International Elections and Politics (no US/UK)

[Rasp]

Turkey... that's an absolute disaster if ever there was one - one failed coup and the dictator shut down opposition media and turn the country into a police state again....

[TheNewTeddy]

exit poll for the Netherlands.

This was my prediction; which contains the party political leanings
26 - VVD (Conservative)
22 - CDA (Christian Democrat)
20 - PVV (Nativist)
19 - GL (Green Left)
18 - D66 (Liberal)
15 - SP (Socialist)
10 - PvdA (Labour)
5 - CU (Social Conservative)
5 - PvdD (Pro Animal / Environmentalist)
5 - 50+ (Pensioner)
3 - SGP (Christian Right)
2 - Others (Including Pirate Party)

[PerrySimm]

Even the last-minute diplomatic row with Erdoğan couldn't dead-cat-bounce the PVV's poll numbers. Terrible showing for Labour, though.

[Fixer]

It's possible the Turkish row may have helped the incumbent Prime Minister, as it allowed him to show a posture of strength. I expect that the Dutch people saw Geert Wilders as simply too extreme in his rhetoric and illiberal in his manifesto to elect. He took a lower proportion of the vote than 2010, but higher than in 2012.

In any case the result fairly accurately mirrored the polls, we didn't have the extra swing to the right I thought might happen.

The political shift is showing a strong move to the right, but not the the far right position of PVV. The Labour party has lost more than 3/4s of it's seats with many of it's municipalities moving to the far left Green Party, the Right wing Christian Democrats and the Far Right Freedom Party.

It mirrors the collapse of the Labour party in the UK who lost votes from a working class that no longer believes that party supports their interests.

[Rasp]

Today, Former SK President Park was finally arrested.

[TheNewTeddy]

coming up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_c ... ndum,_2017 (this weekend)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_pr ... tion,_2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamian_ ... tion,_2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Kor ... tion,_2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_p ... tion,_2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_ ... tion,_2017

[griffeytrek]

France is coming up and it looks interesting. The pollsters and talking heads are going nuts because with the 4 way split they don't know which way it is turning. But there is one data point that I find interesting and likely predictive. Over 30% of those polled remain "undecided but will likely vote". That makes me suspicious. We saw that same behavior in the UK with Brexit and in the US with Trump. Those polled are not actually undecided. They are simply unwilling to tell what they believe to be a hostile or partisan press pollster who they are really planning to vote for. Which makes me think LePen will do better than predicted. But questionable as to whether it is enough to avoid a runoff.

[Rasp]

Current Status of the Korean Presidential race:



I hope you wanted a more leftist progressive direction for South Korea because the leftist candidates are really the only ones on the board.

[TGLS]

My view is they can elect anyone they like, unless they want to surrender to Kim Jong-un.

[Rasp]

My view is they can elect anyone they like, unless they want to surrender to Kim Jong-un.

It matters to those that are there LGBT rights aren't going to be expanded under moon if he gets elected. Most of the other major candidates are worse on the issue so maybe its a lesser of 5 evils situation.