Lithuanian Parliamentary elections

[ModerateCoward]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19940043
Labour and Social democrats should form a coalition. Quite surprising, considering Baltic countries are supposed to be right-wing.

[ObserverIE]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19940043
Labour and Social democrats should form a coalition. Quite surprising, considering Baltic countries are supposed to be right-wing.

1. The Lithuanian Communists were ahead of their other Baltic equivalents in the late 80s in rebranding themselves as patriotic social democrats.

2. Lithuania doesn't have a very large Russian-speaking minority which tends to support a particular party (Keskerakond in Estonia, Harmony Centre in Latvia), which can then be represented as anti-national barely reconstructed Commies and against which the local right-wing parties can define themselves.

Although I think the Social Democrats in Estonia have been doing reasonably well in opinion polls lately.

[Leftbehind]

Is the Lithuanian Labour party leftist like the article states? From what I've read it doesn't seem like your typical Labour party. If not, this result doesn't really contradict the right-wing reputation (18% for the SD).

[Sibboleth]

It's a centre-ish populist outfit that uses a name normally associated with socialism for some reason. But is obviously (and considerably) to the left of the outgoing government.

[Hashemite]

Not sure if the LSDP is populistic, it is certainly left of centre; the main left populist force is the Labour Party (DP?) led by a Russian millionaire/criminal.

[Sibboleth]

Not sure if the LSDP is populistic, it is certainly left of centre; the main left populist force is the Labour Party (DP?) led by a Russian millionaire/criminal.

Yep, and it's them (Labour) I was writing about. Their electoral record is amusingly yo-yo like.

[bore]

The most interesting part of this campaign, from my perspective was the candidacy of "Mad" Vladimir Romanov, who was a former submariner who then turned into a businessman, with all the shady goings on associated with 90s eastern european millionaires. However he really made his name in Scotland by buying everybody's favourite football team, heart of midlothian, where he has run up a massive debt, made stupid promises (like winning the champions league in 3 years and building a 51 million pound stadium) and fires managers like its going out of fashion and fails to pay anyone.

Mad Vlad previously wanted to run for president in 2009, buoyed by his huge success in Lithuania's strictly come dancing (dancing with the stars), but was told as he was born in Russia he couldn't. Still, unperturbed he decided to run a slate of candidates for this election, including 3 of his football players (from clubs other than hearts) 2 70s basketballers and a local dancer. In the end he came last with 0.26%, although this may be down to his popular policy of telling no one his policies saying  “My enemies will tell you what my goals are. You won’t believe them anyway. I don’t have time to speak about it now.”, as much as his general dodginess. For thi=ose of you who want to know more, there is a good article about him at the edinburgh evening news: http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/latest-news/hearts-owner-vladimir-romanov-s-political-party-comes-dead-last-in-lithuania-1-2576640

[Marcus Aurelius]

The way the Lithuanian Labour is affiliated to ELDR and ALDE tends to tell me it's really a right-wing party, or at least a centre one if you acknowledge there is such a thing as a centre. They sit there with merry folks like VVD, LibDems or FDP...

[ModerateCoward]

The way the Lithuanian Labour is affiliated to ELDR and ALDE tends to tell me it's really a right-wing party, or at least a centre one if you acknowledge there is such a thing as a centre. They sit there with merry folks like VVD, LibDems or FDP...

That's unfortunate, but could it be that the political class is different from the voters who voted labour, and force their hand into left-wing policies? A little far-fetched, since the Euro usually forces left-wing parties into right-wing policies.

[Ethelberth]

dp used to belong to edp

[Hashemite]

The way the Lithuanian Labour is affiliated to ELDR and ALDE tends to tell me it's really a right-wing party, or at least a centre one if you acknowledge there is such a thing as a centre. They sit there with merry folks like VVD, LibDems or FDP...

I'm not one to defend the random outfit of some criminal millionaire who is nothing more than a greedy power-hungry populist, but by your standards, then the N-VA must be a pretty cool progressive centre-left green party - they sit in the G-EFA group.

[Insula Dei]

The way the Lithuanian Labour is affiliated to ELDR and ALDE tends to tell me it's really a right-wing party, or at least a centre one if you acknowledge there is such a thing as a centre. They sit there with merry folks like VVD, LibDems or FDP...

I'm not one to defend the random outfit of some criminal millionaire who is nothing more than a greedy power-hungry populist, but by your standards, then the N-VA must be a pretty cool progressive centre-left green party - they sit in the G-EFA group.

Yeah, that's like my favourite political fact ever.

[Ethelberth]

Especially, if it will become third largest delegation in that particular group next time.

[Marcus Aurelius]

The G-EFA group is a bunch of useless guys. Right-wing German Grünen, sort of left-wing French Verts and sort of autonomistic people from all over the place don't make a coherent political group. Plus one-topic-only parties tend to run on my nerves... So, yeah... No.

[Ethelberth]

GUE/NGL has been rather heterogenius too. In general green group has been very homogenius compared to the rest of the EP group. That makes N-VA so visibly different.

[♀ Komrade Feminazi Kitteh ♀]

I think the Green-EFA group is so heterogeneous because it's a union of a bunch of people that don't really have anything to do with each other. The Greens don't have anything to do with a bunch of regionalists and separatists, and the various EFA people don't necessarily share anything either (is there really that much in common between Basque and Scottish and Flemish nationalism?). If it were just the greens the group would be much more uniform, or at least as uniform as any european parliament group is :p.

[Senator MaxQue]

I think the Green-EFA group is so heterogeneous because it's a union of a bunch of people that don't really have anything to do with each other. The Greens don't have anything to do with a bunch of regionalists and separatists, and the various EFA people don't necessarily share anything either (is there really that much in common between Basque and Scottish and Flemish nationalism?). If it were just the greens the group would be much more uniform, or at least as uniform as any european parliament group is :p.

The greens are often allied to the various autonomists, through, in many countries.
In UK, the Scotland party is separated and pro-independance, I think.
In France, the Greens always leave some seats to the autonomists (that caused a Bretagne regionalist win in 2012, when PS left a seat to Greens, which left it to a regionalist, which won (and which was a bit of an upset.).

[Leftbehind]

In UK, the Scotland party is separated and pro-independance, I think.

Correct. The SNP/Plaid aren't a bad fit for the Green group, thinking about it.

[Sibboleth]

Given what a lot of Plaid members up this way are like it's actually vaguely hilarious...

[Leftbehind]

NIMBYs? I suppose I'm going off nothing much more than what the leader espouses, and how Plaid once had an alliance with the Greens for the Euros.

It's weird to hear the phrase 'up this way' in relation to Wales.

[Sibboleth]

Farmers and the like.

[Ethelberth]

Due the attempts to prevent too small groups, the EFA cannot have their own group. The maximal number of EFA parties in the EP would be about 15-20 (if they would get five seats in Belgium, Spain and UK)  that is under the 25 MEPs 7 countries criterion.