By Marta Vuković (City, University of London) Election background and party programs In Serbia, parliamentary, presidential, and in some municipalities, including the capital, Belgrade, local elections were held on Sunday, April 3rd. Parliamentary snap elections came less than two years after the last elections that were held in June 2020 when the ruling party won [...]
By Bálint Mikola (CEU PhD graduate, independent researcher) While for an external observer, it might have appeared as if this year’s Hungarian general elections would surely mean the end of 12 years of a semi-authoritarian regime that has become isolated within the EU, things looked very different from a domestic perspective. Even if the populist [...]
By Susana Coroado (University of Lisbon) Against all the expectations created during the electoral campaign, the 2022 Portuguese snap election ended in an absolute majority to the ruling Socialist Party (PS), who increased five percentage points and eleven more members of parliament in comparison with the 2019 elections. Its partners in a leftist coalition, the [...]
By Teodora Yovcheva (University of Sofia) On Sunday 14th November, Bulgarians went to the polling stations for the third time in eight months. This was the result of two elections, after which the political forces could not agree on government formation. The April election was the first regular one since 2009. The then incumbent ruling [...]
By Vlastimil Havlík (Masaryk University), and Jakub Wondreys (Independent researcher) The general election that took place in the Czech Republic last weekend deserves attention for several reasons. The major surprise is the electoral defeat of the incumbent technocratic populist party ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) led by Andrej Babiš and the victory of the right-wing [...]
By Catrina Schläger, Martin Güttler and Jan Niklas Engels (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) The Bundestag elections 2021 stand out in a number of respects. For the first time (with the exception of the first Bundestag election in 1949) there was no Chancellor seeking re-election. Furthermore, three parties were fielding a candidate for Chancellor. On top of that, the [...]
By Ólafur Th. Hardarson (University of Iceland) Parliamentary elections took place in Iceland last Saturday, September 25th 2021. The government coalition survived with a slightly increased majority. One of the government parties, the Progressive Party, was the main winner of the election, gaining 6.6%. The party of the prime minister, the Left-Green Movement, lost 4.3%, [...]
By Peter Egge Langsæther (University of Oslo) For the last eight years, Norway has been governed by various right-wing coalitions led by the Conservative party and their leader, Prime Minister Erna Solberg. As in many other countries, the main governing party received a decisive boost to its support as the corona pandemic threw Norway into [...]
By Victoria Olari (Institute for Strategic Initiatives) While the whole of Europe was watching the EURO 2020 final on Sunday night, somewhere in Eastern Europe there was a no less spectacular fight. Early parliamentary elections took place in the Republic of Moldova on July 11th. The vote was called by President Maia Sandu, thus fulfilling [...]
By Mila Moshelova (Sofia University) While Europeans were holding their breath for the Euro finals on 11 July Bulgaria was playing its second electoral match for 2021. Will there be more? The nine days wonder The regular parliamentary elections on 4 April gave life to the shortest and perhaps the rowdiest parliament but one that [...]