Loading ...UPDATE: Kevin Rudd has not challenged prime minister Julia Gillard, and Australia’s Labor Party leader will continue in that role after winning a snap leadership spill. * * * * What a day in Australia! Simon Crean (pictured above), Australia’s minister for arts and regions, a former leader of the Australian Labor Party from 2001 [...]
Filed under: Australia | Tagged: australia, carr, coalition, crean, gillard, labor, rudd, spill, swan | Leave a Comment »
With lightning speed (as far as coalition-building goes in the Netherlands), the two top finishers in the Sept. 12 Dutch election have formed a government that will seek €16 billion in budget cuts to bring the Dutch budget further into balance. Standing in front of a futuristic poster of a bridge, prime minister Mark Rutte (pictured [...]
Filed under: The Netherlands | Tagged: beatrix, cannabis policy, CDA, coalition, dutch, labour, netherlands, purple coalition, PvdA, PVV, roemer, rutte, samsom, SP, tweede kamer, VVD, wilders | Leave a Comment »
It seems all but done — Greece’s government and the ‘troika’ of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission have reached an agreement on the latest disbursement of funds that Greece needs to finance government operations, in exchange for a series of budget cuts and labor market reforms. In an additional [...]
Filed under: Greece | Tagged: austerity, coalition, democratic left, EU, European Union, eurozone, golden dawn, greece, IMF, kke, lagarde, merkel, nd, new democracy, pasok, samaris, schauble, stournaras, syriza, troika, tsipras, venizelos | Leave a Comment »
New York tabloid blog Jezebel has officially awarded Australian prime minister Julia Gillard the title of ‘badass motherfucker,’ after Gillard spent 15 minutes in Australia’s House of Representatives on Tuesday calling out Coalition leader Tony Abbott for misogyny in the wake of a scandal that saw the House speaker resign after admitting to using inappropriate language [...]
Filed under: Australia | Tagged: abbott, australia, coalition, gillard, labor, misogyny, rudd, slipper, women | Leave a Comment »
As conference season gets underway in the United Kingdom, the Labour Party, under relatively new leader Ed Miliband, now leads the Conservative Party by a 41% to 31% advantage in the latest Guardian/ICM poll, with the Liberal Democrats trailing at 14%. Labour, which performed generally better than expected in the last election in May 2010 [...]
Filed under: United Kingdom | Tagged: apology, britain, Cameron, Clegg, coalition, conference season, conservative, Ed Miliband, labour, lib dems, liberal democrats, miliband, tories, tuition fees, uk, United Kingdom, vince cable | Leave a Comment »
It appears that Dutch coalitions may be even easier to form now that the monarch isn’t in charge of the negotiations. Both Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte of the free-market liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and Diederik Samsom, leader of the social democratic Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, Labour Party) are moving forward with talks for [...]
Filed under: The Netherlands | Tagged: beatrix, CDA, coalition, D66, dutch, labour, netherlands, purple coalition, PvdA, PVV, rutte, samsom, SP, tweede kamer, VVD, wilders | Leave a Comment »
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte looked more likely than not to continue as prime minister of the Netherlands Tuesday night after his party, the free-market liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) won the largest share of the vote in the Dutch election, with 98% of the votes counted. The VVD won 26.6% [...]
Filed under: The Netherlands | Tagged: beatrix, CDA, coalition, D66, dutch, labour, netherlands, purple coalition, PvdA, PVV, roemer, rutte, samsom, SP, tweede kamer, VVD, wilders | 4 Comments »
In most countries, an election is the decisive moment in forming a government. After the election results are in, it’s usually immediately clear who will become the next president or prime minister or chancellor (or so on). Even in countries with complex parliamentary systems, where coalitions still take time to negotiate, it’s typically pretty clear [...]
Filed under: The Netherlands | Tagged: beatrix, CDA, coalition, D66, dutch, informateur, labour, netherlands, purple coalition, PvdA, PVV, roemer, rutte, samsom, SP, tweede kamer, verbeet, VVD, wilders | 1 Comment »
In less than two weeks, we’ve watched the Dutch election transformed from a two-party race into a three-way tie, as the Dutch Labour Party leader Diederik Samsom has burst into a starring role on the Dutch political stage. Samsom’s party, the social democratic Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, the Labour Party), now either leads or is essentially tied [...]
Filed under: The Netherlands | Tagged: amsterdam, CDA, coalition, D66, dutch, netherlands, purple coalition, PvdA, PVV, roemer, rutte, samsom, SP, VVD, wilders | 2 Comments »
It’s not just American politicians who have a hard time dealing with illegal immigration. Unravelling stability in Afghanistan, where the United States has led an 11-year military effort, may be exacerbating a rise in boat-bound refugees to Australia, causing headaches for its Labor-led government. Australian prime minister Julia Gillard yesterday announced that her government would [...]
Filed under: Australia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea | Tagged: abbott, asylum, australia, boat people, coalition, gillard, howard, labor, malaysia solution, nauru, pacific solution, papua new guinea, refugees, rudd | Leave a Comment »
There might be no more yawn-inducing issue in UK politics than House of Lords reform. But that issue has led to the greatest moment of crisis between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, which together govern the United Kingdom in a first-of-its-kind Tory-Lib Dem coalition government. The importance of the week’s jousting is not [...]
Filed under: United Kingdom | Tagged: alternative vote, Cameron, Clegg, coalition, conservative, house of commons, house of lords, labour, lib dems, liberal democrats, osborne, parliament, tories, uk | 1 Comment »
After a rough start for Greece’s newly inaugurated center-right government — Greece’s new prime minister Antonis Samaras remains immobilized from an emergency eye surgery over the weekend and his first pick for finance minister (Vassilis Rapanos, the head of the National Bank of Greece) resigned after falling ill last Friday — it looks like Greece [...]
Filed under: Greece | Tagged: bailout, coalition, democratic left, European Union, kouvelis, nd, new democracy, pasok, samaras, stournaras, venizelos | Leave a Comment »
It’s not been the best week for the new Greek government. Later this week, the key decision-makers of the European Union will be engaged in the latest attempt at ending the eurozone’s crisis at a conference in Rome. But the new Greek prime minister won’t be there. And neither will his finance minister, a post that [...]
Filed under: Cyprus, Greece | Tagged: bailout, coalition, cyprus, democratic left, European Union, kouvelis, nd, new democracy, pasok, samaras, syriza, venizelos | 1 Comment »
