Majorities expected in Japan and Ukraine

Just a quick update; the President's party in the Ukraine continues to poll well into majority territory, and, the half-house election for Japan's upper house, polls, with the caveat noted here, indicate the LDP lead coalition is set to take the 2/3rds majority they need in the upper house.

Note that Ukraine uses a Parallel voting system - the system I frequently suggest would work best for Canada. As such, the number of seats the President's party can win on the proportional list - which currently looks to be about 130 of the 225 proportional seats - does not impact the number of single-seat constituencies won. With 213* seats needed for a majority in the chamber, an additional 85 seats need thus be won. It is both possible that with such widespread support - 50% in some polls vs 10% for the nearest opponent - that the party could sweep and take all 199* of these seats. It is, however, also possible that a large number of Independents could win those seats, as this has happened in other post-soviet countries in the past.

Based on my understanding, I am thus predicting the following:

260 - President's Party (possible range of 190-330)
65 - Opposition Bloc (pro-russian)
30 - Poroshenko's Party (likely to be largest pro-europe party)
30 - Tymoshenko's Party (could sneak past the above with constituency wins)
30 - Voice (new party, semi pro-president, pro-europe, liberal)
9 - Others (possible range of 0-140)

*The remaining 26 seats are in areas formerly part of Ukraine, but currently held by Rebels, or other Russia. 213 thus is a majority of the 424 seats up for election. 226 being the majority of the entire 450 member chamber.

Japan, being so far ahead of us timewise (when it is 7am here, it is 8pm there) should produce somewhat clear election results fairly early in the day on Sunday. As such I will make a post at that time detailing the results. Ukraine's election may not become clear until Monday or even later, at which point I'll post the results of that election as well. Tuesday we find out who the next UK Tory leader will be, and thus, I will be doing a write-up as well on that.

Following that it is into the doldrums of August, with elections only occurring in places I do not cover; Nauru, which does not have any political parties, and Guatemala, a country I do not know much about.

September is far more interesting. Israel votes on the 17th followed by Austria on the 29th. German state elections occur in Brandenburg and Saxony on the 1st. I have a friend who lives in Saxony, and she may be able to help provide me with information and contexts that I've previously missed the way my Friend with an Israeli background was able to during the last Israeli election.