Left wins Spanish confidence vote and Croatian presidency; Austria forms conservative/green government

At the November 10 Spanish election, national left-wing parties won 158 of the 350 lower house seats, and national right-wing parties 151. The remaining 41 seats went to mostly left-wing regionalist parties. This election was required because the major left-wing parties (the Socialists and Podemos) were unable to agree to form a government after the April election. This time there was an agreement between these two parties.

In Spain, a first round absolute majority is required (176 votes) at the PM’s investiture vote. If there is no absolute majority, a second vote is held at which only a simple majority – more Ayes than Noes – is needed.

Owing to abstentions from two regionalist parties, Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez had 166 votes in favour of him becoming PM and 165 opposed at the January 5 first round vote. As the Aye votes were short of the 176 absolute majority, a second round was held January 7. Sánchez won this second vote by 167 to 165.

Sánchez is now officially Spain’s PM, but his situation is precarious. He needs the regionalist parties to keep behaving to stay in government

Left wins Croatian presidency

The Croatian presidential election was held over two rounds – December 22 and January 5. In the December 22 first round vote, the centre-left Zoran Milanović won 29.6%, the conservative incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović 26.7% and the far-right Miroslav Škoro 24.5%. As right-wing candidates won a majority of the overall vote, Grabar-Kitarović was expected to win the runoff.

However, despite his low winning vote share in the first round, Milanović won the January 5 runoff by a 52.7% to 47.3% margin. It is likely that Škoro voters strongly supported Grabar-Kitarović, but that voters for all other first round candidates resoundingly backed Milanović.

While this is a good outcome for the left, the Croatian PM is far more important than the president. A parliamentary election is due by late 2020. A conservative government is currently in office.

Austria: conservative/green coalition government formed

Austria uses national proportional representation with a 4% threshold. At the September 29 election, the conservative ÖVP won 71 of the 183 seats, the centre-left SPÖ 40, the far-right FPÖ 31, the Greens 26 and the liberal Neos 15. To exceed the 92 seats needed for a majority, the ÖVP required any of the SPÖ, FPÖ or Greens to form a coalition.

The FPÖ was blamed for the breakdown of the previous conservative government, which resulted in this election being held three years early. It also lost 20 seats at this election, while the Greens re-entered parliament after falling below the 4% threshold in 2017.

On January 1, three months after the election, the ÖVP and Green leaders announced they had agreed to form a governing coalition. The agreement includes a pledge for Austria to become carbon-neutral by 2040, but also a tough stance on illegal immigration and cuts to corporate and income taxes.

On January 4, the agreement was overwhelmingly endorsed by Greens delegates. On January 7, the new government was sworn in. While this election was not good for the left, the far-right is not part of the Austrian government.

Israel: Netanyahu easily wins Likud primary

As no Israeli government could be formed after either the April or September 2019 elections, there will be a third election in a year on March 2.

After the most recent failure to form government, right-wing PM Benjamin Netanyahu was challenged for leadership of his Likud party by Gideon Sa’ar. The primary was held on December 26 among Likud members. Netanyahu crushed Sa’ar by 72.5% to 27.5%, and will lead Likud into the March election.

Polling for the election suggests that the opposition Blue & White is ahead of Likud, but will not have enough support from other left-wing parties to form a government. With Yisrael Beiteinu unwilling to work with either Likud or Blue & White, the deadlock may not be broken.

Switzerland: Greens fail to win seat on executive council

I wrote about the Greens surge at the October Swiss election previously. Switzerland uses a seven-member executive council, rather than a single PM or president who wields executive power. These seven members are supposed to roughly reflect the overall composition of parliament. But despite the Greens’ gains at the election, they failed to win a Council seat at the December 11 Council election.

Greens surge in Switzerland; left retains Bolivia presidency and wins Budapest mayoral election; far-right surges in German and Italian state elections

Switzerland uses proportional representation by canton (state). At the October 20 election, the right-wing People’s Party won 53 of the 200 lower house seats (down 12), the Social Democrats 39 (down four), the Liberals 29 (down four), the Greens 28 (up 17), the Christian Democrats 25 (down two), the Green Liberals 16 (up nine) and the Conservative Democrats three (down four).

Elections were also held for the 46-member upper house. While lower house seats are allocated to cantons on a population basis, the 20 full cantons have two upper house seats each, and the six half-cantons one seat each. Most cantons will have a second round election for the upper house on November 24, so we do not know upper house results yet.

Update November 30: After the November 24 upper house runoff elections, the Christian Democrats won 13 of the 46 upper house seats (steady), the Liberals 12 (down one), the Social Democrats nine (down three), the People’s Party six (up one) and the Greens five (up four).

Switzerland has a unique system of executive government. Rather than a directly elected president or a PM elected by parliament who wields executive power, Switzerland has a seven-member Federal Council. The Council currently has two People’s Party, two Social Democrats, two Liberals and one Christian Democrat.

Elections to the Council are held by both chambers of parliament sitting as one. The composition of the Council roughly reflects parliament’s composition. A Green may be elected to Council at the expense of a right-wing party.

Left-wing Marales wins fourth term in Bolivia (actually not)

Left-wing Bolivian president Evo Marales was first elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009 and 2014, winning over 60% in his first two re-election bids. At the October 20 election, Morales was held to 47.1%, while his principal opponent, Carlos Mesa, won 36.5%. As Morales had over 40% while finishing more than ten points ahead of his nearest rival, he was elected without a runoff.

There was controversy in this election, both regarding Morales running for a fourth term and the count. A preliminary count was paused with 83% counted; Morales led by seven points at that point, which would have required a runoff.

Update November 11: Morales announced on November 10 that he would resign as president, after a report from the Organisation of American States found “serious irregularities” in the vote count. A new presidential election will be required.

Left wins Budapest, but Fidesz wins overall in Hungarian local elections

Hungarian local elections were held on October 13. The opposition parties gained the Budapest mayoralty from the governing far-right Fidesz. However, across all local elections, Fidesz won 54.5% of the vote, to 41.0% for all opposition parties.

Fidesz has won three successive landslides at national elections since 2010. Although major cities are trending left, regions are trending right globally. If Fidesz continues to win a majority across Hungary, they will continue to govern.

Far-left and far-right largest parties after Thuringian (Germany) state election

At the October 27 Thuringian state election in Germany, the far-left Left won 29 of the 90 seats (up one since 2014), the far-right AfD 22 (up 11), the conservative CDU 21 (down 13), the centre-left SPD eight (down four), the Greens five (down one) and the pro-business FDP five. The threshold was 5%, and the FDP cleared it by just six votes (0.0005 points). I do not know whether there will be a recount. It is the first time since German reunification that the Left has been the biggest party in a state election.

46 seats are required for a majority. Although the Left has been in coalition governments before, only other left-wing parties have previously worked with it, while the AfD has been frozen out of government by all other parties. To reach a majority, the CDU will need to not actively oppose the Left. The previous Thuringian government was a Left/SPD/Green coalition.

Update November 10: In final results announced November 7, presumably after rechecking all votes cast, the FDP passed the 5% threshold by 73 votes.

Far-right crushes in Umbrian (Italy) regional election

At the October 27 Umbrian regional election in Italy, the far-right League candidate won 57.6%, to 37.5% for the centre-left candidate, who was backed by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. Since 1970, the Umbrian presidency has been held by the left. At the 2015 election, the centre-left candidate defeated the right-wing candidate by 3.5%.

In August, the League’s national leader, Matteo Salvini, broke his coalition with the Five Stars in an attempt to force new Italian elections, but they formed a coalition with the centre-left Democrats to reach a governing majority – details here. The Umbrian election was the first since the Five Star/Democrat coalition was formed, and will be a little revenge for Salvini and the League.