Leading Off
● Netherlands—parliament (March 15)
Last month's closely watched parliamentary elections in the Netherlands saw the grand coalition between Prime Minister Mark Rutte's center-right VVD and the center-left Labour Party suffer heavy losses, but the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the notorious Islamophobe Geert Wilders, failed to make the dramatic gains some earlier pre-election polls suggested it might. Indeed, there was even the specter that PVV could win a plurality, putting Wilders in the driver's seat. Fortunately, that crisis was averted.
VVD's share of the vote fell 6 points to 21 percent, but it remains the biggest party. Labour, meanwhile, plummeted from 25 percent to 6 percent, with many of its supporters flocking to the Green-Left party, which surged from 2 points to 9. And although PVV did grow from 10 to 13 points, it failed in its quest to become the largest party.
Meanwhile, the classical liberal D66 and the more traditionally conservative Christian Democratic Appeal gained modestly to win 12 percent each. In addition, thanks to the Netherlands' low threshold for allowing parties to enter parliament, a new avowedly pro-immigrant, anti-racism party called DENK won three seats, a new radical-right party gained two, and the existing animal rights party grew to five.
So why had Wilders come to be feared—and why did he fall short? After years in power, the VVD-Labour coalition had grown deeply unpopular, leading to fears that Wilders' party could surge into the gap. Wilders, who's a big fan of Donald Trump, had led a vocal charge against the establishment and multiculturalism by calling on the Netherlands to ban the Quran and leave the European Union.
Yet while many international election observers have portrayed the Dutch results as a battle between mainstream forces and an anti-immigrant, radical-right that has recently surged across Europe, there's far more to this election than this simple narrative suggests. Most important of all, it's not at all clear what kind of victory Rutte and the VVD even won. Though it supposedly defeated PVV's galloping far-right populism, the mainstream right adopted many of its nativist and authoritarian postures. So while Wilders didn't win, he did successfully inject his extremist policies into the Dutch political bloodstream.
Indeed, in trying to neuter Wilders' support, Rutte and the Christian Democrats increasingly relied on softer nativist rhetoric and an appeal to traditional Christian values, something that stands in sharp contrast to the Netherlands' storied history as one of the great bastions of European secularism and cosmopolitanism. Rutte even dog-whistled to Wilders-curious voters by saying that immigrants who "refuse to adapt, and criticize our values" should "behave normally, or go away." However, all major parties categorically ruled out forming a coalition with Wilders, effectively freezing him out.
And while PVV did increase three points from its performance in 2012, the 13 percent support they won was still less than Wilders' record 15 percent in 2010, when his party actually entered a right-of-center government with his now-rival Rutte. In fact, support for the Dutch radical right peaked all the way back in 2002, when populist Pim Fortuyn's party won 17 percent, suggesting Wilders' appeal may have, if anything, faded over time.
Once the results came in, Rutte's VVD fell slightly, though a decline from the post-war high of 27 percent that it won in 2012 was to be expected. However, it's the Labour Party that now faces electoral oblivion. Although it has been the largest party on the left since World War II, Labour's support for Rutte's relatively pro-business economic policies helped cause it to shed three-fourths of its support. That makes Labour, previously the second-biggest party in the country, now the seventh-largest.
However, at the same time as the VVD moved to the right and Labour collapsed, several avowedly cosmopolitan parties also grew, muddying the picture considerably. The biggest gainer from Labour's demise was the Green-Left, whose surge to nine percent made it the most popular party on the left, just slightly ahead of the stalwart radical-left Socialist Party. However, D66 also gained substantial support from one-time Labour voters. Both D66 and the Greens are socially liberal and pro-cosmopolitan, but unlike the Greens, the centrist D66 has center-right "classical liberal" positions on economic policies that make it a more natural ally of the center-right.
Forming a coalition with this level of fragmentation will consequently be very difficult, since it will take at least four parties to add up to a majority. While Labour, VVD, and the main Christian Democratic parties had dominated Dutch politics for decades, the three pulled just 39 percent collectively this time. It takes 76 of the 150 seats to form a majority, but the most logical center-right government of VVD, CDA, and D66 obtained just 71. While the Christian Union's five seats could give such an alliance a bare one-seat majority, the CU's socially conservative yet economically more progressive positions would likely alienate D66.
A more broad-based coalition could include VVD, CDA, D66, and the Greens. However, there's such a gulf between VVD and CDA on the right and the Greens on the left that such an unwieldy coalition could still prove short lived. And after the utter collapse Labour suffered for capitulating to VVD as the junior partner in an economically more center-right coalition, the Greens might be wary about alienating their newfound voter base.
As a result, the Netherlands could be in for a long period of coalition negotiations, and its fundamental problem of political fragmentation will remain. If the mainstream parties want to ensure that the radical right remains powerless, they'll have to come up with a program that addresses the key issues facing the Netherlands beyond just the debate over immigration, otherwise Wilders will threaten to become an outlet for even more dissatisfied anti-establishment voters.
Oceania
● Australia: Western Australia—state parliament (March 11)
Like Canada and Germany, Australia holds elections for its state parliaments, which are equivalent to state legislatures in the U.S. Last month saw a notable outcome in Western Australia's state parliament, where the center-left Australian Labor Party (ALP) swept to power after eight-and-a-half years of rule by the center-right Liberal Party (in its traditional coalition with the rural center-right National Party). Also significant was the failure of the far-right, Trump-esque One Nation party, which severely underperformed, debuting with just five percent of the vote and failing to win a single seat despite high pre-election expectations.
Western Australia is the second-largest country subdivision in the world by area, making up the western one-third of Australia. (Only the Sakha Republic in Russia is bigger. Remember Yakutsk from the Risk board? That's the capital of Sakha.) It's primarily desert, with the vast majority of its 3 million people centered around the coastal city of Perth. The state is heavily dependent on the extraction of natural resources such as iron ore and petroleum, making it similar in many ways to Alaska (which, incidentally, is the seventh-biggest subnational governing body).
The ALP won 41 seats of the parliament's 59 seats, which is, in fact, the largest majority in state history; the Liberals and Nationals were left with the remaining 18 seats. The ALP was expected to do well, but it far exceeded expectations. The late shift in favor of the ALP likely came about as the results of a deal between the Liberals and One Nation to direct votes to one other.
Australia uses instant runoff voting, so whenever no single candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, second and even third preferences are taken into account to determine a winner. The Liberals and One Nation sought to use this to their advantage by encouraging their supporters to vote for the other party's candidates with their second choice, but they managed to turn off both sets of voters: Center-right Liberal voters wanted nothing to do with One Nation, and anti-establishment voters wanted nothing to do with the Liberals. These divisions helped the ALP sweep to power.
Asia
● East Timor—president (March 20)
The third time was indeed the charm for Francisco "Lú-Olo" Guterres, who finally won East Timor's presidency 57-32 against center-left Democratic Party candidate António da Conceição last month after failing to break 40 percent in runoffs in both 2007 and 2012. Guterres hails from the left-wing nationalist FRETILIN party, which was the main force behind the resistance to Indonesia's bloody, decades-long occupation that ended with independence in 2002. Major election issues concerned how the country's heavily export-dependent economy will deal with quickly dwindling oil reserves, high unemployment, and widespread corruption.
This election was the first since the end of a United Nations peacekeeping mission that lasted from 2006 to 2012. It was also the first time that FRETILIN captured the presidency after repeatedly losing to candidates supported by its longtime rival, the center-left CNRT. However, in 2015, the two parties agreed to share legislative power under a FRETILIN prime minister, and they made a deal to both support Guterres for the presidency in 2017. The prime minister serves as head of government in this small Southeast Asian country, but East Timor's "semi-presidential" system allows the president to veto legislation. Parliamentary elections will take place in July.
● Hong Kong—chief executive (March 26)
Since returning to mainland-Chinese rule in 1997, the former British colony of Hong Kong has operated under a quasi-democratic arrangement known as "one country, two systems" that affords the city-state's voters a modest amount of power and civil liberties, but still gives the Communist Party government in Beijing the final say over many matters. Voters elected stalwart pro-democracy advocates to Hong Kong's legislature last year, but pro-Beijing forces still kept their majority because civic and industry trade groups select almost half the body's seats.
The system for electing Hong Kong's chief executive similarly gives Beijing a decisive role. A committee of roughly 1,200 members consisting of various civic organizations and individuals, most of whose allegiances lean toward Beijing, still gets to pick the city's leader. Democracy supporters have recently gained ground on the selection committee, but they still make up only about a quarter of its members.
So rather than field their own candidate, pro-democracy forces nominated a more moderate pro-Beijing option, former city Financial Secretary John Tsang, in the hopes that they could at least exercise some sway over who would become the next chief executive. However, those hopes fell through when Beijing's handpicked candidate, former city Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, decisively beat Tsang by a 67-31 margin with committee members even though Tsang enjoyed far more support among the general public. Consequently, Hong Kong's simmering political turmoil could boil over into future protests in the ongoing absence of any legitimate electoral option to exercise change.
● South Korea—president (May 9)
South Korea's constitutional court finally removed conservative President Park Geun-hye from office after the legislature impeached her in December over an enormous corruption scandal that prompted mass protests demanding her ouster. Park was the first woman to become South Korea's president, but she came into office with baggage as the daughter of former longtime dictator Park Chung-hee, and she now faces criminal charges. Although the next presidential election had been set to take place at the end of the year, her removal will move that date up to May 9.
Unsurprisingly, the Park saga has done considerable damage to South Korea's main conservative party, the Saenuri Party. The president's unpopularity even before the scandal helped cause Saenuri to lose control of the legislature in 2016's elections, and her final implosion prompted the party to split into a small anti-Park center-right faction called Bareun and a larger, more hard-line, pro-Park bloc called the Liberty Korea Party. Both new groups are fielding their own nominees in the upcoming presidential race, but Park's taint and the right's divisions make it highly doubtful either will prevail, since all it takes is a plurality to win.
And as you'd expect, the biggest beneficiary from the entire Park ordeal is the center-left and liberal opposition. The center-left Minjoo Party (sometimes called the Democratic Party) controls the legislature with a plurality thanks to support from the smaller centrist People's Party, and polls typically show both parties' nominees as the main two contenders in the presidential race. Minjoo's Moon Jae-in just narrowly lost the 2012 presidential race to Park, and he has led in all of the polls for months, with Ahn-Cheol-soo of the People's Party in second. Ahn had split from Moon in 2015, and the new People's Party surged onto the scene in last year's legislative races.
A victory by either of Moon or Ahn would represent a sharp move away from the right in South Korean politics. Both candidates are more inclined to reverse Park's hard-line stance toward North Korea and attempt to resume negotiations to try to avoid open armed conflict with their country's increasingly belligerent and unpredictable northern neighbor.
Middle East/North Africa
● Turkey—constitutional referendum (April 16)
Turkey soon votes on a constitutional referendum that, if passed, would significantly increase President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's powers and could allow him to stay in office until 2029. Erdoğan has led the country as either president or prime minister since 2003 and has slowly but surely eroded civil liberties while eviscerating every other power center in Turkey, most notably the coup-happy, pro-secular armed forces. While Erdoğan is the undisputed leader of the country, he is forced to govern through his Islamist conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in parliament, as the current Turkish constitution keeps the presidency relatively weak. Erdoğan would prefer a super-charged presidency that would dominate the political arena and has set up this constitutional referendum to make it happen.
The referendum would make numerous changes. Some are innocuous, such as increasing parliament by 50 members and aligning election schedules. Far more troublesome are amendments that would abolish the position of prime minister and the cabinet and instead allow the president to appoint and fire ministers at will. The president would also be able to call future referendums without a vote by parliament.
The AKP, naturally, strongly supports the referendum, while the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and left-wing Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) both strongly oppose it. The ultranationalist right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has been split by the issue, with MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli and the party apparatus supporting the referendum, while numerous high-profile MHP officials have dissented from the party line and oppose the referendum.
Polling has been inconclusive, with some showing either "yes" or "no" ahead at different times. In classic authoritarian fashion, the government has worked to suppress the "no" campaign through arrests, dominance over the media, and other disruptions. If the referendum succeeds, Erdogan's quest to create an illiberal regime with only the mere trappings of democracy along the lines of Vladimir Putin's Russia will come even closer to fruition.
Europe
● Bulgaria—parliament (March 26)
Instability has plagued Bulgaria's party system following the fall of communism in the early 1990s, and no government has won re-election since then. That streak, however, appears to have ended. Center-right GERB Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's coalition resigned in favor of early elections after a Socialist-backed candidate who favored closer ties with Russia convincingly won the mostly ceremonial presidency last November. But GERB retained its plurality in parliament last month, winning 95 of 240 seats, meaning the status quo might continue.
Meanwhile, the center-left Socialist Party roughly doubled its size to 80 seats, but the socially liberal Turkish minority-interest party Movement for Rights and Freedoms won just 26, leaving these two natural allies 15 seats shy of a majority. The right-wing populist United Patriots' 27 seats means it will likely play kingmaker. Consequently, they could either provide informal support to GERB like the radical right did after the 2014 election, or they might actually join the cabinet as part of a coalition. But the ultranationalist United Patriots also favors closer ties with Russia, while GERB is strongly pro-European Union, meaning any such coalition could be uneasy and short-lived.
● France—president (April 23 & May 7)
Later this month, the French will vote in the first round of the country's hotly contested and closely watched presidential election. (We wrote a longer preview of the country's busy spring electoral calendar back at the start of 2017.) Eleven candidates ultimately qualified for the ballot by the March 15 deadline, and one of them did so in a midst of feverish speculation that he would be forced to withdraw from the race.
François Fillon, the once-favored candidate of the conservative Republicans party, has sunk in the polls ever since it was revealed in January that he had given his wife and children seemingly fake jobs on the public payroll, costing taxpayers nearly €1 million (about the same amount in U.S. dollars). Fillon's predicament grew astronomically in early March, when he announced that he'd been notified of a coming indictment over charges related to this scandal. Prominent figures within his party publicly urged him to reconsider his candidacy, and many tried to draft Alain Juppé—Fillon's runner-up in the primary earlier this year—into the race.
But Fillon was somehow able to withstand the pressure and in so doing remain the French right's flag-bearer. Two major factors that explain how he managed to hold his ground. First, Fillon's party was divided over possible alternatives. Allies of former President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly objected to replacing Fillon with Juppé, who has more moderate views than either Sarkozy and Fillon, especially when it comes to openness to multiculturalism. Facing resistance, Juppé announced he would not run even if Fillon dropped out —a declaration that significantly alleviated the pressure on Fillon.
Second, Fillon organized a major public rally in Paris to protest against what he has called a "media lynching." He then invoked the crowds he had gathered as evidence that he owed it to his party's base to not drop out. This sort of appeal—claiming unfair persecution at the hands of the press in the face of the popular will—should be instantly familiar to anyone who observed Donald Trump's campaign, so its success is unsurprising.
As a result, despite the unprecedented unpopularity of outgoing center-left Socialist Party President Francois Hollande, the conservative opposition faces the prospect of not even making it to the May runoff between the two highest vote-getters. Fillon could still benefit from a last-minute consolidation if center-right voters resign themselves to his leadership and return to supporting him.
But for now, the latest polls show a clear advantage for Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, and Emmanuel Macron, a centrist independent who previously served in Hollande's cabinet but has distanced himself from the Socialists' tarnished brand. Huffpost Pollster has an excellent interactive chart of all the polling that shows Le Pen and Macron neck-and-neck at about 24-25 percent apiece, while Fillon trails at 19.
Le Pen has her own problems, though: She's under judicial investigation herself for allegedly using public funds to benefit her political party. That considerably complicates her ability to draw on Fillon's scandal to frame herself as an anti-establishment candidate, though of course, just like Fillon, Le Pen claims that she is the target of "political persecution."
Another recent development has been the rise of the radical-left Left Front's Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who gained the most attention in the wake of the two presidential debates held during the past month. Mélenchon is now polling at 17 percent—far ahead of Socialist Party nominee Benoît Hamon, who is in a distant fifth place with just 9 percent, and just a couple of points behind Fillon.
Barring a late surge for another candidate, the most likely runoff scenario is a matchup between Macro and Le Pen. Macron crushes Le Pen 61-39 in Huffpo's aggregate, while Fillon leads by a smaller 56-44.
● Germany
As expected, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won re-election in the small German state of Saarland. The CDU actually managed to gain five seats in the 51-seat chamber, taking its total to 24, an impressive accomplishment given the party's troubles across Germany in recent years. The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), riding high from its improved national poll numbers, failed to close the gap with the CDU and didn't gain any seats from its base of 17 as it had hoped.
A better showing from the SPD would have given it a chance to lead its own coalition government with the center-left Greens and far-left Die Linke (literally "The Left"), but the Greens wound up failing to enter parliament and Die Linke took just seven seats. Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also won three seats.
Despite its victory, the CDU is still two seats short of a majority, and given its resistance to both Die Linke and AfD, a continuation of is "grand coalition" with the SPD is all but guaranteed. Some commentators describe the results as a boost for Chancellor Angela Merkel (who leads the CDU) in Germany's upcoming federal elections this fall, but Saarland is very rural and is home to only about one percent of the country's population (about the size of Arkansas relative to the U.S.), so it's not much of a bellwether.
However, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which is about three times the size of Saarland (think Indiana), holds its own elections next month. There, the SPD governs in a coalition with the Greens and a regionalist party that represents the area's Danish minority, the South Schleswig Voters' Association (SSW). Notably, the SSW is exempt from the usual 5 percent threshold to enter parliament since it represents a national minority (it generally receives about 3 to 5 percent of the vote). Polling shows that the coalition is likely to retain power, though depending on results, the SPD/Green alliance may not need the SSW moving forward.
One last German state, North-Rhine Westphalia, holds elections this spring, which we'll cover in-depth next month. The results there may offer a more accurate preview for the federal elections than those in either of the two previously discussed states. NRW is home to over 20 percent of Germany's population, making it the country's most populous state, like a supersized California.
● Macedonia—government formation
Macedonia's right-wing nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party lost power in elections last December after the center-left Social Democratic Union belatedly reached a coalition agreement with several small ethnic-Albanian parties in February, but Macedonia still doesn't have a new government. The country's president, who is affiliated with VMRO-DPMNE, has refused to give the Social Democratic leader the opportunity to form a new government, sparking an ongoing political crisis.
VMRO-DPMNE leader and ex-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has reportedly led the blockade against the Social Democrats for fear of prosecution after his administration was accused of widespread abuses of power during its decade in office. The party's intransigence over accepting the election results has spurred talk of European Union sanctions against the small Balkan nation, which could further imperil its status as a future candidate for EU membership.
● United Kingdom
Scotland's Parliament has voted to place a second referendum on Scottish independence on the ballot. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon won approval to seek the referendum sometime between fall 2018 and spring 2019. But in order to have legal force, the referendum will have to be approved by the British government in Westminster, which has said it will not enter any such discussions until the Brexit negotiation process is complete, likely in 2019.
Moving across the Irish Sea, we covered the results of Northern Ireland's snap elections last month, and as predicted, no government was formed during the three-week negotiating period that followed. Nationalist Sinn Fein has refused to put forward a nominee for Deputy First Minister, and under the rules that require power sharing between unionists and nationalists, a government cannot be formed without them. British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire has extended the talks until April 14, but no agreement is in sight. In the absence of a deal, Brokenshire will suspend Northern Ireland's government entirely, and the powers it exercises will return to the British government indefinitely.
Sub-Saharan Africa
● The Gambia—legislature (April 6)
President Yahya Jammeh had ruled this small West African country as an oppressive dictator since 1994, but in a shocking development, he lost re-election to pro-democracy challenger Adama Barrow last December. Despite refusing to leave office until faced with military intervention from regional powers, Jammeh finally stepped down in January, marking the Gambia's beginning of a transition to democracy.
The country held legislative elections on April 6, its first key test in the Barrow era. Under Jammeh, these elections were little more than window-dressing, and his APRC party had held nearly every seat. However, without the ex-dictator's suppression of dissent, APRC lost almost everywhere. The coalition of parties that united around Barrow in 2016's presidential race fractured and each ran its own separate candidates, but Barrow's United Democratic Party won an outright majority, giving him the latitude to implement many of his desired reforms.
North America
● Canada: Alberta—Progressive Conservative Party leadership election (March 18)
Last month, Alberta's Progressive Conservative party elected its first leader since its humiliating defeat to the center-left New Democratic Party in 2015. The winner? Jason Kenney, a former cabinet minister under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a veteran of federal Conservative politics, who scored 75 percent of the vote.
The NDP's stunning win in 2015, and the PCs' demise after 44 consecutive years in control of provincial affairs, was aided significantly by severe right-wing vote-splitting between supporters of the center-right PCs and their more rigidly conservative brethren in the Wildrose Party. Kenney was elected on an express promise to unite Alberta's conservative parties under one banner and therefore dash the NDP's hopes of winning a second term.
Wildrose leader Brian Jean has been publicly receptive to such a merger, but things have already gotten awkward as Jean and Kenney vie for the upper hand in this conservative game of thrones. Kenney, known to descend from the socially conservative branch of the Canadian conservative tree, drew widespread condemnation for his recent comments to the Calgary Herald editorial board advocating for mandatory parental notification if a student joins a "gay-straight alliance" club at school. Jean, not known as a particularly strong voice for social progress, publicly broke with Kenney on this issue, albeit clumsily. It was hardly an auspicious debut for Kenney, but the real intrigue will begin in the coming months, as Jean and Kenney jockey for control of a united conservative party.
South America
● Ecuador—presidential runoff (April 2)
Former Vice President Lenin Moreno of the leftist PAIS Alliance narrowly won this month's runoff against banker Guillermo Lasso of the conservative CREO party by just a 51-49 margin. Moreno's 39-28 lead over Lasso in the first round meant he just barely failed to avoid a runoff, but the third-place finisher was another conservative who threw her backing to Lasso in the second round. Lasso and his supporters have rejected the runoff result as fraudulent, calling for protests, but the Organization of American states said it did not observe discrepancies in the election. PAIS maintained a reduced majority in the legislature in February, meaning it retains unified control over government.
PAIS has dominated Ecuadorean politics ever since outgoing president Rafael Correa's initial election in 2006, but its grip on power was greatly imperiled heading into this year's elections, when Correa faced term limits. The redistributive social policies of Correa's leftist government have proved popular with many low-income voters, but Correa also faced charges of endemic corruption and stifling political dissent. And the collapse of oil prices in 2014 hurt Ecuador's main export and triggered a recession, which gave the opposition a major opening in 2017.
Many other South American economies are similarly heavily dependent upon commodity exports, which consequently saw several of them experience economic turmoil in the past few years. After leftists like Correa swept into power across the continent last decade as part of the so-called socialist "Pink Tide," this economic downswing similarly saw leftists lose control of the presidencies in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru in the last two years, and they're at risk of more losses in upcoming elections elsewhere in the region. Ecuador had looked like it might be the next domino to fall, but it seems that pro-business conservatives came up just short.
Moreno's victory also likely means that Ecuador's most notorious asylum-seeker will get to remain on the country's soil. Unlike Moreno, Lasso had promised that he would evict Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the nation's embassy in London. Assange has been holed up there since 2012 to avoid extradition over rape allegations to Sweden, which would be more receptive to an extradition request from the U.S. to prosecute Assange for espionage. WikiLeaks has been accused of knowingly publishing documents stolen by Russian intelligence from Western politicians opposed by Vladimir Putin, such as Hillary Clinton and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The Daily Kos International Elections Digest is compiled by Stephen Wolf and David Beard, with additional contributions from James Lambert, Daniel Nichanian, and Daniel Donner, and is edited by David Nir.