On the Liechtenstein general election of 2021

The Liechtenstein general election of 2021 that took place on Sunday was the first European general election to take place this year, and even with only 25 seats in its Landtag and an 8% election threshold (equating to 2 seats) it produced an interesting result.

Both the two largest parties in Liechtenstein, the Patriotic Union and the Progressive Citizens' Party (actually the more conservative of these two), gained seats, but by just 23 votes it was the liberal-conservative Patriotic Union that emerged top of the poll, and furthermore the Patriotic Union gained 2 seats with the Progressive Citizens' Party gaining just 1, giving them both 10 seats. The Patriotic Union gained considerable support from the collapse of the Independents List (a collection of independents rather than a true political party) which lost all 5 of its seats, primarily due to the formation of a splinter group, Democrats for Liechtenstein, in protest against the expulsion from the Independents of Erich Hasler in controversial circumstances. The latter group won 2 seats, putting it behind the Free List-the most progressive and green-minded of Liechtenstein's significant political parties-which stayed on 3 seats even though growing awareness of the climate emergency boosted its vote. Being a small, relatively homogeneous nation, only five political parties contested this election even though candidacy requirement for party lists are relatively lax.

Due to coronavirus, almost all votes in this Liechtenstein election were cast by post, with turnout increasing marginally to 78%. Like the Netherlands, Liechtenstein's electoral turnouts are relatively stable, hovering around 76-78% (turnout in Dutch general elections rarely varies much from 80%) almost all the time.

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