Mexico on the right track

 

Last sunday, an estimated 100.000 rallied on the Zocalo main square in Mexico city to pledge their support for Lopez Obrador. A year ago, he suffered a narrow defeat in the presidential elections. The conservative Felipe Calderon thus became president, but Obrador never admitted his defeat. As a true leftwing nut, he immediatly proclaimed the elections had been rigged, and said he only was the true president of Mexico.

In the beginning he had a lot of support, for the popular support was almost evenly split between Obrador and Calderon. That’s why he started organizing strikes and rallies where he would delight his followers with the usual anti-american slander (Calderon favors closer ties with the US, as did his predecessor Fox). His popularity is waning though.

Recent polls show Calderons approval rate rising up to 65%. Especially his crackdown on drugtrade has made his popularity soar and his position is now questioned only by Obradors staunchest supporters.

A smart Frenchman?

I think this is a great move by Sarkozy, though I’m not a big fan of Le Pen. It shows that France has elected a smart man. And though it might be a mere political stunt by sarkozy, it’s a good one. So maybe there is a future for France.

PARIS —  President Nicolas Sarkozy held talks Wednesday with far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen _ the first time the nationalist firebrand has been invited to the presidential palace in at least 33 years.

Le Pen called the invitation a “democratic gesture,” and said the two talked about the European Union. “I told him what he already knew, of our profound differences on this subject,” Le Pen said, adding that they also had a “general exchange of views.” Sarkozy is preparing for an EU summit in Brussels this week, hoping to push through his idea of a “simplified treaty” to replace the draft EU constitution rejected in 2005 by French and Dutch voters.

Le Pen has called for France to pull out of the EU and its common currency, the euro.

Sarkozy said in a June 6 interview with Le Figaro newspaper that he would meet with “all political formations” represented in the French and European parliaments. Le Pen is a lawmaker in the European Parliament. “I saw that some people were astonished,” Sarkozy said in an interview with TF1 television about his decision to see Le Pen. “I don’t understand. Jean-Marie Le Pen has the right to stand for elections. … He represents millions of people. And I’m supposed to say … ‘I won’t see him?’”

Former presidents Jacques Chirac and Francois Mitterrand always refused to meet with Le Pen. He met twice with Alain Poher, who was president for two brief interludes in 1969 and 1974, according to National Front spokesman Alain Vizier, who could not provide exact dates.

Le Pen, who shocked France with his second-place finish in the 2002 presidential race against Chirac, came in a poor fourth in this year’s contest. His National Front Party fared so badly in this month’s legislative elections that it risks losing up to 60 percent of its state subsidies.

מדינת ישראל

The 13th of june there were elections for a new president in Israël. Candidates were Shimon Peres (Kadima), Reuven Rivlin (Likud) and Colette Avital (Labor). Shimon Peres, former Prime Minister won after the other candidates retreated from the race because they didn’t got enough votes. Vice Premier Shimon Peres was elected Israel’s ninth president , capping a six-decade political career in which he has held every senior government post. While he started his political career in the far left mapai party(founded by Ben-gurion himself) he left labour in 2005 to join the centrist party, Kadima (founded by Ariel Sharon). Which shows us that labour (and the left in general) isn’t all that bad in Israël and surely isn’t the same like, say, the European left.

The elections followed after Former President Katsav was accused of fraud and rape. Though it is a ceremonial function, Peres might be able to restore the prestige of it with his record as a Nobel Laureate, former prime minister, defense minister, protege of David Ben-Gurion and founder of Israel’s nuclear program. He is also seen as a strong supporter of peace. Maybe this can help in negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas and bringing Israël partly to peace…(though it won’t help with that pesky hamas!)

 -”If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem but a fact that must be coped with.” (Shimon Peres)

Rightwingers on the rise in Europe

The 10th of june there were elections both in France and Belgium. In France the first round of the parliamentary elections was held, and in Belgium the federal elections allowed a new house of representatives and senate to be chosen.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy repeated his succes from the presidential elections and is winning by a landslide. The 2nd round, next sunday will most probably have the same outcome, resulting in an overwhelming majority for Sarkozy’s UMP (Union for a Popular Movement). Both the centrist from Bayrou’s UDF and the socialists from Royal disappointed (themselves, not me), and the far-left and far-right parties were marginalized.

The federal elections in Belgium were also very hopeful.

In Flanders the elections resulted in a major victory for the right-of-center CD&V/NVA (Christian Democrat & Flemish and the New Flemish Alliance) , receiving 29.6% of the Flemish vote in the house of representatives, wich is a 3.8% gain. Vlaams Belang (Flemish interest, a seccesionist rightwing party) won 1.1% of the vote, totalling 19%. List Dedecker, a newly formed rightwing liberal party, formed by former openVLD member of parliament Jean-Marie Dedecker was the big surprise of the elections by gaining 6.5% of the vote, wich is double the score the polls had predicted. The Greens made a dissapointing 2.4% gain and represent 6.3% of the electorate (they had expected 7.5% at least). The major losers were the openVLD (open Flemish Liberal Democrats), the traditional liberal party from the Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who lost 6.6% and stranded at about 18.8% of the vote, a result due to the lack of real liberalism and socialist course, criticized by List Dedecker. But the worst result, and the result which pleases me the most, is the decimation of the socialist party, the Sp.a (Socalist Party different (whatever that may mean)). They lost 7.2% and have only 16.3% left. Two far-left parties, PVDA (communists) and CAP (bunch of losers complaining about the so-called ‘neoliberal course’ of the sp.a, what a joke) stayed far below the minimum percentage for representation.

In Wallonia, the French speaking part of Belgium, the elections took a different turn. Wallonia, historically a horrid socialist bastion has shown signs of common sense. For the first time in decades, the liberal party MR (Reformatory Movement) is stronger then the socialist PS (Socialist Party). The MR gained 2.8%, totalling 31.2%, whereas the PS lost 6.9% and fell to 29.5%. CdH (Democratic Humanist Centre) a centrist formating made a slight gain of 0.4% and now has 15.8%. Ecolo, the green party gained 5.3%, and now has 12.8% of Walloon vote. The far-right FN (Front National) remained status quo at 5.6%.

The Trend in Flanders is clearly in favor of the rightwing parties. Also Seccesionists are on the rise. The Vlaams Belang, advocating Flemish autonomy made a slight gain. List Dedecker, which prefers confederalism and republicanism made a very succesful debut, and the NVA, the CD&V partner also favors nationalism and thus the Flemish Republic. The NVA composes a significant part of CD&V/NVA results. 2 senators and 5 representatives are NVA. Wallonia apparently has no supporters for more autonomy or independance. Apparently it depends largely on Flanders for it’s social welfare system, no wonder seccesionism is on the rise, and knowing smaller countries are mostly more prosperous countries, I’m as well happy about this trend.

French Elections (II)

Sunday, the 6th of May will bring the final outcome of the French presidential elections. Ségolène Royal & Nicolas Sarkozy are giving everything to attract the last undecided voters, but it’s important to mention that the already beaten candidates will have a bigger impact on them.

At the gruesome far-left side, the commies are rallying for the socialist cause. Besançenot, Laguiller and Buffet have all urged their deprived followers to vote for Royal. The same goes for Voynet, the but-ugly ‘greens’ candidate. At the far-left side thus, only Schivardi hasn’t favored any candidate, but little doubt there is his supporters will vote Royal. Neither does it need to be mentioned that Bové urged his voters to support Royal.

The rather ‘centrist’ candidates, Frédéric Nihous and François Bayrou haven’t voiced a favor for any candidate yet. Nihous will be neglected anyway, and Bayrou has his eyes set on the next elections, and doesn’t want to support either side, risking to lose his support of the other wing.

At the right side, Philippe De Villiers, probably the best French politician at this time, has wisely called on his supporters to vote Sarkozy.

The far-right nutcase Le Pen has asked his followers to abstain. Let us hope the morons who voted for him in the first round will make a better decision this time.

if we do the math, we arrive at this result, if all the voters follow their first round candidates:

Royal: 25.87 % (1st round votes) + 4.08 % (Besançenot) + 1.93 % (Buffet) + 1.57 % (Voynet) + 1.33 % (Laguiller) + 1.32 % (Bové) = 36.10 %

Sarkozy :31.18 % (1st round votes) + 2.23 % (de Villiers) = 33.41 %

Bayrou (18.57 %) + Le Pen (10.44 %) + Nihous (1.15 %) + Schivardi (0.34 %) = 30.50 % of the votes undecided

It’s obvious that the center vote will choose the winner. But since Nihous’ and Schivardi’s votes are neglectable, and most of Le Pen’s voters will probably ignore their headoaf and vote Sarkozy, the more will depend on Bayrou’s voters. And latest polls show a slight favor for Sarkozy, wich means there actually might be some hope for France.

French Elections

Even though we are a little late in doing so, we still decided to cover the French Presidential Elections. We’re too late because the 1st round is already over and, as expected, Ségolène Royal & Nicolas Sarkozy are the ones going through to the second round, the final vote for presidency. But we are still going to share our views about the other 1st round candidates as well.

France, being a country of sore losers, needs some good management to get on the right track, because at the moment, French people are just like Palestinians, only with a better cuisine. The 12 candidates participating in the 1st round will each get seperately rated after thorough study by Archont & Strategoi. The two standards they will use are: their looks, and the political party they represent.

In addition to these 2 parameters, some candidates will get extra positive or negative remarks, mentioned in the limbo column.

–Gluttony