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Foreign Elections Thread - Currently: Brazil 🇧🇷 (3 Viewers)

Snorkelson said:
Why don’t we refer to this country simply as Myanmar? It hasn’t been Burma for 25 years at least, we know this thanks to J. Peterman. Every article I read has something about it being Burma.
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It’s complicated. The short answer is that both names are used by Burmese people — it’s not a case of one name being an incorrect European name and the other being the correct native-speaker name.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Myanmar

 
Doug B said:
Snorkelson said:
Why don’t we refer to this country simply as Myanmar? It hasn’t been Burma for 25 years at least, we know this thanks to J. Peterman. Every article I read has something about it being Burma.
Click to expand...
It’s complicated. The short answer is that both names are used by Burmese people — it’s not a case of one name being an incorrect European name and the other being the correct native-speaker name.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Myanmar
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The shorter answer is that the name "Myanmar" was chosen by military leaders in 1989 and the USA has never formally recognized it.

 
Pretty good article in the Washington Post today. Sad to see some of the pictures on crackdowns of the protests.  I don't see the situation settling back soon.  :(

In Myanmar coup, grievance and ambition drove military chief’s power grab

By Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin
Feb. 9, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EST

HONG KONG — In early 2018, just months after Myanmar's armed forces launched a brutal campaign against the Muslim Rohingya minority, Nicholas Coppel, then Australia's ambassador to the country, had an audience with the military commander in chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

Coppel, looking for signs of humanity in the short, bespectacled general whose forces are now on trial for genocide, didn’t find it. In a lengthy monologue, Min Aung Hlaing instead disparaged Muslims, at one point summoning aides to present Coppel with a grainy photograph of a man standing with multiple women and numerous children — his attempt to back up a baseless claim that rampant Muslim reproduction was threatening the Buddhist-majority country.

“There was no remorse” from Min Aung Hlaing, Coppel said. “I was more left with the feeling that the job might not be completed.”

Min Aung Hlaing now sits at the helm of political power in Myanmar, after orchestrating a coup last week in which his troops detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others in her democratically elected government. The power grab has returned the military to government after a 10-year, quasi-democratic experiment, and threatens to destabilize the region by reigniting long-standing armed conflict and popular grievances.

Interviews with former foreign officials who interacted with him and others close to the Myanmar military paint a picture of a man who was controlling, egotistical and ambitious, unwilling to go quietly into retirement as scheduled later this year. Disdainful of Suu Kyi, he was angered by her party’s repeat landslide victory in November elections. His personal grievances are responsible for the political crisis unfolding in Myanmar, these people said.

All spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing ongoing work in the country and sensitivity around the private discussions.

“This is a proud man,” said a former Western diplomat with extensive firsthand experience with the commander in chief. He “distrusted and disliked Suu Kyi intensely,” another former diplomat said, and “never reconciled to civilian rule led by her from the very beginning.”

As protests against the coup are met with increasing force, including rubber bullets and some live rounds, a looming question is how far Min Aung Hlaing will go to keep his hold on power. Nothing in his past shows an ability to back down or compromise — rather, he feels compelled to display strength when challenged, people familiar with him say. He is already banned from Facebook and subject to U.S. sanctions for his role in the Rohingya purge, and it is unclear what could change Min Aung Hlaing’s behavior.

Popular uprisings in 1988 and 2007 were put down with bloody force by the same military that Min Aung Hlaing defines himself by, and which he now leads.

Calls to representatives of the military-led government were not answered. On Monday, addressing the nation for the first time since the coup, Min Aung Hlaing again claimed voter fraud in the November elections, promised that things would be different than during the army’s previous reign, and welcomed foreign investment.

Law student to senior general
Min Aung Hlaing was born in 1956 in a coastal region along the Andaman Sea six years before the military seized power in a coup led by Ne Win, according to a biography compiled by the Tagaung Institute of Political Studies, a Yangon-based think tank. He grew up in Yangon in a city-center apartment close to where thousands of protesters have gathered in recent days.

After finishing high school, he began to study law. While his classmates were demonstrating against the military government, he focused his energy elsewhere. He applied to the Defense Services Academy and was admitted on his third try in 1974, during the throes of Ne Win’s “Burmese Way to Socialism,” a disastrous experiment in governance that helped drive the country into political dysfunction, deep poverty and isolation.

Three years later, Min Aung Hlaing began his formal military career, one that has been shaped by the armed forces’ often brutal operations against ethnic armies and their supporters — campaigns defined by the burning of villages, rape and forced conscription of civilians. In June 2008, he was named head of a bureau overseeing troops across a swath of northeastern Myanmar where ethnic armed groups were vying for power, and the next summer he launched two attacks there.

One of those campaigns, near Myanmar’s northern border, sent tens of thousands of refugees streaming into China. In the other, villagers were tortured and killed, according to the Shan Human Rights Foundation. One woman, the group said at the time, was fatally shot in the head and her body dumped into a pit toilet.

Myanmar’s military has consistently defended operations like this in terms of national unity. At the height of the Rohingya crackdown in 2017, Min Aung Hlaing said the “Bengali problem was a long-standing one which has become an unfinished job,” using a derogatory word for the Rohingya.

In March 2011, he was named commander in chief ahead of higher-ranking colleagues, just as Myanmar was beginning a quasi-democratic transition and slowly opening to the world. Western officials and diplomats poured in, encouraged by steps such as Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest in 2010. Meeting Min Aung Hlaing for the first time, they found a man who was hesitant and almost nervous, a product of his insular institution.

Myanmar officials were “encouraging more Western interaction with him, because he wasn’t exposed to the world” outside the indoctrination of the military, said the former Western diplomat.

His own man
The commander in chief emerged as someone who could not be controlled — not even by the general who picked him for the role, Than Shwe. A person familiar with the thinking of higher-ranking generals said they saw Min Aung Hlaing as the biggest obstacle to their vision of democratic progress, more concerned instead with “building his empire.”

The apprehension he had in meetings with foreign diplomats and leaders quickly disappeared, replaced instead by a bold arrogance.

In meetings, former diplomats said, Min Aung Hlaing would frequently cut off his Myanmar language interpreter, correcting and talking over them in English, which he was learning in his spare time. It was a “control thing to show he was in charge,” the former Western diplomat said. “He wanted to show that he was the man.”

Actions to assert himself belied the intellectual facade the general was trying to present, even as he got better in using diplomatic language and legal arguments in meetings.

“He doesn’t listen,” Coppel said. “He has a view, and he feels his view as commander in chief should prevail.”

In a particularly bold example, Min Aung Hlaing asked Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during an official visit in 2016 to call on him at the military headquarters, instead of Lee’s hotel, a person familiar with the matter said. The move would have been against protocol — Lee, as a head of government, is senior to the military commander. The Singaporeans pushed back, and ultimately the commander in chief gave in. (Singapore is one of Myanmar’s biggest investors.) Singapore’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Nowhere was the desire for control more evident than in his relationship with Suu Kyi. Both are equally headstrong and see themselves as the country’s rightful leader; she with the weight of the people behind her, and Min Aung Hlaing with the powerful military.

Suu Kyi showed an “obstinate desire to subordinate, even humiliate” the generals, said a former foreign senior military official. The Myanmar military saw Suu Kyi’s government as incompetent and “far too considerable a security issue,” the official added.

Pathway to power
To many in Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing’s coup signifies not only a return to the fearful days of military rule — of surveillance, spying and international isolation — but to the corruption and excesses of those at the top. As commander in chief, he has authority over the military’s two business conglomerates, which have interests in virtually every sector, including the jade and mining industries that are rife with human rights abuses.

He is fond of golf, a person familiar with the matter said, the game of Myanmar’s elites. His two children in recent years have attempted to fashion themselves as socialites, mixing with Yangon’s upper classes. Aung Pyae Sone, his son, operates businesses including a medical supply company and a restaurant. The restaurant permit was awarded without other bidding, with rent well below market value, according to local investigative outlet Myanmar Now.

Aung Pyae Sone also developed a photography hobby, according to people who know him. In 2018, a gallery he is involved with hosted an exhibition titled “The Journey of Blood Jade,” with photographs ironically showing the difficulties of the laborers in the jade mining industry. He owns a resort on the popular Chaung Tha beach, which a businessman in the area described as a “castle” serving family and friends rather than customers.

Aung Pyae Sone could not be reached for comment.

Min Aung Hlaing’s daughter, Khin Thiri Thet Mon, started a film and TV production company in 2017, Myanmar business records show. The company has muscled into entertainment by vastly outspending its rivals, offering huge contracts twice as lucrative as those of competitors, according to people in the industry. His daughter-in-law, meanwhile, hosts beauty pageants and television shows.

The commander in chief in recent months has embarked on a charm offensive of his own, fashioning himself more as a head of government. He visited Buddhist monks and other religious leaders, donating supplies and money. He met with ethnic leaders, many of whom felt disenfranchised under Suu Kyi’s civilian government. He traveled widely, shopping for arms, and gave interviews to foreign and local news media.

Perhaps most telling of these was an interview with Russia Today in June, on a visit to the country. The Russian interviewer at the state-backed television station pointed out that under Myanmar’s constitution, the general can serve his country “at a higher level, including in its most senior position,” and expressed hope that he would be able to “perform duties with higher authorities.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I always have such desires.”

 
Chad President Idriss Déby dies fighting rebels after three decades in power, military says

Idriss Déby, the president of Chad, a close Western military ally, died Tuesday of wounds sustained on the battlefield fighting rebels, the military said.

Déby, 68, had just been announced as the winner of a sixth term in office. He ran largely unopposed in a country he had led with an iron fist for 30 years, making him one of Africa’s longest-ruling leaders.

Gen. Azem Bermandoa, an Army spokesman, said in a statement that Déby “took his last breath defending the territorial integrity on the battlefield” after visiting Chadian troops on the front lines. The exact circumstances of Déby’s death were not made clear.

Bermandoa said that a transitional military council will run the country for the next 18 months and that it will be headed by Déby’s son, Gen. Mahamat Kaka. He also announced a nationwide 6 p.m. curfew and the temporary closure of the country’s borders.

Even as Déby was securing his latest election win, rebels based in the country’s north, where Chad borders Libya in a largely undemarcated stretch of the Sahara Desert, had attacked army outposts and were heading toward the capital.

With help largely from France and the United States, Déby trained and equipped Chad’s military, building it into the region’s most formidable fighting force. It was deployed alongside Western military units in interventions against Islamist militants in Mali, Niger and northern Nigeria.

But stability within Chad was always considered Déby’s potential weak spot as resentment brewed over ethnic favoritism and unequal sharing of mineral and oil wealth, spawning various movements to unseat him. An influx of weaponry and military equipment from Libya, where a decade of civil war bred lawlessness, also strengthened rebel capabilities.

One group, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, had been moving swiftly toward the capital, N’Djamena. Western governments had warned their citizens to leave the country and removed nonessential embassy staff members. Reuters reported Monday that Chad’s military claimed to have killed 300 rebels from the group.

Déby’s death is a jolt to Western counterterrorism strategy in the Sahel, a semiarid region that runs along the Sahara’s southern fringes. France stations more than 5,000 troops in N’Djamena, which serves as its main base for Operation Barkhane, a regional deployment against an array of militant groups including Boko Haram and affiliates of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

“This news has deep implications not only for Chad but for the entire region,” said J. Peter Pham, former U.S. special envoy for the Sahel in the Trump administration, who met with Déby in August in N’Djamena.

“Whatever else one might say about Déby, he had made himself an indispensable link in the political and security balance of West Africa, with significant contributions to both the fight against al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated jihadists in the Sahel and against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad area. If his death results in a vacuum, these militants will undoubtedly exploit it,” Pham said.

With Libya’s implosion and sustained conflict in all of Chad’s other neighbors — Sudan, the Central African Republic, northern Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger — the country’s relative stability meant it became home to millions of refugees, many of whom have been in Chad for more than a decade.
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Interesting one in Peru on Sunday... In Peru’s pandemic election, a rural schoolteacher challenges a political dynasty

LIMA, Peru — The front-runner in Peru’s presidential election on Sunday is a rural schoolteacher from a Marxist-Leninist party who has promised to rewrite the constitution.

His opponent is the heir to a right-wing political dynasty, a former first lady dogged by corruption charges who would be the first ethnic Japanese woman elected to lead any nation.

The ideological chasm between first-time candidate Pedro Castillo and political veteran Keiko Fujimori is a study in pandemic-era politics in South America, a continent reeling from soaring poverty and escalating class tension as lockdowns linger and coronavirus cases spike.

In Peru, where a revised coronavirus death toll this week revealed the highest death rate per capita in the world, pandemic anxieties have exacerbated years of mounting disgust with a corrupt political class, fueling extreme polarization. The country cycled through three presidents in nine days last year. Now the political vortex and economic distress have yielded an outside-the-box, left-wing front-runner: Pedro Castillo, a 51-year-old farmer and teacher who says he will make reducing poverty and inequality his top priority.

“People have lost confidence in the state and the parties that run it,” said Oscar Maúrtua, a former foreign minister. “The political turmoil of the past few years and now the pandemic have created a level of exasperation we have not seen before.”

In Latin America, the region of the world that suffered the sharpest contraction in economic growth last year, Peru’s election offers a test of the political clout of the anti-government discontent now returning to the streets in several countries. Colombia, in particular, has been rocked by weeks of violent protests. In Chile, long the free-market model for the region, a communist last month won the coveted job of mayor of Santiago.

“What is most challenging for Latin America is that democratic political systems that are supposed to mediate political proposals and help temper more radical voices are not working,” said Jo-Marie Burt, a political scientist at George Mason University who studies Peru. “People are disenchanted.”

On Monday, Peru revised its official coronavirus death toll from 69,234 to more than 180,000. But if the pandemic made things worse in this country of 32 million, the electorate’s frustration, built on a history of bizarre political scandals that have seemed at times to veer into magical realism, goes back much further.

Three of Peru’s past presidents are under arrest for corruption, one is awaiting trial and another, Alan García, died by suicide in 2019 as police were attempting to arrest him. Former president Martín Vizcarra, who was impeached in November by lawmakers seeking to shut down his fight against corruption, has been banned by Congress from holding public office for 10 years — despite winning a seat in the body in April as the top vote-getter.

Fujimori, 46, is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who was hailed in the 1990s for staring down the violent Shining Path guerrilla movement but later reviled as a corrupt and ruthless autocrat. In 2000, he fled to his family’s native Japan after attempting to steal an election. He eventually returned to Peru and was arrested on charges that linked him to death squads. His daughter, who served as his first lady after her parents’ divorce, has vacillated between denouncing him and embracing him, depending on the political winds.

She now says she would pardon her father, who is back in jail after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier pardon. He’ll be 83 on July 28, Peru’s independence holiday and inauguration day. She’s making her third bid to become Peru’s first female president, after finishing second in 2011 and 2016.

Castillo’s camp has sought to paint her as the boss of a criminal empire. She has been imprisoned three times, and granted release most recently in April 2020, in an alleged money-laundering scandal connected to her first failed presidential bid. Peruvian prosecutors are seeking to put her in prison for more than 30 years on separate charges including embezzlement and election fraud.

In one case, the former head of Peru’s largest bank, Banco de Crédito, said he gave her $3.6 million in cash, sometimes in briefcases, sometimes in big envelopes, for the 2011 race.

Fujimori has denied any wrongdoing and claims political persecution. If she wins the presidency, she would be exempt from prosecution for those five years, but cases against more than 30 co-defendants would continue.

Cecilia Taboada, a food vendor in the southern city of Moquegua, is leaning toward voting for Fujimori anyway.

“She is prepared for the job,” Taboada said. “And maybe, as a woman, she will have a better understanding of what needs to be done.”

The big surprise has been the stunning rise of Castillo. He’s never held public office. His only national exposure came during a teachers strike in 2017.

He has campaigned with the wide-brimmed straw hat worn by country people in his highland community. Among those opposed to his candidacy, classism has bubbled just below the surface. Social media has filled with criticism that a “peasant” cannot lead the country.

Castillo has refused in debates to identify himself with an ideological doctrine, but he does embrace a much greater economic role for the state and has said he would nationalize some resources, such as natural gas, and bolster public companies. He wants to renegotiate tax contracts with mining companies, the motor of Peru’s economy. He reiterated in a debate this week that two controversial copper projects that have long been opposed by farmers would not happen on his watch.

His big issue is a call for a constituent assembly that would rewrite the country’s 1993 constitution.

The Fujimori campaign says Castillo avoids labels because the only one that fits is communist.

Fujimori says a Castillo victory would ensure that Peru follows socialist Venezuela into a crippling humanitarian disaster. She has jumped on a secret recording of a Castillo colleague saying his Peru Libre party would never leave office if elected. She has sought to link her opponent to Shining Path, the remnants of which allegedly massacred 16 people, including women and children, in the central jungle last week.

Castillo led in four of the five most recent polls. Fujimori led in one. All results were within the margin of error.

Peru Libre’s platform, which was written before Castillo became the candidate, and some of the party’s newly elected lawmakers have provided the Fujimori camp with ammunition. It identifies the party with Marxism and praises Venezuela.

Gonzalo Alegria, an economist and international banker advising Castillo, says Castillo isn’t looking to upend the nation’s free-market system.

“Pedro [Castillo] is not a communist,” he said. He said Castillo’s team is looking at economic models in countries from Denmark to Singapore, not Venezuela. “If anything, he is a moderate,” Alegria said. “A new constitution is about addressing corruption and creating a more modern state.”

Castillo tried to put fears to rest in the May 30 debate.

“It is a lie that we are going to close your bodega, that we are going to confiscate your house,” he said “Those of us who work know how to defend property.”
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BladeRunner said:
I see people still haven't learned the cost of electing Marxists and Communists.  When will people learn?  We have the whole 20th century to draw on and yet this horrid ideology still manages to ensnare people.  

Well, I suppose we should expect the body count to increase in Peru if she wins.
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I think Keiko Fujimori beats the socialist candidate. Peruvians initially welcomed Venezuelans fleeing poverty, but not so much now as they became overwhelmed. They've seen close-up the effects of Chauvista policies. The socialist candidate even says "No Chauvismo here" in an attempt to move to the middle. The last 5 presidents have been investigated for corruption, committed suicide, or are in jail, including Keiko's dad. There is tremendous mistrust of politicians. For many, it's the lesser of 2 evils.

 
Election day here in Mexico for governors and reps for their federal legislature.  Hopefully the people reject AMLO and his Morena party.

 
I was chatting with some locals while at the swim up bar in Playa del Carmen.  After some 20 minutes of football talk, they asked me what I thought of AMLO.  I said, "es un penedejo." They laughed and agreed. 

 
Statistical tie in the Peru exit polls…

Conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori is slightly ahead of socialist rival Pedro Castillo in Peru’s nail-biting presidential runoff, according to an Ipsos exit poll released on Sunday evening.

The statistical tie had Fujimori leading with 50.3% of the vote, while Castillo had 49.7%, within the margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, according to the poll.

The results do not include overseas voters, who electoral officials said could be key in swinging the results.

 
Don Quixote said:
Statistical tie in the Peru exit polls…

Conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori is slightly ahead of socialist rival Pedro Castillo in Peru’s nail-biting presidential runoff, according to an Ipsos exit poll released on Sunday evening.

The statistical tie had Fujimori leading with 50.3% of the vote, while Castillo had 49.7%, within the margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, according to the poll.

The results do not include overseas voters, who electoral officials said could be key in swinging the results.
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>>The 'conteo rapido al 100%' is based off of the actual vote count, and it shows Pedro Castillo winning the Peruvian presidency - a major blow to Keiko Fujimori who needs the immunity of the presidency to avoid a 30 year jail sentence for corruption.<<

I'm not sure how the rapid vote count is done, but some Peruvians in Miami who supported Keiko are very upset.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CDRosa/status/1401745752586702855

 
SoBeDad said:
A nail-biter in Peru. Keiko's lead falling as more votes from rural areas are counted. It's unsure how much of the foreign vote, which favors Keiko, are counted. Elections are taken more seriously in Latin America than in the USA. The consequences are bigger in most cases. A 0.5% lead with ~90% of the vote in.

https://mobile.twitter.com/DarioBonsoir/status/1401864225925042186
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Yeah, this will be a nail biter.  Will Latin America fatally choose Socialism once again (forgetting the entirety of the 20th century)? 

It never ceases to amaze me that people still vote for these ideologies.

 
BladeRunner said:
Yeah, this will be a nail biter.  Will Latin America fatally choose Socialism once again (forgetting the entirety of the 20th century)? 

It never ceases to amaze me that people still vote for these ideologies.
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I think Venezuela is a special case. Huge dependence on oil, extreme corruption and incompetence. Under Morales, Bolivia's economy grew, and wasn't a basket case like Venezuela. If Castillo wins in Peru, there will be talk of capital flight, but it won't be as bad as some are predicting. The best way the USA could help in the region is to send free vaccines. The pandemic has increased poverty, especially in rural and poor regions. Many Peruvians are visiting relatives in the USA to get a Pfizer, Moderna or J&J vaccine. They dont trust the Chinese vaccine.

 
AMLO's party lost their absolute majority in the Mexican legislature.  They'll have to form a coalition with other parties to move their agenda forward.  Traditional parties in PRI and PAN gained seats, and the Green Party (PVEM) gained big time.  PVEM is aligned with Morena, but they hold way more power now than previously.

 
Don Quixote said:
94% in. Castillo leading by around 30k votes. International votes are still out there and those are expected to favor Fujimori. 

https://www.resultadossep.eleccionesgenerales2021.pe/SEP2021/EleccionesPresidenciales/RePres/T
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Castillo's lead increased to 56k with just over 95% counted. I think there are votes in to be counted in international and rural regions, which favor different candidates. There are likely going to be protests, and requests for recounts. At the current pace, a winner might not be known for days. The country is on edge, like the USA was in Nov 2020, but on a much bigger scale. 

 
SoBeDad said:
Castillo's lead increased to 56k with just over 95% counted. I think there are votes in to be counted in international and rural regions, which favor different candidates. There are likely going to be protests, and requests for recounts. At the current pace, a winner might not be known for days. The country is on edge, like the USA was in Nov 2020, but on a much bigger scale. 
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Looks like they're going to go Socialist!  Because, of course they are.  :doh:

 
BladeRunner said:
The same as all other socialist regimes - see Venezuela for more details.
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So, you think their currency will go to zero due to hyperinflation?  Do you think there will be starvation and general lack of medicine?  Do you think they will have massive weeks long blackouts?

 
The Z Machine said:
So, you think their currency will go to zero due to hyperinflation?  Do you think there will be starvation and general lack of medicine?  Do you think they will have massive weeks long blackouts?
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Yes.  Yes.  And Yes.

All that goes along with enormous body counts - Socialism guarantees that.

 
The Z Machine said:
No, no it didn't.  He was in power for way longer than that and it was that idiot Maduro that has done the most damage 
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Meh.  Maybe not 5 but 10 for sure.   The country was already in a downslide by 2009/2010 due to his policies.  Maduro certainly has made it worse, but he didn't start the slide - just escalated it.

Either way, Socialism destroys countries and people.  Whether that takes 5, 7 or 10 years is irrelevant.

 
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Interesting first week in Canada’s election. Trudeau called the election mid term hoping to change his minority government to a majority. 
 

He was way ahead in the polls and it looked like a solid play until:

- public backlash for calling an unnecessary election

- criticism of handling of Afghanistan 

- some are mad that he didn’t do more to convince Biden to open the border, especially when he did several weeks ago to Americans. 
 

Polls have him at a dead heat now with a chance of losing the elections outright 

 
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Results meet what had been projected in recent weeks....

Canadians have re-elected a Liberal minority government

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has won enough seats in this 44th general election to form another minority government — with voters signalling Monday they trust the incumbent to lead Canada through the next phase of the pandemic fight by handing him a third mandate with a strong plurality.

After a 36-day campaign and a $600-million election, the final seat tally doesn't look very different from the composition of the House of Commons when it was dissolved in early August — prompting even more questions about why a vote was called during a fourth wave of the pandemic in the first place.

As of 2:30 a.m. ET, Liberal candidates were leading or elected in 157 ridings, the exact same number of seats that party won in the 2019 contest.

It's a reversal of fortunes for Trudeau. He launched this campaign with a sizeable lead in the polls — only to see his support crater days later as many voters expressed anger with his decision to call an election during this health crisis. Two middling debate performances by Trudeau and renewed questions about past scandals also put a Liberal victory in question.

But in the end, voters decided the Liberal team should continue to govern a country that, while battered and bruised by a health crisis, has also fared well on key pandemic metrics like death rates and vaccine coverage.

Trudeau called this election on Aug. 15, saying he wanted Canadians to weigh in on who should finish the fight against the pandemic and lead the country into a post-pandemic recovery. He promised a plan for child care, more aggressive climate action and a fix for Canada's housing shortage.

In his victory speech in Montreal in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Trudeau said the result suggests Canadians are "sending us back to work with a clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic and to brighter days ahead.

"The moment we face demands real, important change, and you have given this Parliament and this government clear direction."

After a divisive campaign that saw a great deal of partisan sniping, Trudeau struck a more conciliatory tone on election night when he spoke directly to opposition leaders and those who didn't vote for a Liberal candidate.

"I hear you when you say you just want to get back to the things you love and not worry about this pandemic or about an election," he said. "Your members of Parliament of all stripes will have your back in this crisis and beyond. Canadians are able to get around any obstacle and that is exactly what we will continue to do."...
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Another interesting one coming up is in Germany on Sunday -- the race to succeed Angela Merkel. Polls are looking pretty tight there.

Boring? That may not be a bad thing in the race to succeed Germany’s Angela Merkel.

BERLIN — After more than a decade and a half of Angela Merkel's leadership, Germans may still have an appetite for her workaday political style. At least that's what Olaf Scholz, from a longtime rival party, is hoping.

The candidate for the center-left Social Democrats — whose own robotic tone has seen him dubbed the "Scholzomat" — has not been shy about emphasizing his similarities and proximity to Merkel, serving as her vice chancellor and finance minister in a two-party coalition.

And the polls have swung in his favor heading toward Sept. 26 elections.

"He's rational, stable, almost boring," said Nils Diederich, a German political scientist and former SPD parliament member. "This makes him very similar to Mrs. Merkel."

And that’s all the more important in a campaign that has focused on personality rather than policy, he added.

The race to succeed Merkel has been unusually tight. It is the first time in Germany’s postwar history that an incumbent is not running for reelection, aside from the very first vote.

After 16 years, Angela Merkel is stepping down. Here’s how she built her legacy.

No single party is expected to win anywhere near an outright majority, meaning potentially long and difficult negotiations ahead to craft a coalition. After the 2017 elections, it’s how 63-year-old Scholz ended up in the government in a reluctant alliance with Merkel’s center-right party.

Right now, Scholz has the pole position over the other candidates: Armin Laschet, 60, a political veteran picked as Merkel’s successor to lead the Christian Democratic Union, and a 40-year-old rising star for the Greens, Annalena Baerbock.

The latest polls give his party an average of around 26 percent of the vote, with Merkel's CDU slumping to around the 20 percent mark. The Greens are polling at 16 percent.

It’s a remarkable turnaround for Scholz and his party, which was languishing in a distant third place in opinion polls earlier this year.

Analysts put Scholz’s success down partially to luck, or more specifically, the failures and missteps of his rivals, including a particularly disastrous campaign for Laschet, including an uneven response to devastating floods in July in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

That has given room for Scholz to frame himself more as Merkel’s successor, said Thorsten Faas, a professor at the Free University of Berlin who specializes in electoral campaigns.

“Scholz is clearly trying to create an image of being the natural, but Social Democratic, successor of Angela Merkel,” he said.

“He can be chancellor,” read some of Scholz’s campaign posters, using the feminine form of chancellor in German — kanzlerin — sending the message that he is channeling his inner Merkel.

The attempt to cast himself in Merkel’s shadow has brought some derision from her bloc.

Scholz is “legacy hunting,” according to Markus Söder, the leader of the Christian Social Union, sister party of Merkel’s CDU.

“Making the diamond is not enough,” he told the Bild newspaper in a recent interview, referring to Scholz’s appearance on the front cover of Süddeutsche Magazine last month displaying Merkel’s signature hand gesture — her thumbs and index fingers pressed together in the shape of a diamond.

Flood response
With only eight chancellors since 1949, the German electorate isn’t known for embracing too much in the way of change.

Britain has had 15 prime ministers over the same period; Italy, 41. With no limit on terms, Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, led the country for 14 years. Merkel’s mentor, Helmut Kohl, who oversaw Germany’s reunification, served for 16 years.

Britain’s longest-serving postwar leader, Tony Blair, was in office for a relatively mere 10 years.

“After 15 years, German voters have learned from Merkel what a chancellor is,” said Diederich, the political researcher. “Maybe [Scholz is] the person who best fits the image for chancellor for most voters.”

At a Berlin beer garden on the River Spree, Scholz cut a confident figure earlier this month as he discussed such diverse topics as pensions, post-pandemic economics, rents, education and Afghanistan.

Scholz was able to raise his national profile as Merkel’s deputy and finance minister, overseeing billions in pandemic relief and aid to victims of the summer’s deadly flooding in western Germany.

He defended a temporary suspension of Germany’s constitutional “debt brake,” which has allowed the country to borrow more money for emergency spending.

He has so far emerged relatively unscathed from a number of scandals. Just this month, German prosecutors raided the offices of his Finance Ministry as they investigate whether one of its units ignored warnings over suspected money laundering.

He has been called to answer questions in the parliament, or Bundestag, before the election. He has said that prosecutors could have put questions to the ministry in writing, hinting at a political motive for the raid.

The collapse of fintech company Wirecard, Germany’s biggest postwar fraud scandal, also happened on his watch. Scholz has also battled accusations that he intervened on behalf of a bank at the heart of the Europe-wide tax fraud scandal.

Roller coaster race
It’s been a volatile race so far.

Earlier this year, polls showed the Greens as having a chance at winning. But their candidate Baerbock became embroiled with questions over the embellishment of her résumé, late-declared earnings and accusations of plagiarism.

Meanwhile, Merkel’s CDU picked Laschet as its party leader and later its candidate despite, in both instances, his being the most unpopular option with the public at large.

The premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westfalia, Laschet faced criticism for his handling of the pandemic, including from Merkel herself as he pushed back against closures.

If current polls are anything to go by, he could be leading the Christian Democrats to one of their worst results in history.

“What is pretty clear is Laschet is really bringing down the party,” said Peter Matuschek, political analyst at the polling institute Forsa. “Laschet, in theory, could have enjoyed his position as incumbent, but he didn’t seize this opportunity. It’s quite the opposite.”

Devastating flooding in his state early this summer gave Laschet a powerful setting to showcase his leadership. But he was caught on camera laughing during a memorial to the victims.

Scholz appears to be the “last man standing,” Matuschek said.

Personality politics
The SPD is Germany’s oldest party, tracing its Marxist roots back to the 1860s. Like other center-left parties in Europe, it has seen its fortunes fade.

Scholz has also called for raising the minimum wage to 12 euros (about $14.10), from 9.50 euros (about $11.20), and raising taxes on high earners. The party platform also wants more support, such tax breaks, for low- and middle-wage earners, as well as the unemployed, parents and caregivers.

But it is an election where people care more about personalities than politics, said Matuschek.

“I would say many of the proposals in the election manifesto of the Social Democrats are not really popular, but nobody is reading party manifestos,” he said.

Merkel, who was more progressive than the more traditional right-wing elements of her party, was able to attract a wider range of voters. But now the Christian Democrats are even losing voters to the Social Democrats, Matuschek said.

Paul Bahlmann, a 31-year-old candidate for a Berlin councilor seat with the SPD, is enjoying the ride. He checks the polls regularly.

“It’s too good to be true right now,” he said.
Click to expand...

 
Russia voted too. Results looked pretty rigged though.

Putin’s United Russia party holds big majority in Russia’s three-day parliamentary elections

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party maintained its tight grip on the nation's parliament in three-day elections criticized by opposition parties and independent observers for ballot stuffing and tampering, according to election results announced by the Central Election Commission.

Central Election Commission (CEC) head Ella Pamfilova said United Russia won, holding on to its supermajority in the parliament. The turnout, at 51.68 percent, surpassed the 2016 turnout of 47.88 percent, which was the lowest in Russian history.

Opposition leaders attacked an opaque online voting system used in six regions, including Moscow, claiming it was manipulated to fraudulently overturn opposition wins in some seats and deliver them to United Russia.

Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny said “the slick hands of the United Russia falsified the results” in seats won by opposition candidates endorsed by his Smart Voting initiative — a system to direct voters to the candidates most likely to defeat Putin’s party.

The Communist Party, which came in second as usual, refused to recognize the online results.

Putin’s party expected to maintain its grip on Duma as Russian opposition complains of stolen vote

Police cordoned off Pushkin Square in central Moscow after Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov called for protests to “defend the election as the cadets of Podolsk defended Moscow,” a reference to a group of military students who resisted Nazi invaders approaching Moscow in 1941 during the Great Patriotic War (as World War II is known in Russia).

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin denied Communist Party applications to stage protests Monday, Tuesday or Friday, citing coronavirus pandemic restrictions. Russian authorities have often used restrictions to curb opposition figures, even as they have allowed other rallies and mass events, some of which Putin has attended.

Putin’s party has won all five State Duma elections since 2003 — three of them with a supermajority — giving the Kremlin a compliant parliament that has long supported the Russian president as he cracked down on political freedoms and crushed his opponents...
Click to expand...

 
BladeRunner said:
I don't understand.  How does a "minority" hold on government result in a mandate?  I'm asking because I don't know Canadian politics.  Minority government sounds to me like his hold on power is tenuous at best. 
Click to expand...


They are the biggest party and therefore their mandate was approved more than others.  They are already left of centre and 70% of the seats are left of centre parties so they won't have any trouble staying in power and passing legislation

 
I'd never thought i would see the day when one person would so easily convince a large swath of the american popluation that russia are the good guys

 
Last edited by a moderator:
killface said:
They are the biggest party and therefore their mandate was approved more than others.  They are already left of centre and 70% of the seats are left of centre parties so they won't have any trouble staying in power and passing legislation
Click to expand...
This isn't entirely accurate.  The liberals will get into bed with the NDP (far left party), but the Quebec Nationalist party, The Bloc Quebecois, has no love for the Liberals.  there will need to be cooperation to govern, but that is not really Trudeau's strength; he loves to call elections every couple of years so he can tell Canadians what he will do, rather than roll up his sleeves and actually get #### done.  I cannot stand him.

Also, the Conservatives won the popular vote.  But it's support is largely regional in the West.

 
zoonation said:
This isn't entirely accurate.  The liberals will get into bed with the NDP (far left party), but the Quebec Nationalist party, The Bloc Quebecois, has no love for the Liberals.  there will need to be cooperation to govern, but that is not really Trudeau's strength; he loves to call elections every couple of years so he can tell Canadians what he will do, rather than roll up his sleeves and actually get #### done.  I cannot stand him.

Also, the Conservatives won the popular vote.  But it's support is largely regional in the West.
Click to expand...


Agree to disagree the Bloc is very left of centre and would be happy for action on climate change and most left of centre issues.  They can work with them and the NDP on many of their party platforms

I get lots of people hate Trudeau for whatever reason but he legalized weed and brought in assisted suicide which are two huge progressive wins.  That's a lot to get done on huge policies.  Like it or not he also brought in the carbon tax and has signed daycare agreements with many provinces.  

Also he's called one election....

 
Looks like edge to SPD:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germans-vote-close-election-decide-merkel-successor-2021-09-25/

 BERLIN, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government.

With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.

Agreeing a new coalition could take months, and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

"We are ahead in all the surveys now," the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote.

"It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany," he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

The SPD's rise heralds a swing left for Germany and marks a remarkable comeback for the party, which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months to improve on its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

Scholz, 63, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder. Finance minister in Merkel's cabinet, he is a former mayor of Hamburg….

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Don Quixote said:
Looks like edge to SPD:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germans-vote-close-election-decide-merkel-successor-2021-09-25/

 BERLIN, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government.

With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.

Agreeing a new coalition could take months, and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

"We are ahead in all the surveys now," the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote.

"It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany," he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

The SPD's rise heralds a swing left for Germany and marks a remarkable comeback for the party, which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months to improve on its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

Scholz, 63, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder. Finance minister in Merkel's cabinet, he is a former mayor of Hamburg….
Click to expand...
Will be interesting to see how it plays out as SPD has picked up some momentum this election.  While the SPD and CSU/CDU can form a coalition without any other players, either of them can be left out of a controlling coalition as well, pretty much if either of them can hook up with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens.  The Lefts (Linke) have essentially no leverage as it would still take more than one additional party to get on board.  Alternative Party for Deutschland, with the 4th most votes (10.3%) could mathematically form a coalition with the FDP and SPD but that would be like the Proud Boys backing a Sanders-AOC coalition.

Pretty sure all voting is done by mail fwiw.

 
Don Quixote said:
Looks like edge to SPD:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germans-vote-close-election-decide-merkel-successor-2021-09-25/

 BERLIN, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government.

With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.

Agreeing a new coalition could take months, and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

"We are ahead in all the surveys now," the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote.

"It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany," he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

The SPD's rise heralds a swing left for Germany and marks a remarkable comeback for the party, which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months to improve on its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

Scholz, 63, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder. Finance minister in Merkel's cabinet, he is a former mayor of Hamburg….
Click to expand...


Again, a narrow win and they claim a "clear mandate"?  What?  How do you say that after BARELY winning?

 
BladeRunner said:
Again, a narrow win and they claim a "clear mandate"?  What?  How do you say that after BARELY winning?
Click to expand...
The mandate is that the CSU/CDU lost 24% of its support from the last election in 2017, which had already lost 20% of its support from 2013.  The Greens and the FDP will play kingmakers as they can form a ruling coalition wwith either the CSU/CDU or with the SPD.  They are more inline with the SPD ideologically but it will depend on the concessions offered up by either of the big two.  This might get done or in a week or it might not be done until December.

 
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