Norwegian parliamentary election, 2021

This time, we discuss the background, the outcome and the possible repercussions of the legislative, regional, and local elections that took place in Serbia on the 17th of December, 2023. Dr. Miša Đurković guides us through the deep forest of Serbian party politics. The principal research fellow of the Institute of European Studies Belgrade stressed that SNS, the Serbian Progressive Party of head-of-state Aleksandar Vucic won resoundingly, securing twice as many votes and seats in the National Assembly as their nearest rival. All this provides SNS a clear majority (49%). Additionally, the center-right party triumphed in 165 municipalities, including Belgrade, by sweeping the regional and municipal elections. In our podcast, Dr. Đurković explains the possible reasons for bringing the elections forward, assesses the performance of the political formations running in the ballot, while shading a light on certain geopolitical constrains among which the December 2023 elections were held in Serbia.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

This time, we talked about the November 2023 Dutch early general elections with Mr. Dave van Ginhoven from the Hague University of Applied Sciences. The 150 members of the Netherlands' House of Representatives were up for election. Defying all expectations, Geert Wilders' right-wing conservative Freedom Party finished first, securing 37 mandates – far more than Frans Timmermans’ Labor/Green alliance or Mark Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. The Freedom Party’s performance was more than double the number it secured in the 2021 election, while Wilderers' victory surely serves as a signal to mainstream parties around Europe. However, as our guest expert pointed out, Wilders found himself in a rather difficult situation when it comes to coalition talks. Elections in the Netherlands are getting every time more exciting with a lot of drama, action, and comedy going on. Nonetheless, the big question is how and when the parties would be open to shaping an alliance to form a government – and on what conditions.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

Leading EU and member state politicians and political commentators closely observed the election campaign in Poland in recent months. Indeed, the stake of the October election was high and centred around the question whether Law and Justice (PiS) would stay in power, or the opposition would finally succeed in gaining power after eight years. And this question also had EU relevance seeing recent years’ political debates between the EU institutions and the PiS government over issues of rule of law. As a novelty in this election, the Civic Platform (PO) was joined by other minor parties in the alliance called Civic Coalition, while other parties followed suit by organising themselves in similar formations (Third Way and the Left). 

The Sejm election held on 15 October 2023 brought several surprises. In the first place, an all-time-high turnout which seemingly benefitted the opposition powers, in particular Third Way and Civic Coalition. And while PiS managed to win the election as a separate party, its only imaginable prospective coalition partner, Confederation received way less votes than foreseen by public opinion polls. Looking at the final allocation of mandates, Civic Coalition, Third Way and the Left will have a comfortable majority in the Sejm with 248 seats ensured if they reach a coalition agreement in the next months. What happened at the polls? What is the most likely scenario now? What will president Andrzej Duda do next? If a new Tusk cabinet is formed, what will its relations with the Orbán cabinet be like in the future, and how will it affect the Visegrad Group? Researcher of the Centre for Political Science at MCC, Szabolcs Janik had the honour of discussing these and similar questions in the Centre’s latest Votes & Seats podcast episode with Tomasz Grosse, professor of the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Warsaw. 

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

After several years of political crisis, the cards are reshuffled in the Slovak National Council. Veteran PM Robert Fico’s left-wing Smer party finished first, although, not many predicted a bright future for the sovereignist politician after his resignation as head-of-government in 2018. The pro-West liberal Progressive Slovakia party came in second, while the pro-EU social democratic Hlas received the third most votes. Led by ex-PM Peter Pellegrini, the latter party found itself in the kingmaker's position in the government coalition formation process as a result of the long-awaited early parliamentary election in Slovakia. “Far above the Tatras, lightning bolts are pounding” – In our newest podcast episode, Dr. Jaroslav Ušiak from the Matej Bel University guides us through the political storms of Slovakia.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

Even if PP won, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s right-wing conservative political party fell short of an absolute majority in the legislature. Our guest expert, Mr. Jorge González-Gallarza from the Center for Fundamental Rights explains that Núñez Feijóo failed to capitalize on the public anger on the outgoing leftist coalition government led by PSOE. The socialists maintained their 2019 results, yet incumbent prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s party still needs the support of far-left and secessionist formations to be able to form a new government. In the newest episode of our podcast series, our guest analyst helps us understand

• what attributes made Mr. Núñez Feijóo the right prime minister candidate of PP
• what were the strength and weaknesses in the campaign of the socialists
• what could have been the reason for the weak performances of the national conservative Vox and the far-left electoral platform SUMAR, as well as
• how significant is the role of pro-independence regional political formations in Spanish party politics

For our previous episodes please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29q0mdf1elA&list=PLDjYcVrHZxt-_lRzYiNb9lXBLLiAE27iZ

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

This time, we talked about the background, the circumstances, and the outcome of the 21 May and the subsequent 25 June legislative elections that took place in Greece. Our guest expert, Dr. Anastasia Kafe from the Panteion University helped us understand the different interesting aspects of the election and campaign process. The political scientist explained the impact of the recent amendments to the electoral law on the 2023 parliamentary ballot, and gave us an insight to the key to success of prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ center-right New Democracy party, which managed to gain considerable support with almost 41% of the vote. Dr. Kafe pointed at the possible reasons for the huge defeat of former leftist premier Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza party and for the rise of smaller radical and extremist political formations on both edges of the political spectrum. Listen to our latest episode if you are interested about the main messages of the parties, the major social debates, and the most commonly used campaigning methods in the recent legislative election process in Greece.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

From a European – and maybe even global – point of view, the Turkish elections definitely ranked among the most significant political events of May 2023. The legislative election and the first round of the presidential election were held on 14 May, and, since none of the presidential candidates reached an absolute majority in the first round, a second round was also due for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on 28 May. On 14 May the AKP-led People’s Alliance ensured a comfortable majority in the Grand National Assembly, followed by the incumbent president’s win two weeks later. These results can be either surprising or not surprising at all, as several analysts foresaw the closest election fight ever in Türkiye between Erdoğan and his alliance and Kılıçdaroğlu and his opposition bloc. Actually, this is what we witnessed, but expectations varied greatly, with many envisioning the defeat of Erdoğan and the AKP.

In the latest Votes & Seats podcast episode, Szabolcs Janik (Centre for Political Science, MCC) had the honour to discuss the Turkish elections and their consequences with Bilgehan Öztürk, researcher of the Ankara-based think tank SETA. From the podcast episode you can learn about, among other things, the factors that helped Erdoğan and AKP, the key campaign topics, which parties can be considered the winners and losers of the election, why it was vital for Erdoğan to achieve a majority in the legislation with his party alliance, or what challenges the re-elected president faces in domestic politics, the economy and in foreign affairs.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

Exactly two years after the regular parliamentary election, on April 2nd, 2023, Bulgarians were called to the polls for the fifth time in a row to elect the representatives of the National Assembly. Since April 2021, due to the absence of sufficient electoral support and political will, all attempts failed to result in a long-term governing coalition.

Our guest expert, Dr. Mariyan K. Sabev from the Center for the Study of Democracy explains that the narrow victory of former prime minister Boyko Borisov’s right-wing GERB—SDS was no surprise for Bulgarians. However, the conservative alliance secured only 5 parliamentary seats more vis-à-vis the liberal-conservative electoral coalition of We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, headed by ex-premier Kiril Petkov. The anti-status quo ITN and the far-right Revival seem to be the biggest winners by gaining 11 and 10 mandates more, respectively, compared to the previous election. Consequently, the Bulgarian party system remains fragmented, our guest analyst says.

None of the political parties believed that this election would bring any significant change to Bulgarian politics, therefore, they did not invest considerable efforts in the campaign. Nevertheless, Mr. Borisov has become a very important balancing figure as most of his strongholds (small and midsize municipalities) are still in place, even if he did not manage to enlarge his electoral base. On the other hand, the two big cities, Sofia and Polvdiv, remain the supporters of the new political parties, whereas the country's ethnic/religious minorities and Bulgarians living in Türkiye normally vote for DPS. Our guest expert adds that the only real change the April 2023 election brought was the debuting of the recently modified voting mechanism that introduced a mixed system of digital and paper-based methods.

Dr. Sabev concludes that the country’s political crisis remains constant as long as the Bulgarians as a nation keep being more divided then ever before.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

The latest Votes&Seats podcast episode focuses on the 2 April 2023 Finnish legislative election. The liberal-conservative National Coalition Party (KOK) won from opposition securing 48 mandates, which proves to be the third highest result in the party’s history. The nationalist conservative Finns Party gained 46 parliamentary seats, while the governing center-leftist Social Democrats came third with 43 mandates in the National Assembly.

As our guest specialist Mr. Veikko Isotalo, doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki pointed out, the election campaign primarily focused on economic issues, mostly related to the state of the national debt and budget deficit. Therefore, a new government potentially led by a self-proclaimed "fiscal conservative" Petteri Orpo would formulate a restrictive budget with reduced welfare state expenses. As far as outgoing premier Ms. Sanna Marin form the Social Democratic Party is considered, according to Mr. Isotalo, she has become an international figure primarily due to her government’s steps during the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with special regards to the country’s U-turn in applying for NATO-membership.

As our guest expert explained, the biggest surprise in the April 2023 election was that there were no surprises. Still, led by Ms. Marin the Social Democratic Party successfully increased its popularity in the expense of other centrist and leftists/liberal political actors. As for the third original member of the historical Finnish political troika, the Centre Party (KESK) did not win in any constituencies this April. The political scientist stresses that the decreasing popularity of the predominantly conservative-liberal agrarian party is due to its role in the outgoing government coalition, the demographic changes in the Finnish society, and the rise of the nationalist Finns Party.

What explains the rise of the Finns Party? What were the strength and weaknesses of outgoing prime minister Sanna Marin, and did her cabinet’s alleged scandals play any role in the parliamentary elections in April 2023? Our guest elections specialist from the University of Helsinki helps you answer all these questions – among many others – if you listen to the newest episode of the Votes & Seats election analysis podcast.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

Estonia is a rather unique country located in the intersection of the Scandinavian, Baltic, and Central East European regions. As detailed in the debut episode of our podcast series' third season, such geopolitical attributes determine the country's political landscape and party system as well. On 5 March, Estonians went to the polls to elect the 101 members of the Riigikogu, the country’s parliament. Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’ center-right liberalist Estonian Reform Party remained the biggest player securing 37 seats in the national legislative body. Our guest expert, Dr. Heiko Pääbo (Director of the Centre for Baltic Studies at the University of Tartu) pointed out that no matter how fragmented is the Estonian party system, there is a consensus among most political players about the country’s pro-EU, pro-NATO and Pro-Ukraine stand. The analyst underlined that Ms. Kallas’ personal charisma and close ties to EU bodies played a major role in her party’s considerable victory. Dr. Pääbo sheds light on the disputes between political parties with seemingly similar ideologies, elaborates on the social, economic, and national security issues that dominated the election campaign, provides us an explanation for the considerable loss of the Center Party, and explains the position of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonian politics.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.