Updates!

There are a few updates in the countries I've been passively following.



ITALY

There has been a slow change in Italy that only began to really show itself in late November. It's been long enough, however, that I can pin down the movement as real and significant.

FdI, the Brothers of Italy party, a National Conservative party, is up in the polls. M5S, the centre-progressive Populist party, is down.

Now this is where I need to do some assumptions based on what I know because Italian polls do not tend to break down results by region. I am going to assume the FdI growth is in the south. Why? Lega, also known as Lega Nord, is a Northern party at its core. FdI is an ally of Lega. M5S meanwhile always had its heaviest support in the south of Italy. Ergo, it makes sense to assume that if M5S is dropping while FdI is increasing, that it is southern voters who want to vote for an ally of Lega.

Also to keep in mind is Renzi, the former PM, broke away from PD to start Viva Italia (IV) as a new party. With that in mind, polls suggest the following:

18.8% - PD (Social Democrat)
16.3% - M5S (Progressive Populist)
4.3% - VI (Progressive)
39.4% - Combined Left

32.6% - Lega (Neo Nationalist)
10.2% - FdI (National Conservative)
6.7% - FI (Conservative, Berlusconi)
49.5% - Combined Right

Note that there are smaller parties that also bolster the total of both the combined right and combined left, but they do not change the main story of a lead among the right.




ISRAEL

On September 17th of 2019, Israel went to the polls. On the 25th of that month, the Parliament's member parties voted, narrowly, to recommend The incumbent Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, also known as Bibi, be given the first attempt to form a government. As such he was given 28 days in which to do so. He failed.

As a result, Benny Gantz, who lost the September 25th vote by a single ballot, was given a chance to form a government. He had 28 days, and also failed.

Finally, any sitting member of the Parliament who could get 61 signatures (a majority) had the chance to form a government for a period of 21 days. They failed. As a result, Israel is headed back to the polls on March 2nd, 2020.

Polls suggest fairly minor changes. Blue and White, Gantz's party, is up by between 2 and 4 seats, while Likud, Bibi's party, is down by a seat. Other parties are generally within one or two seats of their performance in 2019. I'll explain this with more nuance as we get closer to the actual election date, but right now it looks good for Gantz, but only marginally so. Bibi's recent charge of corruption might have something to do with it.





Lastly, I wanted to present the UK map I posted earlier, except, with more and updated data. I have a surprise post planned for tomorrow about the UK election as well.