EP elections 2014

[Diouf]

Poll for Wales. Conducted by the Welsh Political Barometer – a collaboration between ITV Cymru Wales, the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, and YouGov. (compared to 2009)

Labour 39% (+18.7) 2 seats (+1)
UKIP 18% (+5.2) 1 (=)
Conservative 17% (-4.2) 1 (=)
Plaid Cymru 12% (-6.5) 0 (-1)
Liberal Democrats 7% (-3.7) 0 (=)
Others 7% (-9.5) 0 (=)

[Ilùvatar]

Scenari politici is conducting a thorough analysis of the EP polls, with some interesting results.

s1.scenaripolitici.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/general-summary2-1.png

Most of the text is in Italian, but titles, results and images are in english.
scenaripolitici.com/sondaggi/elezioni-europee-2014

(still can't post url...)

[MaxQue]

(still can't post url...)

It takes 20 posts to post an url.

[Diouf]

The Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists announces that it will not field a candidate for European Commission Presidency. They believe the process is lacking in public support.

[EPG]

In the Northern Ireland constituency, it is likely to be 1 Sinn Féin (GUE), 1 Democratic Unionist (non-inscrit), 1 Ulster Unionist (ECR) as before. The European Parliament electoral system, in the north as in the south, is STV.

There is a tiny chance that the UUP could lose to the SDLP (S&D), but that would be contingent on strong performances by other unionists such as the Traditional Unionist Voice (more extreme than the DUP) and the NI21 (more moderate than the UUP). "Other unionists" also include even smaller groups like the Conservatives, UKIP and the flag protesters.

The UUP could also lose votes to Alliance (not technically unionists but almost entirely confined to Protestant areas), though the flag protests may not help Alliance, and their candidate has been subjected to online racial abuse.

This loss to the SDLP would happen if the minor unionists took lots of UUP votes and didn't transfer onwards and Alliance transferred relatively strongly to SDLP. I would put the probability of this outcome at about 5-10%, as unionist voters do tend to transfer to their candidates across the ballot paper.

SDLP won't take Sinn Féin's seat either way, as SF are bullet-proof (sorry).

[Tender Branson]

Germany (FGW for ZDF):

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Only 27% of voters are very interested or interested in the EP elections. 72% are not interested or not at all interested.

53% say the information about the EP elections are not sufficient for them, 44% are ok with the info they get/have.

Also, 55% of Germans want an end to the EU-wide free movement policy and quotas similar to what Switzerland recently voted on. 41% want to keep the free movement policy for EU citizens.

http://www.forschungsgruppe.de/Aktuelles/Politbarometer

[Tender Branson]

I wonder how the pollsters do their predictions here, if only 27% of people say there are interested in the election.

Towards election day it will rise slightly, but turnout will still be low at about 35% or so.

So, is FGW and the others just releasing the voting intentions for the 27% who say they are (very) interested, or do they base their poll on ALL voters (which would be bad, since 70% of them are not voting) ?

[Diouf]

Ixé poll

Seats:

PD 23
M5S 21
FI 19
Tsipras list 6
Lega Nord 4

The Tsipras List is called L'Altra Europa con Tsipras (The Other Europe with Tsipras), and seems to be supported by SEL, PRC, and PdCI.

[swl]

Some news from Greece

What's up with the LAOS (and its two MEPs)?

[MaxQue]

Some news from Greece

What's up with the LAOS (and its two MEPs)?

They polled 1.3% at last Greek election and seems to have faded.

[palandio]

7.2% for the Italian United Left list looks like a good start for them. We should still keep in mind past projects like the Rainbow Left (2008 national election) and Civic Revolution (2013 national election) that began above 4% and the then faded away. The difference is that in the European elections there is no majority bonus for "coalitions" and hence there are less incentives for the voto utile ("useful vote").
In the 2009 European elections there were two main left-wing lists, the Anticapitalist List aka Nameless list with Hammer and Sickle (including the Communist Refoundation party [PRC] and the Party of Italian Communists [PdCI]) at 3.4% and Left and Freedom (including Vendola's Movement for the Left [PRC dissidents], Democratic Left [PD dissidents], Unite the Left [PdCi dissidents] the Greens and the PSI) at 3.1%. If you sum them up, you arrive at 6.5%, but remember that for the Italian Left the whole is often less than the sum of its parts...

[palandio]

There will probably be a united center-left list in Hungary called Ősszefogás (Unity), both for the national and for the European elections. Participants might be:

MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party, current leader: Attila Mesterházy)
ex-PM Gordon Bajnai's E14 (Together 2014)
ex-PM Ferenc Gyurcsány's DK (Democratic Coalition)
Gábor Fodor's Liberals
LMP-split-off PM (Dialogue for Hungary)

On the other hand LMP (Politics can be different) will run independently, but they are polling very low at the moment.

[Diouf]

The first Danish EU poll by Gallup. It includes don't knows and blank votes, so the figures for the parties are quite low. Also it's quite weird that won't vote is included, and then with an extremely low figure like 3 %; turnout was 57.70 % last time around so it's probably not gonna jump to 97 %. I guess those 3 % are people who started the poll out by saing that they would vote, and then when asked for who, said that they wouldn't vote after all. Or perhaps the don't knows are also people who are not very likely to vote.
The electoral alliances are not set in stone yet, so new alliances could change the seat distribution. (seat figures compared to 2009)

V Liberals (ALDE) 16 % 4 seats (+1)
A Social Democrats (S&D) 13 %  3 (-1)
O DPP (EFD) 13 % 3 (+1)
N People's movement against EU (GUE-NGL) 5 % 1 (=)
B Social Liberals (ALDE) 4 %  1 (+1)
F SPP (Greens) 4 %  1 (-1)
C Conservatives (EPP) 3 % 0 (-1)
I Liberal Alliance (prop ECR) 2 % 0 (=)
Don't know 30 %
Blank vote 4 %
won't vote 3 %

[FredLindq]

Since Italy have a 4% threshold Forza Italia might be the only centre right party in Italy getting seats in the EP. Does anyone know if there are talkshow about electroal coalitions on the centre right?!

[Velasco]

El Pais (Metroscopia) poll, Feb 2014.

PSOE 28.1% (18 seats)

PP 26.3% (16)

IU 14.5% (9)

UPyD 8.1% (5)

CEU 5.1% (3)

ERC 3.3% (2)

C's 1.7% (1)

*_{CEU: CiU, PNV, CC and others}

PSOE is still slightly ahead, but the announcement of Elena Valenciano's candidacy didn't boost the Spanish socialists. Mariano Rajoy didn't appoint PP's candidate yet; maybe next week he will do so (Miguel Arias Cañete is the favourite).

Pollsters say that it's difficult to estimate the results of small parties/coalitions.

Direct vote figures are: PSOE 12.8%; PP 11.6%; IU 8.3%; UPyD 4.1%; ERC 1.7%; CiU 1.4%; PNV 0.8%; C's 0.6%; Vox 0.6%; Amaiur/Bildu/Aralar 0.5%;  Equo-Compromís 0.5%; Podemos 0.4%.

Ciutadans (C's) will place lawyer and talk show guest Javier Nart. The hard-right Vox, a PP splinter, will be headed by MEP Alejo Vidal-Quadras. Equo (Spanish greens) and Compromís (a centre-left coalition in Valencia) will run together and hold open primaries. ERC, the catalan independentist party, will run in its own. It's uncertain if EHBildu will go in coalition with BNG and other parties. The Galician Anova will go in the IU coalition and the far (true) left Podemos will negotiate next week a common list with IU.

[Niemeyerite]

VOX will join the EPP group in the EP (if they get any seat):

http://voxespana.es/index.php/212-vidal-quadras-confirma-que-los-eurodiputados-de-vox-se-integraran-en-el-grupo-parlamentario-popular-europeo

[Diouf]

Sam Coates, deputy political editor at the Times, tweets that "Cameron will veto any attempt by the German anti Euro party to sit with UK Conservatives MEPs in the European Parliament - to appease Merkel". That must cause quite a lot of conflict with most of his MEPs.

[Franknburger]

The German CDU is now officially backing Jean-Claude Juncker.

[Tender Branson]

The BZÖ is flirting with the idea of running Jörg Haider's daughter Ulrike as their frontrunner for the EP elections.

It's official: Jörg Haider's daughter Ulrike (who's married to an Italian) will be the BZÖ's frontrunner in the EP elections, she told the "Kronen Zeitung" in an interview.



http://www.krone.at/Oesterreich/EU-Wahl_BZOe_trumpft_mit_Haiders_Tochter_auf-Politik_im_Blut-Story-394921

What does that mean ?

I doubt the BZÖ will get a seat, but you never know ...

The Haider-brand is heavily damaged right now (-> Hypo bank scandal), but there's still a decent core of Haider supporters out there.

[EPG]

The German CDU is now officially backing Jean-Claude Juncker.

I suppose this was inevitable after Angela Merkel expressed such support. This doesn't really bind them to support him after the EP election, though.

[Middle-aged Europe]

BREAKING: German Constitutional Court rules against 3% threshold.

Which means there will be no threshold at all for winning seats in Germany in this election. Good news for FDP, Pirates, NPD, Free Voters, and possibly the Animal Protection Party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

You'll effectively need about 0.5% of the votes to win a seat in Germany now.

Paties who won 0.5% or more in the last Bundestag election:
CDU
SPD
Left
Greens
CSU
FDP
AfD
Pirates
NPD
Free Voters

In addition, the following parties won 0.5% or more in the last European election:
Republicans
Animal Protection Party
Family Party
Pensioners' Party
Ecological Democratic Party


Hypothetical result in seats of the 2009 European election without any threshold (in brackets the difference to the actual result):

CDU 32 (-2)
SPD 21 (-2)
Greens 12 (-2)
FDP 11 (-1)
Left 8 (+-0)
CSU 7 (-1)
Free Voters 2 (+2)
Republicans 1 (+1)
Animal Protection Party 1 (+1)
Family Party 1 (+1)
Pirate Party 1 (+1)
Pensioners' Party 1 (+1)
Ecological Democratic Party 1 (+1)

[Antonio the Sixth]

BREAKING: German Constitutional Court rules against 3% threshold.

Which means there will be no threshold at all for winning seats in Germany in this election. Good news for FDP, Pirates, NPD, Free Voters, and possibly the Animal Protection Party.

Why the hell is the German CC so prone to judicial activism? From what I know, it's clearly stepping beyond its domain of competence (see also the Euro-related rulings).

[Beezer]

How exactly is it overstepping its bounds when delivering a verdict on German electoral laws?

[MaxQue]

BREAKING: German Constitutional Court rules against 3% threshold.

Which means there will be no threshold at all for winning seats in Germany in this election. Good news for FDP, Pirates, NPD, Free Voters, and possibly the Animal Protection Party.

Why the hell is the German CC so prone to judicial activism? From what I know, it's clearly stepping beyond its domain of competence (see also the Euro-related rulings).

I fail to see how someone could be out of competence of the highest court.
Sure, you're used to powerless French courts, but that's precisely what courts shouldn't do (be infeoded to government).