Elections in various countries

[Raphael]

In unrelated news, there have now been three state legislative elections in a row in Germany in which the hard-right AfD got a lower share of votes than it had gotten in the previous state legislative election in the same state: in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate back on March 14th, and in Saxony-Anhalt yesterday (that is, June 6th).

That surprised me a bit. I had expected - to avoid misunderstandings, that's "had expected" as in "thought it would happen", not "had expected" as in "thought it should happen" - that hostility towards Covid-19-related restrictions and their demagoguery on the issue would give them a major boost. I'm glad that didn't happen.

Oh, and the morning after Sunday's election, the German word for "election fraud" was trending on Twitter in Germany. Because of course it was. Sigh.

[MacAnDàil]

I am of course glad of the unexpected drop in AfD vote, but disappointed at the unexpected increase in vote for CDU, which doesn't bode well for a hopeful Green president.

Also, watch this space: Peru has counted 97% of the votes for the presidential election, with the left wing candidate currently on 50.2% and the far right one on 49.8%.

And Hungary has a winnable mass opposition coalition, but the election's not on yet.

[MacAnDàil]

Also, I had joined Unsubdued France in 2017 because it seemed at that point that this was the best chance for ecology (including the Green Rule) and the left wing. This seems to have been confirmed by the significant score he got.

However, I do not have the same impression now (I hope for a more popular left-wing candidate whether that be Hulot, Hidalgo, Jadot, Taubira or somebody else) or in 2012 (I then supported Eva Joly, who I thought was better on langage diversity)

I have never payed much attention to Venezuela. It seems some people on the left, especially far left (i.e. on my side) get bogged in supporting Shavez and Maduro just because they’re seen as our guys. But there are so many other left wing politicians in the world to support with fewer problems. It’s perhaps the conflict situation that encourages it.

[Ares Land]

Mélenchon and LFI had a great campaign in 2017. I voted for Hamon, but I hesitated a lot (right into the voting booth, actually.)
Afterwards they were, well, not so great, and in retrospect I'm glad I didn't vote for him.

I do regret not voting for Eva Joly!

[MacAnDàil]

I just discovered Valérie Pécresse invited people to her launch meeting who didn't know she was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl66TCzKdNE

[Ares Land]

Yesterday was the first round of the regional elections.
Voter turnout was extraordinarily low. Is this the end of democracy?
Frankly, no. The regions and départements are important, but not that much (everything of importance is handled centrally.) There was no campaign. The candidates were uninspiring.

The one interesting result is that LREM (Macron's party) got very dispappointing results. The far-right did well, but not as well as expected.

[MacAnDàil]

The far right performed *significantly* less well than expected. And not nearly as well as in the last elections either. The French poll institutes should have real talk with themselves. The British pollsters were really disappointed at getting the 2015 general election, by underrating the Tories by about 3%. The French pollsters have gotten things so much more wrong: the RN sometimes lost have their vote while the polls indicated a rise in their vote.

[Ares Land]

I did enjoy Marine Le Pen berating 'her' voters for not showing up enough.
And I do hope Eric Zemmour will feel compelled to be candidate and divide the far-right vote a bit.

Interestingly, most pundits had gotten the idea that the left-wing wasn't relevant anymore... I'm happy to see them proven wrong.

[MacAnDàil]

I'm not convinced Zemmour would necessarily divide the vote. He mgiht just move the debate even more far right.

Anyway, if the polls for the presidential elections are as unreliable as the regional ones, then Le Pen won't make to the second round anyway. It might even be Xavier Bertrand v Jean-Luc Mélenchon or v Yannick Jadot.

[Ares Land]

Who knows? But the presidential elections are really an ideal configuration for the RN. (Turns out a system designed for an authoritarian strongman works well for authoritarian wanna-be strongmen... strongwomen.. strongthings.)

[MacAnDàil]

Relatedly, I was reading a book about the institutions of the 5th republic and it mentions the conservative nature of the Senate so it's no wonder the right-wing is basically always in charge of it.

By the way, the only region that changed sides was here in Réunion, with a long-time ex-communist deputy Huguette Bello replacing the right-wing Didier Robert.

[MacAnDàil]

I was actually mistaken: French Guiana also changed leader and also to the left, meaning that, despite all the supposed death of the French left, there is a left majority among region leaders now.

As for Germany, the Green leader Annalena Baerbock got into some scandals for misrepresenting experience on her CV, being accused of plagiarising elements of her book and saying 'Scheisse', but it turn out that the Christian Democrat leader, Armin "Teflon" Laschet, did all the same and then some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hpCxYkBjDs

[Travis B.]

I was actually mistaken: French Guiana also changed leader and also to the left, meaning that, despite all the supposed death of the French left, there is a left majority among region leaders now.

As for Germany, the Green leader Annalena Baerbock got into some scandals for misrepresenting experience on her CV, being accused of plagiarising elements of her book and saying 'Scheisse', but it turn out that the Christian Democrat leader, Armin "Teflon" Laschet, did all the same and then some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hpCxYkBjDs

Aren't German politicians other than Merkel always guilty of having done plagiarism at some point in their careers?

[hwhatting]

As for Germany, the Green leader Annalena Baerbock got into some scandals for misrepresenting experience on her CV, being accused of plagiarising elements of her book and saying 'Scheisse', but it turn out that the Christian Democrat leader, Armin "Teflon" Laschet, did all the same and then some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hpCxYkBjDs

Aren't German politicians other than Merkel always guilty of having done plagiarism at some point in their careers?

It looks like a trend, yes. Baerbock's book wasn't a doctor's thesis, but one of those politicians' books you expect to have been written by a ghostwriter anyways. But the Greens have this "we're cleaner than the other parties" attitude, while basically everyone expects the average Christian Democrat to turn out to be a sleazebag, so these things harm the Greens more.

[Raphael]

In other German news, the Federal Election Commission has decided that in the State of Saarland, the Greens' state list of candidates is disqualified. Apparently, there had been internal disagreements about the list in the state party, with the result that it wasn't clear whether whoever formally nominated the list of candidates on behalf of the state party was actually legally authorized to do so. Now, in the last federal election, only 10 MPs were elected from the Saarland for all parties, and that isn't likely to increase by much this year, so the Greens will probably "only" lose one, two, or at most three seats because of this, but I'm still a bit shocked that an entire major party can be basically excluded from an entire state in one election.

[MacAnDàil]

Yeah, I saw that. And I just saw there'ell be an investigation into the Rheinland-Pfalz head because of his poor reaction to the flooding. And I saw this morning that I could already send away for a postal vote so did that today itself.

[Raphael]

Congratulations on preparing to vote!

And I just saw there'ell be an investigation into the Rheinland-Pfalz head because of his poor reaction to the flooding.

Not sure whom you mean by "Rheinland-Pfalz head". The only person I've heard of so far who's getting investigated over that is the county executive of Ahrweiler, who's a CDU member.

[MacAnDàil]

Thanks! It would have been better had I realised I had the right since 2009.

Sure, that wasn't clear and I didn't check out the details enough, thank you for clarifying and adding some detail.

[Raphael]

There are now rumors in Germany - so far, it seems to be only rumors - that the CDU/CSU might replace their current nominee for Chancellor Armin Laschet with Bavarian Premier and CSU leader Markus Söder after all, given that their poll results are currently a bit disappointing for them, at least compared to what they're used to. How they would do that six weeks before the election is anyone's guess.

[Creyeditor]

But those rumors have been around for nonths now, right?