By Peter Spac (Masaryk University) The 2020 general election in Slovakia was a massive victory of the opposition. The leftist party SMER that dominated Slovak politics for almost two decades failed to win its first general elections since 2006. The election showed two outcomes. First, it indicates a substantial change in the course of the [...]
By Brigit Laffan (European University Institute) The Irish General Election 2020 was not an earthquake election but represents a major shift in Irish party politics. Fianna Fáil (FF) for long the dominant party in Irish politics lost its cartel status in 2011 following the financial crash and the arrival of the Troika. The outcome of [...]
By Patricia Correa Vila (Aston University) Spanish citizens faced yesterday the fourth general election in the past four years yet again the chances of having a new government are still not fully clear. There is no clear majority at either side of the ideological spectrum, and although some parties have already established clear preferences for [...]
By Lukas Lauener (University of Lausanne / Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences-FORS) On 20 October, 5.3 million voters were called to the urns to elect the new Swiss Parliament for its 51th legislative period. The left-wing Green Party and the centrist Green Liberal Party got out as clear winners of the federal [...]
By Aleksandra Sojka (University Carlos III) On October 13th the domination of Polish politics by the ruling party of Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - PiS) was put to the electoral test as Poles were casting a deciding vote on the desired future path for the country. The main choice was whether the right-wing [...]
By Kaltrina Beqiri (Independent scholar, graduated at the University of Prishtina) During last Sunday’s snap elections, 43, 20% of Kosovo’s citizens came out and voted to form the 7th legislature of the Republic Kosovo. Snap elections came as a result of the resignation of Prime Minister Haradinaj, who in July of this year, resigned from [...]
By Pedro Lourenço (University of Aveiro) The results Last week, The Guardian portrayed Portugal as “Europe’s beacon of social democracy”. According to the newspaper, “while populist parties have erupted at both ends of the political spectrum elsewhere across the continent, Portugal has proved an enduring, if improbable, beacon of social democracy”. The results of yesterday’s [...]
By Marcelo Jenny (University of Innsbruck) For months polls predicted first place in the Austrian parliamentary elections on 29 September for the christian-democratic People's Party (ÖVP). The polls were right in that regard, but the ÖVP victory was bigger than expected and results of other parties so drastically altered that the country's political landscape transformed. [...]
By Daphne Halikiopoulou (University of Reading) Last Sunday’s Greek elections made international headlines as the ‘good news story in Europe’, generating much interest in a so-called ‘end of populism’. The most discussed outcome of this election is the victory of the centre-right New Democracy party with 39.85 of the vote, which translated into a comfortable [...]
By David M. Willumsen (University of Innsbruck) Since (at least) 2001, the question of immigration has been a key issue in Danish politics, with the Danish People’s Party (DPP) being successful in shifting public policy on this topic significantly to the right, and helping keep the center-right in power for all but four years in [...]