I wouldn’t worry. The French system is set up so that the Le Pens of this world can only get to the stage before the decision.

8 hours ago, Liam S said:

From afar it can seem like a politically motivated prosecution and we saw how that backfired in the states

Here in the UK, a man elected as a Labour MP has resigned his seat after being convicted of assault. Was that prosecution politically motivated?

The April/May election bonanza (as much as 2025 is going to get of one) kicks off with Canadian polls open now.

The governing Liberal Party was expected to lose with Trudeau still in power, but with a switch of PMs to Mark Carney (formerly Bank Of England governor) and concerns about the political situation vis a vis the Trump Adminstration, the expectation is that of a dramatic turnaround and a Liberal Party victory over the Conservatives. Hopefully, anyway.

ijbol let the right wipeout begin

Liberal victory, looks like just short of a majority but still a clear victory for Carney.

Internationally, a repudiation of Trump (fantastic!), domestically, probably good, Carney seems like a competent sort for Canadians, hope it goes well for them.

NDP (traditionally left of the Liberal Party) really cratered, which probably helped the Liberals, but a shame really, though I keep hearing that they're useless whenever I see a conversation on Canadian politics.

At the start of the year Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre looked like becoming PM with a healthy majority. Now it looks like he has lost his seat.

My friend who emigrated last year to Canada is living for the Schadenfreude of him losing his seat

And in Australia Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party are returned to government after their election today, like the Canadian Liberals, also looking down and out earlier this year.

Would be interested to hear from Australian posters how Albo and Labor have been doing generally, my instinct is they were seen as pretty 'meh' but then they have somehow turned it around. How much of that is the Trump effect hurting right-wingers and how much of that is an Australian perspective on how bad the alternatives are? (because I assume as ever, the current incarnation of the Liberal-National Coalition is horrifying and their defeat is welcomed).

In another parallel with Canada, the Australian opposition leader has lost his seat.

From what I understand, that is a monumental scalp. Dutton, while politically absolutely rancid, is well regarded locally and was generally well liked in his constituency and anecdotally would remember people months later having met them briefly once at an event.

My friend circle is fairly left in Aus so it’s not reflective but they’re very much any Labor gov is better than than suffering through more coalition

From what I’ve read, This is the first federal government to have made it through a full term and haven been reelected with an increased seat share. AusPol has certainly stabilised in recent years compared to their phase a wee while ago at being Italy and throwing out either a gov or a PM every few months

I see the rerun of the Romanian election has another far right candidate winning in the first round. So after not being happy with the first election the preferred Eu candidate still isn’t doing well. They should really rerun it again surely…..

Also strange a country as far east as Romania has a populist like this, usually they are right wing but support the eu due to the £££ they fire at them!

Conversely, no indication of the results being invalid. Certain countries have kept cancelling elections to actually get a preferred candidate in power, no indications that's the case in here and more an indication that they were correct to cancel it first time no matter the perceived political effects.

Either way even though Simion is way ahead on votes, it's possible that all the opposition to his vote will coalesce behind Dan, who seems like a less corrupt politician than the other liberal leader Antonescu. Interesting for 2 weeks time, I feel like Romania could easily fall to the traditionalist 'family and nation' nonsense that Simion's party likes (while being latently-pro-Russian in the background) .

Wonder what that will mean for Moldova?

Well, the Moldovan chapter of AUR has no seats in the Moldovan parliament and nowhere in polls, which gives me the impression that AUR winning victory in Romania and implementing a unification push is nonsense that won't fly with them. Being pro-unification is a bit more of a common opinion outside of that party in Moldova but I think it's still a minority view (whereas in Romania it's a broadly supported ideal future push).

I imagine any victory would take time to consolidate in Romania anyway before they try unifying.

You have to be spectacularly bad to reach this kind of approval rating. I wonder what’s going on over there?

29 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

You have to be spectacularly bad to reach this kind of approval rating. I wonder what’s going on over there?

Very interesting case.

She was the VP on the ticket of Pedro Castillo, who became president on the ticket of a Marxist-left party. He wasn't particularly good, he was conservative socially and had authoritarian tendencies, but about a year and a half in, he tried a power grab to bypass his Congress but was impeached and removed from power. Boluarte took over, but pretty much immediately betrayed her leftist party, dropped any pretense of being left-wing and cosied up with the right-wing Congress, largely made up of Peru's Fujimorists, their hard right, named after former president Alberto Fujimori, with his daughter Keiko Fujimori leading their party (pretty much the Le Pen family of Peru, but if Le Pen had actually been a brutal dictator/president before). There were also left-wing protests against her for removing Castillo and taking over without any new elections, and she cracked down on them pretty harshly.

So therefore Boluarte is in the position of both betraying the left-wing voters who voted for her presidential ticket, viewed as illegitimately clinging on to power and a brutal tyrant, and a weak puppet of the state by the Fujimorists. Perfect storm of disapproval.

The Dutch government collapsed lol. Geert Wilders heeft een serieus probleem.

Also the South Korean election (after the debacle of martial law removed Yoon Suk Yeol eventually) has put a centre-left Democrat, Lee Jae-Myung, the runner-up in the 2022 election to power. Interesting things about him: he was nearly assassinated last year, he has a criminal record (a prerequisite for being a SK politician!), he was filmed climbing the fence during the martial law crisis and he's coming to power on a campaign to reform the system so there can't be power grabs again.