Nothing much to update. Israel still is struggling to form a coalition government.
On June 6th there are a number of interesting elections. Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, and national elections in Mexico. Bulgaria votes on the 11th of July. Beyond that, we are headed into another quiet time for politics. Things will pick up in the fall with elections in Russia, Germany, Norway, Iraq, Japan, and Chile, as well as Berlin, and Mecklenburg.
Jason Kenney survived the rocky week, but the long term survival of his leadership remains in doubt. I do, however, continue to follow politics around the planet. Updates are as follows:
Israel - the recent violence has, supposedly, lead to a deal between Bennett and Netanyahu; however, Lapid has the current mandate, and says he will not give it up early; meaning there's likely no movement until June 2nd, when his mandate expires. I will address this more in due time.
Elsewhere, there is not much to update. There are a number of elections in the early part of June I'm tracking, on the 6th in particular.
In personal news, I will be getting my vaccine on the 8th!
Today, the UCP caucus met to discuss that party's political troubles. A prime topic of discussion was the leaks to the media. This was reported by the media, as the story had been leaked to them. 30 minutes later, they posted a new leak to say the story about the leaks was being discussed at the leak meeting. At this meeting, two MLAs were nominated to be expelled from the party.
This is the latest information as of 15 minutes ago.
Should they be expelled, it could encourage other MLAs to defect from the party. Should the motion fail, Jason Kenney could be out as Premier within the hour.
The 15 minute leak silence may mean the motion has failed.
Israel is likely headed back to another election. Regardless of the cause, the recent upswing in violence is very likely to make any anti-bibi coalition all but impossible. There remains a small chance for a Bennett lead right-wing government to still emerge, however.
France has not seen polls change; Macron still defeats LePen 55-45 or so in the final round, and, both still advance to said round; but, my own gut is telling me LePen likely is going to win. There are all sort of intangible reasons for this; but France just "feels" like its ready to elect a radically hard-right President.
Tasmania results have firmed up. It appears the final results are as follows: 13 LIB // 9 LAB // 2 GRN // 1 IND. The one Independent, leans left politically.
Italy, the parties continue to converge. Rough estimates of current support: M5S 17% // PD 19% // Lega 21% // FdI 19% - what is interesting is that M5S continues to slowly rise and Lega continues to slowly fall. All 4 of the largest parties are converging around 20% of the vote.
UK held its local elections over the weekend and I want to sum up some of the results.
Some thoughts:
One of the biggest changes from recent elections is the absence of a strong hard-right party. In the past two decades, UKIP, the BNP, and other such parties have often been able to make some gains; but here we see a fairly strong rejection. There are still 3 (of 143) councils left to declare, but the combined total of UKIP, RUK, and "Liberal Party" wins is 3 councillors; contrasted with 3 undefined "others", 43 Residents Association members, 248 Independents, 143 Greens (subtotal of 437), plus 572 LibDems, 1332 Labour councillors, and 2313 Tories. This (3) is down from a combined 49 last time.
In Scotland the SNP has actually gained a seat; but, generally, the results are very similar to the previous election. The same can mostly be said for Labour and Wales, but with the absence, this time, of any hard-right parties. Tory strength seems to be driven, somewhat, by weak LibDem and Hard-Right results. This contrasts with Labour, which is facing a growing Green threat on its left.
UK local elections are taking longer than I expected to count; I will try to summarize results tomorrow, or, sunday.
Bulgaria is going back to the polls, as expected. They will vote in July. Polls suggest the 3 anti-corruption parties are now siting on a combined 41.8% (up from 31.36%) while the traditional parties are on a combined 51.6% (slightly up from 51.0%). I expect the former to only continue rising.
Mexican polls suggest the coming June elections will have a result similar to the 2018 elections.
I've made a very rough prediction for the Russian elections this fall:
285 putin's partyAnd a similarly rough prediction for this fall's German elections:
180 Greens (Coalition)Lastly, Bibi's term to try to become PM has expired. Some parties shifted their recommendations; I've outlined this below:
Had the Knesset faction won, it could have meant that the Knesset could nominate who would get the next chance to become PM. Of course, even had they won, the President would have had to agreed with this. Regardless, Lapid ended up with 56 recommendations, above 52 for the Knesset, and 7 for Bennett.
Unclear if it is a majority of a minority; but it is possible, but perhaps likely.
According to ABC, the Liberals are on 12 seats, compared to 7 for Labor, and 2 for the Greens. There are 4 seats in doubt.
Most seats have a party winner; even if a few don't have a specific MP that has won.
Lyons has elected 3 Liberals and 2 Labor members; Braddon has also elected 3 Liberals, and 2 Labor members; while Franklin has elected 2 Liberals, 2 Labor members, and 1 Green. All of these match the results last election.
Bass has elected 3 Liberals, as they did last time, and 1 Labor member. Labor could end up with 2 as they did last time, or, the final seat may go Green.
Clark meanwhile is where the attention is. 2 Liberals have won seats, as well as 1 Labor member and 1 Green. Labour also took a 2nd seat last time, back when the seat was known as Denison, however, they will not be winning a 2nd seat this time. This seat has been the site of much drama.
The speaker, who holds a seat here, quit as a Liberal after being told she would not be allowed to run again as a Liberal candidate. This was counter-balanced by a former Labor member, who lost in 2018 but won a countback (after a member retired) and re-entered the assembly as an Independent. She has since crossed to the Liberals. She is one of the two Liberals could take the final seat. The other contender is an Independent, Kristie Johnston. She may have benefited from the chaos in this seat, and her electorally successful terms in municipal politics. She could take the seat; and if she does, she would be the first Independent to win a seat since 1996, back when Tasmania had 7 seats per division (vs the current 5). This would be a feat, as, previous to 1996, the last win was in 1982, and before that, 1959 when two Independents won seats. Independent victories were more common prior to this. Still, there have been 20 Independents, total, elected since the 1909 adoption of proportional representation.
Regardless, the Liberals are likely to hold on to power, but may have to do so in a minority situation.
