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Election Watch
Croatian Prime Minister and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party chief Andrej Plenkovic attends an election rally in Zagreb, Croatia, April 14, 2024.
Croatians vote on Wednesday in one of the most contentious parliamentary elections that the Balkan country, an EU member, has seen in years – and Russia is at the heart of the kerfuffle.
The governing center-right Croatian Democratic Union party, or HDZ, which has held power almost continuously since Croatia’s independence in 1991, is facing a stiff challenge from a center-left coalition led by the Social Democrat Party.
The SDP is helmed by Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, an outspoken populist who has ignored court orders to step down during the campaign and has accused the HDZ of corruption. HDZ leader and Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, a bitter rival, has warned that Milanovic wants to drag Croatia into “the Russian world.”
The HDZ’s platform is largely pro-EU and pro-NATO, and it supports backing Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Milanovic, on the other hand, has opposed providing training and weapons to Ukraine as a “deeply immoral” path to prolonging the conflict.
Polls show HDZ with a five-point lead over SDP, but economic misgivings could bolster the SDP and some other smaller parties enough to prevent HDZ from winning an outright majority, forcing a period of messy coalition building and uncertainty.Supporters of former deputy speaker Namson Tran cheer and wave in the capital Honiara, Solomon Islands, Monday, April 15, 2024. Solomon Islanders are set to go to the polls on April 17
Voters in the Solomon Islands will vote in a parliamentary election on Wednesday that has repercussions for the Asia Pacific region due to the country’s close relationship with China.
After delaying the election a year to focus on hosting the 2024 Pacific Games — a move that raised eyebrows — Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavere is up for reelection. Best known for switching diplomatic recognition to Taiwan in 2019, he then alarmed neighboring Australia, New Zealand, and the US by signing a secret security pact with Beijing in 2022, raising fears that China could one day build a naval base there.
His primary opponent, Peter KeniloreaJr., the son of the country’s first prime minister, has pledged to switch ties back to Taiwan.
But for most Solomon Islanders, the election is less about China and more about the economy. The 900 islands are rich in natural resources but rank just 155 out of 199 countries in the United Nations’s Human Development Index, which many blame on the government’s economic mismanagement and corruption.
Right now, polling shows Sogavare as the frontrunner. Still, he is challenged by several strong opposition figures who could undermine his chances if they are able to work together when it comes time to form a government in late April.
Calton Hill and Edinburgh city scenic view at sunset Beautiful view of Edinburgh at sunset Edinbourgh United Kingdom.
Good news for Britain’s Labour Party: Anew poll from YouGov shows that, for the first time in nearly a decade, the party leads in Scotland, a result that can bolster its already-high odds of winning the UK’s next general election, probably this fall.
Years ago, Labour could count on votes in Scotland, where the Conservative Party is traditionally less popular than in England and Wales, to boost its seat total in the UK parliament. In 2010, a year when Scotland’s own Gordon Brown led Labour, the party won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats. But as demand for an independence referendum lifted the Scottish National Party to prominence, Labour won just one seat in Scotland in 2015 and the same in 2019.
But the SNP, burdened with the disappointment of the failed referendum, a poor economy, and scandals that engulfed once-popular leader Nicola Sturgeon, has faded, and Labour is again in favor with Scottish voters.
Nationally, Labour already leads Conservatives by 20 points. A restoration in Scotland could help the party and its current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, secure the landslide win they seek and a return to 10 Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak prepares to speak to employees of a bus depot during the launch of the local election campaign in Heanor, Britain, March 22, 2024.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on Thursday that he will call a national election in the second half of this year. The election will be Sunak’s first, and likely last, contest as the country’s premier.
The candidates: Since Brexit, the UK has shuffled through a revolving door of Conservative leaders (Sunak came to power after Liz Truss’s reign ended a week after she replaced Boris Johnson over his 2022 “Partygate” scandal”). Sunak has tried to turn voters' attention to the migrant crisis but has failed to deliver on his promise to stop small boats of migrants arriving on the south coast of England. His main opposition is Keir Starmer of the Labour Party.
Where things stand: Weakened from Brexit, buried under high inflation, and strained by a cost of living crisis, suffice to say that morale is low among Brits. And Sunak will likely pay the cost.
Conservatives are polling terribly, trailing behind Labour 22% to 44%. From those numbers, it's no surprise that Starmer is hounding Sunak to call for elections now, but Sunak will try to hold off for as long as possible in the hopes that the political tides turn.
Supporters with a placard 'April 10 is the Yoon Suk Yeol government, Judgment Day.' attend the Democratic Party of Korea's general election campaign rally at Yongsan Station Square in Seoul, South Korea, April 9, 2024.
South Koreans went to the polls today for key legislative elections amid a bitterly polarized environment and a sluggish economy, with early exit polls showing a likely landslide for the opposition Democratic Party. President Yoon Suk Yeol has been stymied by DP control of the unicameral legislature throughout the first two years of his presidency, and his People Power Party was facing daunting odds heading into today.
Cost of living is top of mind. Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung turned the humble green onions that feature in so many Korean dishes into a political weapon after Yoon made remarks on their price that were perceived as being out of touch. Meanwhile, Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon-hee, has been at the center of a luxury gift scandal, which has hardly helped with perceptions of aloofness.
That said, Lee faces graft allegations of his own and is no less of a controversial figure. In fact, he was lucky to survive an attempted assassination in January, when he was stabbed in the neck at a campaign rally. Political violence is not unheard of in South Korea, but the incident underlines the depth of the country’s political divisions.
“Because of the political polarization, South Koreans end up deciding elections based on things like whether the first lady received a $2,000 handbag and didn't report it,” says Eurasia Group senior analyst Jeremy Chan. “It speaks to the underlying dynamic in South Korea, where folks are deciding on the trivial stuff because the political parties can't deal with the big issues.”
And there are BIG issues on South Korea’s plate: The country is getting old and having very few babies, economic growth is weak and unlikely to improve, and, of course, North Korea’s nuclear weapons threaten total annihilation.
Chan expects Yoon to continue focusing on foreign policy if exit polls hold true, including “doubling down on the rapprochement with Japan, broadening relations with Europe, with ASEAN, and with the United States, while moving further away from China and North Korea, because that's where he can exert influence without the National Assembly.”
Official results are expected early Thursday.
Viewpoint: South Korea’s president looks to legislative elections to kickstart his agenda
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol speaking at the presidential office on TV at Seoul Railroad Station in Seoul. April 1, 2024
All 300 seats in South Korea's unicameral legislature will be up for grabs in the April 10 election, offering President Yoon Suk-yeol the opportunity to kickstart his agenda if his conservative People Power Party, or PPP, can gain control of the National Assembly. The center-left Democratic Party of Korea, aka DP, currently holds a majority of the seats in the chamber and has frustrated Yoon’s efforts to advance business-friendly policies since he took office in 2022.
Nonetheless, the PPP faces long odds in flipping the chamber, according to Eurasia Group expert Jeremy Chan. We asked him to explain.
Why the poor prospects for the PPP?
The conservative party would need to gain roughly three dozen seats to recapture the National Assembly, a tall order that will be made even more challenging by Yoon’s low approval rating, which hovers below 40%. While his name will not appear on the ballot, the election is widely seen as a referendum on Yoon’s administration.
For Yoon, failing to recapture the National Assembly would effectively render him a lame duck with more than half of his term in office remaining. It would put his agenda of cuts to taxes and government spending on life support and make him the first Korean president in decades to serve an entire five-year term without ever exerting control over the legislature. Attention would promptly shift to the race to succeed Yoon in the 2027 presidential election.
What are the main issues for voters?
The state of the economy is at the top of the list, particularly sluggish growth and worrying debt levels for households and corporations. A recent rebound in Korea’s export sector — largely driven by an uptick in global demand for Korean semiconductors — has provided a bit of a tailwind to the economy, but overall sentiment remains negative. Voters are likely to hold the ruling conservative party responsible for this situation, even as the opposition in the National Assembly has watered down many of Yoon’s business-friendly reforms, which are meant to stimulate growth.
Scandals and other allegations of impropriety are another top voter concern. Many left-leaning voters find Yoon’s leadership style imperious, particularly his attacks against critical media outlets. His wife, Kim Keon-hee, is also a lightning rod for public criticism, with Yoon postponing a trip to Germany and Denmark in February to keep her out of the spotlight; if left-leaning opposition parties hold onto the National Assembly, they are likely to open an investigation into allegations that Yoon’s wife received unreported gifts and committed other misdeeds. Meanwhile, the leader of the DP, Lee Jae-myung, continues to face his own corruption investigations, which has decreased support for the main center-left opposition party.
What can this election tell us about the state of Korean politics?
Polls suggest that the election will likely be decided by a narrower margin than the last legislative election in 2020; the top two candidates in roughly 60 single-member districts are polling within the margin of error. Tempers are also running high in Korea, where political polarization has worsened in recent years. Both Yoon and Lee — the runner-up in the 2022 contest — are divisive figures, which has increased support for splinter parties, most notably the newly formed Cho Kuk Innovation Party. Korean politics have traditionally been dominated by two major political parties, but this election may be a harbinger of a more pluralistic system to come. With 30 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly to be allocated to non-major parties, chances are high that neither the PPP nor the DP will secure an outright majority.
Will the election outcome change Korea’s relations with the US, Japan, China, or North Korea?
This election will not have a significant effect on Korea’s foreign policy. Regardless of the outcome, Yoon will retain wide latitude over Korea’s external relations, including in diplomacy, security, and trade. Yoon will continue to deepen Seoul’s ties with Washington and Tokyo — he will participate in a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington in July — while relations with Beijing and Pyongyang will remain strained. The US is on the verge of overtaking China as Korea’s top export market, and Korean firms are increasingly directing their investments away from China. By the time Yoon steps down in 2027, his successor will face a remarkably different external environment than the one Yoon inherited in 2022.
If the conservative party manages to pull off an upset, how will that change the political landscape in Korea?
A conservative victory in the legislative elections — not likely but also not unthinkable — would breathe new life into Yoon’s presidency. His administration would move quickly to enact a raft of business-friendly reforms, including lowering taxes on corporations and increasing government support for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
“Strategic” industries such as semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, biotech, and AI would likely benefit from greater policy attention. And Lee would come under increasing pressure to step down as head of the DP.
A PPP-controlled National Assembly would also put wind in the sails of the government’s recently announced “Corporate Value Up Program.” The program is designed to reduce the “Korea discount” whereby domestic firms have lower valuations than peer companies in Japan and Taiwan; it promises tax credits and other incentives to firms that “value up” their stock price through increased dividend payments, share buybacks, and improvements to their corporate governance.
Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko listens to the presidential candidate he is backing in the March 24 election, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, as they hold a joint press conference a day after they were released from prison, in Dakar, Senegal March 15, 2024.
Newly inaugurated Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in his first act in office, appointed his mentor Ousmane Sonko as prime minister on Wednesday. The popular, reform-oriented Sonko will be the driving force behind big changes. Case in point: Faye's manifesto proposed an audit of the oil, gas, and mining sectors, which could bring more cash from natural resource extraction into Dakar’s coffers.
Sonko was banned from running for president in the most recent elections, but Faye subbed in, even using the slogan “Diomaye is Sonko.” Sonko is now calling the shots, says Eurasia Group analyst Tochi Eni-Kalu.
“Faye wasn't really a known political entity prior to his elevation to the PASTEF nomination,” he says, referring to Sonko’s political party. Faye could build a base of power, but Eni-Kalu says “he will likely stick to Sonko’s line, at least in the early stages of his presidency.”
Indeed, Sonko said he would provide a list of ministers for Faye — essentially appointing them himself. And when Senegal holds parliamentary elections, which could happen as soon as later this year, Sonko will be the figurehead voters rally toward.
Once they have a legislative majority, it’s a trickier balancing act to please both voters and investors. Some of Sonko and Faye’s promises raise eyebrows among overseas interests, like the oil and gas audit, but voters are expecting money to flow more widely across society.
“People want change, and Sonko and Faye intend to deliver change,” says Eni-Kalu. “But they’re going to sand down some of their more radical policies to pacify investors.”
Latest
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United Kingdom
South Korean opposition likely to clean up in key elections
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