Who will represent Dunedin voters after the general election in November? At the moment there are six MPs resident in Dunedin (electorate MPs Clare Curran and Pete Hodgson; and list MPs Metiria Turei, Michael Woodhouse, David Parker and Hilary Calvert). This mix will change considerably, especially because Hodgson is retiring, Parker is shifting to Auckland, and Calvert is not standing again. So, which Dunedin candidates will get into Parliament via their party lists or the Dunedin electorate contests? This blog post reproduces my monthly column from the DScene newspaper. [Read more below]
Matt McCarten’s candidacy in the Mana by-election is one of the most promising developments on the New Zealand left for many years. Not only does this mean that the by-election just became much more interesting, McCarten’s campaign has much wider political ramifications – for example, it could be the launching pad for a new party to fill the gaping big hole on the left of the political spectrum in New Zealand. This blog post looks at why McCarten is standing in the election, whether he could actually win the seat, who might support him, and what it all means for Labour and the Greens. [Read more below]
Sometimes the most interesting political parties provide the most boring and bland post-election self-analyses in post-election books – witness the latest Green and Maori party chapters – while the most boring parties can offer relatively interesting and insightful chapters. This is certainly the case with the chapter by Rob Eddy on United Future’s campaign in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. Eddy writes candidly of the challenges and failures of this middle-of-the-road party, and concludes with a surprisingly honest and downbeat prediction about there being no future for United Future. [Read more below]
Rahui Katene’s account of the Maori Party’s 2008 election campaign is a rather insubstantial and slight chapter in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. At only four pages long it’s the shortest in the book. And, sadly it’s not necessarily a case of ‘quality over quantity’ either – there’s little of interest or insight in Katene’s story. Instead of meaningfulness, there’s lots of vagueness, platitudes and wooly talk from the new MP. For example, she talks about how ‘The concept was that the Maori Party is the voice of the people, the face of the future. We listen to people’ (p.96). [Read more below]
New Zealand First’s electoral death was one of the major outcomes of the 2008 general election, yet we haven’t seen much analysis of why the party failed (although my attempt can be found here). The party itself is rather secretive and normally rather uncooperative with any such investigation by the media or academics. Partly making up for this lacunae is the very useful chapter by Damian Edwards (an ex-Ministerial Advisor to Winston Peters) on the party’s campaign in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. We find out that the main causes of NZ First’s loss were the media and the Labour Party. And NZ First’s “save your grandma” campaign wasn’t successful enough to get the party over the 5% threshold. [Read more below]
The most bizarre thing about the recent British general election was how a campaign could be both fascinating and boring at the same time. There was definitely something interesting going on, partly due to the closeness of the race and partly just because it amounted to the end of an era in electoral politics. But it was also dreadfully dull – with the various political parties being more bland than ever, and the austere policies of Labour, Lib Dems and Tories converging into an unattractive centre. It’s not surprising therefore that despite the heightened public interest in the campaign, voter turnout didn’t improve much at all. In fact, the real winner of the campaign was “The Abstention Party” – due to the fact that more of the electorate choose not to vote than the numbers that voted Conservative. [Read more below]
The changing political identity of the Act Party is the core focus of MP John Boscawen in writing about his party’s 2008 election campaign. Most notably, the leader was ‘repositioned’, the party’s oppositional style was dropped, friendships were sought with other minor parties, and controversial positions on Maori and the Treaty were abandoned. And although this sounds like Act were turning into ‘National-lite’, the party then campaigned on the basis that National was becoming ‘Labour-lite’. This is all discussed in the short and concise chapter by John Boscawen in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. [Read more below]
The New Zealand post-election books that are published by Victoria University of Wellington always contain chapters written by political party members – usually MPs – and are often a bit hit and miss. When they’re good, the writer will give invaluable insights into how their party ran their campaign, what they were trying to achieve, what went well and what didn’t, etc. Unfortunately, often the party participant isn’t really up to the challenge, and this is certainly the case with Catherine Delahunty’s chapter on the Greens’ campaign. It’s hard to get much out of her chapter in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. [Read more below]
Did the Labour Party lose the 2008 election simply due to a ‘benign dismissal’ by a public that wanted to give the other political team a go at running things? Labour MP Grant Robertson thinks so. Robertson, who is a former adviser to Helen Clark and now the MP for Wellington Central, writes about the reasons for Labour’s defeat in his chapter on the Labour campaign in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. This blog post briefly relays Robertson’s intelligent, but well-spun chapter, noting a few flaws. [Read more below]
The National Party’s election campaign of 2008 was notable for its relatively non-aggressive attitude to Labour, as well as its boring political advertising. Unlike in 2005 when National posed itself in starkly different terms to Labour via its iwi/Kiwi style contrast billboards, in the next election it decided to play down differences, remove humour from its ads, and to lay off criticising Labour. Campaign manager, Steven Joyce, explains why in his chapter on the National campaign in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. The blog post briefly relays Joyce’s insights into the National campaign. [Read more below]
Throughout the Helen Clark Labour Government’s third term in office, issues of political finance were particularly controversial, culminating with the Electoral Finance Act 2007 (EFA) being widely debated as either a cure or poison for fair elections. But just how much impact did the now-defunct EFA have on the actual 2008 general election campaign? This blog post below is a highly abridged version of the chapter that I wrote entitled ‘The impact of the Electoral Finance Act’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). [Read more below]
Under MMP we supposedly have a multi-party system – with a plethora of minor parties giving colour and life to political debate. But the reality is that this image is more of a mirage. Our minor parties are the weakest they’ve been for decades, and it’s not clear that any of the them have an assured future in Parliament. These are the issues examined by Jennifer Curtin and Raymond Miller in their excellent chapter entitled ‘New Zealand’s party system: a multi-party mirage?’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). This blog post highlights some of the most interesting points made by Curtin and Miller, including the suggestion of a more limited future for the smaller parties. [Read more below]
It’s always interesting to see how the rest of the world views New Zealand politics and elections. Sometimes the international media political reports contain gross distortions and various ‘lost in translation’ elements, and other times the media reports and analysis benefits from its distance and its ability to put our politics into a wider context. Therefore it’s fortunate that German journalist and scholar Aljoscha Kertesz has gathered together ‘almost 300 media reports appearing in foreign media’ about the New Zealand general election of 2008 and analysed them, noting some of the examples and trends in his chapter entitled ‘2008: The International media and the election’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). This blog post highlights some of the most interesting points and examples made in this unusual but very welcome chapter. In particular, it highlights the characterisation of the 2008 context as seemingly both ‘lackluster’ and ‘ugly’ [Read more below]
Why was Labour turfed out of office in 2008? Colin James puts down the Government’s electoral decline to Labour’s ‘failure of political management’ in areas such as the Electoral Finance Act and the so-called anti-smacking bill, as well as generally being punished for pushing a heavy socially liberal agenda. Labour also lost the electoral fight to show that it was the toughest on law and order. James says that the victorious National Party got there due to John Key’s ‘bland leading the bland’ strategy, which now results in a managerial ‘government by MBA’. James writes about these issue and others in a chapter entitled ‘2008: The last baby-boomer election’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). This blog post highlights some of the salient points made in this chapter. [Read more below]
Although the 2008 New Zealand general election led to a change of government, it wasn’t exactly a big-change election. Rather than heralding a complete change of policy direction, the election mostly offered more of the same. These points are well made in a chapter entitled ‘Leadership during transition’ by Jon Johansson in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). Johansson also looks at the question of ‘What drives political change in New Zealand?’ and whether there has been any sort of generational shift in political leadership. [Read more below]
Commercialism Vs Professionalism. That’s the tension present in modern media coverage of politics according to Babak Bahador, who’s written a very good chapter entitled ‘Media coverage of the election’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts). Bahador asks, ‘So how did the New Zealand media balance these forces during the 2008 election? Did they follow commercial trends in other Western democracies towards increasingly partisan, negative, presidential and superficial coverage? Or did they maintain a reasonable degree of professionalism in their coverage and fulfil their democratic duty?’. He attempts to answer these questions with a comprehensive content analysis of the New Zealand Herald, Dominion Post, the Press, and TV1 and TV3 evening news. He comes up with some very interesting results. [Read more below]
The Labour Party thought that the 2008 New Zealand general election would be won on the issue of trust (i.e. voters becoming suspicious of ‘slippery John’ and his ‘hidden agenda’), whereas National thought it would be won on the issue of leadership personality and engagement with voters (i.e. the idea of Helen Clark being an out-of-touch elitist vs ‘common John’ who could relate socially to ordinary Kiwis). In the end, Labour was wrong and National was right, and critical ‘image events’ helped determine National’s win according to Claire Robinson’s chapter entitled ‘Images of political leadership in the campaign’ in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts) In fact, National effectively won the election back in mid-2007 by fighting and winning on the issue of leadership personality. [Read more below]
During an election campaign, when we want to know the likely outcomes, we normally look to the five main voter opinion polls that are published by the mainstream media. But as Shaun McGirr and Rob Salmond argue in their chapter in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 (edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts) there are some problems with these established opinion polls, and in the 2008 election there were ‘two emerging challengers: “polls-of-polls” and election prediction markets’. Their chapter asks ‘which sources of political information New Zealanders should trust in election campaigns’?, finding that ‘some of the options are substantially superior to others’. [Read more below]
Was Labour’s election loss in 2008 a ‘benign dismissal’? Therese Arseneau is not so sure that it was. Certainly National’s 2008 win was the result of a much cleverer and pragmatic electoral strategy than in 2005. Furthermore, although not unexciting, the campaign was rather lackluster, without any significantly defining issues, polarisation or passion. This is what Arseneau writes about in her chapter in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. [Read more below]
The National and Green parties won the battle of YouTube in the New Zealand general election of 2008 according to a chapter entitled ‘2008: The YouTube campaign’ by Rob Salmond in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. The chapter looks ‘at the different ways in which political parties used YouTube to communicate with New Zealanders’, and argues that successful strategies involved putting positive-themed political advertisements on television and using YouTube for the negative, attack-advertising. Unsurprisingly, twice as many YouTube clips were negative, and on average these were watched by 2.5 times more than positive videos. [Read more below]
Helen Clark never really took to Facebooking with much enthusiasm, and in the 2008 general election her most commented on status update on Facebook was: “Helen Clark is stuck at the airport”. John Key, in comparison, gathered up twice as many Facebook registered friends and fans as Clark. These are some of the facts presented in the chapter entitled ‘2008: The campaign in cyberspace’ by Nicola Kean in the new post-election book Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 edited by Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts. This blog post discusses the chapter, mentioning some of the more salient facts and observations made in terms of 2008’s campaign on the party websites, social networking and blogs. [Read more below]
New Zealand’s preeminent psephologists – that is, political scientists that study and explain elections - Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts have just published their latest book, entitled Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008. This edited collection is their ‘eighth in a series of New Zealand post-election books that have followed on from conferences held shortly after each general election’. The book attempts, they say, to provide ‘an overall perspective of what occurred and why’. As well as editing the book, Levine and Roberts wrote two chapters and a preface, which are discussed in this blog post. This work explains some of the factors shaping voting behaviour, making use of a pre-election voter survey that they commissioned – which they’ve done in every election since 1984. The results show, for instance that the Greens were the least liked party in the 2008 election, and that Helen Clark was no match for John Key in what was a two-horse leadership race [Read more below]
In the 2008 general election, half of voters (51%) thought there were only ‘minor differences’ between the parties during the campaign, while only 38% thought there were actually major differences between the parties. Furthermore, when survey respondents were asked to place the parties on the left-right spectrum, ‘A third could not place Labour or National’. These findings from the New Zealand Election Survey surely reflects the policy convergence of the parties, and are detailed in Jack Vowles’ new academic chapter about the election. Entitled ‘The 2008 Election: Why National Won’, Vowles’ chapter is in the just published fifth edition of New Zealand Government and Politics, edited by Raymond Miller. Vowles provides many other interesting statistics about voters and the parties. This blog post highlights some of these things. [Read more below]
National won the 2008 New Zealand general election because it ran a relatively conservative election campaign, promised little real change, but most importantly, it was an attractive option because it would be ‘a government not led by Helen Clark’. The whole campaign fight was largely about Clark and the unpopular perception of the politically correct regime she had established. The result was a new National Government that is spectacularly diverse in its makeup. This is what Victoria University of Wellington political scientists Stephen Levine and Nigel Roberts say in a new academic chapter about the election. Entitled ‘The General Election of 2008’, Levine and Roberts’ chapter is in the just published fifth edition of New Zealand Government and Politics, edited by Raymond Miller. The chapter is also notable for uncovering some interesting facts about the 2008 election campaign and the resulting Parliament. This blog post highlights some of these things. [Read more below]
How is it that a political party like National – deeply discredited by its extreme embrace of neoliberalism in the 1990s – could have so successfully found its way back into office last year? The answer is found in a recent conference paper given by André Broome of the University of Birmingham, entitled ‘Rebranding the Right? Political Baggage and the Redefinition of Party Identity’ [Download Broome]. Using the New Zealand National Party as a case study, Broome argues that rightwing parties rebrand to create distance from associations with previous – and unpopular – neoliberal terms in government. This excellent academic paper also explains why political marketing and branding have become such a central part of modern politics. It also argues that in countries like New Zealand, there is a very discernable shift towards policy convergence in elections, and a similar decline in the salience of left/right politics matched by an increase in postmaterialist competition. [Read more below]
To what extent does the
left-right political dimension still structure political party competition in
New Zealand politics? Where do the parties sit on that spectrum? What other
political dimensions now underpin our electoral politics? This extensive blog
post presents the findings of a regular survey of New Zealand political
scientists about party ideological conflict that has been carried out for the
three MMP general elections of 1996, 2002, and 2008. Explaining the results,
and drawing on some previous blog posts, it argues that the left-right spectrum
is of declining importance in New Zealand politics, and that ideological
conflict is cohered to a greater degree by post-materialist issues. The major
political parties in New Zealand now all agree on the basic post-Keynesian
economic framework that dominates discourse and policy formation. No party
fundamentally challenges the paradigm shift that occurred with the neoliberal
revolution that occurred from 1984 onwards. All parties now agree, explicitly
or implicitly, that the market is the best mechanism for generating wealth and
distributing good and services. Within this ‘new policy consensus’ there is, of
course, room for some limited discussion of when and where the state should
intervene to correct market failure, but because there is essentially no debate
of any substance around material/economic issues, what might be called
‘postmaterial issues’ now represent the arena for ideological and political
conflict in parliamentary politics. Furthermore, within this post-reform
era political conflict is underpinned by a strong pragmatism rather than
principle. Some explanations are proposed for the rise of the new consensus,
the decline of left-right conflict, and the increasing salience of societal
issues in electoral competition. [Read more below]
The Green Party candidate in the recent Mt Albert by-election ran the most expensive campaign, spending an incredible $39,071, or about $15 per vote. Figures just released by the Electoral Commission show that Russel Norman outspent all other candidates in order to come a distant third in the race, with only 2,567 votes. Once again, this shows the Greens to be one of the rich parties, and that it continues to believe its own mistaken mantra that ‘money buys elections’. [Read more below]
New Zealand’s fifth MMP general election in 2008 was, according to the main party slogans, a contest between ‘trust’ and ‘a brighter future’. It was also one of the least dynamic and policy-oriented in living memory. The highly-professionalized strategies meant that it was certainly no contest of ideas or broadly different political options for voters. Despite the usual electoral hyperbole, the programmatic differences were more blurred than ever. This was especially noticeable in economic policy, with seemingly interchangeable economic outlooks, and virtually no disagreement on what should be done about the developing economic recession. In the absence of any substantive differences in economics, and with few other issues resonating with the public, the campaign came down to a choice of leadership. This is the conclusion of my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). The blog post below reproduces the draft conclusion of my chapter. Subsequently the draft chapter was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
The Maori Party had three related objectives for the 2008 campaign: to win all seven Maori electorates, gain greater recognition as the ‘Treaty partner’ in Parliament, and have a role in the next government. Thus the party sought to project itself as the independent kingmaker of the election, hoping to take up the same strategic position that New Zealand First had held as an important player in past coalition negotiations, able to leverage disproportionate policy gains from the major parties. In order to gain this position, the Maori Party had to carefully construct an image of political neutrality between Labour and National. These are the issues that I focus on in the section on the Maori Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the 12th of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about the Maori Party that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
In 2008 the Green Party was set to become the third largest party in Parliament. To get there the party attempted to take a qualitatively different approach to the past – adopting a highly professsionalised and market-oriented strategy. Taking the ‘Americanisation’ of politics towards its logical conclusion the Green also embraced a very celebrity-focused method of campaigning, while still relying on some traditional minor party media stunts. The party also attempted to break out of its ‘left ghetto’ but with mixed success. These are some of the issues that I focus on in the section on the Green Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the ninth of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about the Greens that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
The National Party’s 2008 general election campaign strategy was widely criticised for being conservative and uninspiring. There were three main integral elements that contributed to this blandness: an ideologically-centrist election platform, a relatively policy-free approach, and a general ultra-cautious attempt to avoid mistakes or cause offence to any voters. These are the issues that I focus on in the section on the National Party within my chapter entitled ‘Party Strategy and the 2008 Election’ which is part of the recently published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig). This blog post is the seventh of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book, and it constitutes the original draft section about National that I wrote for my chapter. Subsequently this draft was substantially reworked, edited, and condensed for the final book, so please see the published book for the final and ‘authoritative’ version. [Read more below]
How well were electronic forms of politics utilised in last year’s general election? How effectively did the political parties and electorate candidates use websites, email, social networking in their campaigning? What about bloggers and the mainstream media? These questions are addressed in a chapter by Peter John Chen about ‘the role, use and impact of online media in New Zealand’s 2008 election’, published in Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig of the University of Otago Politics department). This blog post is the fourth of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book (which I also have a chapter in). [Read more below]
How well did the daily newspapers cover the 2008 election campaign? Did readers get good, substantial information to make informed choices between parties? Or did the papers focus on the personalities and events, and more superficial aspects of the campaign? Was the ‘horse race’ given greater coverage than policy? Was ‘there a structural bias towards coverage of the major players?’ The answers are found in a chapter by Otago University’s Chris Rudd and Janine Hayward in the just published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig of the University of Otago Politics department). This blog post is the second of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book (which I also have a chapter in). In their comprehensive chapter Rudd and Hayward use a content analysis of four of New Zealand’s most popular newspapers published during the last month of the campaign [Read more below]
How well did TV1 and TV3 cover the 2008 election campaign? Was it banal and superficial? Or in depth and serious? What issues were covered by TV? Which leaders got the best coverage? The answers are found in a chapter by Massey University’s Associate Professor Margie Comrie in the just published book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by Chris Rudd, Janine Hayward and Geoff Craig of the University of Otago Politics department). This blog post is the first of a series of explorations of the chapters from the new book (which I also have a chapter in). In her comprehensive chapter Comrie uses a content analysis of the official campaign period ‘to examine some questions about the quantity and quality of coverage and about the role of the two channels as providers of information and entertainment, as watchdogs or even junkyard dogs’. She has a lot of positive things to say, but also laments the shift towards an emphasis on individual politicians, especially the leaders of the two dominant parties, the focus on superficial campaign events, and the talking up of fleeting political ‘scandals’ rather than actually covering policies. [Read more below]
Every year the European Journal of Political Research publishes a political date yearbook which gives a review of politics in a number of western countries. I contribute the section on New Zealand to the journal – last year’s publication on New Zealand politics in 2007 can be read here. Below is the first draft of my review of New Zealand politics in 2008. It still requires a bit of abridging and editing, and as always I’m interested in feedback and suggestions, which you can leave in the comments section or email me (edwards.bryceATgmail.com). [Read more below]
In response to my earlier blog post on the Ideological collapse in Irish politics, Philip Ferguson has supplied the following guest blog post elaborating on my previous point about how the campaigns of the various parties in the southern Irish elections lack issues of substance. ---- In the final week of the Irish election campaign, one thing has united most of the players: create a panic about the dangers of Sinn Féin getting into government and scare people into voting for your party. While the Labour Party (historically the third party in the south of Ireland) has an actual electoral alliance with Fine Gael (historically, the second main party), Labour leader Pat Rabbitte is now intimating that his party could go into coalition with Fianna Fail in order to save Fianna Fail from coalition with Sinn Féin. [Read more below]
Ireland – a country with many similarities to New Zealand - is about to go to the polls. And as with NZ politics, there’s been an ideological collapse in Irish politics. Despite having proportional representation in both countries - which is supposed to encourage ideological diversity – in both countries it seems to have had a very homogenizing effect. This is certainly Jason Walsh’s view of Irish politics, which you can read in his Guardian article A poor advertisement for politics. He says ‘the ideological collapse in Irish politics is breathtaking’, and ‘No matter who wins the 2007 general election, the voters will lose’. It certainly sounds like NZ. According to Walsh, Irish voters have a choice ‘between two populist conservative parties slugging it out for control of government supported by their Labour-conservative and radical-conservative partners’, and ‘Instead of issues and ideas we have scandals’, which he says are ‘a poor substitute for politics’. He quotes from a John O'Farrell novel to say, ‘What's the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? The same as the difference between shit and shite.’ While all this is surely true, there are some interesting things about this week’s Irish election. First, as Owen Bowcott points out in A boom too far, ‘After centuries of poverty, mass emigration and underinvestment, there is a new political agenda emerging in Ireland: how to cope with the consequences of affluence’ – essentially mainstream parties have failed to manage the economic boom, especially in distributing any of the proceeds fairly. Second, Sinn Féin are doing very well (8-10%), and could possibly take part in the next government of the South, meaning that the party would for the first time be in power in both the south and north of Ireland.
The race is on to replace French President Jacques Chirac - who has been the most unpopular president since polling began - with a recent popularity rating of just 29%. Added to this, there are massive social and economic problems in the country, with 54% of the French think their country is in decline. In this context, the French Socialist Party presidential candidate should be the almost unstoppable. Yet Ségolène Royal's campaign has been a bit of a disaster, and her programme has been far from convincing to voters, as she lurches from left to right and back again. The Guardian has pointed out that her failings in opinion polls might be related to the conservative nature of the French electorate, but the newspaper also adds that although Royal complains of sexism, her support base is actually heavily male, with women supporters being the least loyal. [Read more below]
