By Grant Mitchell (Keele University) Introduction After weeks of declaring that there would be no general election until 2020, Theresa May surprised the nation by calling for a general election before 2020. Unlike in previous elections, the introduction of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011) removed from the Prime Minister the power to call snap elections [...]
By Roderick Pace (University of Malta) The snap election held in Malta on 3 June 2017 has reconfirmed the incumbent Labour Party in government for the next five years with a resounding popular majority and a projected nine seat majority in the National Parliament. Labour Leader Joseph Muscat took the oath of office as Prime [...]
By Trajche Panov (European University Institute, Florence) Macedonia got the first government after 11 years of political dominance of the conservative populist VMRO DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) led by its president and long term Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. This practically closes the era of Nikola Gruevski who created an [...]
By Camille Bedock (Centre for the Study of Politics-CEVIPOL at Free University of Brussels-ULB) Since the election of the new President Macron on the 7th of May, the French media seems quite unanimous: France is experiencing a soft revolution, with a young president breaking the lines, atomizing old parties and old cleavages, and sending home [...]
By Dragomir Stoyanov (VUZF University) On March 26, 2017 snap elections were held in Bulgaria. These were the third snap parliamentary elections in the last five years and their results confirmed GERB as the most popular party in Bulgaria. Thus, these were the fourth consecutive national elections in which GERB won parliamentary majority (very unusual [...]
By Emilia Zankina (American University in Bulgaria) Sunday (March 26th) parliamentary elections in Bulgaria mark the third early elections in the country in four years. Three elections and six governments (three of which care-taker) later, Boyko Borissov and his GERB party (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, with the symbolic acronym meaning “coat of arms”) [...]
By Simon Otjes (Documentation Centre Dutch Political Parties University of Groningen) For the first time in almost two decades a Dutch cabinet lasted its entire term. Despite the fact that Liberal-Labour coalition lacked a majority in the Senate, it was able to implement an impressive policy agenda oriented at welfare state reform without a cabinet [...]
By Sebastian Wolf (Medical School Berlin, formerly Liechtenstein-Institut, Bendern) The national election in the Principality of Liechtenstein on February 5th, 2017 was a regular election. About 19.800 citizens had to vote a new Landtag, Liechtenstein’s unicameral part-time parliament with only 25 seats. Although it is a duty to vote according to the microstate’s law, only [...]
By Eva H. Önnudóttir (University of Iceland) The 2016 election in Iceland was an early election, held about six months earlier than was originally planned. The election was brought about by the Panama scandal in April 2016. The Panama Papers revealed, among other things, the ownership of the former Prime Minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson of [...]
By Luciana Alexandra Ghica (University of Bucharest) Rarely present in international news and hardly ever for its achievements, Romania has gained, however, positive international fame during the last decade for two seemingly unrelated success stories. The slightly more entertaining one is its new wave of cinema which often reflects on the country’s recent communist past [...]