In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the governing Social Democrat (SPD)s got whipped, to the tune of a 10 percent drop at the polls. In Berlin, by contrast, the SPD picked up 1.1 percent, received the most votes of any party, and now has the option of continuing its coalition with the Left (PDS) or forming a new one [...]

Sweden wasn’t the only Baltic area with an election yesterday. The voters of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in Germany’s northeastern corner, dealt a heavy blow to the ruling Social Democrat-postcommunist (SPD-Left) coalition. The SPD dropped 10 percent, but still received the largest share of votes, topping the Christian Democrats (CDU) 30.2 percent to 28.8 percent. The postcommunist (or [...]

So, we have a new government, and Göran Persson is resigning as party leader. I ended up voting for the Center party, the most inoffensive of the rightwing parties. I was a little tempted to vote a blank ballot. I know this new government will do all kinds of bad things, and now I’ll be [...]

Nobody has stepped up to write a big piece for us on the Swedish election, which is bound to be close, but below the fold are a few potential topics from our internal discussion. Bullet points for that party conversation you’re bound to have this weekend about the election in Sweden. (And if anyone from [...]

Right now it feels more like twelve days than twelve months.
There’s been a lot of anger and unrest in the last few days, as Labour politicians have pressured th increasingly impopular Blair to name a date for his departure. Today two members of the government, including one minister, has just resigned and called on [...]

On the other side of French politics, as I promised, the internal conflicts are if anything stronger. To start with the most important ones, the Socialist Party is about to do something quite rare in its history - have a contested primary election. The only other was that of 1995, when Lionel Jospin beat [...]

Well, with the summer party universités d’été done and everyone going back to work, the run-in begins in earnest to the French presidential election. This shows every sign of being very interesting indeed. After all, it’s the biggest direct mandate for any politician in Europe and the second-biggest in the whole democratic world (I exclude [...]

I’ve said before that Austrian politics has a really sick character you hardly find anywhere else, a sort of utter blankness of principle and whorish debasement in pursuit of preferment that would embarrass Silvio Berlusconi. But, Jörg Haider has managed to excel himself yet again.
Recap. Once upon a time there was the FPÖ, a rather [...]

The Onion: Bush Grants Self Permission to Grant More Power to Self. Funny, but also the best definition of the Kompetenzkompetenz I’ve ever seen.

Says Scott: Why should outsiders participate in saving face for Israel and in solidifying what will no doubt be perceived in the Middle East as a Hezbollah victory?
Well, if a situation emerges where Israel can save face and Hezbollah is simultaneously able to claim victory, we’d be fools not to seize this opportunity. Put it [...]