Updates

Just a few updates to politics around the world (europe in particular)

Fillon has been elected as candidate for the Republicans in France. He is known as a bit of a radical in terms of being further to the right than most other candidates from that party. He will likely face Le Pen in the final round of the Presidential election, where Fillon may have the edge due to his strong right-wing credentials.

Iceland remains without a new government. The conservative Independence Party has failed to form a government, and so the Left-Greens, second placed finishers, were asked to do so. They also failed, and so the President turned to the Pirate Party. Alas, these negotiations also failed, and so the President has told Parliament to just hurry up and pick someone to be Prime Minister already.

In the Australian seat of Orange, in the state of NSW Parliament (similar to a provincial MLA in Canada) a smaller party has won a by-election. The "Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers" party has managed to edge out a 50 vote victory over the National party. National, the "rural party", was accused by many of abandoning this rural area and other rural areas; as a result, the SFF now has a seat in the state assembly. This is fairly rare in Australian politics, as normally, "small parties" only win seats if they are organized on multiple levels, and lead by known quantities; examples include Bob Katter and Clive Palmer.

Italy is going to the polls December 4th to vote on a constitutional referendum. The politics is that the proposal is backed by the government but opposed by M5S, which polls suggest is the largest opposition party. Currently the "no" side is leading in the polls.

Austria goes to the polls on the same day (December 4th) to pick a new president. The same two candidates have been running for nearly a year due to botched elections, a further post will be made about this within the week.