Foreign Elections

Macron’s Party Set for Parliamentary Landslide in France

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“The centrist party of French President Emmanuel Macron looks set to win a landslide victory in the second round of parliamentary elections on Sunday,” the BBC reports.

“A party needs 289 seats to control the 577-seat National Assembly. LREM is predicted to win more than 400. Mr Macron won the presidential election last month and he is now hoping to secure a solid majority to help push through his planned reforms for the country.”

“He formed his party just over a year ago, and half of its candidates have little or no political experience.”

Washington Post: “Macron rose from relative obscurity to score a landslide victory in the presidential election in May, becoming the first winning candidate in decades to come from neither the traditional center-right nor center-left parties. But now, something even more momentous is happening: Macron is leading a total overhaul of an ossified political system.”

Macron Set for Huge Parliamentary Majority

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Reuters: “President Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling party is set to trounce France’s traditional main parties in a parliamentary election and secure a huge majority to push through his pro-business reforms, projections after the first round showed on Sunday.The vote delivered a further crushing blow to the Socialist and conservative parties that had alternated in power for decades until Macron’s election in May blew apart the left-right divide.”

How Theresa May Lost It

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Politico: “Halfway through Britain’s seven-week snap election campaign, some in Theresa May’s team came to the conclusion that they had a problem — the candidate. At a gathering of senior staff in Conservative campaign headquarters in central London, one of May’s top operatives told the sitting prime minister that she risked crashing and burning like Sarah Palin did in 2008… To the operative, May was overly controlling and her inexperience would tell during a short, intense campaign. May listened with good grace but changed nothing.”

Young Voters Strike Back In Britain

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“As Britain took stock on Friday of the stunning results of a snap election that wiped out the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Theresa May and her governing Conservative Party, one narrative bubbled up to the surface: The youth had spoken,” the New York Times reports.

“The election results were fueled partly by a higher turnout rate among young British voters who had long been angry at the results of the referendum last year to leave the European Union, known as Brexit. That vote, overwhelmingly supported by older Britons, was seen by many younger people as a threat to their jobs, their ability to study abroad and their desire to travel freely across the bloc’s borders.”

“In other words, the vote by young Britons on Thursday had a whiff of payback.”

U.K. Turnout Models Ignored Surge In Youth Vote

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Nate Silver: “The 2017 election therefore seems to be a case of an overcorrection. The pollsters apparently did a good enough job of weighting the raw samples properly, which got them fairly close to the right outcome. Then on top of that, some of them gave extra weight to the Conservatives through their turnout models. As a result, they discounted signs of a youth-driven Labour turnout surge. As was the case in the U.S. with Bernie Sanders, younger voters turned out in a big way for Labour’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.”

“It’s one thing for a pollster to get an outcome wrong because voters fail to turn out when they say they will. But if voters tell you they’re going to turn out, you ignore them, and they show up to vote anyway, you really don’t have much of a defense.”

May Reaches Deal to Form New U.K. Government

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After losing her majority in yesterday’s elections, British Prime Minister Theresa May “has struck a deal with the Democratic Unionists that will allow her to form a government,” the Guardian reports.

“It follows extensive talks with the DUP late into the night. Party figures say they have been driven on by their dismay at the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.”

The AP notes May’s “plan of calling an early election in the hopes of getting a bigger majority than she enjoyed during the previous parliament backfired in Thursday’s general election.”

Bloomberg: What happens now?

Polls Open In U.K. Election

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“Polling stations across Britain opened for national elections amid heightened security Thursday as one senior police official said the country was living through ‘unprecedented times’ following a series of terror attacks in recent weeks,” the AP reports.

“Authorities asked people to be alert and report any concerns to police as voters choose 650 lawmakers for the House of Commons. Atrocities near Parliament, a Manchester concert venue and London Bridge have left Britain on high alert, with the official threat level at severe, the second-highest rating, indicating an attack is ‘highly likely.'”

The final Ipsos MORI poll: Conservative 44%, Labour 36%, Liberal Democrats 7%, UKIP 4%, and Greens 2%.

British Election Campaign Resumes

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Reuters: “After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, Theresa May said Thursday’s election would go ahead but said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.”

“While British pollsters all predict May will win the most seats in Thursday’s election, they have given an array of different numbers for how big her win will be, ranging from a landslide victory to a much more slender win without a majority. Some polls indicate the election could be close, possibly throwing Britain into political deadlock just days before formal Brexit talks with the European Union are due to begin on June 19.”

Conservative Party Collapses in Britain

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A new YouGov poll in Britain finds that Labour is closing the gap with Tories and now stands just three points behind Theresa May’s Conservative party, 42% to 39%.

“The poll points to a remarkable change in fortunes for the Tories, which had a 24-point lead over Labour when the snap general election was called in April.”

A new ICM Unlimited/The Guardian poll also shows the Tories just three points ahead, 33% to 30%.

Said one Tory candidate to HuffPost UK: “It’s a completely different experience to what it was four weeks ago. It’s made my job a hell of a lot harder. It’s a completely different experience. I’m pretty fucked off.”

Trump Claims He Wanted Macron to Win in France

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President Trump told Emmanuel Macron that he had been his favorite to win the French presidential election and media reports that he was backing far-right leader Marine Le Pen were wrong, Reuters reports.

Said Trump: “You were my guy.”

“Trump told Macron that, contrary to media reports during the race, he had not backed Le Pen and had followed Macron’s campaign with great attention, the source said, adding that the two leaders had spoken in English.”

Flashback: Trump says Le Pen is strongest candidate.

Rouhani Wins Re-Election In Iran

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Foreign Affairs: “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been reelected in a landslide, winning 57 percent of the vote and defeating the hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi who received only 39 percent. A record number of Iranians showed up at the polls—41 million or 73.5 percent of all eligible voters.”

“It is difficult to say, however, what is more significant about Friday’s election: Rouhani’s landslide victory and the stronger mandate he has now received or the decisive defeat of Raisi and the Islamic hard-liners who worked tirelessly to oust Rouhani. The distinction is important. Not all those who voted for Rouhani did so because they supported him. Many cast their ballots simply to stop the hard-liners from taking control of the government and to reject Raisi, an Islamic judge with a dark past.”

Macron Chooses Prime Minister from Rival Party

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“Newly-inaugurated French President Emmanuel Macron appointed a conservative prime minister in a move to broaden his political appeal and weaken his opponents before legislative elections in June,” Reuters reports.

“It is the first time in modern French political history that a president has appointed a prime minister from outside his camp without being forced to by a defeat in parliamentary elections. Macron’s presidential win itself was a seismic shift in a political landscape dominated for decades by the two main left-wing and right-wing parties.”

Corbyn Will Propose Nationalizing Industries

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British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn “will lay out plans to take parts of Britain’s energy industry back into public ownership alongside the railways and the Royal Mail in a radical manifesto,” The Guardian reports.

“A draft version of the document, drawn up by the leadership team and seen by the Guardian, pledges the phased abolition of tuition fees, a dramatic boost in finance for childcare, a review of sweeping cuts to universal credit and a promise to scrap the bedroom tax.”

Meanwhile, The Sun notes Corbyn’s car ran over a journalist’s foot as he tried to evade the press.

Indonesian Governor Jailed for Blasphemy

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“Jakarta’s Christian governor was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy, a harsher-than-expected ruling that critics fear will embolden hardline Islamist forces to challenge secularism in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation,” Reuters reports.

“Tuesday’s guilty verdict comes amid concern about the growing influence of Islamist groups, who organized mass rallies during a tumultuous election campaign that ended with Basuki Tjahaja Purnama losing his bid for another term as governor.”