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.