As you may or may not know, there were three national elections which occured in Slovakia, Poland, and New Zealand (which I didn’t even knew was taking place)¹.  Normally, I would have created an “Elections in other Countries” post for at least one of them, but I didn’t.  This is a good opportunity to announce that I am taking a break from writing “Elections in other Countries” posts.  All my posts take time to write and edit, and it is no different with the “Elections” post.  However, with “Elections” posts, there is the additional burden of a deadline that I have to meet (the day of the Election).  At the moment, I do not want to feel the pressure of publishing a post by a certain date.

This does not mean that I am slowing down or stopping my output of thoughtful pieces on various topics.  I am writing another post on something that happened in my hometown of Hartford, Connecticut at the moment.  I will continue to publish my posts every couple of weeks.

While I am not writing an “Elections in other Countries” post for each of the above mentioned three countries, I’m providing a description of the results of each election.

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Slovakia:

The election took place on September 30th, and the winner was Direction- Slovak Social Democracy (Smer-SSD), a left-wing populist party led by Robert Fico.  He has signed coalition agreements with two other parties, which will return him to Prime Minister’s office for the third time.  

The result is bad news for Ukraine, as Fico has expressed sympathy for Russia and pledged to “not send one bullet” to Ukraine.  It is also worrisome for people who support Liberal Democracy in Slovakia, as Fico had a reputation for being involved in corruption and attacking journalists and prosecutors who were trying to hold Fico’s misdeeds to account.  What really rubbed salt in the wounds of Fico’s opponents was that exit polls showed the pro-European Progressive Slovakia (PS) party narrowly leading.  However… 

Poland:

The election took place this past Sunday, where the ruling Law and Justice party (PIS) was trying to win an unprecedented third consecutive term.  While they did indeed “win” the election, winning the most seats in the Sejm (Polish Parliament), they did not win the 235 seats needed to obtain a majority.  Crucially, no other parties are willing to enter a coalition with PIS.  While no one is willing to work with PIS, the same cannot be said for the second place party: Civic Coalition (P.O), led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk.  Two smaller coalitions, Third Way (PSL) and The Left (SLD) have pledged to govern with Civic Coalition, which together won 248 seats in the Sejm.

The results are big win for the E.U, which had clashed with the PIS government, and will get a Prime Minister who is Pro-E.U in Tusk.  It is a bigger victory for Poland, where for 8 years, Poland experienced democratic backsliding via PIS packing the courts, and taking control of most of the media outlets.  However, it will not be easy for Tusk to unwind the illiberal actions taken by PIS, so it will be interesting to see what happens in Poland in that regard.

New Zealand:

The election occurred last Saturday, and saw the Labour Party, whose Prime Minister was female heartthrob Jacinda Arden until earlier this year, voted out of power.  They were defeated by the center-right National Party, led by Chris Luxon.  Luxon’s National Party should be able to form a coalition with the libertarian ACT party to create a majority. 

It can be assumed that this right leaning coalition will not attempt to take over media outlets, support Russia, or label Labour Party politicians as “enemies of New Zealand.  If there is one thing that I’ve learned from the past 8 years in the U.S, it is that while it is good for for Democrats to win elections, it would be far better to have a right leaning party that will respect basic democratic norms, as I covered at the end of my last post. May we hope that happens, sooner rather than later.

I may continue to provide after the fact election updates like this at the end of other posts in the future.  In the meantime, stay tuned for my next post coming soon. 

1. In addition, to State Elections in Germany, in the states of Bavaria, and Hesse ↩︎