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.