Daily Archives: October 21, 2013

Czech Republic

New Czech party hopes to ride anti-corruption momentum to election gains

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It’s been a tumultuous year in Czech politics — a surveillance scandal involving the prime minister’s love triangle brought down the government, a power-hungry president elected in the first direct presidential election earlier this year is working to claw power away from the parliament, and what’s left of the Czech right boils down to a contest between an eccentric Bohemian aristocrat and a multi-millionaire entrepreneur. czech

Though it sounds like the long-lost plot of a Leoš Janáček opera, it’s the backdrop to this weekend’s parliamentary elections, which should be no less dramatic than the events that shaped them.

What was once expected to be an easy victory for the country’s main center-left party, the Česká strana sociálně demokratická (ČSSD, Czech Social Democratic Party) now looks it will be a less dominant victory — so much that the Social Democrats are no longer considered a lock to lead the next Czech government.  It’s the latest twist in a series of turns that could have major consequences for the economic and political development of the Czech Republic (or ‘Czechia‘ as its current president wants to call it) and its 10.5 million residents, to say nothing of the future expansion of the eurozone within central and eastern Europe. Continue reading New Czech party hopes to ride anti-corruption momentum to election gains →

Maldives

Maldives postpones presidential election yet again

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The Maldives, which was supposed to hold a rerun of its presidential election over the weekend, has postponed it once again: maldives

Maldives electoral officials have set new dates for a presidential poll amid a growing row over the delayed vote.  The first round of the elections will now be held on 9 November, and a run-off – if required – on 16 November.  The first round of voting, in September, was annulled by a court, and on Saturday police blocked an attempted re-run.  Meanwhile President Mohamed Waheed told the BBC that the polls would be free and fair.

The Maldivian supreme court’s initial cancellation of the planned September 28 runoff was cause enough for alarm, but its decision to annul the original September 7 results and hold a new election on October 19 was even more discouraging.

Mohamed Nasheed, who won the country’s first democratic elections in 2008, was pressured to step down from office in early 2012 amid protests over the economy.  He won over 45% of the vote in the initial September election, and was set to face Abdulla Yameen,the half-brother of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who led the Maldives with an authoritarian government between 1978 and 2008 and whose influence continues to threaten the country’s turn to democracy.

Needless to say, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Gayoom (pictured above) and his allies in the Maldivian courts are trying to prevent Nasheed from taking power again.

Nasheed, after the latest postponement, called on Waheed to resign — Waheed, his former vice president, assumed the presidency upon Nasheed’s resignation in February 2012.

Under the constitution, the Maldives must have a president on November 11, so it’s unclear what will happen if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.

At this point, it would not be surprising to see Maldivian authorities find a way to shut Nasheed out from the election.

Luxembourg

Democrats gain despite Juncker’s likely return as prime minister in Luxembourg

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As expected, the party of Europe’s longest-serving prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker won Luxembourg’s parliamentary elections over the weekend.luxembourg

Despite having lost nearly 5% from the result of the previous 2009 elections, Juncker’s center-right Chrëschtlech Sozial Vollekspartei (CSV, Christian Social People’s Party) still finished with more support than any other party, entitling it to 23 seats in Luxembourg’s 60-member unicameral parliament, the D’Chamber (Chamber of Deputies), a loss of three seats:

“I am satisfied with the results as far as my party remains the number one party in Luxembourg, with a huge distance between my party and the two other main political parties,” Mr Juncker said.

“We should be entitled to form the next government.”  But he said it was too early to begin coalition talks.

Its coalition partner between 2004 and 2013, the center-left Lëtzebuerger Sozialistesch Arbechterpartei (LSAP, Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party), finished in second place, winning the same number as seats as it had previously (13), despite the fact that its support declined, especially in its stronghold in the south of the country.

But the third-place liberal Demokratesch Partei (DP, Democratic Party) also won 13 seats, a four-seat gain that makes it the clear winner, in terms of momentum, in Sunday’s election.

While the Democrats may have hoped for even more seats, the party made the starkest gains in Sunday’s election and that its leader, Luxembourg City mayor Xavier Bettel, is a rising star in Luxembourgish politics.  Though Bettel may not have won enough seats to make a play to become prime minister, he’s young enough (40) that he now stands a strong chance of making further gains in the next set of Luxembourgish elections.

Moreover, while Juncker may well return into a governing coalition with the LSAP, it was the LSAP’s refusal to back Juncker in a key vote over the summer over a scandal involving illegal domestic surveillance within Luxembourg’s secret service, which led to Juncker’s resignation and Luxembourg’s first snap elections in decades.  Though Juncker wasn’t directly involved in the scandal, a parliamentary inquiry found that he shared political responsibility for failing to adequately oversee the secret service and intelligence agency.  Despite the scandal, however, it wasn’t expected that the CSV would forfeit its dominance within Luxembourgish politics, though polls predicted slight losses for Juncker and his coalition partner, the LSAP.

Juncker has served as prime minister since 1995 and, between 1989 and 2009, also served as Luxembourg’s finance minister.

Given that the Democrats were the clear winners in Sunday’s vote, there’s a chance that Juncker could turn to the Democrats to join his government (as Juncker did between 1999 and 2004), putting Bettel even more clearly on the path as Juncker’s heir apparent.

LSAP leader Etienne Schneider hinted as much after Sunday’s votes were counted:

Schneider commented that another LSAP and CSV coalition would not necessarily be the most democratic, since it would exclude the party with the biggest gain in voter trust.

There’s also a small possibility of a so-called ‘Gambia’ coalition (named after the three colors of Gambia’s flag) among the LSAP (red), the Democrats (blue) and the Déi Gréng (the Greens), who won six seats.  Together, the three parties won 32 seats, an absolute majority, though it seems unlikely that Luxembourg’s next government would exclude Juncker’s top-polling party.

Though Juncker downplayed his interest throughout the campaign, he has been discussed as a potential candidate for the presidency of either the European Council or the European Commission, both of which will be vacant next year.  Christine Lagarde’s current term as managing director of the International Monetary Fund will end in 2016 — as the first chair of the Eurogroup, the group of eurozone finance ministers, Juncker has already played a key role in setting European Union monetary and financial policy, following in the long tradition of Luxembourgish leadership at the European level.

In addition to the other four major parties, the centrist Alternativ Demokratesch Reformpartei (Alternative Democratic Reform Party) won three seats and the far-left Déi Lénk won two seats:

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