By William Demartinis
Our good friends in Europe have had a pretty interesting past couple of weeks. From the resurgence of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party and Germany’s new chancellor, to the French presidential election heating up, Europe has some new stuff to look at. And here, I’m going to be covering it all. Let’s begin!
Germany’s New Chancellor
In September 2021, Germany held its national elections. After 16 years, Germans opted to elect the SPD, or the Social Democratic Party of Germany, over their more conservative rivals, the CSU-CDU. If you want to read more in depth about the election, an article was written about it a few months back (I should know, I wrote it). Now, the SPD has established its brand new coalition, the so-called traffic light coalition between the SPD, German Green Party, and the Free Democrats. Having established a working majority in Germany’s parliamentary body, the Bundestag, Olaf Sholz was sworn in as chancellor, replacing Angela Merkel, Germany’s longtime chancellor of 16 years. Now, it’s Olaf’s turn to make his mark on the EU, Germany, and the world. Time will tell how he does.
The Resurgence of the UK’s Labour Party
In 2019, Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party of the UK won a landslide victory against Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn, who himself had led Labour to a stunning comeback in 2017, had now led Labour into its worst defeat since Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative Party in the 80’s. After the election, Jeremy Corbyn resigned, and Keir Stamer was elected leader of the Labour Party. A controversial figure to many within the Labour Party, he was noticeably more centrist than his predecessor, in the style of their most successful modern political leader, Tony Blaire. Directly after his accession to the leadership, the Labour Party surged in polls to briefly overtake the Conservatives, but has since fallen back down in national polls for the UK. Infact, Labour suffered catastrophic losses in May 2021, and many blamed Starmer for those losses within the Labour Party. But now, the Labour Party’s prospects have seemingly turned around. Amid scandal, after scandal, after scandal (I am being serious), Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservatives have dramatically fallen in popularity across the UK. Boris Johnson is disapproved of by ⅔ of the United Kingdom’s population, and the Conservative Party is behind Labour for the first time since June 2017. And it’s not narrowly behind either: recent polls have put Labour ahead of the Conservatives on an average of 4 points. While the next UK election isn’t until 2023, and it’s almost certain Boris Johnson would never call an election with polling numbers this bad, it’s a remarkable turnaround for a party that had suffered such losses in 2019. It’s also unclear if Boris Johnson can keep his job with such hideous polling numbers. Only time will tell if Boris can keep his job or if Labour can keep this momentum, but it sure is interesting.
The French Presidential election
Ah yes, FRANCE. The home of revolutions, Napoleon, wars, losing, baguettes, and that one famous tower. The French elected their current president, Emmanuel Macron, back in 2017 over Marine Le Pen. Le Pen was considered by many to be the “Trump” Of France. She lost badly in the presidential runoff back in 2017, but her political prospects had been looking up for 2022. Her party had performed well in regional elections in 2021, and polling for the 2022 French presidential election put her in a much more competitive position versus 2017, to the point where Macron could be given a run for his money come 2022. Yet, another formidable right-wing challenger has entered the 2022 race, and she may be Macron’s worst challenge yet. Enter Valerie Pecresse, a right wing stalwart who has the potential to unite the right wing and defeat Macron come 2022. Currently, her and Le Pen have been polling almost evenly, hovering between 16-18% support nationally. Currently, Macron sits at 24-26%, but if one of them unites the right wing, Macron could once again be given a run for his money. Who’s a stronger candidate? I would argue Le Pen. She has softened her right wing views since 2017, and has dipped hard into populist economics. Those combined make her a formidable option for left-wing French voters, who have seen failure in recent elections. If Le-Pen could extract left-wing voters who voted for Macron in 2017 and unite the right-wing vote, she could potentially defeat Macron in 2022. While it’s early, and Emmanual Macron appears to be the early favorite to keep his job in 2022, he may see a formidable challenge come 2022. Once again, only time will tell. And as I close out this recap, it only touches around 35% of European politics. Whether it be from Bulgarian and Czech elections, Portugal, Sweden, or Norway, they all had recent political news that I could’ve covered. But, to keep this article from descending into a nerdy ramble of a nerd, I’ll cut it here. ADIOS MIS AMIGOS
