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 [...]
By Dario Nikić Čakar (University of Zagreb) Since the beginning of 2016 Croatian politics has faced serious turmoil and unprecedented events which brought into question the established norms of government stability in Croatia. After less than five months in office, the (government of technocratic Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković) was brought-down in the Parliament by vote [...]
By Bruno Marino (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence) One of the most common catchphrases that have been used to describe Italian politics is taken from the book ‘The Leopard’ (Il Gattopardo), and – slightly paraphrasing it - it states that if we want everything to stay the same, everything has to change. This has probably been [...]
By Raimondas Ibenskas (University of Southampton) On the 13th of December, Lithuanian parliament Seimas approved the programme of the new government formed by the coalition between the Union of Peasants and Greens and the Social Democratic Party. The parliamentary vote completed the government formation process that started after the second round of the Seimas election [...]
By Dane Taleski (University of Graz) The early parliamentary elections, held on 11 December, had a very high turnout. In total, 1,191,521 voters (66.82% of the electorate) cast their ballot. In some electoral units the turnout was over 70%; however, it was lower in electoral unit six, where ethnic Albanians constitute a majority. There were [...]
By Veronica Anghel (University of Bucharest) After 13 months of being led by a technocrat cabinet following the resignation of the socialist PM Victor Ponta, Romania has given once more the social–democrats a firm first chance to form the government. With a 39,49% turnout, the Social Democrat Party (PSD) won an average 46% of the [...]
By Nemanja Batrićević (Central European University) Montenegro remains the only European post-communist country governed by the same party since the introduction of political pluralism. For the tenth time since 1990, citizens of Montenegro have had the opportunity to hold parliamentary elections. On October 16th, 387.765 citizens casted a ballot (73.3%) in elections that, as depicted [...]
By Wouter Veenendaal (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) On 20 November 2016, elections were held for San Marino’s sixty-member legislature, the Consiglio Grande e Generale. Three electoral coalitions composed of various political parties contested the elections, as well as two minor independent parties. The previous elections had been held in 2012, [...]
By Annalisa Cappellini (King's College London) The Italian Constitution seems to be the biggest winner of the referendum on constitutional reforms that took place yesterday in Italy: in an era of political disengagement and low electoral participation 70% of Italian voters went to the polling station to have their say on its proposed modifications; over [...]