Elections in various countries

[Raphael]

Back to Bolsonaro, apparently, the Wall Street Journal endorses him: https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazilian- ... 1539039700
Apparently Haddad is taking hints "from the Hugo Chavez playbook"

Ah, if Venezuela didn't exist, we would have to invent it!

Related to that, "the markets" have apparently reacted euphorically to the first round results and to Bolsonaro's good poll results, sending the prices of all kinds of Brazil-related investments up and up and up. Looks like, aside from generally being scumbags, the people who work on "the markets" also seem to think that it will somehow be good for the Brazilian economy if a lot of people around the world start boycotting Brazilian products. Or they simply have the political instincts of a box of breakfast cereal.

[Ares Land]

Related to that, "the markets" have apparently reacted euphorically to the first round results and to Bolsonaro's good poll results, sending the prices of all kinds of Brazil-related investments up and up and up. Looks like, aside from generally being scumbags, the people who work on "the markets" also seem to think that it will somehow be good for the Brazilian economy if a lot of people around the world start boycotting Brazilian products. Or they simply have the political instincts of a box of breakfast cereal.

Unfortunately, the markets' political instincts are a lot more solid than you're giving them credit for.
Apparently, "Brazil’s most valuable exported product are soya beans followed by iron ores and concentrates, sugar, crude oil then poultry meat."
http://www.worldstopexports.com/brazils-top-10-exports/

Basically, not something an concerned customer has much power to boycott. Unless the EU imposes prohibitive tariffs on Brazilian goods or something, which doesn't seem really likely.

[Raphael]

Unfortunately, the markets' political instincts are a lot more solid than you're giving them credit for.
Apparently, "Brazil’s most valuable exported product are soya beans followed by iron ores and concentrates, sugar, crude oil then poultry meat."
http://www.worldstopexports.com/brazils-top-10-exports/

Basically, not something an concerned customer has much power to boycott. Unless the EU imposes prohibitive tariffs on Brazilian goods or something, which doesn't seem really likely.

Ah, bummer.

[Raphael]

Interlude: the polls have just closed in the state legislative election in the German state of Hesse, and the exit-poll-based prognosis says:

CDU 28 percent; SPD 20 percent; Greens 19.5 percent; AfD 12 percent; FDP 7.5 percent; The Left 6.5 percent


You can now return to your regularly scheduled descent of Brazil into fascism.

[Salmoneus]

In more positive news (less positively: Bolsonaro has promised the greatest purge ever seen of the 'outlaw' left, imprisoning party leaders and banishing anyone else associated with leftwingism, designating worker's movements as a form of terrorism and ensuring that 'not one centimetre' of land will be left in the possession of indigenous people), Higgins won the Irish election. His rivals had a late surge, but he still one 56% to 23%. Sinn Féin came fourth, with under 7% of the vote.

It's a largely symbolic victory for liberals; but liberals depressed by current affairs may like to read his latest book, When Ideas Matter, a collection of liberal speeches.

[Raphael]

And the Irish ended the constitutional ban on blasphemy, too.

[Raphael]

I just realized that, if the USA should somehow get a Democratic president again at some time in the near future, we might partially get an inverse version of the scenario from The Fire Shall Try.

[Nerulent]

So Bolsonaro has won - how much rein does he have to actually enact his promises? Will we see full blown fascism in Brazil in the near future?

[Salmoneus]

And the Irish ended the constitutional ban on blasphemy, too.

Indeed, although it's a symbolic gesture only at this point, since blasphemy wasn't actually banned in Ireland. The constitution requires a 'blasphemy' ban, but actually banning blasphemy was ruled unconstitutional a few decades ago (and there haven't actually been any convinctions for it in a century and a half). So a 'blasphemy' law was introduced that didn't actually relate to blasphemy. Instead, the blasphemy law is a hate-speech law: it outlaws publically making remarks grossly offensive to a religious community (like, say, the blood libel against Jews). The law was never actually used, because its safeguards were extremely high: the material had to be "grossly abusive", the effect had to be to actually and demonstrably cause significant outrage to a substantial number of people, the intent had to be specifically to cause that outrage, and the law was not applicable to any remarks that held literary, artistic, political, scientific or academic value, no matter how offensive they might be, which would rule out almost any possible actual remarks.

The government says it'll remove the 'blasphemy' hate crime laws now, but since they were unusable anyway and any use they might have had was already covered by other laws that didn't have 'blasphemy' in the title, the actual effect will be zero. It's basically a referendum on whether people like the word or not. And people didn't - even the Catholic Church supported the removal of the laws.

----------

Nerulent: nobody knows.

The first question is: does Bolsonaro want to impose a dictatorship? He's said so in the past, but is that still true? Was it ever, or was he just posturing?

The second question is: if he does, how will he go about it? He's got a series of possible routes open to him:
1: he can try to force through repressive legislation
2: he can call for a popular uprising to overthrow institutions like the legislatures and the courts
3: he can call for a popular uprising to enact his objectives while ignoring established institutions (eg, he could call for popular massacres, or more likely campaigns of violence to pressure dissidents to leave the country)
4: he can call for the army to take over
5: he can declare that existing institutions are abolished or placed under his direct command, rule by decree and enforce his decrees through paramilitary groups

The first option will be very hard for him: his party holds just over 10% of seats in the lower chamber and under 10% in the upper chamber. [it's the biggest party. The Brazilian national legislature is notoriously ungovernable, which is why governing parties have had to rely on pervasive bribery in order to get any legislation passed]. Of course, many smaller parties will side with him, but I doubt they would do so to establish a dictatorship and eliminate themselves.

The second is really hard to do: institutions are hard to topple.

The third is relatively easy to do, but tends to be limited in its efficacy: it can disrupt, but it's hard to actually get things done that way.

The fourth would very swiftly establish a dictatorship. The problem is, the military probably don't want to take over, and it would provoke popular hostility.

So the fifth is the usual way that this happens. This would require tacit support from the military, but wouldn't require them to actually get their hands dirty. But does he have the popular backing for it to work?

There are going to be two main routes for this to happen. The first is in the coming hours and days: will Bolsonaro launch immediate 'reform'? It would be unusual, but the things he's said suggest that it's not impossible. Right now is also when his mandate is greatest. The alternative route is safer for him: attempt major reform through the democratic institution, have it blocked, rally people around the idea that this proves that institutional reform (i.e. a dictatorship, or, as Fujimori put it, "a search for an authentic transformation to assure a legitimate and effective democracy") is required. The Fujigolpe that would presumably be his model didn't occur until 1992, two years into Fujimori's administration. This approach lets him show the military (and the public) that he has exhausted non-violent methods.

Having won, he's sworn "an oath before God" to preserve democracy... but Fujimori said that's what he was doing too. That said, that might indicate that Bolsonaro's not planning an immediate autogolpe.

[Nerulent]

[informative response]

So basically we might see something in the coming few months or else it'll take a couple of years. In the latter case, to what degree will we see his promised persecution of leftists/LGBT etc.? I realise the answer is probably just 'time will tell'.

Have we heard anything from Trump on Bolsonaro? I'd expect him to be up Trump's alley as he seems to be in a similar camp as Duterte.

[dhok]

I wouldn't be so sure the military wouldn't want to take over given they're already going after academics.

[Raphael]

I wouldn't be so sure the military wouldn't want to take over given they're already going after academics.

I've seen that tweet, too, but I'm a bit sceptical about it - would be more reliable if it was corroborated by some other source.

[Raphael]

In other news, Angela Merkel has announced that she wants to give up being chairperson of her party in December, and then stay Chancellor until 2021. We'll see if that works out.

[Ares Land]

In other news, Angela Merkel has announced that she wants to give up being chairperson of her party in December, and then stay Chancellor until 2021. We'll see if that works out.

What's likely to happen next? Does she stand a good chance of standing unchallenged as Chancellor until 2021?

[Raphael]

Not-really-charted waters. Traditionally, when the Chancellor has been from the CDU, that person was also CDU chairperson - or at least as far as I know; I might be wrong. I don't know if there's any experience with someone from the CDU staying Chancellor for years without being CDU chairperson.

[mèþru]

Honestly, she's stopped being the ideological leader of her party a long time ago, so it seems like a de jure realisation of what already is.

[Salmoneus]

Not-really-charted waters. Traditionally, when the Chancellor has been from the CDU, that person was also CDU chairperson - or at least as far as I know; I might be wrong.

There are three exceptions, all early on. Adenauer technically wasn't elected leader of the CDU until a year after he became Chancellor; but he had informally been seen as their leader for years. Kiesinger spent his first five months as Chancellor co-habited with Erhard widely believed to be CDU leader*. But the more interesting period was Erhard's Chancellorship - he was Chancellor three years, but was represented as CDU leader for less than a year of that.
The first case can be regarded as a technicality. The next two, however, indicate that the party leadership was regarded as a separate role, and could be held by ex-chancellors as elder statesmen even after giving up their state positions. That's not THAT rare worldwide; it may have declined since Erhard just because later chancellors became less willing to give up their posts without being defeated in an election (which would have damaged their claim to a continued party role). Indeed, another way of looking at it is that 100% of CDU-CDU transitions in history (and 66% of same-party transitions) have involved the two positions temporarily diverging. Of course, another factor may be logistic - it doesn't explain Adenauer-Erhard, but the Erhard-Kiesinger delay may just have been because the party had to wait until its next party conference to elect a new leader...


Of course, Merkel represents something totally different - the direct opposite, in fact. Having a PM who isn't a party leader is obviously not entirely stable, but it's also not that unusual in coalition governments around the world. Usually it's because the party leader isn't acceptable to the coalition partners - I can't think of examples off-hand where the national leader wasn't acceptable to her own party...



*weirdly, Erhard was never the CDU leader, the CDU just told everyone that he was. He actually wasn't even a member, but he agreed not to mention that and only the party's inner circle knew that the whole election thing they held was completely invalid by their own rules.

[Raphael]

Ah, thank you, that's interesting to know!

[Ares Land]

So the European parliament elections are practically tomorrow. That is, in May 2019.
In France, it's traditionally a protest votes, as most people either don't know or care about what MEPs do.
I'm going to focus on what's going to happen for France and ignore minor details, such as the 27 (ah, strike that. 26) other countries in the Union that respect I'm a pretty good representative sample of the electorate!

Traditionally:

• the party in power gets a sound thrashing.
• the far right (the main far right party is now called Rassemblement National which is totally unlike their old name, Front National thereby confusing voters) grabs a fairly scary number of seats, thereby ensuring they can oppose the EU by embezzling EU funds.
• the far left does the same (now called La France Insoumise which sounds more "amateur porn website" than "political party", but maybe I've got a one-track mind) but with fewer seats.
• otherwise not-so-important parties, such as the Green or the centrists actually get some representation.
• eccentric parties actually stand a chance. (Last time I voted Pirate Party because in my view eccentricity in politics deserves to be rewarded).

Of course, given that our traditional major parties died of spontaneous combustion (LR, right-wing) or in a bizarre gardening accident (PS, left-wing) in 2017, all bets are off.

The government, as is traditional, made a campaign video to get people to vote. This time it was highly controversial, because it was an overly-dramatic, FUD thing intended to get people to vote LREM (the government people) instead of getting people to vote in general. As is typical, the video has been taken down so all you can watch now are videos about how awful the government video was.

My own comments and predictions, for what they're worth:

• Macron (LREM, in theory a centrist, in practice: annoying business school manager type) is in a pretty bad place right now, what with government minister quitting on him and giving interviews in far-right rags. People were actually expecting him to do something about the economy (his speciality, supposedly), except the economy is still not doing great. So far I expect LREM to take a hit, but not that much. Who else are we supposed to vote for anyway?
• LR (conservatives) could do great, but so far I don't think they will. Whatever reasonable, competent people they have have been coopted by Macron. They are led by Laurent Wauquiez, which is a pretty poor choice, as he manages to be a borderline fascist and an uncharismatic non-entity. I can't resist recounting an anecdote: he once mentioned watching YouPorn, and for months former president Sarkozy joked: "Have you met Laurent this morning? Yes? Have you washed your hands?".
• LFI (left to far-left) used to be the major contender, but now that their leader decompensated in public in a police search, I don't expect them to do well anymore. The story: the police searched Mélenchon's place and the FI party seat in a sad business over EU funds; Mélenchon filmed himself getting hysterical in camera. (Favourite quote: "Don't touch! I'm a MP! I am the Republic, and my person is sacred". No kidding, that actually happened).
• the late PS (1969-2017). Left-wing and the associated Génération-s (led by former PS candidate Hamon). I think they'll do a lot better than anyone expected. PS voters are a little disgusted with Macron right now, not going to vote LFI... they could do great if they managed to somehow get their shit together. In related news, Ségolène Royal, former presidential candidate (and Hollande's ex-wife) made an unexpected comeback. She'll need some introduction, so picture, if you will, a social-democrat Sarah Palin. She lost the 2007 elections, mostly because of comical blunders (Favourite quote: "Who goes to the Great Wall of China conquers la bravitude" -- I'm not sure how to translate that last one. Braveousness? Pluckinessity? ) and generally not being in possession of a full set. Of course, that was then. Frankly, I used to hate her, and now compared to the rest of the asylum she looks like the Messiah, or a combination Winston Churchill/Barack Obama, with the added bonus of being female for a change. If this was a TV show, her comeback would be the kind of plot twist that makes you wish you'd thought of that yourself.
• . RN, formerly FN. Far-right. I don't have the heart to talk about them, and frankly, why bother? Of course they do great. RN voters will vote for an aardvark dressed in an Hitler costume as long as it's named Le Pen. For what it's worth, the last generation of Le Pen, Marion Maréchal (nous voilà, I might add) is considerably more attractive than an aardvark, in an Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS kind of way.

[mèþru]

which sounds more "amateur porn website" than "political party"

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that.