Luxembourg general election: October 14, 2018

[DavidB.]

On October 14th, a general election will take place in Luxembourg.

The party usually leading the government in Luxembourg is the Christian Social People's Party (CSV). The CSV have topped the poll in every post-WW2 election and never received less than 30% of the vote. However, in the 2013 election, the CSV suffered from a scandal involving the secret services illegally wiretapping politicians. PM Juncker resigned, the CSV lost 5% and went into opposition for the second time since WW2 and the first time since the 1970s.

The current government consists of the Social Democrats (LSAP), the Liberals (DP) and the Greens, and is led by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (DP). Other parties currently represented in parliament are The Left, comparable to its German counterpart, and the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR), who are socially conservative soft euroskeptics with a focus on pensioners' interests.

Luxembourg elects 60 MPs in a proportional system with four multi-member constituencies. Voting is compulsory for everyone aged 18-75 (but unenforced) and turnout is generally over 90%, which contributes to the stability of the political landscape. Each voter has multiple votes (as many as the number of seats in their constituency, ranging from 7 to 23) and can either vote for candidates on multiple lists or give all their votes to one party. This is how the CSV received more than a million votes in 2013 even though only slightly more than 200,000 people were eligible to vote.

Polls have the CSV and ADR winning a few seats, The Left winning one seat, the Greens stagnant or winning one, and the LSAP and DP losing a few seats. The overall picture will remain the same, but the government is set to lose its majority. It is therefore likely that the CSV will be in the driver's seat again and form a government with the Liberals, the Social Democrats or the Greens. They have ruled out working together with The Left and ADR.

[DavidB.]

PID: 0.9% (I'm pretty sure this is "other" but I'm entirely unsure)

Sure or unsure? Anyway, it isn't. PID is a minor party formed as an ADR splitoff.

[DavidB.]

This is today. In Smartwielen I got Dei Konservativ > ADR > CSV > DP > LSAP > Pirates > Greens > Left. My result:

[DavidB.]

22% of the vote in Ettelbruck is in and the Pirates are at 15%, compared to 2% in 2013. Didn't see that one coming. ADR also stand to win a lot: from 4% to 11%. Big losses for DP and CSV.

40% of the vote in Esch-sur-Alzette is in, with big losses for CSV and LSAP and big gains for the Pirates (at 8%), the Left, and the Greens. I think the Pirates may actually get in.

[DavidB.]

Northern Putscheid fully in and the ADR go from 5% to 21%, mostly at the expense of DP (22% in 2013 to 10%) and CSV (39% in 2013 to 34%).

[DavidB.]

So the pattern seems to be CSV losing a bit to a lot, DP remaining stable in some places (Luxemboug City) but losing a lot in the north and the east, the Pirates making big gains almost everywhere, ADR making modest (South) to big gains (North, East), LSAP losing, Greens gaining quite a lot and Left stable to gaining a little.

Result: more fragmentation + a shift to the left, because CSV and DP lose more than ADR win, and LSAP lose less than the other left-wing parties win (if we consider the Pirates to be on the left). The DP-LSAP-Green coalition will lose its majority and CSV will top the poll, so they get the initiative to form a government but are weakened too. Rambrouch and Ell in the Northwest seem to indicate the trends quite well.

[DavidB.]

So there is a big difference between party votes and candidate votes: consider Weiswampach in the North, where ADR had received 558 list votes and DP 495 but ADR only received 218 candidate votes compared to 829 for the DP. Ticket split votes are now coming in. Still most of the aforementioned picture seems to remain the same: gains for Pirates and (more modest gains for) ADR and the Greens, losses for LSAP, DP and mostly CSV. Increased fragmentation and a slight shift to the left.

[DavidB.]

As for the polls, AFAIK there was very little polling in Luxembourg, are they heavily restricted/banned?

No, but the country is relatively insignificant and small, and its politics are very stable, so the stakes were not high and few people were apparently willing to invest in polls.

[DavidB.]

Could the government keep its majority after all?

It's going to be very close, surprisingly, because of CSV's losses and DP/LSAP's strong personal (non-list) vote.

[DavidB.]

Yes, the Left (and the LSAP) should do better in the less expensive industrial southwest than in expensive affluent Luxembourg City. Astounding performance by the government. I don't think anybody expected this. The government is losing only one seat (DP -1, LSAP -3, Greens +3).

[DavidB.]

How come the CSV lost seats again? Aren't they traditionally Luxembourg's most popular party?

Their leader seems uncharismatic (at least less charismatic than Bettel), they have been overly reliant on the idea that people were inevitably going to return to them as the natural governing party, and I can also imagine they appeal less to younger voters.

[DavidB.]

Finland has first socialist Prime minister among EU countries, but only two times left-wing majority in parliament since independence, last time 1968.

Clearly a very different criterion than just having had a socialist or social democratic head of govt.