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Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: World Politics and Elections 2024
« on: May 22, 2024, 09:47:36 PM »
Some European news, as we approach the EU elections (early June):
The Dutch still don't know who's going to be Prime Minister because the obvious candidate has come down in a scandal, also the right-liberal VVD look like being kicked out of the European liberal party for working with the deeply anti-European PVV.
Also, even more darkly amusingly, the Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament, which is to say the most fascist of the formal groups, is blowing itself up on the cusp of the elections because the German fascists are increasingly too obviously Nazi for the French fascists. Being too Nazi for Marine le Pen is not something anyone should ever want to achieve, but turns out it's happened, and it does look like le Pen has actually ruled out sharing a group with the AfD after the election, which in turn will force the other ID parties like Lega, the PVV, the Austrian FPO, etc, to decide which part of the split they go down. Possibly the result is that le Pen goes to the ECR, since she's moved to a much more publicly anti-Russian stance to deflect her own past dealings with them whereas most of the rest of ID is more anti-Ukrainian.
We're also just a week away from South Africa's election: the ANC might just scrape a majority still, they've recovered a tiny bit of ground in the last few polls. The DA look a bit stuck, probably doesn't help that they've got a white leader which may blunt their reaching out to most of the rest of the country. The new MKP have clearly taken a chunk off the ANC based on Jacob Zuma's personal vote, but the radical EFF don't look like they've made much progress either: the ANC aren't being crushed, just losing bits off all sides to different political parties.
The Dutch still don't know who's going to be Prime Minister because the obvious candidate has come down in a scandal, also the right-liberal VVD look like being kicked out of the European liberal party for working with the deeply anti-European PVV.
Also, even more darkly amusingly, the Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament, which is to say the most fascist of the formal groups, is blowing itself up on the cusp of the elections because the German fascists are increasingly too obviously Nazi for the French fascists. Being too Nazi for Marine le Pen is not something anyone should ever want to achieve, but turns out it's happened, and it does look like le Pen has actually ruled out sharing a group with the AfD after the election, which in turn will force the other ID parties like Lega, the PVV, the Austrian FPO, etc, to decide which part of the split they go down. Possibly the result is that le Pen goes to the ECR, since she's moved to a much more publicly anti-Russian stance to deflect her own past dealings with them whereas most of the rest of ID is more anti-Ukrainian.
We're also just a week away from South Africa's election: the ANC might just scrape a majority still, they've recovered a tiny bit of ground in the last few polls. The DA look a bit stuck, probably doesn't help that they've got a white leader which may blunt their reaching out to most of the rest of the country. The new MKP have clearly taken a chunk off the ANC based on Jacob Zuma's personal vote, but the radical EFF don't look like they've made much progress either: the ANC aren't being crushed, just losing bits off all sides to different political parties.