Updates, 06SEP2020

 Upcoming elections:

September 14th; New Brunswick (Provincial), Liberal Democratic Party Leadership (Japan)

October 17th: New Zealand (National)

October 18th: Bolivia (National)

October 31st: Queensland (state)

Updates on places not listed above:

Belarus: Things continue to develop. There's not much to say, really, as we've yet to pass another, how to put, ticking point. Consider a Pawl. You spend a lot of time slowly moving towards the next little 'cliff'', and you only hear that next 'tick' when you get there. We'll get to another 'tick' in Belarus, but, for now, we are simply moving towards that cliff, and which way things will go when we get there is still unclear. 

Russia: Putin's party is seeing a very minor bounce back from its low of ~30% in the polls, and now sits at about ~31%. This is still below the ~33% they'd been sitting at since the pension issue, prior to which they'd been closer to ~50%. Their opponents sit at about ~13% for the Communists, ~11% for the Nationalists, and ~5% for Just Russia, which I've speculated on before, is a party that was set up to become the 'replacement governing party' should the need ever arise for one. The remainder are undecided, or would vote for various tiny parties. This puts Putin's party at 53% of the decided vote (among parties expected to pass the threshold), and thus, it would win a majority based on that alone. Add to that the fact there are also FPTP seats, and a party with this kind of lead could easily win over 3/4ths of those seats; for a total of about ~300 seats in the 450 seat Duma.

Japan (non-leadership): Only one new poll since Abe resigned; it shows the LDP up to 40% from 30%. Like Russia, these polls come with a massive amount of undecided voters; but unlike Russia where said voters tend to break the same way they do here, undecided voters in Japan have a history of backing the opposition massively. Due to Japan using a similar Parallel system that Russia does, this 40% would be enough for a majority. 

Northern Territory: We now have final results for this election. They are as follows:  Labor - 14 // CLP - 8 // TA - 1 // IND - 2. We also now have a regional breakdown. Darwin has elected 11 Labor members and 2 CLP members; while outside Darwin, there are only 3 Labor members, alongside 6 CLP, and 3 Others; one being the TA member, and two being Independents. Unless the CLP somehow screws up during this next session, the TA is likely to either fold, or, become small enough not to matter, by the time of the next election. If the CLP is smart, they'll invite the single TA member back into the CLP fold. 

Jamaica: I'm still working on a fuller post for this, but it is proving harder than I expected and may need to be abandoned. In short, the governing JLP (which uses Green as its colour) has won 49 seats, while the opposition PNP (which uses Orange) has won 14 seats. This is a change from the 32-31 result in the previous election. Ignoring the 1983 election, which the PNP boycotted, as well as elections prior to 1962 (independence), this is the 2nd worst result for the PNP both in terms of seats and popular vote, beating only 1980. Of the elections held since full Independence (1967 on) this is only the 5th JLP victory, while the PNP had won 7 elections in the same period of time. If current PNP leader, Peter Phillips resigns, (he has said he is doing so) he will be the only PNP leader to never be Prime Minister/Premier. All of this is probably easy to follow; but what tends to confuse people is JLP is right-wing, and PNP is left-wing. Why is that confusing? JLP stands for Jamaica Labour Party, and PNP for People's National Party. Using names that, in most countries, would be usually used by "the other side".

Upcoming:

New Brunswick: My previous prediction still stands. I post updates on Twitter as they come. 

New Zealand: My current predictions is 60 - LAB // 38 - NAT // 14 - GRN // 8 - ACT // 0 - NZF. However, I'll need to refine that as the election draws closer. 

Queensland: The LNP may be on the path to victory. 

Bolivia: No new polls since my last update; hence looks set to be a showdown between Pro-Morales candidate Arce, and Anti-Morales candidate Mesa, with the final winner being unclear.

LDP: Details below.

The LDP leadership is getting a bit interesting. There are three top candidates, all of whom I addressed in my previous post. Ishiba seems to lead most polls, but Kishida seems to still have the backing of Abe. Suga, however, seems to be the one who could run away with it all. 

If this election were happening in any country but Japan, Suga's record and policy stances would make him an obvious shoe in. The election is going to take place among only 535 electors, made up of the 394 caucus members, and 141 others chosen to represent the prefectures. 

In the end, it is likely that Suga will win. Abe seems to want to stop Ishiba, and Suga is in the best place to do that. Additionally, factions within the LDP are lining up behind him.