CDU advertising for SchröderBeing stuck in a traffic jam is probably not the best place to be to blog about the German election. On the other hand, it may well be an excellent metaphor for the result of today’s German elections, which Mrs T sketched below. Hearing the results on the radio, the first thing [...]

Well, it’s back to another wave of German electoral goodness. The latest bizarre artefact of coalition weirdness is that Angela Merkel’s team are frantically denying claims that they have a secret plan to call new elections in the event that the elections end in a hung parliament. Obviously, this would rely on Merkel actually becoming [...]

Back in July, I posted about the Parliamentary elections in Albania. Dedicated readers may recall that the Socialist government of PM Fatos Nano lost, and the opposition Democrats (under former PM Sali Berisha) won… but that Nano was refusing to concede defeat.
Well, he finally did. It took nearly two months, and three special [...]

Far be it from me to poach on Alex’s turf, but here is a bit of German election madness that you won’t want to miss.
As you all know by now, the Left Party — which is basically the eastern PDS, the mutated ruling party of ancien régime East Germany, plus some hard-left western renegades from [...]

Former Prime Minister Sali Berisha won a surprise upset victory in the Albanian elections earlier this month.
This is not particularly welcome news for anyone outside of Albania. Berisha, who was Albania’s chief executive from 1990 to 1997, is remembered as a corrupt and erratic authoritarian who ran a government of cronies, best remembered for [...]

A few weeks back, I blogged a little about the upcoming elections in Albania. Here’s a bit more.
The elections are expected to be close, because the ruling Socialist Party is split. The larger faction supports the current Prime Minister, Fatos Nano. But a breakaway group, under an ex-weightlifter named Ilir Meta, has [...]

This week Hungary has a new President. The election of Laszlo Solyom as Hungary’s new President was a major setback for the governing Socialist Party (MSZP), at the same time as it was widely lauded as a victory by the right wing opposition Fidesz party. The outcome was largely the result [...]

Update I: Participation rates at 19:00 have just been released: 66,24 %. This means that it will surely clearly surpass the Maastricht final participation of 69,69 %. The poll estimates are talking about a final participation of 75%. This is big for a topic which many said was ‘abstract’. In Spain, the particpation was [...]

I suppose German politics aren’t entirely predictable anymore. A few minutes ago, German Chancellor Schroeder confirmed earlier statements by Franz Muentefering, the SPD’s chairman, that the current red-green coalition will seek a - constitutionally problematic - vote of no-confidence to allow the early dissolution of the Bundestag and hold federal elections in autumn this year.

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Gerhard Schr?der and the SPD have suffered a major election setback in these regional elections. Schr?der’s response it seems has been to suggest he will call an early general election late this year.
Schroeder made his proposal after exit polls showed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered a heavy defeat in a state election in [...]