EP elections 2014

[palandio]

Elections on different administrative levels may have their own dynamics.

Regarding AfD performance on European and on state level a different amount of support seems very plausible because European politics is the core issue for the AfD (at least in the public perception). (UKIP might be similar.)

[palandio]

Elections on different administrative levels may have their own dynamics.

Those were state-level European election polls.

Oh sorry, I didn't arrive at the idea that they could make state level polls about the EP elections.
But the state level polls seem a bit fluked when taken together:

Hamburg:
CDU 26 (down from 29.7 last time, down from 32.1 in the federal election)
SPD 35 (up from 25.4 last time, up from 32.4 in the federal election)
Greens 16 (down from 20.5 last time, up from 12.7 in the federal election)
Left 9 (up from 6.7 last time, up from 8.8 in the federal election)
FDP 6 (down from 11.1 last time, up from 4.8 in the federal election)
AfD 4 (down from 4.2 in the federal election)
Others 4 (down from 6.6 last time, down from 5.0 in the federal election)

Bavaria:
CSU 50 (up from 48.1 last time, up from 49.3 in the federal election)
SPD 22 (up from 12.9 last time, up from 20.0 in the federal election)
Greens 12 (up from 11.5 last time, up from 8.4 in the federal election)
Left not mentioned (last time was 2.3, federal election was 3.
FDP 3 (down from 9.0 last time, down from 5.1 in the federal election)
AfD 3 (down from 4.3 in the federal election)
Others [incl. Free Voters] 10 (down from 18.5 last time, up from 9.1 in the federal election)

So my take:
CDU clearly too low in Hamburg, CSU slightly too high in Bavaria,
SPD too high,
Greens might be realistic for an EP election,
Left a bit exaggerated in Hamburg, a bit underestimated in Bavaria,
FDP too high in Hamburg, too low in Bavaria,
AfD internally consistent, but a bit surprising,
the numbers about "others" are quite consistent, but maybe a bit low for an EP election.

[palandio]

There's an Italian website that is collecting EP polls for all countries:
http://scenaripolitici.com/

[palandio]

Cyprus and Slovenia will follow on February 6 (hopefully there exist some polls). For Luxembourg they didn't find any EP poll so far.

[palandio]

Belgium: There are three constituencies, one of them is for the small German-speaking region in the East which elects exactly one deputy, likely from the Christian Socials (EPP).
France: France is divided into constituencies with d'Hondt distribution which should favor the larger parties.
UK: Similar to France. Additionally there is a Northern Ireland constituency with three seats and the usual local parties competing.
Spain: The regional parties will probably form coalitions. And you got the basque nationalists two times (PNV, EAJ-PNV) as well as the basque left-wing separatists (EHB, Amaiur).
General remark: The Green/EFA caucus not only contains Green parties, but also regionalist parties that sometimes are ideologically not very close to the Greens (e.g. the Belgian N-VA)

[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.

[palandio]

The translation of Neger is not n.

[palandio]

Talking about the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front and the Popular Front?
It's similar in Italy, Ireland etc.

[palandio]

ALDE also contains parties like the Estonian Centre Party, the Labor Party (Lithuania) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgaria). The Estonian Centre Party is the most left-wing of the major Estonian parties.

Czech ANO might also become part of the ALDE group.

In Italy there were attempts to form an ALDE list called European Choice from Civic Choice, the Radicals, Stop the Decline, Democratic Centre and others, but this alliance seems to be falling apart already. What will remain is probably an alliance of Civic Choice and Democratic Centre.

[palandio]

I think you are arguing just because you are unable to listen to each other properly.

It's just a fact that for many years far-left rhetorics have too often (not always) relied on class struggle, proletariate etc. Of course they had abbandoned Stalinism in the proper sense of the word for a long time, but at the same time the Trotzkyist among them still called others Stalinists and for the ordinary voter it's hard to distinguish between Trotzkyism, Maoism, Stalinism, Leninism, Internationalism, Anti-Revisionism, it just scares most voters.

In recent years many, but not all far-left parties have been able to scale back this Marxist-Leninist vocabulary a bit and instead focus their message more on actual politics.

[palandio]

It's just a fact that for many years far-left rhetorics have too often (not always) relied on class struggle, proletariate etc.

Are you inferring that there is no class struggle ongoing today ? And that there is no proletariate in our society ? Of course, the proletariate doesn't think of itself as such, and only the dominant class is conscious that there is indeed a class struggle, and that they are winning it. But still, these words may be dated, but the concepts are still very much current.

A majority of the German adult population does not own any property that would merit that name. And we Germans are rich by comparison. Call that proletariat if you want.
1% owns one third and here we are speaking of all property. The numbers get even higher if we only count ownership of enterprises etc. Some enterpreneur-financed lobby groups try to influence politics and to a large degree they succeed. Call that class struggle if you want, George Soros does.
I hope you get what I mean.

[palandio]

EA 65
GRÜNE 60
FPÖ 54
BZÖ 54
NEOS 53
SPÖ 50
REKOS 49
EU-STOP 42
ÖVP 41

[palandio]

Chances to get at least one seat in my opinion:

CDU, CSU, SPD, Greens, The Left, AfD, FDP, Pirates, Free Voters 100%
NPD 95%
Family Party, Animal Protection 90%
[Pensioners if they would run 75%]
ÖDP 55%
Republicans, pro NRW, DIE PARTEI, Volksabstimmung 25%
Bavaria Party, PBC 5%
AUF, DKP, PRG, MLPD, CM, BüSo 0%

Just look at the 2004 and 2008 results to see that you only need a buzz-word like Animal Protection, Family or Pensioners to get 1% in the European elections. Who would not like to protect this sweet puppy:

I wish I could vote for the Animal Protection Party.

[palandio]

Eurorealism is basically a slogan/self-description used by conservative (soft) eurosceptics.