Elections in various countries

[mèþru]

@Halow XIII
I lived in Israel past tense

[mèþru]

I'm happy to see Poroshenko gone. My mother, who doesn't read news about Ukraine and therefore doesn't know what a piece of shit he is, is sad that they elected a Jewish political leader. She thinks that any mainly goy nation having Jews in high positions of power to blame for their troubles will increase antisemitism in their country. I don't think that Ukranian antisemitism will soar unless if Zelensky is seen as too soft on Russia, but there is a serious problem of neonazis and aother antisemitic militias both domestic and foreign having come to fight the Russians.

[Linguoboy]

Is anyone following the Turkish situation? I'll admit to having tuned out for a bit because it seemed nothing was going to arrest the continued slide into authoritarian one-party rule so I didn't even hear about the opposition victory in the municipal elections until it was annulled yesterday.

I would say that that's the end of it except that I've read that Gül and others are about to form splinter parts from AK. Are these going to be big enough to make a difference? Who will they support in the re-run of elections slated for June? I really don't know what to expect.

[mèþru]

I really, really doubt that Gül or any other new party can find a candidate for the elections that quickly - a candidate for the mayoral election by any serious party must be known to the party and heavily vetted for such a profile race, and the race itself might be restricted to just the AKP and CHP.

I'm really surprised. I'd have expected a party split, if there was to be one, to have been when Davutoğlu clashed with Erdoğan.

[Linguoboy]

I really, really doubt that Gül or any other new party can find a candidate for the elections that quickly - a candidate for the mayoral election by any serious party must be known to the party and heavily vetted for such a profile race, and the race itself might be restricted to just the AKP and CHP.

I doubt they would run a candidate, but they could endorse İmamoğlu. I don't know what the chances of this happening are and I don't know what effect it might have. As one commentator said, no way is Erdoğan leaving the outcome of the rematch to chance.

[mèþru]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48320983

[mèþru]

What do you think is going to happen as a result of the Liberal-National coalition's performance in the Australian elections?

[Vijay]

I couldn't read through Time Magazine's article on Modi. The author is an Indian whose parents are Pakistani Muslims, but he says something about how the Indian government took over some Hindu temples, which seems like a misleading claim at best (albeit apparently a popular propaganda line).

[Ares Land]

I suppose I could do some sort of commentary on the European elections, as seen from my tiny corner is long overdue. But right now the situation is way too depressing.
So, to keep it brief: in France, we've got 34 lists, most of which don't really matter. Both LREM (Macron's party; dim-witted centrists) and RN (far right) are currently around 22% percent in opinion polls and the most important thing ever is to know which of these is going to get before the other by a percentage point or two;
Almost a quarter of the electorate voting for white nationalists? Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here.
I'm pretty sure Macron is sort of happy because having pseudo-fascists as the main opposition parti was LREM's only chance to get a decent score.

Oh, and of course none of the measures discussed during the campaign have anything to do with what the European Parliament actually does.

So, hurray for dim-witted centrism and embezzlement of European funds by white trash, I suppose?

[MacAnDàil]

And there seems to be only three lists that are obviously worse than the two major ones: Alliance Royale, La ligne claire and Liste de la Reconquête (the latter two going on about a supposed 'great replacement')

The 5% hurdle got put in just when there are so many candidates, so maybe even a third of the votes won't be represented by deputies.

In the debates, they overmention the topic of immigration.

[Vijay]

So Modi won again. My brother showed me a breakdown of all the districts and which party won the majority there (BJP, Congress, or other). The BJP won only one district in Tamil Nadu and none in Kerala. This seems normal.

[Ares Land]

And there seems to be only three lists that are obviously worse than the two major ones: Alliance Royale, La ligne claire and Liste de la Reconquête (the latter two going on about a supposed 'great replacement')

The 5% hurdle got put in just when there are so many candidates, so maybe even a third of the votes won't be represented by deputies.

In the debates, they overmention the topic of immigration.

To be honest, the LR (mainstream right-wing. A rebranding of UMP, Chirac and Sarkozy's party) electoral tract makes the RN one look positively leftist.

A tragi-comic episode: La ligne claire is led by Renaud Camus, the writer who theorized the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, ultimately an inspiration for the Christchurch killing. He's now sad and devastated that the young woman that's second on his list turned out to have neo-Nazi sympathies (that's not hyperbole, I mean, she's an actual, praying in front of Swastikas Nazi). I guess no one could see how racist conspiracy theories could attract Nazis.

As for immigration, what can I say? It is a lot easier to shout 'Look out! A Muslim!' than to articulate a convincing plan to handle climate change, growing inequality, or unemployment.

[So Haleza Grise]

What do you think is going to happen as a result of the Liberal-National coalition's performance in the Australian elections?

1. Labor will learn all the wrong lessons ("we need to be more right wing! We can't talk about our platform!")
2. The LNP will actually have to come up with a program, having not expected to win. The program will be a 'greatest hits' compilation of "go after the unions, cut funding to everything, cut taxes"
3. The LNP will quickly realise, having won in an effectively 'no contest' election, their moral authority as winners isn't nearly as great as they think and there is next to no support in the community for their program.
4. The continuing drift, instability, and general sense of listless fatigue that has been infecting Australian politics for at least the last decade will continue.

[tiramisu]

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[statelessnation]

1. Labor will learn all the wrong lessons ("we need to be more right wing! We can't talk about our platform!")

Honest question, has it ever been a good idea (in Australia) to talk about policies?
If I'm reading this ABC article correctly, and more from talking to a few friends, there seems to be a perspective that having many policies, at least other than the blatantly & patently populist, is generally somewhat problematic; in front of a vast audience it's easier to argue that a given policy is bad & simply attack the person/party, as opposed to pointing out that the opponent lacks policies (in the campaign)...

Admittedly given the hate towards the Mediscare there's fear of backlash like that occurring again and thus the need to talk more about policies, but as much as it personally bugs me to no end, wouldn't less talk about their platform possibly be a pragmatic lesson? Or do you just mean that'd be the wrong lesson to learn in a moral sense?

Apologies for being, inelegant.

[Ares Land]

So RN came out ahead, but within a point of LREM. I'd say it's a tie (*) - they'll have the same number of seats - but of course RN will insist on having "won".
It's actually not bad at all for Macron. Back in december I was pretty sure he was toast and the party in power tends to take a severe beating in the European elections. I'm a little impressed by his endurance.
Not unlike the Tories, the Républicains have been reduced to minor party status with all-time low result.
The Greens came out third, which is a pleasant surprise IMO.

(*) Arguably Macron won. LREM and the Liberals will get to play a key part in European Parliament coalition-building. And now RN is the official opposition party (other candidates such as LR or France Insoumise have lost a good deal of credibility). It's a pretty dangerous, but it could mean easy wins in future elections. RN won't be much of nuisance in European Parliament, they'll just do fuck all and take the money, as usual, and since they can't be trusted to keep their hands in their own pockets, maybe their MEP could get corruption or embezzlement charges.

[tiramisu]

.

[So Haleza Grise]

1. Labor will learn all the wrong lessons ("we need to be more right wing! We can't talk about our platform!")

Honest question, has it ever been a good idea (in Australia) to talk about policies?
If I'm reading this ABC article correctly, and more from talking to a few friends, there seems to be a perspective that having many policies, at least other than the blatantly & patently populist, is generally somewhat problematic; in front of a vast audience it's easier to argue that a given policy is bad & simply attack the person/party, as opposed to pointing out that the opponent lacks policies (in the campaign)...

Admittedly given the hate towards the Mediscare there's fear of backlash like that occurring again and thus the need to talk more about policies, but as much as it personally bugs me to no end, wouldn't less talk about their platform possibly be a pragmatic lesson? Or do you just mean that'd be the wrong lesson to learn in a moral sense?

Apologies for being, inelegant.

I think the fear of "talking about policies" is largely born out of John Hewson's failure in 1993, but that ignores the fact that the specific policies he took to the election (GST, general deregulation) were quite unpopular! Very hard to advocate unpopular policies from opposition.

I think the problem with Labor wasn't their platform or that they were talking about it, but that they were talking about it in the wrong way. Instead of *just* talking about franking credits, they should have been putting forward their comprehensive vision for better lives for voters that additional revenue would get them! But that stuff never got a mention in favour of piecemeal, disconnected announcements that didn't form a whole picture. Voters were sceptical, and deservedly so, because they never felt like Labor was offering a believable, real alternative that would deliver benefit to them.

The unfortunate fact is for the majority of voters Labor *were* better for them, but they just didn't have a bank of trust in the electorate for them to be believed on that. Especially when their salesmanship was so inept.

The "lesson" the Coalition learned from 2016 was "you should go hard negative" - the "Mediscare" complaint was basically a whinge that they had not been negative enough themselves - and they didn't lose the benefit of that lesson. Their negative campaign was simple and effective, compared to a Labor one that felt both wishy-washy and disjointed. Sigh...

I think a clearly articulated comprehensive vision would have been morally better for Labor but also practically useful, since it deflects a negative based around tax with "but look how much better off you'll be once we deliver" but they didn't do that. Of course it didn't help that Shorten was simply not trusted in Queensland and the LNP (again) capitalised on that effectively with their negative campaign.

[Raphael]

They're going to nominate whom to lead the EU Commission? Ursula von der Leyen? After all the "amazing successes" she's had in her previous jobs? Ok, it's looking more and more like the EU's biggest enemies aren't right-wing or far-left eurosceptics, but the leaders of the EU themselves. If they don't take the EU seriously, they can't expect other people to take the EU seriously, either. (Ok, she's at least less bad than Weber would have been, but still...)

[mèþru]

I;d be interested in more detail. Never heard of her.