Elections in various countries

[bradrn]

I notice that there hasn't been an announcement of dissolution or prorogation prior to dissolution, but, then again, the House of Representatives last time was dissolved in April. Do you think Morrison'll wait as long as possible to advise a dissolution, given how his party isn't doing so well in the polls?

Well, you seem to be more informed than me about Australian politics, so I shan’t comment. What I will say, based on my limited understanding, is that the election is still a good two or three months away, so I don’t think there’s any need for such actions at this early time.

Hey, anything's more interesting than the typical [redacted] of politics in my home country, plus Australian politics are fascinating with the constant leadership spills. I was just curious because, here in the luscious and moist Nether Regions, they announced the election date quite early (I think in November 2020 we heard about an election due in March), though that may also be a function of the semi-fixed term of the House of Representatives/Tweede Kamer. (Elections are due every fourth year in March unless the House is earlier dissolved.)

Oh, we all know there’s an election… they just haven’t formally announced a date or started a campaign yet, because, as previously mentioned, that would trigger all those tricky restrictions wot is so inconvenient for the poor old average Australian party. I’m just glad you have vaguely honest politicians who are actually willing to announce what they do before they do it.

Though a few other countries here in Europe could be quite interesting. Since my former boss is a Swede, I hear bits and pieces about Swedish politics, and their election is due in September... and where it gets especially interesting is that some parties look to have broken the cordon sanitaire around the far-right Sweden Democrats (though we're a fine one to talk here, given how the PVV, one of the two main "special" parties, had a confidence and supply agreement with the Rutte I cabinet!).

We’re not really in a position to criticise this either, given that we recently elected a politician who in his maiden speech called for a ‘final solution to the immigration problem’. He later claimed he wasn’t aware of any prior usage of the phrase. (Yeah, right.) Even Pauline Hanson condemned that particular speech, so I suppose we’re not quite at the ‘official neo-Nazi party’ phase yet.

[bradrn]

Well, the Coalition have had a rough week since the hair-washing incident. In order from least to most recent:

• Morrison’s National Press Club address (um, that is, his address at the Club, not the address as his Club) was quite dramatically upstaged when a journalist stood up and leaked some two-year-old texts between Berejiklian and an unnamed cabinet minister, in which Morrison was called a ‘complete psycho’ (by the minister) and a ‘horrible, horrible person’ (by Berejiklian).
• Berejiklian has ‘no recollection’ of the texts. A parade of cabinet ministers come forward to announce that no, it most certainly was not them who sent the texts. Barnaby Joyce urges the minister responsible to come forward and be responsible.
• Text from Barnaby Joyce leaked: ‘I and Scott, he is Scott to me until I have to recognise his office, don’t get along. He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time. I have never trusted him and I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie.’
• Joyce offers his resignation (for the third time in the past few years). Morrison declines.
• Joyce offers a grovelling apology, saying ‘the Prime Minister is a person of high integrity and honesty’. Apparently he has now ‘worked extremely closely with the Prime Minister over the last seven months’, which is of course totally different to the way he has worked extremely closely with him numerous times in the past. Morrison ‘understand[s] Barnaby was in a different headspace last year’.
• Morrison introduces a new Religious Discrimination Act, to properly protect religions and religious speech from discrimination in law — a key campaign promise of the Coalition. The same bill will also amend the Sex Discrimination Act, to remove schools’ right to expel students on the basis of sexual orientation. However the bill does not fully repeal the Act; in particular, the status quo is maintained in that transgender students and LGBTIQ+ teachers may still be expelled.
• In accordance with the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics, every man and their dog — and every woman and their dog, and every gender nonconforming person and their dog, as well as numerous moderate MPs from the Coalition itself — pile onto the Coalition, talking about how horrible and disgusting it is that the Coalition wants to murder trans students.
• The Attorney-General gives the excuse that single-sex religious schools are not set up to deal with students identifying as different genders, which is one of those excuses which actually sounds reasonable until you think about it for five seconds.
• Labor releases its cunning plan for the bill: it will support the bill, but move amendments to (a) repeal the relevant clause of the Sex Discrimination Act entirely, making it unlawful for schools to discriminate in any way against LGBTIQ+ students, and (b) decrease protections for religious statements of belief. If the amendments pass in one house, Labor will reject the bill entirely if they do not pass in another house.
• The amendments pass in the lower house, after five Liberal MPs cross the floor to support them.
• The Coalition puts their own bill on hold, requesting a legal review into the status of discrimination against transgender students.

And that isn’t even all the scandals in the past week!

[Raphael]

I might as well note, even if just for the record, that German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier got himself elected for a second term of office today. It doesn't really matter that much, given that it's a mostly ceremonial office, and it's not exactly surprising, given that all main politically mainstream parties had nominated him, and together, those parties had a broad majority in the Assembly that did the election. The main controversial story of the election was probably that the former chairman of an ultra-conservative group within the center-right CDU/CSU, Max Otte, got himself nominated by the hard-right AfD.

[Travis B.]

This is not an election thing per se, but why won't Justin Trudeau emulate his father here? The Ottawa police are clearly useless in dealing with the so-called "Freedom Convoy". They need to be dealt with like how Pierre Trudeau dealt with the FLQ.

[Moose-tache]

This is not an election thing per se, but why won't Justin Trudeau emulate his father here? The Ottawa police are clearly useless in dealing with the so-called "Freedom Convoy". The need to be dealt with like how Pierre Trudeau dealt with the FLQ.

The Quebec situation is hardly a best case scenario. If the people involved in this protest become a permanently angry, wounded political force they will go on to do much worse things than the current protests. Ideally they need to cease to exist as a political force, not be galvanized by mutual trauma.

More to the point, invoking the War Measures Act garnered criticism. There were people who didn’t like Pierre Trudeau for it. Justin Trudeau’s principle need, the glowing eye at the top of his Maslow’s pyramid, is to be liked by every human in the world at all costs.

[Travis B.]

This is not an election thing per se, but why won't Justin Trudeau emulate his father here? The Ottawa police are clearly useless in dealing with the so-called "Freedom Convoy". The need to be dealt with like how Pierre Trudeau dealt with the FLQ.

The Quebec situation is hardly a best case scenario. If the people involved in this protest become a permanently angry, wounded political force they will go on to do much worse things than the current protests. Ideally they need to cease to exist as a political force, not be galvanized by mutual trauma.

More to the point, invoking the War Measures Act garnered criticism. There were people who didn’t like Pierre Trudeau for it. Justin Trudeau’s principle need, the glowing eye at the top of his Maslow’s pyramid, is to be liked by every human in the world at all costs.

Right now the (lack of an adequate) response to the so-called "Freedom Convoy" has only made the Canadian government look weak and incompetent, and this will only increase the longer this lasts. In Ottawa it's required private individuals to set up their own counterprotests blocking more truckers from joining the existing blockades because the police there have proven so useless so far.

[Moose-tache]

This is not an election thing per se, but why won't Justin Trudeau emulate his father here? The Ottawa police are clearly useless in dealing with the so-called "Freedom Convoy". The need to be dealt with like how Pierre Trudeau dealt with the FLQ.

The Quebec situation is hardly a best case scenario. If the people involved in this protest become a permanently angry, wounded political force they will go on to do much worse things than the current protests. Ideally they need to cease to exist as a political force, not be galvanized by mutual trauma.

More to the point, invoking the War Measures Act garnered criticism. There were people who didn’t like Pierre Trudeau for it. Justin Trudeau’s principle need, the glowing eye at the top of his Maslow’s pyramid, is to be liked by every human in the world at all costs.

Right now the (lack of an adequate) response to the so-called "Freedom Convoy" has only made the Canadian government look weak and incompetent, and this will only increase the longer this lasts. In Ottawa it's required private individuals to set up their own counterprotests blocking more truckers from joining the existing blockades because the police there have proven so useless so far.

What do you think is supposed to happen during a redneck protest? You folks up there are new to this, so I'll give you the run down. The government was never going to be anything other than "weak and incompetent" on this matter. Left wing governments have never developed an adequate response to right-wing populism other than to shit themselves, fall over, and cry. That's plan A. And the police are always going to be in on it. They're the police. This is like, a free trip to Disneyland for them. Canada is deep in the shit right now, but it's handling it well. If the freedom convoy was happening in America, there would be truckers in the White House stealing Joe Biden's laptop by now. Don't blame your special handsome boy for not calling in the troops and making everything worse.

[Ares Land]

The Freedom Convoy seems to have been successfully transported here. TBH the European version looks, so far, pretty benign.

The attitude of the police seems in fact to have been way too brutal. (But our police has been getting pretty nasty of late.)

[bradrn]

The Freedom Convoy seems to have been successfully transported here. TBH the European version looks, so far, pretty benign.

What a coincidence. It’s here too! Only they’re calling it the ‘convoy to Canberra’ instead. They’ve also been pretty benign — Australians by and large are sensible people. (Note: this does not apply to politicians.)

[bradrn]

…speaking of which, the idiot’s done it again. Scott Morrison has made a speech on the anniversary of the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples:

[Forgiveness] is an act of courage. And it is a gift that only those who have been wounded, damaged and destroyed can offer. I also said 14 years ago, ‘sorry is not the hardest word to say, the hardest is I forgive you’. … [forgiveness] does lead to healing. It does open up a new opportunity. It does offer up release from the bondage of pain and suffering.

Now, I realise that this is a sincere statement informed by Morrison’s Pentecostal faith. But really, part of being a Prime Minister is considering how your words will be received by others. And telling ‘wounded, damaged and destroyed’ people that they need to offer forgiveness to their attacker can leave a bad aftertaste.

(Morrison’s faith should not be underestimated. He once admitted that, when comforting people in his role as PM, he secretly employed faith healing via the Pentecostal practice of ‘laying on hands’. And just yesterday we learnt that during the pandemic he had worn out the ‘carpet on the side of my bed … on my knees praying and praying’. One wonders what might have happened if he had spent that time actually managing the pandemic himself — ‘God helps those who help themselves’ and all that.)

[Moose-tache]

The Freedom Convoy seems to have been successfully transported here. TBH the European version looks, so far, pretty benign.

What a coincidence. It’s here too! Only they’re calling it the ‘convoy to Canberra’ instead.

Fun fact: in Australia, the freedom convoy circles the capital counterclockwise.

[bradrn]

The Freedom Convoy seems to have been successfully transported here. TBH the European version looks, so far, pretty benign.

What a coincidence. It’s here too! Only they’re calling it the ‘convoy to Canberra’ instead.

Fun fact: in Australia, the freedom convoy circles the capital counterclockwise.

I wish. Really, they’re sorta just standing in place outside Parliament chanting a bit and waving signs. (My favourite: ‘This is the last straw’.)

[Ares Land]

Valérie Pécresse, our LR (main right-wing party) just upped the stakes of the International Political Stupidity Olympics by mentioning the Great Replacement at a political meeting.

(I'm attributing that one equally to stupidity and malice.)

[Travis B.]

Well, Justin Trudeau has now invoked the Emergencies Act (the successor to the War Measures Act invoked by his father), and using it to target the so-called "Freedom Convoy" and its backers' finances and livelihoods while not bringing in the army is probably a good idea, as getting your bank accounts frozen do less to make one look like a martyr than getting detained by soldiers while being far more effective in practice (as many of these people probably wouldn't mind looking like martyrs but would certainly mind not being able to make a living—look at how the truckers largely cleared out the Ambassador Bridge once they were threatened with having their licenses taken away, leaving the police to only have to arrest a few who unwisely chose to stay behind).

[MacAnDàil]

Valérie Pécresse, our LR (main right-wing party) just upped the stakes of the International Political Stupidity Olympics by mentioning the Great Replacement at a political meeting.

(I'm attributing that one equally to stupidity and malice.)

Well, part of the point with Philippe Corcuff's book La grande confusion. Comment l'extrême droite gagne la bataille des idées is that, not only is the far right (extrême-droite) too strong these days in France and elsewhere, but also that its ideas (ultraconservative, essentialist and conspirationist for example) are being adapted by others. It's the same when En Marche politicians talk about 'islamo-gauchisme' ('islamo-leftism'), when Hollande says he 'voulait donner gages à la droite' (wanted to make gestures to the right) to explain why he proposed the nationality loss law or when Sarkozy tells his teammates just before he wins the presidency that he is ahead because of Le Pen voters.

[Ares Land]

The war in Ukraine has the interesting side-effect that Macron's reelection now seems pretty much inevitable.

(The best-placed contenders are on record for saying stupid things about Putin, or having prominent member of their parties that said stupid things about Putin.)

[Ares Land]

The war in Ukraine has the interesting side-effect that Macron's reelection now seems pretty much inevitable.

(The best-placed contenders are on record for saying stupid things about Putin, or having prominent member of their parties that said stupid things about Putin.)

Apparently, I was wrong. In an interesting development, Macron seems currently to be fucking up his reelection. Marine Le Pen now has a chance at being president. (The latest poll for the second round are around 48% Le Pen, 52% Macron, with a margin of error of about 2%)
For the first round, the polls have Macron at 27.7%, Le Pen around 20%, Mélenchon at 15%. The other candidates are mostly reduced to insignificance.

Macron and the government are involved in a scandal involving consulting firm McKinsey -- long story short: it looks like McKinsey has been pretty much running the country in the past five years; plus it hasn't paid a cent in taxes; plus it has billed 900,000 euros for a PowerPoint presentation; many of MacKinsey's top executives are Macron's personal friends.

That and, judging the reelection certain, Macron has acted his stupid and nasty self.

Understandingly, in the almost certain event of a Macron-Le Pen second round, many people (on the left, though not only) are not planning to vote.

I'd add that this has been the most uninteresting presidential campaign I've ever seen. I plan to vote Macron in the second round, though with much reluctant (I figure mean, stupid, and a little fascist on the side beats mean, stupid and fascist all over.) I have no idea whom I'll vote for in the first round. On one hand, I'm tempted to vote Mélenchon on the off chance he beats Le Pen and makes it to the second round. On the other hand, I think he's a xenophobe, an unrepentant tankie, and generally unsufferable.

On the whole, I'd still bet on Macron being reelected, but I wouldn't bet a huge sum. Le Pen winning is now more believable than it ever was.

[Raphael]

Oh shit. As if there wasn't already enough to worry about.

[MacAnDàil]

Ouch. I have been moving away from Mélenchon myself, especially with international relations, but if the choice comes down to Macron v Le Pen or Macron v Mélenchon, he's still the best of the three.

Here in Réunion, according to a recent poll, he's the most popular candidate, like last time, but with several former absentionists helping out with the campaign my friends are in. In terms of popularity, Jadot and Arthaud are the only others with more positive than negative opinion here, but how that will actually impact votes is another quesiton.

[Travis B.]

In the end, if the choice is between a crook and a fascist, always go with the crook...