential race is being contested by four leading candidates with sharply differing views. The election does not have a runoff, so whoever wins the most votes on May 9 will win outright, even if he or she is far short of 50 percent.
In the Philippines, presidents are barred from seeking re-election and so serve a single six-year term. The center-left Liberal Party, the party of incumbent president Benigno Aquino III, has put forward Mar Roxas, the grandson of a former president and a former Senator and cabinet secretary. The PDP–Laban, a left wing party, has nominated Rodrigo Duterte, the mayor of Davao City, a coastal city of 1.4 million that is the county's fourth most populous. Meanwhile, the United Nationalist Alliance, a center-right party, has nominated current Vice President Jejomar Binay (president and vice president are elected separately). Finally Grace Poe, a senator and daughter of former prominent actor and presidential candidate Fernando Poe, is running as an independent.
Duterte has led in recent polling but recently made a horrific rape joke and only partially apologized, though it's unclear how much that might hurt him. He's cultivated a reputation for "toughness" as mayor by touting his zero-tolerance policy against criminals—so much so that he's been accused by Human Rights Watch of supporting extrajudicial killings. At the same time, he's supportive of LGBT rights, minority Muslim rights, and is pro-contraception in a staunchly Catholic country so he's not easy to pin down.
Poe is Duterte's closest competition in the polls, and the race will likely come down to these two. Poe lived in the United States for more than a decade after graduating college and has a more recognizable (to American audiences) progressive platform. She strongly supports increased aid to the poor, greater female participation in politics, and a crackdown on government corruption.
Also of note, boxer Manny Paquiao is running for a promotion from the House of Representatives to the Senate, which might be precursor to a possible 2022 presidential bid. As we discussed in March, he's run into controversy for his retrograde anti-LGBT views, so his race will be one to watch.
● South Korea – legislature (April 13)
South Korea's legislative elections brought a surprising result—and offered an example of how electoral systems can affect outcomes in profound ways. In our preview last month, we noted that polling indicated that the right-leaning governing Saenuri Party was expected to win the most seats and that the main question would be whether it held onto its legislative majority. Instead, the South Korean right suffered its worst defeat since the country became a democracy, winning just 122 of 300 seats, one seat fewer than its center-left rivals, the Minjoo Party. The centrist/center-left People's Party, competing in its first national election, won 38 seats and, since no one took a majority, it holds the balance of power in the new legislature.
The results are a great example of how different electoral systems can provide different results. South Korea uses both first-past-the-post single-member districts (as we do in congressional elections in the U.S.) and proportional representation (like in Germany and many European countries). That means all voters cast ballots for both a representative for their district and for a party. Eighty percent of the seats are filled by the district vote and the rest are filled by the nationwide party vote.
In the district vote, Saenuri edged out Minjoo 38 percent to 37 but won only 105 seats to Minjoo's 110. The People's Party, meanwhile, won 15 percent of the vote and 25 seats, an impressive performance considering how difficult it can be for new parties to break into such systems. (Think, for instance, of how poorly the U.K. Independence Party did in last year's British elections) But the People's Party performed even better in the proportional vote, winning 27 percent. Minjoo actually came in third in the nationwide party vote with 26, while Saenuri led the way with 34.
Even so, the Minjoo Party came in first in seats despite coming in second in the district vote and third in the nationwide party vote. It's likely that many voters casting ballots for the People's Party in the national vote nevertheless supported specific district-level Minjoo Party candidates in places where they felt the People's Party could not win the district. Strategic voting between Minjoo supporters and People's Party supporters likely allowed the Minjoo Party to win the most seats despite not winning the most votes in either part of the election. (Ted Cruz and John Kasich could learn a thing or two from South Korea.)
As in most elections where the incumbent party loses, multiple issues were likely a factor. South Korea's economy has been faltering, with rising household debt and youth unemployment. In response, the Saenuri Party has attempted to liberalize labor laws to increase international competitiveness; the changes would have made it easier to fire workers. For some reason, that was unpopular with South Koreans. The government had also been cracking down on protests and dissidents and had controversially banned a left-wing party.
This election was a possible preview for next year's crucial presidential race, where only a plurality is needed for victory (there is no runoff). But even though the Saenuri Party looks severely weakened, a split in the opposition between Minjoo and People's Party presidential candidates could allow the Saenuri Party to retain the presidency.
EUROPE
● Cyprus – legislature (May 22)
If you're looking for a strong communist party in Europe, you can still find one on Cyprus, the island nation just off the coast of Turkey. Despite being geographically closer to Asia, Cyprus is culturally European (specifically Greek) and a member of the European Union. A self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Cyprus (recognized and backed solely by Turkey) controls one-third of the island, but for brevity's sake we'll just keep focused on Greek Cyprus.
Cyprus has a presidential republic currently led by Nicos Anastasiades, a member of the center-right Democracy Rally Party. That party also currently has the most seats in the legislature, 20 out of 56, and leads it despite not having a majority. The Progressive Party of Working People (yep, that's the communist party) has just one seat fewer, 19, and the centrist Democratic Party has another 9 seats. Polling suggests these numbers are likely to remain largely the same, with a new party that favors Cypriot reunification, the Citizens' Alliance, likely to come in fourth.
● Netherlands – Ukraine-EU referendum (April 6)
Voters in the Netherlands decisively opposed an agreement that would have paved the way for future Ukrainian membership in the European Union by establishing an association and trade pact between Ukraine and the 28-nation bloc. The measure went down in a landslide 61-38 defeat, though turnout was a paltry 32 percent, barely above the 30 percent required to make it valid—and the vote was legally non-binding in any event. Dutch voters recently gained the ability to force referendums on government legislation, and EU critics, who have seen their political popularity rise sharply in recent years, used this opportunity to voice their discontent with that supranational institution.
But even though the results aren't binding, the incumbent grand coalition of the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the center-left Labour Party seems to understand the sentiment behind the vote and have pledged to revise their stance on the measure in light of the referendum. As a result, this vote could put on hold progress towards Ukraine's integration with the EU, but given how complex the union's politics can be, it may not have any impact in the end.
However, this vote was about more than just Ukraine or the EU because it foreshadows upcoming parliamentary elections in the Netherlands next year. The two-party governing coalition is extremely unpopular, and the anti-immigrant, far-right Party for Freedom, led by the notorious Islamophobe Geert Wilders (a Donald Trump fan, by the way), has surged in support and was testing its political muscles by opposing the Ukraine agreement. Along with the upcoming United Kingdom referendum on whether to leave the EU, the Dutch vote shows that there is powerful discontent with the European Union.
● Serbia – legislature (April 24)
As expected, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić's conservative Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and its allies won a wide victory over the opposition with 48 percent of the vote to narrowly keep a reduced parliamentary majority. Vučić called elections two years early in an effort to extend his party's grip on power for another four-year term, since SNS maintained broad popularity and the opposition is badly divided.
Although it led the government before the 2012 elections, the center-left opposition Democratic Party won a mere 6 percent while two other center-left parties also barely cleared the 5 percent threshold needed to win any seats at all. A few far-right parties, including the Serbian Radical Party, enjoyed a surge in support with a collective 13 percent of the vote, but they are likely to remain marginalized.
SNS will likely continue its broad coalition with the left-wing nationalist Socialist Party of Serbia, which won 11 percent. SPS was once the party of former authoritarian president Slobodan Milošević, but it has since moved away from the policies of the Milošević era. Despite SNS's strong ties to Russia, both it and the mainstream opposition, such as the Democratic Party, are supportive of Serbia's ongoing efforts to join the European Union, which will be one of the big items on the next government's agenda. However, opponents have criticized Vučić's government for undermining media independence and centralizing power, much like strongmen such as Milošević once did.
● United Kingdom – regional and local elections (May 5)
Local and regional elections are taking place across the United Kingdom on Thursday, with the most prominent being London's mayoral election and elections for parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These are the first elections since the Labour Party elected left-wing MP (Member of Parliament) Jeremy Corbyn to be its new leader and so, fairly or not, these elections are seen as an early review of his leadership. The elections are also taking place just weeks before the June 23 referendum on whether the U.K. should leave the European Union, which we previewed here and will discuss more next month.
Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson is stepping down to focus on national politics (he's also already an MP), and his office looks likely to return to Labour hands. The party is eager to regain the seat as it is the most prominent English office outside of Parliament. MP Sadiq Khan is running for Labour, and recent polling has shown him up on the Conservative candidate, MP Zac Goldsmith, by about 10 points. England's other parties (the U.K. Independence Party, Liberal Democrats, and Greens) are also running candidates, but with Khan and Goldsmith far ahead of the pack, London's instant runoff electoral system means that the race will ultimately come down to the two of them. Londoners will also be voting for the London Assembly, their version of a city council.
Hundreds of local council seats also will be up for grabs across England, far too many for us to go into any detail here. The key thing to know is that these seats carry four-year terms, and Labour did particularly well in 2012, which means they're almost certain to lose seats. (It's similar to the situation Republicans face with regard to the U.S. Senate this year: Because they did so well in 2010, they now have to pay the piper.) Anti-Corbyn factions in the Labour Party argue that losing seats is a poor sign for Corbyn's leadership, while pro-Corbyn allies say that the relevant test is whether Labour improves on its overall vote percentage from the 2015 general election.
The proportionally-elected Scottish Parliament is controlled by the left-wing Scottish National Party (SNP), which dominated both the previous Scottish election in 2011 and last year's U.K. general election in the region. The SNP supports independence for Scotland, but after losing a referendum on the matter in 2014, the party has focused on greater powers for the regional parliament and other progressive goals. The SNP is expected to expand its majority and win around 50 percent of the vote, which would be an impressive victory for an incumbent party in a four-party system. Meanwhile, Scottish Labour has lost votes to both the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives, who are now just barely behind Labour and fighting for a surprise second-place finish. The Scottish Liberal Democrats are expected to remain in fourth place.
The National Assembly for Wales is controlled by Welsh Labour, which has won the most seats in every election since the body's creation in 1999. Welsh Labour has exactly 30 of the 60 seats in the chamber, and it's expected to lose a number of seats in May but still remain the biggest party under Wales' proportional representation system. In the past, Welsh Labour has formed coalitions with both the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru. The xenophobic UKIP, meanwhile, is likely to win its first seats in the Welsh Assembly.
In the Northern Ireland Assembly, which was created by the historic Good Friday Agreement, anything controversial must pass with a majority of both unionists and nationalists, who are represented by totally different parties than are found in rest of the U.K. Due to the longstanding conflict there popularly known as "The Troubles," the region is governed jointly by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, who represent the largest unionist (the DUP) and nationalist (Sinn Fein) parties. As a result, the elections are unlikely to alter how Northern Ireland is governed.
Lastly, two safe Labour seats in the U.K. Parliament are having by-elections (special elections) to fill vacancies due to a death and a resignation. These races would only be notable if Labour doesn't win both comfortably.
NORTH AMERICA
● Canada – Saskatchewan provincial elections (April 4)
As we'll explore further in this digest, Canada's left-leaning New Democratic Party endured a month from hell in April, beginning with yet another landslide defeat in Saskatchewan. Once the dominant party of this western province, with such notable accomplishments as being the first government in North America to introduce single-payer health care (all the way back in 1962!), the NDP lost power to the center-right Saskatchewan Party in 2007, and things have not improved for their fortunes since then.
Despite plunging oil prices battering the province's energy industry, Saskatchewan Party Premier Brad Wall easily romped to a third term on April 4, winning 51 seats to the NDP's 10. (That margin is essentially unchanged from the previous balance of 49-9, factoring in three new seats added in legislative reapportionment.) To add insult to injury for the NDP, party leader Cam Broten narrowly lost his own seat and promptly resigned his leadership post.
● Canada – Manitoba provincial elections (April 19)
Seventeen consecutive years of NDP reign in the central Canadian province of Manitoba ended in a whimper, as the party, under Premier Greg Selinger, was defeated by Brian Pallister's right-leaning Progressive Conservatives, by a punishing margin of 40 seats to just 14. (The tiny Manitoba Liberal Party had something of a mini-resurgence, winning three seats and earning 14 percent of the popular vote.) Selinger's administration never seemed to recover after reneging on an election promise not to raise sales taxes. Selinger's defeat, incredibly, leaves the NDP with just a single provincial premier in the entire country: Rachel Notley, who, remarkably, leads Alberta, which hadn't had a left-of-center government since the 1930s prior to the NDP's stunning victory last year.
● Canada – legislature and Alberta provincial elections (2019)
Despite overseeing his party's loss of 51 seats (and the squandering of a polling advantage) in last fall's Canadian federal election, Tom Mulcair opted not to step down as leader of the national New Democratic Party in the immediate wake of Liberal Justin Trudeau's dramatic win. However, rank-and-file New Democrats had other ideas for Mulcair: 52 percent of delegates at the NDP's federal convention voted in favor of forcing Mulcair out and holding a party leadership race. The kicker, though? Those same delegates voted to hold the leadership election "within 24 months," meaning that the NDP will be saddled with Mulcair as a lame-duck leader in the (very lengthy) interim.
The NDP's convention tire fire, alas, did not end there. Delegates also passed a resolution praising a statement of principles aggressively opposing natural resource extraction known as "The Leap Manifesto", a document co-authored and championed by Toronto activist Avi Lewis. This came against the pleas of the NDP's last provincial premier left standing, Alberta's Rachel Notley, who has been advocating at the national level for the construction of new pipelines to connect Alberta's oil exports (a vital part of the province's economy) with needy markets.
The Leap resolution completely blindsided Notley, putting her on the defensive at home. And it's not clear this issue will go away any time soon, either: Rather than explicitly endorse or adopt the manifesto, delegates supported a motion to debate the contents of the Leap document at the district level, nationwide, by 2018—meaning this, too, will drag out forever. However, neither the Canadian federal government nor Alberta's provincial government are scheduled to hold their next elections until 2019.
CENTRAL AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
● Dominican Republic – president and legislature (May 15)
As we previewed at the beginning of the year, Dominican Republic voters will vote for the presidency and both chambers of parliament in on the same day for the first time since 1994, after changes were adopted to consolidate the lower house elections. The president is elected in a two-round system, with a runoff if no one receives a majority in the first round. The bicameral parliament utilizes plurality-winner, single-member districts in the Senate (the upper chamber) and party-list proportional representation in the Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber).
Incumbent President Danilo Medina is seeking a second term, and his center-left Dominican Liberation Party currently has majorities in both houses. The Dominican Revolutionary Party, a formerly center-left party that has moved rightward, and the Social Christian Reformist Party, a right-wing party, are the country's two other major parties. The Revolutionary Party has undergone major upheaval since the last election, with a splinter faction forming the Modern Revolutionary Party. With President Medina's high personal popularity and a divided opposition, the Liberation Party looks well-positioned to maintain its grip on power.
● Haiti – president (unknown)
Haiti's ongoing political crisis deepened after the April 24 deadline to hold the country's long-delayed presidential runoff passed without any elections taking place. The interim government stated that the runoff might take place by October as it continues to investigate alleged fraud as part of a deal reached in February to defuse the crisis. However, supporters of banana plantation owner Jovenel Moïse, who won the most votes in the disputed first round and had the support of ex-President Michel Martelly, continue to stage protests demanding an immediate vote.
● Mexico – state elections (June 5)
Mexico's 2016 elections are one month away. The president and members of the upper and lower federal legislative chambers will not be up for election until 2018. However, 13 of the 32 Mexican states will go to the polls on June 5 to elect 12 new governors, several hundred state legislative members, and nearly 1,000 mayors. Mexico's upcoming elections have hardly appeared in the U.S. press—in fact, there isn't even an English-language Wikipedia page for them! But they're nevertheless important.
Independent candidates were the stars of the 2015 Mexican elections, the first national election in which candidates could even run as independents. In the state of Nuevo Leon, the telegenic Jaime Rodriguez Calderon, known as "El Bronco," became the country's first-ever independent governor; meanwhile, 25-year-old Pedro Kumamoto won the first independent seat in a state legislature, in Jalisco. Since then, several states have reacted by passing legislation limiting the ability of independents to run, including onerous signature requirements to obtain ballot access. Even so, excitement remains around the independents elected last year, and several independent candidates have announced campaigns this year.
So will Mexico's three largest parties, the PRI, PAN and PRD, maintain their local power? The short answer is yes. In a few states, scandal and political fragmentation with the creation of the new left-of-center Morena Party could chip away at the establishment. But the local power of the three traditional parties is deeply entrenched. The more important question is how will the balance of power shift between the PRI in the center, the PRD on the left, and PAN on the right, and what it might mean for the federal elections in 2018.
Meanwhile, change is afoot in Mexico City, the country's capital of nearly nine million souls. A political reform earlier this year converted the city from a federal district with little autonomy (similar to the District of Colombia in the U.S.) into not quite a new state but a more autonomous "federal entity" with its own local congress and constitution. Residents will now elect 60 members of the 100-person assembly that will write the city's new constitution. There's not much to watch election-wise, unless you really know your Mexico City politics, but it's an exciting time for the biggest city in North America.
SOUTH AMERICA
● Brazil – president and legislature (2018, possibly 2016)
As we anticipated last month, Brazilian legislators in the Chamber of Deputies (the country's lower house) voted to impeach embattled President Dilma Rousseff amidst a massive, ongoing corruption scandal and Brazil's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Rousseff, who leads the leftist Worker's Party, is widely unpopular, and many of her former allied parties have deserted her governing coalition.
Rousseff was never directly implicated in any corruption scheme herself, unlike many in her party, such as her mentor and predecessor, ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Although many of those leading the impeachment charge have been accused of corruption themselves, that didn't stop Rousseff's political opponents from using the impeachment process for political gain. One far-right deputy even dedicated his impeachment vote to the colonel who was responsible for torturing Rousseff when she was a guerrilla fighting against Brazil's right-wing military dictatorship in the 1970s.
If the Senate votes to suspend or remove Rousseff from office soon, as many observers expect, center-right Vice President Michel Temer would become president. However, his big-tent Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which recently joined the effort to oppose Rousseff, is notorious for its transactional approach to politics, and Temer, too, is accused of corruption. Right-leaning parties could also gain political influence. Rousseff has explicitly denounced the process as a coup to overturn the 2014 election result, when she was narrowly re-elected.
However, a separate investigation by the Superior Electoral Court might do that very thing, if it finds Rousseff received illegal campaign funding, meaning Brazil might have early elections this year instead of waiting until the next regularly scheduled election in 2018.
A number of observers have expressed deep concern about the effects this impeachment might have on the health of Brazil's democracy. One expert, quoted by the New York Times, called it a "dangerous precedent," because "from now on, any moment that we have a highly unpopular president, there will be pressure to start an impeachment process." But ultimately, it looks increasingly like President Rousseff's days in office might soon come to an end.
● Peru – president and legislature (April 10)
Elections in Peru produced a dramatic shift to the right when outgoing leftist president Ollanta Humala's Peru Wins alliance completely collapsed and the left was shut out of the upcoming presidential runoff on June 5. Presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori of the right-wing Popular Force came in first with 40 percent of the vote over center-right ex-Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peruvians for Change, who won just 21 percent; the leftist candidate won just 19 percent. The Popular Force also won an outright majority in the legislature, the first time for a single party since 1995, while the leftist Broad Front became a rump factor.
Fujimori is the daughter of disgraced and imprisoned ex-President Alberto Fujimori, who served from 1993 until 2000, when he was nearly removed from office over human rights violations and abuses of power until he fled to Japan and resigned. Although he was ultimately extradited and is now serving in a very different environment—prison—the elder Fujimori remains very popular with a large minority of the electorate thanks to his role in defeating the extremely violent Maoist rebel group Shining Path while also presiding over strong economic growth.
The younger Fujimori, who served as her father's first lady after her parents divorced, is similarly a very polarizing figure with ties to many of the same people who served in her father's administration. Fujimori only narrowly lost the 2011 election to the overtly left-wing Humala; this time she faces the much more centrist Kuczynski, an economist with ties to international financial institutions. Both candidates are strong proponents of free-market economic policies, in contrast to the leftist opposition. Kuczynski, however, is regarded as more moderate on social issues than the conservative Fujimori.
Despite Fujimori's wide first-round lead, many voters fear she could bring a return to the authoritarian policies of her father, so the second round could be quite competitive if leftist voters unite around Kuczynski to stop her. Should Fujimori prevail in the June runoff, however, her party's strong legislative majority would give her wide latitude to enact her policy agenda.
The Daily Kos International Elections Digest is compiled by David Beard and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from James Lambert and Julia van Hoogstraten, and is edited by David Nir.
