By Seán Hanley (University College London) On 13 December, Czech President Miloš Zeman formally appointed a minority government led by the billionaire-politician Andrej Babiš, whose ANO movement emerged as the clear winner of parliamentary elections on 20-21 October, gaining 78 seats in the 200-member Chamber of Deputies. The October elections saw no fewer than nine [...]
By Eva H. Önnudóttir (University of Iceland) and Ólafur Th. Hardarson (University of Iceland) An early election to Althingi, the Icelandic parliament, took place on October 28th 2017 – only a year after another early election in the fall 2016, and the third early election since 2008. In September 2017, Bright Future, which was first [...]
By Ólafur Th. Hardarson (University of Iceland) An Althingi election in Iceland took place on October 28th 2017 – only a year after the 2016 election. In September, Bright Future decided to leave their government coalition with the conservative Independence Party, and the new right-of-centre Reform Party. Bright Future claimed that a serious breach of [...]
By Vlastimil Havlik (Masaryk University) and Tim Haughton (University of Birmingham) Two initial observations stand out with the first glance at results of the last parliamentary election that took place in the Czech Republic last week. First, confirmation of stability instability dating back to the 2010 “earthquake election”. Second, a clear victory of an anti-establishment [...]
By Simon Otjes (University of Groningen) The Dutch elections were on March 15, 2017. 225 days, later a government was formed. That was the longest government formation period in the Netherlands. So why did the talks last so long? What did the talks result in? And will the coalition last? Longest Formation Talks in Dutch [...]
By Martin Lausegger (University of Oxford) On the 15th of October Sebastian Kurz, leader of the centre-right People’s Party (ÖVP), celebrated a clear ‘start to finish’ victory. Ever since the 31-year old took over the ÖVP earlier this year, he consistently led the polls throughout an election campaign whose fundamental driving forces were immigration, the [...]
By Shqipe Mjekiqi (R.I.T Kosovo) The new Government of Kosovo under Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was constituted on September 9th; nearly three months after parliamentary elections took place on June 11th. Although the Government took less time to form than it did following the elections of 2014, the reasons for the delay were pretty much [...]
By Sophie Karow (University of Düsseldorf) Germany just voted for a new national parliament. The election results are regarded as historical. After 4 years of a grand coalition, the Conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), the two largest parties in Germany, face dramatic losses. The smaller parties are considered as winners of this election, [...]
By Jo Saglie (Institute for Social Research, Oslo) Incumbent parties tend to lose votes, in Norway as in many other West European countries. Nevertheless, the incumbent Norwegian government survived the 2017 parliamentary election. The government parties – the Conservative Party and the Progress Party – lost some seats, but remained in power. The main loser [...]
By Gorana Mišić (Central European University) It is old news that the first coalition between HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) and MOST (Bridge of Independent Lists) fell apart over the conflict of interest of the first deputy PM and HDZ President Tomislav Karamarko in June 2016 – after only six months in power. New elections in [...]