Local by-election results (from 20/02/14) and other thoughts

The result of the only local by-election from yesterday featuring a Green candidate was as follows:

Lab 1201 (41.7%), Plaid Cymru 972 (33.7%), Con 381 (13.2%), Green 148 (5.1%), TUSC 101 (3.5%), Lib Dem 80 (2.8%).

In 2012, Cardiff Green Party had performed well, particularly in Cathays where it was close to winning council seats under the help of former Young Greens co-chair Sam Coates (now a county councillor in Oxfordshire). It is rather unfortunate that much of Cardiff Green Party's activity has ceased, given Plaid Cymru's low potential in Cardiff and in much of the eastern parts of Wales, especially Monmouthshire. This decline in activity, as well as Labour's bad deeds on Cardiff City Council, and also Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood's ecosocialist stance which can attract Green voters, helped Plaid Cymru come within a good distance of being able to win a seat in this ward next time around.

As for the other by-election in Birstall in the district of Charnwood, the Liberal Democrats were able to win it in spite of their low ratings nationally because of good organisation and their part and poor organisation on Labour's part, even though many constituencies in Leicestershire are either targeted or defended significantly by Labour from time to time, given the classic marginality of much of the East Midlands.

Regarding the ongoing troubles in Kiev, Ukraine which have dominated the news for the past week, it has just emerged that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will call an early election to 'restore national unity'. However, given the past behaviour of Mr. Yanukovych, I must unfortunately say that I have no confidence that the said early election will be free or fair-recent Ukrainian elections have shown clear evidence of electoral fraud, mostly by supporters of Mr. Yanukovych, which is partly connected with the consequent jailing of former leader Yulia Tymoshenko on largely spurious charges that happened. I can only hope that he is ousted from power, and not by a leader of a pro-EU party-as I have said before on this blog, Ukraine must determine its own course and it should kowtow to either Russia under Vladimir Putin or the EU under Jose Barroso.

 Alan.

 







 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more