Alan's Green Thoughts

  As predicted, the French presidential election of 2022 delivered a second term for Emmanuel Macron, albeit with a less decisive result than in 2017, even though he was once again facing Marine Le Pen in the second round. This time, M. Macron won by a margin of 58.5% to 41.5%, compared to his victory of 66.1% to 33.9% against Mme Le Pen. Even though Mme Le Pen's anti-immigrant, racist and nationalist platform was just as despised as ever before, the margin of victory was lower because of a greater abstention rate. In the second round, the turnout was just 72%, the lowest in a French presidential election in 1969; by comparison the turnout in the second round in 2017 was 74.6%. Furthermore, many voters who supported radical socialist activist Jean-Luc Melenchon, Bernie Sanders' French counterpart in some ways, who came just 421,309 votes short of entering the second round, decided to abstain or spoil their ballot papers, seeing a choice between M. Macron and Mme Le Pen as a Hob...

  Yesterday, Slovenia's parliamentary election resulted in one of the most significant shake-ups in Slovenian political history, with the new Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) making one of the most substantial breakthroughs in post-communist Central/Eastern/Southeastern European history for a new party. The Freedom Movement managed to win 41 seats, easily topping the poll in Slovenia despite only having been founded last year. Given strict thresholds, especially for alliances of parties (although Slovenia has no separate threshold for alliances), that persist throughout Central/Eastern/Southeastern Europe, and that media freedom is generally not as strong as in Western/Northern Europe in practice (in fact the main Slovenian television network, RTV Slovenia, initially refused to acknowledge the Freedom Movement as a political party worthy of coverage), and finally the time it takes for new parties to build up political support even with strong personalities leading said party, thi...

Readers, the results of British local by-elections held on 14 April 2022 were as follows: Durham UA, West Auckland : Labour 956  (56.3%, +18.9%), Conservative 554 (32.6%, -8.2%), Independent (Brown) 187 (11.1%). Labour gain from Conservative. [Other Independents did not stand] Maldon DC, Heybridge West : Liberal Democrats 269 (45.6%), Conservative 107 (18.1%, -23.4%), Independent (Burwood) 93 (15.8%), Independent (Perry) 72 (12.2%), Labour 49 (8.3%). Liberal Democrat gain from Independent. [Other Independents did not stand] Surrey Heath DC, Bisley & West End : Liberal Democrats 1,286 (66.0%, +48.8%), Conservative 662 (34.0%, -0.8%). Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative. [No Independent, UKIP, or Labour candidates this time] Tewkesbury DC, Brockworth East : Independent (Mills) 346 (69.5%), Conservative 76 (15.3%, +0.2%), Liberal Democrats 76 (15.3%, +3.4%). Independent gain from No Description* [Labour did not stand] *The elected councillor, Jason Mills, was the husband of Ch...

 Readers, the results of British local by-elections from 7th April were as follows: Dorset UA, Lyme & Charmouth : Green 594 (43.8%, +27.0%), Conservative 359 (26.5%, -13.7%), Independent (Reynolds) 320 (23.6%, -6.7%), Labour 82 (6.1%, -6.6%). Green gain from Conservative. East Riding of Yorkshire UA, South Hunsley : Liberal Democrats 1351 (54.7%, +41.1%), Conservative 907 (36.8%, -28.5%), Labour 110 (4.5%, -6.8%), Green 100 (4.1%). Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative. High Peak DC, Cote Heath : Conservative 585 (55.5%, +8.6%), Labour 413 (39.2%, -14.7%), Green 56 (5.3%). Conservative gain from Labour. Horsham DC, Storrington & Washington : Green 1281 (47.9%), Conservative 943 (35.2%, -16.1%), Liberal Democrats 453 (16.9%, -13.5%). Green gain from Conservative. [Labour did not stand] Liverpool MBC, Everton : Labour 925 (62.0%, -24.6%), Green 362 (24.2%, +20.5%), Liberal 84 (5.6%, +3.4%), Conservative 51 (3.4%, -1.7%), TUSC 46 (3.1%), Liberal Democrats 25 (1.7%, -0.6%). L...

  The Hungarian election of 2022, much to the surprise of many political commentators, saw Fidesz-KDNP (Christian Democratic National Party of Hungary, which is in reality just a satellite of Fidesz) not only convincingly defeat the United for Hungary alliance (consisting of the Hungarian Socialist Party, Politics Can Be Different [Hungary's main Green Party], Dialogue for Hungary, the Democratic Coalition, the Momentum Movement, and most surprisingly, Jobbik) but increase their supermajority further. In fact, Fidesz-KDNP managed to win a total of 135 seats, 88 of which were single member constituencies and 47 of which were list seats, and their vote share increased to 53.3%, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2018. A key reason for this was that most of Jobbik's supporters refused to vote for the United for Hungary alliance, seeing Jobbik's participation in the alliance as a sell-out in their eyes, resulting in their moderate supporters voting for Fidesz and their ext...

Readers, the results of British local by-elections that were held on 31 March 2022 were as follows: Doncaster MBC, Wheatley Hills & Intake : Labour 827 (46.0%, +4.9%), Conservative 419 (23.3%, +0.6%), Yorkshire Party 356 (19.8%, +0.6%), Green 135 (7.5%, -2.5%), Liberal Democrats 60 (3.3%, -3.5%). Melton DC, Melton Sysonby : Conservative 396 (53.2%, +11.7%), Liberal Democrats 183 (24.6%), Labour 153 (22.2%, -5.1%). [Greens did not stand] Scarborough DC, Mayfield: Conservative 268 (45.8%, +0.7%), Labour 142 (24.3%, -7.8%), Independent (Wild) 122 (20.9%), Yorkshire Party 53 (9.1%). We are now just five weeks away from the 2022 British local elections, hence there being fewer by-elections than in the summer and winter months. Given the Liberal Democrat performance in Melton Sysonby from a standing start, growing Green strength in rural/semi-rural councils, how relatively close the Greens came to winning the ward in 2019, it is likely that the Greens would have gained the seat had they...