EP elections 2014

[Diouf]

SYRIZA leader Tsipras has been touring Europe to generate interest in his candidacy for president of the EU Commission with the EUL-NGL party.  In Italy he has already won the support of SEL (Sinistra Ecologia Liberta) and he also had a meeting with PM Letta.

Will Tspiras be on the list himself, and if so when elected will he take up a MEP seat instead of his current seat in the Greek parliament?

[Diouf]

New Gallup poll for Bulgaria

Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) S&D 6 (+2)
Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) EPP 5 (=)
Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) ALDE 2 (-1)
Bulgarian National Movement (VMRO) + Bulgaria without Censorship ? 2 (new)
Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) S&D 1 (new)
Reformist Bloc EPP 1 (-1)

The protest movement Bulgaria without Censorship has allied with the nationalist VMRO party, so it looks likely that the alliance could join one of the right-wing eurosceptic groups. They could be an alternative for EFD or EAF to make them hit the quota of parties from seven countries.
ABV is the new list launched by the former leader of the BSP MEPs Ivailo Kalfin and the former BSP president Georgi Parvanov as a protest against the BSP's decision to form a government based on Ataka's votes.

[Diouf]

The EPP have opened up the period of nominations to become their candidate as commission president. The candidate will be chosen at the party conference in Dublin on 6-7 March.

Today former Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis declared his candidacy. Former prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the European commissioner for the internal market, Michel Barnier, have also declared their candidacy.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2014/february/dombrovskis-seeks-epp-nomination-for-commission-presidency/79704.aspx

[Diouf]

ALDE have apparently also tried to make a united Italian liberal list for the EP 2014 elections, but there haven't been much about this lately. In November, Verhofstadt talked about a coalition of : “All those who have a little pro-European inspiration” or in other words “liberals, radicals, Republicans, parts of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Centre, Future Italy, Stop the Decline, parts of Civic Choice.” The goal is to “build something completely new.”

http://www.eunews.it/en/2013/11/14/european-elections-verhofstadt-tries-to-unite-italian-liberals/10565

[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 (=)

[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.

[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.

[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 %

[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.

[Diouf]

Could they not decide to create multimember constituencies like France or the UK then to de facto re-create a threshold?

[Diouf]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

They could do that as BVG has not ruled that out (they stated, it would be constitutional in the last decision, I don't know if they mentioned it, this time, but they won't be able to implement it for 2014, because the nomination process, which is defined by law, has already begun.

OK, I guess they will have it in line for 2019 then.

I can see that CSU proposed constituencies when the 3%-hurdle was introduced. They are open to both single-member and multimember:

"Der Parteitag fordert die CSULandesgruppe im Deutschen Bundestag auf, darauf hinzuwirken, dass für die Europawahlen Wahlkreise eingeführt werden. Denkbar sind sowohl Einpersonen als auch Mehrpersonenwahlkreise, wobei bei letzteren wegen der Eigenständigkeitder CSU als bayerische Partei darauf zu achten ist, dass Bayern entweder ein eigener Wahlkreis bleibt oder in mehrere Wahlkreise, die die Grenzen des Freistaates respektieren, eingeteilt wird."
http://www.csu.de/uploads/csucontent/121020_beschlussbuch_03.pdf

Matthias Groote, MEP from SPD, also seems to prefer constituencies now. He tweeted today: "Jetzt ist eine Reform des Europawahlgesetzes angesagt. Wahlkreise müssen kommen!"

[Diouf]

Two recent Romanian polls by IRES



Seat distribution with newest poll (compared to 2009):

USD (S&D) 16 seats (+5)
PNL (ALDE) 8 (+3)
PDL (EPP) 3 (-7)
PMP (probably EPP, Băsescu's new party) 3 (+2*)
UDMR (EPP) 1 (-2)
PP-DD (member of EUDemocrats) 1 (new)
FC (EPP) 0 (=)
PRM (NI) 0 (-3)

* Counting Elena Băsescu in here.

[Diouf]

Today Guy Verhofstadt and Bruno Tabacci, with a video greeting from Romano Prodi, presented a common Italian ALDE list called "La mia Europa" (My Europe). The current ECR MEP Christina Muscardini, Centro democratico, Fare per Fermare il declino, Radicali italiani, some remains of Italia dei Valori and (at least some parts of) Scelta Civica are among those taking part. I guess it wouldn't be complely impossible for this list to get above the 4 % threshold; this of course to some degree depends on whether they can get some relativelt high-profile names like Emma Bonino to stand.

Edit: It seems like the official name might be "Scelta Europea" (European Choice). At least that is the name used in the logo in this picture from the presentation.

[Diouf]

Do you think that the centre-right in italay mig do the same i.e. alliance between FI, NCD, FDI and UCD?!

NCD is probably the main question as I'm fairly confident that the other small parties will join an FI-led list/alliance. Personal animosity between Alfano and Berlusconi could influence this. NCD are by no means sure to cross the 4 % threshold, but I'm not sure that they would like to bind themselves so close with Berlusconi so early.

The whole question of who will sit in the EPP could be interesting as well, but I guess that the EPP will just hear nothing, see nothing, and say nothing and welcome both NCD, FI and the smaller parties. If the EPP in some way rejects the FI, then they will have next to no chance of becoming the biggest group in the EP.

[Diouf]

Danish poll by A&B Analysis for altinget.dk

DF (EFD) 23.3 % 3 seats
Social Democrats (S&D) 22.6 % 3 seats
Liberals (ALDE) 22.5 % 3 seats
Social Liberals (ALDE) 8.4 % 1 seat
People's movement against the EU (GUE-NGL) 8.3 % 1 seat
SF (Greens) 6.4 % 1 seat
Conservatives (EPP) 6.1 % 1 seat
Liberal Alliance (probably ECR) 2.4 % 0 seats

[Diouf]

Danish poll by A&B Analysis for altinget.dk

DF (EFD) 23.3 % 3 seats
Social Democrats (S&D) 22.6 % 3 seats
Liberals (ALDE) 22.5 % 3 seats
Social Liberals (ALDE) 8.4 % 1 seat
People's movement against the EU (GUE-NGL) 8.3 % 1 seat
SF (Greens) 6.4 % 1 seat
Conservatives (EPP) 6.1 % 1 seat
Liberal Alliance (probably ECR) 2.4 % 0 seats

Wow. Has DF ever won a national election before?

Why are SF not GUE-NGL? Is not being far-left part of their identity?

Nope they have not. Their chances are pretty good this time, I reckon. The Liberals got a much worse lead candidate after the original candidate became pregnant, the Social Democrats are unpopular due to the government's policies, and everybody is talking about welfare tourism and child benefits for eastern europeans. Add to that an eloquent DF lead candidate who already received the highest number of personal votes the last time around and is a constant media presence.

Well, Ethelberth is quite right. No real green party ever emerged in Denmark, and instead SF managed to incorporate many members from the green movement, the peace movement and the feminist movement. Generally SF has moved in a more EU-positive direction since the Maastricht Treaty, and voted in favour of the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty. Whether the move to the Greens in the EP would have happened a term before or a term later depended a lot on the MEP. Pernille Frahm, who was elected in 1999, is a member of the hard left wing of the party, so she sat in the far-left group. In 2004, Margrethe Auken was the MEP and she belongs to the very EU-positive green fraction of the party, so she sat in the green group despite the fact that a small majority in the party's executive committee wanted the party to remain in the far-left group. She especially said that she could not stand the idea of sitting with someone like the Czech communists. In 2009, Auken was the candidate again and this time there was no discussion and she naturally sat in the green group. At the party conference a few weeks ago, a big majority in the party voted for SF to join the European Green Party.

[Diouf]

Today the Liberal Alliance finally presented their lead candidate for the EU elections. The 36-year old no-name Christina Egelund. She is the leader of the party branch in Northern Jutland and runs a holiday park. In all likelihood, she won't be elected, but the party could play a somewhat significant role anyway. If they can agree on an electoral pact with the Liberals and the Conservatives, then they might just bring one of these parties an additional seat. However, especially the Liberals might not agree to that as the Liberal Alliance have changed their EU attitudes markedly since 2009 where the parties did form an electoral pact. On the other hand, the two parties, along with DF, would then lose a fair amount of votes which would go to waste.

The Liberal Alliance's main points on EU are: yes to free trade, no to regulation, keep sovereignty of economic policy so no to euro, fiscal pact and banking union, no benefits for foreigners, including EU nationals, before living and working in Denmark for five years, and yes to the unified patent court.

[Diouf]

PASOK 5.9
ND    26.3
KKE 8.5
SYRIZA 26.3
XA 7.6
DIMAR 2.5
ANEL 4.2    
To Potami ("The River") 11.9 (!!!)

It's the second time I see this new list polled, and it sure escalated quickly : 7.5 in their first poll last week, and now this.

It seems to draw mostly Syriza, Greens, Dimar and a bit of Anel voters, maybe even a few XA who are just voting for the hell of it.

I'm thinking the soufflé will fall back eventually, but for now they really succeeded their entrance !

It's just been founded 10 days ago, as a sort of moderate hero centrist list, but it seems to lean more centre-left than centre-right.
                      

ALDEish?

No other Greek party is associated with ALDE, so that seems like the obvious choice.

[Diouf]

Denmark Gallup

DF 15 % 3 seats
Liberals 14 % 4 seats
Soc Dem 13 % 4 seats
People's movement against the EU 5 % 1
Social Liberals 3 % 1/0
SF 3 % 1/0
Conservatives 2 % 0
Liberal Alliance 2 % 0
Others 1 % 0
Don't know/blank/won't vote etc 43 %

It's marginal who gets the seats in the electoral alliances. The Conservatives are quite close to gaining one of the liberal seats, and in many other polls SF and the Social Liberals can get a seat each from their electoral alliance with the Social Democrats whereas in this one only one of them can.

[Diouf]

ComRes UK poll with regional breakdown. Weighted for turnout so based on very low number of respondents.



Using this http://icon.cat/util/elections for each region, I get these numbers:

UKIP 25, Labour 21, Conservatives 14, Lib Dem 4, Greens 2, SNP 3, Plaid Cymru 1

[Diouf]

Denmark Epinion for DR. Don't knows, who made up 31 %, have been excluded.

Liberals 25 % 4 seats
DF 22 % 3
Social Democrats 22 % 3
Social Liberals 8 % 1
People's movement against the EU 7 % 1
SF 6 % 1
Conservatives 5 % 0
Liberal Alliance 3 % 0
Others 1 %

[Diouf]

Finland poll for YLE

Seats (compared to 2009):
National Coalition Party (KOK) EPP 4 (+1)
Centre Party (KESK) ALDE 3 (=)
The Finns Party (PS) EFD 2 (+1)
Social Democratic Party (SDP) S&D 2 (=)
Green League (VIHR) Greens 1 (-1)
Left Alliance (VAS) GUE-NGL 1 (+1)
Swedish People's Party (RKP) ALDE 0 (-1)
Christian Democrats (KD) EPP 0 (-1)
Other parties 0

[Diouf]

Wilke poll for Denmark

DF 24.4 % 3
Liberals 24.0 % 4 seats
Social Democrats 19.2 % 3
People's movement against the EU 9.0 % 1
Social Liberals 8.4 % 1
SF 6.7 % 1
Liberal Alliance 4.5 % 0
Conservatives 3.8 % 0

The Liberal Alliance front runner said yesterday that it was not decided yet whether they would run in an electoral alliance with Liberals+Conservatives, with DF or alone. As always, my seat assumptions are based on the latter possibility.

[Diouf]

A Danish poll of the front runners for each party. The score shows the average for each candidate when people's been asked how well they are doing from 0 (terrible) to 10 (fantastic). Above the green boxes it says "ikke kendt af" which means "not known by", so it tells you how many of the respondents that did not know the candidate.

Even though the scores are not that far apart, they might explain partly some of the difference between the EP polling and national polling. It is off course quite early for these kinds of polls as the election campaign hasn't officially started yet.

DF's candidate Morten Messerschmidt is the most well-known and the one with the highest score. In 2009, he received 284.500 personal votes, the second highest amount ever, and this year he is set to beat the record of former Social Democrat PM Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who in 2004 received 407.966 personal votes. He is further helped by the fact that the People's Movement against the EU's candidate Rina Ronja Kari is the least known of the whole bunch, so he can perhaps gain more of the Eurosceptic left vote. The Movement is keeping up pretty well in the polls and will probably retain their seat, but with an averagely known candidate they could probably do a bit better considering Enhedslisten's success at the moment.

SF's candidate Margethe Auken finishes second in both score and recognition, which along with the increased focus on green issues in an EP election, could explain why SF polls far better in EP polls than in national polls. Auken can probably keep her seat in the EP.

I'm a bit surprised by by the low score for the Conservative front runner Bendt Bendtsen, who is the former Conservative leader, Minister for Economic and Business Affairs and Deputy PM. I would have thought that he could take some of the Liberal votes and retain his seat, but most of the recent polling has suggested otherwise.
That might partly be because the Liberal candidate Ulla Tørnes is so far doing a bit better than expected. If she can keep up a score like this through the campaign, then the Liberals could have a fair chance of keeping DF away from first place.

The Social Liberal Morten Helveg Petersen is doing fairly well and with the party's clear line as the pro-EU party, he should get a seat fairly comfortably.

The Social Democrat candidate Jeppe Kofod is an experienced, but fairly backbench MP, so he has some catching up to do compared with most of the other candidates.

I'm actually fairly surprised that only 45.9 % claims not to know the Liberal Alliance candidate. If asked who the Liberal Alliance front runner was, I bet the score would be extremely low. The Liberal Alliance has been below the national result in most EP polls, and if, as expected, they end up without an electoral alliance, it will be almost impossible to get elected. However, it their quite Eurosceptic anti-bureaucracy campaign succeeds, they could draw away significant amounts of votes from the other right-wing parties.

[Diouf]

Has the N/VA said anything about whether they will sit in the Green/EFA group again? There seem to have been quite a lot of criticism towards them because they don't vote with the group that often, especially from some of the other Belgian members of the group. According to VoteWatch Europe, N/VA votes with the group in 70 % of the cases which is far below the average of 95 %; even the Scottish National Party, which is the second-most likely rebels, votes with the group 85 % of the times. I'm not sure how softly Eurosceptic they are? perhaps somewhere in between EPP and ECR which I guess are the most viable alternatives.