Colombia, Poland, and Australia

As I had forecasted and regretted simultaneously, Juan Manuel Santos won the Colombian presidential election of 2010 on Sunday, June 20. He will follow Alvaro Uribe into the presidency on a national holiday, the Battle of Boyaca, on August 7. I just hope he can put Colombia on the path to peaceful progress it needs. I will have to live under his jurisdiction for four months, and I personally want to be safe as well. No war with Venezuela, please, Mr. Santos.

Also on the 20th, Acting President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski took the lead in the first round of presidential elections in Poland. I suspect based on polling that he will triumph against Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late Polish president who died in the plane crash in April, in the runoff on July 4.

Meanwhile, in Australia, an unforeseen coup in the Labor Party has replaced Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister on June 24. Rudd's poll numbers had nosedived in the past few months with unpopular legislation such as mandatory internet filtering and delayed carbon emissions regulations. The Australian Workers' Union changed its support to Deputy PM Gillard. Cabinet officials Arbib and Feeney publicly stated that the party would lose the coming election this fall should Rudd continue to lead Labor.

A slew of elections and results

COLOMBIA: I've neglected until now to comment on the results of the first round of the Colombian presidential election two weeks ago Sunday. Santos led with over 46 percent, with Mockus coming in at a much-lower-than-expected 21 percent. Vargas and Petro of Radical Change and Alternative Democratic Pole, respectively, took third and fourth places, above the two traditional parties of Colombia, the Conservatives and Liberals, who came in the last two places, in that order. Many expect widespread fraud is the reason Santos' percentage was much higher than his poll numbers suggested. I'm wary of any election being called an hour after polls close, which is exactly what happened here two weeks ago. The second round is next week, Sunday, June 20, and everyone including me expects Santos to win by a landslide.

NETHERLANDS: I called this one almost perfectly. Mark Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy "won" the election with 31 seats. The Dutch Labour Party came in second with 30 seats, though it was Geert Wilder's anti-Islam Party for Freedom that took third with an impressive 24 seats, while Prime Minister Jan Balkenende's Christian Democratic Appeal, which had taken first place in the previous three elections, was pounded into fourth place with just 21 seats. The cabinet formation is expected to take months due to the close seat numbers and the possibility of including the PVV, whose leader is facing criminal charges, in a government. I'm wagering here that the PVV will NOT be asked to be included in the new government, which will instead consist of the VVD, the Labour Party, the smaller D66 and Greens. Mark Rutte will be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

BELGIUM: The Belgian general election is today. The big question is not whether the New Flemish Alliance (NVA) will win the most seats, but how its platform on Flemish sovereignty will be handled by the other parties it must work with in the new government. The Open VLD (Flemish Liberals and Democrats), a social and economic liberal party, left the Belgian coalition in April due to deadlock in Christian Democratic Prime Minister Yves Leterme's cabinet over voting rights in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde electoral district of Belgium's capital region. The new Belgian government must contain at least four parties, two Dutch-speaking and two French-speaking, due to Belgian federal law. My guess is that the NVA will come out on top in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, with the Christian Democratic and Flemish coming second. In Wallonia, the French-speaking section of the country, the liberal Reformist Movement and Socialist Party will win. With the federal future of Belgium on the line, no one really knows what will happen next.

UNITED STATES: Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas somehow did not lose her primary challenge to Bill Halter, despite a widespread mood of anti-incumbency wafting over the States. Harry Reid faces gun-toting Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle in Nevada. Former governor Jerry Brown is pitted against Meg Whitman in California. It's Boxer vs. Fiorina for the U.S. Senate from California. Nikki Haley in South Carolina did not get 50 percent in the Republican primary for the governorship, but will take it in the runoff on June 22. Former governor Branstad faces Culver in the fall and will win.

SLOVAKIA: Despite a coalition of center-right opposition parties led by the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union gaining the largest share of seats, 79 in the 150 member assembly, incumbent Direction-Social Democracy Prime Minister Robert Fico has claimed that with 62 seats, his individual party has gained the mandate to form the next government, with possibly the help of former coalition partner Slovak National Party with 9 seats. Fico's plan seems unfeasible at best, however, as the center-right coalition already has an absolute majority and Fico would be running a minority government against a well-organized opposition.

JAPAN: Yukio Hatoyama has resigned as Prime Minister of Japan to be replaced by his Finance Minister Naoto Kan. Yukio stated his primary reason for leaving office as being the failure to fulfill a campaign promise to end U.S. occupancy of a base in Japan, due to the increase of tensions between the Koreas.

U.S. Primaries and the Netherlands

June 8th is primary day in many states across the USA. Incumbent Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln faces Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter in a runoff because a majority eluded both of them for the Democratic nomination back in mid-May. Halter has the backing of organized labor, and has momentum. I expect him to win.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid does not face internal opposition within his party for the nomination, but two-party preferred polling shows he is neck and neck with his Republican challengers for the November general. I expect Sharron Angle, the Tea Party favorite, will win tonight.

Interestingly enough, Jerry Brown seems to be the nominee-in-waiting for the Democratic Party for governor of California. He served as governor from 1975 to 1983 and ran for president three times, first in 1976 and again in 1980 against Carter, and in 1992 against Clinton. His Republican challenger seems to be former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

In the U.S. Senator from California election, Boxer will be renominated by the Democrats and Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, will snag the Republican nomination. Polling for November shows Boxer with a slight lead, though it's still a competitive race.

South Carolina's Republican primary for Governor is a madhouse with four candidates running, though Nikki Haley, a State Rep, has the coveted blessings of both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. She will take the nomination as well as the governor's mansion in the fall.

In Iowa, a gubernatorial race not unlike that in California is taking place. Chet Culver, governor since 2007, faces an old hand: Terry Branstad, who originally served as Iowa's governor from 1983 to 1999. Branstad is widely expected to win both the Republican nomination and general election this fall.

Beyond the primary races in the United States, the Netherlands is gearing up for a general election of their own on Wednesday, June 9. I spoke about this at length back a month ago in the post "The End of Harry Potter?" from May 9. According to polls, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, has the lead at around 33 to 36 seats. I predict this lead will make Mark Rutte the next Dutch Prime Minister. The Dutch Labor Party, or PvdA, will take second place at around 30 seats, while the current majority party, Prime Minister Jan Balkenende's Christian Democratic Appeal, is expected to fall to third place for the first time since 2002, with around 25 seats.

The new coalition will end up being led by the VVD, with partners PvdA, D66, and, if this match-up does not bring the seat total to at least 76, then chances are the Greens could be asked to participate as well.

Round One: Santos vs. Mockus

It will be no surprise when tonight election authorities deem Juan Manuel Santos of Party of the U and Antanas Mockus of the Green Party have each taken enough votes to propel them to the runoff election on June 20. Neither will have gained a majority, as no one expects them to do so.

What will be surprising I think is the inaccuracy of polling considering Santos' resurgence in the polls since mid-May. Current polls suggest he will net 34% of the vote, though I think this underestimates the percentage by about three to ten percent. Mockus, meanwhile, polls at 32%, and this might also be a bit of a deflated percentage, especially considering the tactical voting that undoubtedly will take place, what with a field of six candidates, with only two of them polling in double-digit territory. I expect Mockus to gain somewhere between two and nine percent more than his poll numbers state.

The losers are the ones we've been expecting would lose since Mockus' stellar rise in early April. These include those from the new smaller parties, like Petro of the Alternative Democratic Pole, and Vargas of Radical Change. The traditionally dominant parties of Colombia, the Liberals and the Conservatives, will have candidates who likewise are unable to break beyond single digit percentages.

Colombia Reports states that election officials to announce the results of the vote on Sunday night.

My final predictions:
Santos 43%
Mockus 39%
Petro 6%
Sanin 5%
Vargas 4%
Pardo 3%

As Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania go, so goes the nation?

We've had two days to mull over the results of the primaries in AR, KY, and PA. In Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln has nearly been beaten by lieutenant governor Halter, and now must face him in a runoff round on June 8. In Kentucky, Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and self-proclaimed Tea Party member, trampled establishment candidate Grayson for the Republican Senate ticket. Finally, longtime Republican-turned-Democrat (in 2009) Arlen Specter was defeated by former Navy Admiral Sestak.

We all know of the anti-incumbency movement that's been rife since the "meltdown" of September 2008 and the following bailouts.

It's coming to fruition now. And in classic American style the process has become a botched half-measure.

Let's be open about this. The Tea Party movement, whether you love it or hate it or have no opinion whatsoever, is a legitimate, and, for U.S. standards, a well-organized protest movement, in that it seems to have widespread grassroots support as well as momentum. Those who identify with the movement normally also identify as Republicans (though disgruntled they are), and certainly have a role in Paul's victory, or rather Grayson's defeat, in Kentucky.



What can we make of the coup d'etat Democratic primaries, however? Tea Partiers may have played a role in Halter's challenger campaign in Arkansas' open primary as tactical voters who want a leftist candidate who can be defeated more easily by their Republican candidate, though I think this is greatly overestimating their numbers and organizational strength. Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so it was Democrats who decided en masse that Specter's move into the Democratic camp last year wasn't sincere enough.

The anti-incumbency mood affects both parties, in this case, though the protesters have chosen, in a sense, to temporarily hijack the Democratic and Republican parties to let their angst be known. And then in the next election cycle in 2012, they will have forgotten all about what made them angry two years before. Or, if they they turn out to have some kind of staying power, maybe they'll get a favorite son candidate nominated for president in the next presidential election. Then what? It's back to business as usual.

If the parties don't feel compelled to change their ideas and actions in order to get your vote or my vote, then they simply will not change for the long term.

If only the protesters would decide the best way to shake up the false dilemma system we currently have by forming a viable third party. It seems ridiculous, though, doesn't it, suggesting the possibility of having just one more plan from which to hole-punch your ballot in the voting booth.

And that's a huge problem. Viable third parties which are able to express differing and nuanced opinions exist in almost every other single democracy on this planet. They don't work here because both major parties in the United States are corporate dependents, and with a first-past-the-post presidential electoral system, the odds are stacked entirely against other parties from entering the fray and being able to compete on even a highly unfair playing field.

The first step must be thorough, fundamental, systemic reform. It will take more than an economic recession, bailouts, and health care laws to shock the American electorate, notorious in their apathy, into positive action.

A few new faces in Washington playing for the same two teams won't change the way the ballgame is played.

The Coalition Begins

I have to admit it--I'm flat-out impressed at the degree of cohesion present in this true coalition between the Conservatives and junior partner Liberal Democrats.

The press conference today was a double act between Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg and was simultaneously a novelty, an oddity, and even a little inspiring. Cameron outlined "freedom, fairness, and responsibility" as being the areas of common agreement, with "one key purpose: strong, stable, determined leadership for the longterm." Pretty vague, but okay. He went on to say that the coalition is going to be one based in reform on an fiscal level, a "green" level, and a social liberal level.

I'm excited about what the Liberal Democrats can possibly get accomplished in government, their first stint since Churchill's wartime coalition. Cameron stated that Clegg's job as Deputy is "political reform." They're outlining that to mean, thanks to an email I received today from the Lib Dem website, fixed-term, five-year parliaments, a referendum on electoral reform, a proportionally-elected House of Lords, the power of recall of MPs, and further local devolution.

Still, it's an interesting beast we have here. The Coalition is a brave new experiment, making two parties that have their origins in opposing groups since the 17th century Tories and Whigs political bedfellows for the next FIVE YEARS. This is a radical sort of commitment, especially, in my mind, from the Conservatives, who could seriously attain a majority of seats in a snap next election in the following months.

If necessity is in fact the mother of invention, the Tories went ahead with this plan out of either a deep sense of duty, beyond party lines, to the country, or out of a deep sense of fear at being the culprits in the next election for not being able to accomplish any of their set goals due to commanding only a neutered minority administration. Whichever reason held more sway, I think Cameron himself was the deciding factor. Credit must be given where credit is due, and it is certainly due to Cameron, whom I am liking better with each passing day.

Nick Clegg began by saying this concerning his recent political marriage to Cameron: "Until today, we were rivals, and now we're colleagues."

Surreal, indeed.

Just don't be surprised when the two start being referred to collectively and derisively as Davick Cleggeron, leader of the Liberative Democratories. It'll happen.

See the half-hour press conference here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCOvu2NDio

A beautiful day in the political world

The electioneering and the political wheeling and dealing are over for now. Brown has resigned and Cameron is the new Prime Minister. The Conservatives have, to my joy, decided on going with a full-on coalition with the Liberal Democrats, with Clegg as Deputy PM and four other Lib Dems promised cabinet seats.



This is the best possible scenario for now. The Tories need to be in now, obviously, as they have the most votes and the most seats. This is owed to them. Many policy areas the two parties already agree on, such as reform in education, cutting government budget and reducing the deficit, fixed-term parliaments, and even a referendum on the alternative vote. Plus, the numbers to get to a majority only added up between the Tories and Lib Dems. A "left" alliance could never have attained a stable majority, and would be decimated in the next election, when the Tories could have rightfully claimed that their right to power had been squandered. As it stands now, both the Cons and the Libs have a lot to gain from this power-sharing agreement.



Gordon Brown was never a terrible man. He had many good ideas and knew the political process as a pro should, but was simply never a good leader. I hope he finds something out there that he is more capable of doing at this point. There's always a tinge of sadness present when leaders surrender power to the next person.

A job well done to David Cameron. I hope he turns out to be as great and fair a leader as the Conservatives already believe him to be.

On an unrelated note save for it also happened today, on the bus ride home from school, traffic was held at a stop light by police so that an escorted motorcade could have the right of way after leaving an army base nearby. The bus driver knew Uribe was in this city today, and so told me when I asked him what was happening. As the cars began to pass, I caught in a fraction of a second the sight of President Uribe sitting in the passenger seat of an SUV, his window rolled down.

Later, we were told that Antanas Mockus was having a campaign rally in the center of town at five o'clock. We got there early and waited for two hours in our Partido Verde t-shirts until finally he came and spoke and made me appreciate him all over again. My favorite line from tonight: "The next chapter of Colombia's history will be written with a pencil, not with blood."


Melody and I are standing somewhere near the front of the audience in this picture!

Brown gives his two weeks notice

PM Gordon Brown announced today he will stand down as Labour leader before the party conference in September. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8672859.stm

Why this? Why now?

The simplest answer is his party doesn't like him, he lost the election for Labour, he was never properly elected as leader to replace Blair in the first place back in 2007, and he is THE primary stumbling block to negotiations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition.

All these very good reasons play a part. Of primary importance in this very moment, however, is obviously the question of what role Labour will have or not have in the formation of the next government of Britain.

The Lib Dems met with Labour today and in secret yesterday for discussions. It is quite likely Brown resigning as leader was a precondition for a possible pact between those two parties, and also gave Labour itself a pretext by which to force terms on Brown. It is no secret that many believe him to be personally responsible for Labour's poor showing and have wanted to replace him for years.

This is tricky ground. Labour quite clearly lost to the Conservatives in the election last Thursday at 48 seats and 7% vote behind the Tories. All math trying to construct a Lib-Lab pact to continue government seems to be against a center-left agreement. The numbers simply do not add up to a majority without including nationalistic party MPs from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which would give a progressive alliance just enough numbers for the smallest of majorities, which could then be undermined by concessions to the smaller parties, backbenchers voting how they like, by-elections eating away at the tiny majority, as well as being viewed by the public as a cobbled losers' coalition. And basically, that's exactly what it would be. This alliance would barely survive a year at best due to high instability. And when the voters finally had their say in the next election to be held quite soon, everyone besides the Conservatives could count on severe backlash resulting in vote share and seat reduction. That's a high price to pay only for the notion of a referendum on proportional voting.

If I had advice that the Lib Dems would heed right now, I'd impress upon them the sheer necessity to reach an agreement with the Conservatives. The Tories have the largest vote and seat share, a pact with them would be only between these two parties, they would have a majority of some thirty seats, and would be seen, jointly, as putting manifesto interests aside in the interest of the country at large. Even if the alliance were short-lived, I think both parties would get a great amount of positive publicity, and would possibly be rewarded in the next election coming within 18 months with higher vote percentages and more seats. It is in the Lib Dems' interest moreso to gain public confidence than to gain a referendum on proportional voting.

Party leaders are calling tomorrow "crunch time." Hopefully that means Nick Clegg and his Liberals have accepted an offer to form the next government with the Conservatives under the new Prime Minister, David Cameron.

The end of Harry Potter?

No, I'm not talking about the movie franchise soon to be complete, but about Mr. Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, who has served as Prime Minister from July 22, 2002 and whose service may soon be coming to an end. He also happens to resemble the titular character of the fantasy series, as noted by some such as the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs back in 2005.

Balkenende has led four different cabinets in his eight year tenure and has secured the most seats for his Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) in four consecutive elections. Balkenende I came about when the electorate turned sharply away from Wim Kok's "purple coalition" of the social democratic Dutch Labour Party (PvdA), the conservative liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the progressive liberal Democrats 66 (D66). Many attributed this swing to Pim Fortuyn nationalistic views on foreign (read Muslim) influences in the Netherlands and Fortuyn's subsequent death at the hands of an assassin nine days before the election, which in turn brought a huge sympathy vote to the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF). Balkenende's coaltion of CDA-LPF-VVD was highly unstable from the beginning due to severe conflicts both inside and outside the LPF. It fell and new elections were held in January 2003.

The LPF was decimated in the vote, and though Balkenende attempted to form a coalition with the second largest party, PvdA, these discussions went nowhere and he therefore formed a liberal-conservative coalition with the VVD and D66.

When that coalition dissolved, another election was held in November 2006, resulting in center-right VVD and D66 losing a significant amount of their seats. The PvdA and smaller CU allied with the CDA to form Balkenende's fourth cabinet.

In February this year, Labour (PvdA) pulled out of government when no progress could be made on whether or not to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan. This triggered an election set for Wednesday, June 9, 2010.

There is still one month to go from today's date. Polling shows a large increase in the number of seats since the previous election for Gert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV), which has adopted a number of reactionary policies like holding suspects without trial, forced integration of immigrants into Dutch society, and Euroscepticism. The other parties see the PVV as being on the hard right of the spectrum and as being a single issue party.

So far, the conservative liberal VVD seems to be in a neck and neck battle for first place with Labour, at 33 seats each. CDA is at third place with 27 seats. Wilders' PVV is at 17, D66 sits at 11, and Christian Union and Green Left are tied with 10 each.

Based on the advice of my Dutch friend, Kevin, it is my belief that VVD leader Mark Rutte is going to replace Balkenende as Prime Minister after this election. Dutch cabinets tend to composed of three constituent parties that are able to command the confidence of a majority in Parliament. This means that out of 150 seats, a typical Dutch government will have half+1 for a majority: at least 76.

Given these poll results, the seats are quite evenly divided, making a cabinet formation of two larger parties and one smaller party difficult. Should VVD become the main party, instincts and history suggest that they would be in alliance with D66, and possibly CDA to form a center-right coalition. But this only takes the coalition to 71 seats, five short of a majority. As of now, this combination doesn't look likely.

What are some other likelihoods? A purple coalition has worked in the past and could work again. Should VVD and PvdA attain the same number of seats and tie for first place, logic suggests the two would attempt to work with one another. Polls now show that this combination would have 66 seats. Including a smaller party like Green Left or D66 would bring the coalition to 76 and 77 seats, respectively, forming a majority.

With CDA facing the possibility of being ousted, the question now is in what direction would the Netherlands like to go--left, right, or somewhere in between?

An unlikely populist

While the Lib Dems and the Conservatives build day-by-day consensus to see if they can indeed work together on the business of Britain's government, I'm going to focus for a bit on three other elections that are coming between late May and mid June. I'm going to spend the next few days blogging about the Colombian presidential election on May 30, the Dutch general election on June 9, and the Belgian general election set for June 13. Of course, you can count on me updating about the tenuous situation in Great Britain in the meantime.

I teach at a bilingual primary school here in Colombia, so I've had a lot of personal insight on the coming election here.

Colombia's presidential election has gone from a dull coronation procession to a dynamic fight to the finish. Everyone, me included, felt certain that Alvaro Uribe, the two-term small-c conservative who made Colombia safe again by chasing the guerilla movements far into the forests and away from influence in the cities, was on his way to securing a constitutional change allowing him to run for a third term, much as he had done four years ago when he successfully changed the constitution so that he could run for a second term. On February 26, 2010, the Supreme Court of Colombia, in a brave and possibly dangerous decision, struck down the attempt at a third term as unconstitutional. Uribe would not be the next president. The shock hadn't worn off yet when Uribe's former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, declared his intention of being Colombia's next president. This is a man who was responsible for sending a strike force over Colombia's border with Ecuador in 2008 to ambush a FARC camp there. He was successful in "Operation Checkmate" but both Ecuador's president and regional loudmouth Hugo Chavez got pretty pissed off. Santos is the man who formed a new political party called the Party of the U to support the president's policies, the "U" supposedly standing for "Unity" but which everyone assumes means "Uribe." Santos is the man who introduced the action of "false positives," which involves a military raid of a farm or peasant village and killing campesinos who they promise were actually communist narcotrafficking guerillas. The centerpiece of Santos' campaign is "Advancement through Security." It gives me the willies.

Enter the Green Party of Colombia. Three former mayors of Bogota, Penalosa, Garzon, and Mockus, formed Partido Verde late last year as a more centrist alternative to the many right wing parties (Party of the U, the Conservative Party, and Radical Change) as well as the corrupt center-left Liberal Party and the largely forgotten leftist Democratic Pole. They called themselves post-uribists. Nobody took them seriously.

On the same day as the congressional elections here that fell on March 14, the Green Party held its presidential primary. Antanas Mockus won it. It wasn't the first time that Mockus had run for president. In 2006 he ran as an independent and got no more than two percent in the first round of voting. Everybody knew Mockus was an eccentric figure. Mockus is a second generation Lithuanian who speaks Spanish and Lithuanian natively and French and English as second languages. He studied in the United States and France. He was a math professor. He had been fired from his post as head of the National University back in 1993 due to an incident in which he mooned a disrespectful group of students in the university theatre when no one and nothing could get them to stop heckling and shouting. He was Bogota's mayor in the nineties and early two-thousands and gained a rapt audience when he paraded about in red and gold tights as Supercitizen, ripping down posters and painting over graffiti in a city beautifying attempt. He hired mimes to humiliate Bogota's notoriously bad drivers who weren't concerned about police presence or fines when it came to driving. He appeared in a commercial taking a shower to promote water conservation. And he's turned Colombia's electorate, jaded by decades of corruption and empty promises, into a group of interested hopefuls again.

People started noticing Mockus when Sergio Fajardo, a popular Medellin mayor and former mathematics professor as well, chose to end his own populist campaign for president to join Mockus as his running mate. Since that point, opinion polling has seen support for Mockus rise every single week following April 5, and within a couple weeks he had surpassed Santos for first round voting. Datexco's May 7 poll shows him at 37.7% compared to 25.2% for Santos. And for the runoff round, to be held, if necessary, on June 20, the poll has Mockus on 52% compared to 30.5% for Santos. Mockus appears to have won this election.

But, if I've learned anything from my predictions concerning the UK election, it's not to overestimate support by simply referencing a poll. Colombia is one of Latin America's longest-lived democracies, but the democracy is still fragile. Buying votes is of coures illegal, but when Mockus campaigns on educating the populace and creating a new culture of legality, it's because he knows that the rule of law in this country is weak. And Santos is already playing ugly with a huge smear campaign attempting to prove the naivite of the "atheist" "ideologue" that Mockus is.

Hopefully, the Lithuanian-Colombian's support is so overwhelming that even with the inclusion of all the illegal votes, Mockus will still come out on top. He would be the world's first Green Party head of state. I feel as though the positive development of this country depends on a succession of selfless politicians who will work tirelessly to improve Colombia's rule of law and the societal wisdom of the common person. And I think Mockus is the man who can start this country on the path to positive growth.

As an American, however, I'm not allowed to vote. But I am allowed to buy his t-shirt!

The first time since February 1974

I watched until I had to go to bed, and it wasn't looking good for the Lib Dems, nor especially for Labour. When I woke up, I found, as everyone did, just what we all thought was going to happen: a hung House of Commons. Vote and seat totals are as follows:

Conservatives, 36.1% with 306 seats for a swing of +97.
Labour, 29% with 258 seats for a swing of -91.
Liberal Democrats, 23% with 57 seats for a swing of -5.
Others parties, 11.9% with 28 seats.

I'm not surprised with the results of the Tories, who had been projected all along to be the biggest party, nor with Labour, whose vote and seat numbers I called with quite close accuracy. But the Liberal Democrats had the biggest disappointment of the night, for a win of only one percent over the last election in 2005 and a net loss of five seats, despite pre-election polls giving them no less than 25%, and in some, above Labour, at 29%. It turns out that, as Nick Clegg said, in the voting booth, people decided to go with "what they know" in times of financial crises. The polling was just dead wrong, with some, myself included, under the impression that they were on their way to a major breakthrough and adding at least 18 seats, with wild aspirations of swinging up to 38 seats from the other two parties.

But as of now, no party has a majority. This means Gordon Brown squats inside Number 10 Downing Street, hoping for his chance, while the Tories and Lib Dems mash out some kind of compromise with one another in return for stable government for the next eighteen or so odd months. Will it work? That's the big question right now.

Nick Clegg stated from the near beginning his intention of approaching the party with the largest mandate in popular vote should they require help in forming a majority. He's playing his cards right so far by going to Tories first. Should the compromise prove successful in the end, he will have behind him, nominally, 59.1% of the voting population. This would theoretically allow for the most stable match-up scenario, as any stray thoughts of a Con-Lab compromise/coalition are pipe dreams due to over one hundred years of anathema between the two parties.

The problem everyone sees here is that the policy that the Lib Dems want the most, that of electoral reform toward proportional representation, will almost certainly not be offered by a Conservative government, the party which prides itself on a history of strong mandates made stronger under a voting system which serves to marginalize every voter who does not vote for the ultimate winner in Westminster. Instead, Cameron is offering a tri-partisan commission on evaluating the pros and cons of such a voting system. This is lip service at best.

A Con-Lib Dem compromise would, however, be much stronger with more longevity than the primary alternative--that of a Lab-Lib Dem compromise/coalition. Together, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats account for a majority of the electorate at 52%, and they would have together nine more seats than the Tories, though they would still be eleven seats short of a majority. Looking to the smaller parties, the Social Democratic and Labour Party of Northern Ireland seems a natural Labour ally, though three more seats only brings a tripartite coalition/compromise to 318 seats, still eight short. Along down the line, even if they could convince the lone Green MP or the solitary Alliance MP into coalition, this scenario still has them six short. This government probably couldn't even get a referendum passed through the Commons due to opposition from the Conservatives and regional parties like the Unionists from Northern Ireland, the Scottish Nationals, and Plaid Cymru in Wales.

A Labour/Liberal Democrat alliance does, although, make more logical sense than does one between the Tories and Liberals. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are left-of-center parties who have similar policies concerning the economic situation. Most commentators see them as more natural allies as far as policy goes. And as far as the Lib Dems' biggest aspiration, that of electoral reform, the Labour Party is tantalizing them with a much-publicized plan to put to the people a referendum on the voting system in Britain. Is this an offer the Lib Dems can refuse?

In a word, yes. The Lib Dems are only a third party, but they've stuck around since 1945 in various incarnations (as the Liberal Party, and later, the Social Democratic Party) due to a keen sense of strategy and pragmatism. These people are not stupid, nor are they blinded by ideology. The Lib Dems will end up choosing the path that makes the most sense for their continued existence, and, as this election has proven, there is a strong alternative with the power to change the direction of the UK only six percent behind Labour. Both the Conservatives and Labour NEED them. For the first time since 1978's Labour minority they're in a position of real power and hold the key to real change in British government.

So, what the hell are they going to do? I can only guess. I think, in the next few days, it will become clear that they are willing to do business, for the time being, with Mr. Cameron and his Conservatives. This is both the popular and pragmatic choice. They will be seen to support the "winning" Tories as opposed to the "losing" Labour Party, which will help as far as popular support goes, and will position them well for the next general election which I predict will come about no later than November 10, 2011. In this new election, the Lib Dems could then tout the fact that they were an integral stabilizing factor in government for months and months and had done so for the good of the British people despite not having their dearest policy, that of electoral reform see the true light of day. A center-left party could work successfully with a center-right party in Great Britain for the first time in 65 or more years.

They would be in a damned good position indeed.

Let's wait til Sunday or Monday to see what eventually pans out. Keep your fingers crossed, please.

Final Predictions for May 6

Based on all the polling floating about cyberspace, my final prediction of tomorrow's outcome in the UK general election is as follows:

Conservatives, 37% and some 280 seats in the Commons.
Labour, 29% and around 265 seats.
Liberal Democrats, 26% and somewhere near 80 seats.

Gordon Brown will halfheartedly attempt to remain in power by asking the Lib Dems to support his government. The Liberals will refuse, due to personal animosity between Clegg and Brown. Brown will resign. The Queen will ask the largest party, the Tories to form a government under David Cameron. Cameron will try to wield power as a minority government with help from the Ulster Unionists and Democratic Unionists, both small-c conservative parties from Northern Ireland. He will ask for limited support from the Lib Dems only whenever absolutely necessary (which might be never). Due to instability, Cameron will ask for another general election within eighteen months' time, which should place it at or before November 10, 2011.

I purposefully went with higher percentages than average for the Tories and Labour due to my feeling that support for the Lib Dems is overstated due to "Shy Labour" and a minimal effect of "Shy Tory." Hopefully I'm wrong and the Lib Dems manage a popular vote just above Labour. That would make bringing Labour around to the notion of proportional representation that much easier.

And so will Gordon Brown's departure to be replaced by one of the Miliband brothers as the new leader. But that's another post for the future.

Voting begins in six hours. Sit tight.

How things are shaping up in Britain

The Lib Dems have secured the support of one of the major left-leaning publications in Britain--The Guardian. This is a departure from the paper's normal preference, the Labour Party. And in its article, it explains that the Lib Dems have a better case for "fairness" in this election than does Labour, primarily based on the electoral reform argument, which would in turn help the Lib Dems by getting representation in Westminster proportional to the popular vote received, while stopping the exaggerated dominance of the top two parties have had for the past almost ninety years.

The Times also switched traditional support to the Conservatives from Labour, the first time in 18 years this has happened. The Economist, my favorite publication on all things political and, of course, economic, also came out in support of Cameron's party. That disappointed me a bit. They said he had the best economic plans of the three. Funny, I always thought his ideas were backward, reactionary, and possibly damaging.

Angus Reid polling has support for the Conservatives at 35%, the Lib Dems at 29%, and Labour at 23%. If these numbers hold even slightly true for the election on Thursday, it will certainly be no surprise to me when Labour has a "deathbed conversion," as The Guardian put it, to electoral reform. The Labour Party hasn't come in anything below 2nd place since before 1922, though they came very close in 1983.

And as Nick Clegg warned, the Conservatives are certainly on the wrong side of the proportional representation debate. It is my strong opinion that when the Conservatives take a plurality in votes and not quite enough seats for a majority government, they will eagerly form a new government and attempt to govern only with support of a smaller party (the Lib Dems or UUP or UKIP) when they have to have the votes to pass a measure. The idea of coalition will be so foreign to them that by tradition they will oppose it, and this opposition will hopefully be their swift downfall.

There are already reports of those who will vote tactically on Thursday. Under proportional representation, this would be a moot point, but the antiquated first-past-the-post system makes tactical voting a very real threat to all parties, with focus being on the big three. There are those so opposed to having a Tory government that they will vote for whichever left-ish party seems to have greater support in marginal seats. Actual Lib Dem supporters going for Labour and vice versa.

This is the worst possible manner of voting. There are no options for listing parties by preference, so apparent party preference is skewed, and it could possibly mean true Lib Dem supporters are propping up an increasingly tired Labour government, led by an increasingly tired PM, and accepting a mediocre or even poor center-left administration solely for the sake of not having the Tories back in. If this were how everyone decided to vote, Britain would be regressing to a system more resembling that of the United States, where two sameish parties vie in each election cycle to be the lesser of two bad choices. Tactical voting results in accepting a false dilemma. There is in reality always a third choice, a fourth choice, a seventy-seventh choice.

I'm going to be researching the upcoming Dutch and Belgian elections in June in the very near future, and will hopefully start blogging about them soon. And then, of course, here in Colombia there is a presidential election that's looking to be the most exciting one since Gaitan in 1948.

A very happy May Day/Labor Day to everyone out in blogspot land. Being an American, this world holiday has never really meant anything to me, as the U.S. has Labor Day in September. It was interesting to go outside today and see that the streets were quite empty--always the first indicator of a Colombian holiday. Just too bad it had to be a Saturday, or we could've had a day off from school during the week.

Also, as a side note, it has been thirteen years to the day since Labour won their historic 1997 victory under the leadership of Tony Blair. May 2 will be thirteen years since he took office as Prime Minister. Gordon Brown now looks to be the last Labour PM for some years to come.

Labour has officially lost the election.

There's a week still to go on the campaign trail, and one more television debate tomorrow, but Gordon Brown today sealed his own fate and that of his party. His mic was still on as he left a voter meet and greet in Lancashire and he was heard calling a woman he had spoken to there "bigoted." See the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8649853.stm

As though Labour didn't already have enough problems.

They've been polling at third place for two weeks now, following Nick Clegg's stellar performance in the first debate.

Thirteen years of government is a lot of weight for a party and a prime minister to carry, but Brown just never seemed to have the personality expected out of a modern leader. I cringe writing that, as though being the head of a government only boils down to your soundbites and spin ability, but unfortunately a lot of politics has become that. Brown's predecessor Blair defined that new standard for Britain.

What's funny is that I don't necessarily disagree with Brown's reaction. Politicians have to deal with people and demands constantly, and the woman probably wouldn't take his pat answers and move on so that he himself could move on to the next show. Calling someone bigoted when you're in private and pissed off seems extremely mild, in all reality.

What I do disagree with is the public backlash he is already receiving. The man admits it was a mistake (probably moreso leaving on his mic than saying "bigoted"). Honestly, who should care if Brown insults a woman? The woman, probably. It's Brown's job to run the country and meanwhile fight off two other parties that are already threatening his and Labour's future status. He's bound to feel pressure.

But the point is that every tiny incident can matter in the grand scheme of electoral battles where the Author Function means just as much, or likely more than the shape a candidate's actual policies.

Therein lies the sad realization that our politicians are only actors in our own time to be judged by history as either leaders or failures only after the benefit of hindsight bias. They are painters whose works can only be admired long after the man is dead and the medium is long since outdated.

6th of May

My primary interest as of now is the hotly-contested British general election that will finally be resolved(?) in thousands of voting booths across the country on May 6.

I use a question mark because all polls indicate that May 6 will in fact not be the end of the political manoeuvering due to the very likely possibility of a hung parliament resulting. This means that no one party will achieve an outright majority in seats in the House of Commons. And because Britain uses first-past-the-post and is historically led by a single party government at a time, this is making it a particularly hairy and touchy situation.

The Labour Party has been governing since May 2, 1997, first under the initially popular Tony Blair, who, ten years later, was forced to resign due to increasing unpopularity and tensions within his own party. His Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, took office in June 2007, and Labour's fortunes in the polls were raised for about four months. In October 2007, feelers were put out by Labour to test the waters for a snap election to capitalize on the gains made in the polls. In the end, Brown decided against it, and in doing so, probably botched any future possibility of a Labour win under his leadership. I'm betting here that Labour comes in third in the popular vote and second in its number of seats.

The Conservative Party has been out of government for thirteen years after governing for a period of eighteen years under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. They are led by David Cameron, 43, who has done much for raising the party's stature in the polls since becoming leader following the 2005 general election. For most of the past four years, the Conservatives have led in the polls, yet have fallen far since November in public opinion. Most polls show them leading, but only by a few percentage points hovering around 34 percent. I believe that the Conservatives will take first in seats and number of popular votes, but still be too far to have a majority.

Enter the underdogs. The Liberal Democrats have been around since 1988, and before that were an electoral alliance of two parties, the SDP and Liberals, the latter being the atrophied remnants of the Liberal Party that had so many successes and several prime ministers between 1859 and 1922. Labour basically stole the center-left battleground from the Liberals, and have ever since been been playing catch-up. Their time has come. I like the Lib Dems. I would vote for them if I were British. But I will not let my biased opinion bias my analysis here. 2010 is the first election providing a three-pronged, three-round leaders' debate between Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, picked up a huge swing in the polls following the first leaders' debate. Many people got to meet him for the first time on April 15. So the Lib Dems went from polling around 20 percent to leading the polls at 33 or so, then leveling out for the past two weeks around 28-31, behind the Conservatives, but ahead of Labour. My guess is that they will achieve only third place in seats, but their popular vote will be second, slightly ahead of Labour.

Therein lies the rub: first-past-the-post works just fine if two parties are the only ones to ever contest any election. But because Britain has basically a two-and-a-half party system, Labour and Conservative have a better distributed vote than a party like the Liberal Democrats. This setup produces highly skewed and unfair results. Let's take the 2005 election as an example. There were 646 seats up for grabs in the House of Commons. Labour took 35.3% of the popular vote but received 55.1% of the seats for an automatic majority. The Conservatives got 32.3% of the vote but 30.6% of the seats. The Lib Dems managed 22.1% of the vote but took only 9.5% of the seats.

The Lib Dems have for years supported a dramatic alteration in the electoral system of the United Kingdom, and I believe rightly so. Their policies on the economy, foreign affairs, education, civil liberties, and immigration are all informed by a high sense of what is fair and what is not. I would love to have them win and form government, but I think everyone knows they won't get that far this time.

What is much more likely is that they will be asked to help and/or support either Labour or Conservative in forming the next government due to a lack of majority all around. There seems to be much personal anathema between Clegg and Brown, making the probability of a pact/alliance/coalition/whatever between the Lib Dems and Labour unlikely should those two remain the leaders. Clegg has come out publicly in denouncing a "squatter's government" in 10 Downing Street who got only third in the popular vote but managed an unfair plurality of seats in the Commons.

Which leaves the Conservatives, whose policies, save for some concerning economic measures and social liberties, seem to be quite different from the Lib Dems', who tend to come closer to Labour's ideas than those of the Conservatives. It would be quite interesting for David Cameron to approach Nick Clegg about forming some kind of deal between the two parties.

And it may well happen.

But I don't think so.

My guess is that the Conservatives will take a plurality in votes and in seats, will kick out Gordon Brown and replace him with David Cameron, and will then try to go it alone, without outside help from any other party. The last time something similar to this happened was when Labour led a minority government following the no-majority results of the 1974 election. And like 1974, I also think that the Conservatives will dare, in a sense, Labour and the Lib Dems to attempt to topple their government and trigger a new election, where again the hope will be for a majority.

I wouldn't put the next general election in Britain beyond eighteen months. Come November 2011 it's bound to happen.

Just my thoughts on the matter for now. Time will tell.

Belgium

Yves Leterme's resignation as prime minister was accepted by the Belgian king today. Elections set for early June.

The Polish presidential election is set for 20 June, with the twin brother of the former president who was killed in the plane crash running for the office.

I vote.

Hi, my name is Warren. Welcome to my first post in Crashing the Political Party. My main objective here is to vent what I think, like, and feel concerning the politics of anywhere. If you agree with me, great. If you don't, even better, just tell me why. Comments are always appreciated. Now, to begin...

Yes, I vote. Not too groundbreaking of an assertion, I know. I choose to do so because I honestly think that my tiny single vote makes a difference of one. The world can be a pretty great place, but that doesn't mean there aren't things wrong with it. So my vote I like to think works toward bettering those things that are anywhere between not quite perfect and totally wrong.

And better still if my vote can join up with tens or hundreds or thousands others of a similar mindset.

I am old enough to have voted in the last two American presidential elections. In 2004 I voted for Bush. Do you know why? I wanted to prove to myself that I could select every single winning candidate and issue on my ballot. I don't agree with that reasoning now, but at the time, with a lack of political ideals, I didn't mind so much. And I got everything correct, except for some office like circuit clerk.

In 2008 I voted for Nader for president. Do you know why I voted for him? Obviously, I crossed some terrain in political ideals in those four years. I came to the conclusion that U.S. politics have gotten quite ugly over the last 150 years and that fundamental change is necessary. Not a single choice I made on that ballot took first place. But that didn't matter as much to me as telling my county, my state, and my country what I wanted.

So that's my reasoning now. Henry Clay, one my favorite historical figures, once said (probably following the third time he'd ran in and lost a presidential election) "I'd rather be right than be president." As would I.

Whenever the mood strikes, I'm going to talk about political things. And with regards to this, I find elections to be one of the most appealing aspects of democracy. You'll get to read what I think of politics in other countries as well, if I've done my homework beforehand.

2010 will prove to be a dynamic year as far as elections go. Besides the U.S. midterms on November 2, we have:

British general, May 6 I'm following this one every day
Colombian presidential, May 30 I live in Colombia, so this one is close to home
Dutch general, June 9 I have a Dutch friend who is keeping me up to date
Colombian presidential (second round), June 20 If necessary
Polish presidential, late June
Sweden general, September 19
Australian federal, probably between October and December
Possible Belgian federal
Possible Danish general
Possible Canadian federal