By Marek Rybář (Masaryk University) Robert Fico, the leader of Smer-Slovak Social Democracy (Smer), has made a resurgence. Following the electoral setback in 2020, the popularity of his party plummeted to some 8 percent. His erstwhile protégé, Peter Pellegrini, who assumed the role of Prime Minister in the Smer-led coalition government in 2018 after Fico [...]
By José Javier Olivas Osuna (UNED) Thanks to the high degree of political polarisation, Spain finds itself in a paradoxical situation. Although the electoral results were bad for most populist parties, they have all increased their capacity to influence governance after the last General Elections on 23 July 2023. Far right Vox lost 19 seats [...]
By Iakovos Makropoulos (University of Essex) The results of the May and June 2023 Greek Parliamentary Elections confirmed the dominance of the Conservative Party in Greece, New Democracy, whereas showed the weakness of the radical left and the main opposition, SYRIZA, to re-gain power (Figure 1). A recent major review of the Greek electoral system [...]
By Teodora Yovcheva (University of Sofia) Two months after the elections on 2 April following a cycle of early parliamentary elections, Bulgaria has its first government with rotation of the prime ministers. The government was a result of the tough negotiations between antagonists – GERB-SDS (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria – Union of Democratic [...]
By Hakan Yavuzyılmaz (Başkent University) On May 28th Turkish voters once again headed to polls to cast their votes for runoff presidential elections. The results of the first round and results of the legislative elections significantly demoralized the opposition camp. Contrary to the expectations, People’s Alliance’s candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received 49.5% of the votes [...]
By Hakan Yavuzyılmaz (Başkent University) On May 14th Turkish citizens headed to the polls to cat their votes both for parliamentary and presidential elections. The elections saw a historic turnout, reaching to 87%. Such an extensive participation was both due to tight race between the main presidential candidates and high level of polarization in the [...]
By Juli Minoves-Triquell (University of La Verne) The national elections in Andorra on April 2nd resulted in a majority for the center-right governing party (Figure 1). Demòcrates per Andorra (DA), of Prime Minister Xavier Espot. With a participation of 66.93% of the 29958 electorate, DA and its allies gathered 6262 votes at the national level [...]
By Teodora Yovcheva (University of Sofia) On 2 April, Bulgaria held its fifth elections for two years. They were the result of the inability of the parties to form a government after the early parliamentary election in October 2022. The winner of them was unclear during most of the time, changing between the electoral alliances [...]
By Martin Mölder (University of Tartu) The Estonian parliamentary elections of 2023 stand out in several respects. Perhaps the most important change in comparison to the 2019 elections is an increase in turnout. If one looks at the reported proportions of turnout, then this fact can be overlooked, but in 2023 about 50 000 voters [...]