Costa Rica 2010

General elections were held in the Central American nation of Costa Rica on February 7. Incumbent President and Nobel Prize Laureate Óscar Arias, elected to a second non-consecutive term following a very narrow election in 2006, was not allowed to seek re-election. The 57 members of Costa Rica’s 57-member Legislative Assembly were also up for re-election.

In the largely middle-class and racially homogeneous, consensus-based peaceful, moderate politics have prevailed in Costa Rica since a period of brief turbulence in 1948. Between 1948 and 2006, Costa Rican politics were very bipartisan with two major power blocs: on the left, the National Liberation Party (PLN) and on the right, the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). Ideological distinctions were often blurry between both parties, though historically the PUSC advocated more neoliberal economic policies despite being a ’social Christian’ and populist party. Still, the PLN under President Óscar Arias has moved to the right and many members of the PLN’s left-wing have criticized the party’s shift to the right and some members of the PLN, such as Ottón Solís have left the party. The PUSC, whose candidate Abel Pacheco won the 2002 election, was destroyed by a large corruption scandal involving former PUSC Presidents following the 2002 election.

In the 2006 election, Arias, who was first elected in 1986 and left office in 1990 with a Nobel Prize in hand for his efforts at peace negotiations in neighboring countries which had been engulfed in civil wars in the 80s, was allowed to seek re-election in 2006. He won 40.9% of the vote against 39.8% for Ottón Solís. The PUSC’s Ricardo Toledo won 3.55% of the vote.

In an internal PLN primary, Arias’ candidate, Laura Chinchilla defeated the candidate of the PLN left – Johnny Araya, Mayor of San José with 55% against 41% for her main opponent. Chinchilla is a member of the so-called Arista wing of the PLN, or the right-wing which supports CAFTA (free trade with the US) and positions itself outside the PLN’s historical socialist ideology and more on a Third Way scale.

Her two main opponents were Ottón Solís, running to her left on a left wing platform opposed to neoliberalism and CAFTA; and Otto Guevara of the Libertarian Movement (ML), which supports a free-market economy and is a classical liberal party. The ML is notably pro-American and strongly opposed to the Cuban regime, and has seemingly benefited from the 2006 collapse of the PUSC. Here are the results of the presidential election:

Italicized candidates dropped out in favour of Ottón Solís.

Laura Chinchilla (PLN) 46.78%
Ottón Solís (PAC) 25.15%
Otto Guevara (ML) 20.83%
Luis Fishman (PUSC) 3.86%
Óscar López (PAE) 1.91%
Mayra González (PRC) 0.72%
Eugenio Trejos (FA) 0.37%
Rolando Araya (AP) 0.21%
Walter Muñoz (IN) 0.17%

In the legislative elections, here are the results for the major parties. Data from the TSE and La Nacion newspaper.

PLN 37.16% winning 23 seats (-1)
PAC 17.68% winning 12 seats (-5)
ML 14.48% winning 9 seats (+3)
PUSC 8.05% winning 6 seats (+1)
PAE 9.17% winning 4 seats (+3)
PRC 3.79% winning 1 seat (+1)
FA 3.66% winning 1 seat (+1)
RN 1.62% winning 1 seat (+1)

The other parties winning seats include the left-wing ‘Accessibility without Exclusion’, a single-issue (disabled rights) party; the Costa Rican Renovation (PRC) party which is a Christian Protestant evangelical right-wing party; the very left-wing Broad Front and a party ‘National Restoration’ which I can’t find information about.

More results and all on La Nacion’s website.

Ukraine 2010 – Runoff

The second round of the Ukrainian presidential election was held on February 7. The runoff opposed the top two candidates of the first round, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. As mentioned in earlier posts about Ukraine, both candidates represent a faction of the political debate which makes Ukraine one of the most electorally polarized countries in the world: the pro-Russians (Yanukovych) and the pro-Western/Ukrainian nationalists (Tymoshenko and defeated President Yuschenko). Here are the results of the runoff with 99.44% reporting.

Viktor Yanukovych (PR) 48.81%
Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) 45.61%
Against all 4.37%
Invalid 1.19%

Yanukovych’s victory is not much of a surprise following the results of the first round, but neither is the narrow margin which reflects well the nature of Ukrainian politics. Ukraine is one of the most politically polarized countries in the world, and the map of the runoff reflects that fact very well – more so than the map of the first round. The best example of this polarization is that there are no so-called ’swing oblasts’ which have a good chance of voting for either side. Only one oblast switched from the first round, it was Zakarpat’ska, which narrowly voted for Yanukovych in the first round. But even in Zakarpat’ska, it’s more the result of a consolidation of the Orange vote behind Tymoshenko, so the switch in allegiances there was predictable.

Tymoshenko managed to win Yuschenko and Yatsenyuk’s first round vote, while Tigipko voters split roughly equally (44-43) between both candidates. Obviously, most Symonenko voters backed Yanukovych in the runoff. The momentum and power was on Yanukovych’s side throughout the campaign for the runoff.

I would be cautious before qualifying Yanukovych’s victory as a large victory for Moscow and a rebuke of more pro-Western policies by Ukrainians. The contentious issue hasn’t subsided, and polarization is still heavy. At the same time, Yanukovych didn’t win because of his personal popularity or even his regionalist policies, but much more because he represents a vote for stability. The vote was a clear rebuke of the instability, feuding and failed policies of the pro-Western government. Yanukovych’s election will signal only a minor change in relations with Russia, probably a friendlier and less confrontational approach in dealings surrounding natural gas with Moscow. Tymoshenko had already toned down the pro-Western rhetoric a bit, and Yuschenko’s government did not usher in major changes in regional ge0-politics except a confrontational attitude vis-a-vis Moscow, an attitude which was clearly rebuked by voters.

Yanukovych said it before the election, and it’s quite obvious to any observers, he won’t keep Tymoshenko’s pro-Orange government in place. He has two options before him: appoint a government which supports him using the current Parliament or call snap elections, probably in March. The most realistic outcome is probably a snap election, because Yanukovych would need to garner a majority within the current Parliament to form a government, and this requires one of the current government parties – probably the Lytvyn Bloc – from switching allegiances.

Toronto Centre (Ontario) provincial by-election 2010

There was a provincial by-election for Ontario Legislature in the riding of Toronto Centre last night held after the resignation of incumbent MPP George Smitherman (Liberal) to run for Mayor of Toronto in the Ontarian municipal elections scheduled for the fall.

Toronto Centre covers part of the downtown core of Toronto and is a diverse riding in terms of income and ethncity, including both the exclusive affluent area of Rosedale in the northern part of the riding but also some of Toronto’s oldest poor neighborhoods such as Regent Park and St. Jamestown. It also includes more wealthy but liberal areas such as part of the University of Toronto or the city’s gay neighborhood, Church and Wellesley. The riding has been held since its creation in 1999 by the Ontario Liberals, and the federal riding is held by Bob Rae of the Liberal Party.

The Liberal candidate was former Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, the NDP candidate was Cathy Crowe, nurse and homelessness activist and the PC candidate was Pamela Taylor, lawyer and 2007 candidate. There was also a Green candidate and the perennial independent, John Turmel. In the 2007 provincial election, Smitherman won 47.8% against 20.4% for the PCs, 18.9% for the NDP and 9.7% for the Greenie.

Glen Murray (OLP) 47.04% (-0.71%)
Cathy Crowe (NDP) 33.14% (+14.28%)
Pamela Taylor (PC) 15.38% (-5.03%)
Stefan Premdas (Green) 3.08% (-6.58%)
Raj Rama (Ind) 0.39%
Heath Thomas (Libertarian) 0.38% (-1.11%)
Wayne Simmons (Freedom) 0.34%
John Turmel (Ind) 0.26%

The results were rather surprising. The overall result is great for the NDP, decent for the Liberals (especially considering they’ve been struggling in polls these last months) and bad for Tim Hudak’s PCs.

While no polling seems to have picked this up nor have any major journalists, this could indicate that urban discontent over the Liberal government’s anti-recession efforts is turning to the left – the NDP – and not to the right. The Liberal economic policies have been criticized for being too right-wing. This could also indicate that the PC replacing their old leader – John Tory – who had a more urban and liberal image with a more rural conservative like Tim Hudak has cost them votes in urban ridings where their vote comes from well-off voters. Obviously, this is only a by-election and nobody knows if these are trends or electoral flukes.

The PCs under Tim Hudak face a tough time and Hudak’s efforts to assemble a second Mike Harris coalition is easier said than done, as he’s finding out. Hudak, a right-wing PCer, has sidelined the urban Red Tories (liberal PCers, more like John Tory) in a way which is potentially dangerous. To win in 2011, Hudak must break through in suburban ridings in the GTA and other similar ridings in the Ottawa area, where most Ontarians now live. Voters here aren’t likely to be a fan of Hudak’s brand of more rural conservatism from the Niagara area, and he needs to appeal to more centrist urbane Tories as well as multicultural voters, something which the federal Conservatives have managed to do generally well in the GTA, especially in the 2008 election.

Hudak’s strategy faces a double-test on March 4, with two by-elections scheduled for Ottawa West-Nepean and Leeds-Greenville. Held federally by the Tories (under John Baird), but provincially by McGuinty’s Liberals, Ottawa West-Nepean is a suburban and affluent riding west of downtown Ottawa. It is an absolute must win for Hudak if he wants to prove that he’s able to win with his current strategy in 2011. And the Red Tories come in here. Despite the PC candidates in this by-election and St. Paul’s last year being Red Tories, both were attached far too closely to Hudak and Hudak’s PC sidelined their centrist credentials and forced them to take on his anti-HST blue Tory posture.

But, at the same time, there is a by-election in Leeds-Greenville on the same day after Harper appointed the incumbent Tory MPP, Bob Runciman, a long-time MPP and Hudak’s likely finance minister, to the Senate. Leeds-Greenville is a very white (98%) – WASP (58% Protestant in 2001), very rural riding in eastern Ontario, the most conservative area of Ontario. Runciman won 56% of the vote in 2007, and the area has always been Conservative – at least in the last 20-30 years. The danger here for Hudak is a challenge from the right, and the candidate of the far-right Ontario Landowners Association in the PC nomination race scheduled for February 7. In 2007, the Landowners got their loud-mouth leader Randy Hillier the PC candidacy in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, after threatening to run independent candidates in 2007. Tory in his time and Hudak must appease Hillier, but the nomination race in Leeds-Greenville pits the candidate supported by the establishment and the former MPP, but also Shawn Carmichael, vice-president of the Leeds and Grenville Landowners Association and a close ally of Randy Hillier. Hudak must appease the radical right enough so that the feisty Landowners don’t run a dissident candidate to the PC’s right which could open up the road to a Liberal win due to vote-splitting on the right. The Liberal Scarf blog notes that in a 1982 provincial by-election in the same area, a Libertarian running to the PC’s right won 13.4%, though the PCs still won.

At the same time as he tries to appease the Landowners, Hudak must appeal to more urban conservative voters, who will provide his bulk of support if he’s to win in 2011. On March 4, he must win in Ottawa if he’s to prove to his skeptics that he can re-assemble Mike Harris’ coalition including suburban voters, but at the same time he must not lose Leeds-Greenville or even allow the election there to be close. If he doesn’t satisfy both of these conditions, he could come under increasing fire within his party from the Red Tories and the radicals, and his strategy of presenting himself as Mike Harris’ reincarnation might not be such a great idea.

Caribbean elections: January 2010

I don’t cover elections in small Caribbean islands, mostly because they have very small and largely unknown political setups and very little is known by the western media community about these elections (though granted, they don’t know much about any foreign elections). Two elections took place in the Caribbean this past month: on January 22 in the Netherlands Antilles and on January 25 in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles, composed of two major island groups; the Leeward Islands — Bonaire and Curaçao and the Windward Islands — are Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten; are self-governing in domestic affairs since 1954, but the entity is scheduled to disband when Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba become Dutch municipalities while Curaçao and St. Maarten become independent countries within the Netherlands, like Aruba.

Each island has its own political parties, but Curaçao parties dominate due to the island’s larger population. In Curaçao, the centrist Party for the Restructured Antilles, currently in power, won an additional seat for a total of 6 seats against 5 for the centre-left New Antilles Movement. The pro-independence Sovereign People party won 2 seats. In St. Maarten, the National Alliance has won the island’s 3 seats. In Bonaire, the Bonaire Patriotic Union won 2 seats against one for the Bonaire Democratic Party. In smaller St. Eustatius and Saba, the Democratic Party Sint Eustatius and the Windwards Islands People’s Movement respectively won their islands’ sole seat.

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts and Nevis, the smallest sovereign state in North America, independent since 1983, held elections for eleven members in its 15-seat legislature, the other four include three nominated members (called Senators and nominated by the Governor General) and one ex-officio member (the Attorney General). The centre-left Saint Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKLP), led by Prime Minister Denzil Douglas, has been in power since 1995 and was re-elected in 2000 and 2004. The opposition is led by the conservative Peoples’ Action Movement (PAM), which under Prime Minister Kennedy Simmonds ruled the islands between 1983 and 1995. The island of Nevis, which is smaller and with an historical tendency to oppose the stronger federal power in Saint Kitts (it attempted to secede in 1998), has two political parties; the Concerned Citizens’ Movement and the Nevis Reformation Party, both of which originally supported independence for Nevis.

The opposition’s campaign was mostly a campaign for change, focusing on corruption, cost of living and crime as well as the nation’s mounting foreign debt.

Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party 46.96% winning 6 seats (-1)
People’s Action Movement 32.24% winning 2 seats (+1)
Concerned Citizens’ Movement 10.99% winning 2 seats (nc)
Nevis Reformation Party 9.75% winning 1 seat (nc)

The SKLP lost one seat and 3.6% of the vote nationally, but Douglas won re-election with 91.4% in his constituency and PAM leader Lindsay Grant failed in his attempt to win a seat by only 29 votes. A change of a bit more than 700 votes in Saint Kitts in three constituencies would have given the PAM 5 seats to Labour’s 3 seats though Labour would still have won the most votes.

Sri Lanka 2010

A presidential election was held in Sri Lanka on January 26. These are the first elections held after the Sri Lankan Civil War opposing the island’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority to its Tamil Hindu minority in the north and east of the island. The war, which started in 1973, killed over 80,000 people and ended only in 2009 with the Sri Lankan army’s defeat of the Tamil Tigers. The election, originally scheduled for 2011, the incumbent President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, first elected in 2005, sought a fresh mandate in the midst of his his party’s high popularity due to the victory in the civil war.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, a member of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), the largest member of the governing United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA). Founded in 1951, the SLFP is a left-wing but staunchly Sinhalese nationalist party. Under the leadership of two of the SLFP’s most famous figures, SWRD Bandaranaike and his widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the island’s official language became Sinhalese and later became a republic outside the Commonwealth, a republic known as Sri Lanka (the old name being Ceylon). Rajapaksa, who had served as Prime Minister between 2004 (when the UPFA-SLFP won the legislative elections) and 2005, was narrowly elected and his election signaled a ‘hard-line’ towards Tamil nationalists.

The main opposition in Sri Lanka’s two-party system is the neoliberal United National Party (UNP), historically dominated by the Senanayake family. While it less nationalist (meaning, in this case, more pro-American or pro-British), the UNP still maintained a hard line towards the Tamil rebels while in government. However, under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the UNP attempted to engage a peace process with the Tamils, which eventually failed. Ranil Wickremesinghe was narrowly defeated by Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2005 election, with 48.4% against 50.3% for his rival. Most of Wickremesinghe’s support came from the Indian Tamil (called ‘estate Tamils’ – Tamils brought in by Britain from India to work on tea plantations in the middle of the island) and Muslims, but the Tamil Tigers had called on Sri Lankan Tamils to boycott the polls, dooming Wickremesinghe.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, riding on a wave of popularity since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, did face a tough opponent from the opposition. The National Democratic Front, which included the UNP but also the communist Janatha Vikmuni Peramuna (JVP, a former rebel group), nominated General Sarath Fonseka, who led the final charge against the Tigers can claim credit for the Sri Lankan victory. During the campaigns, there allegedly was a lot of violence directed towards the opposition and the opposition claimed they were strongly concerned about fraud.

Mahinda Rajapaksa (UPFA-SLFP) 57.88%
Sarath Fonseka (NDF-UNP) 40.15%
Others 1.98%

Turnout was 74.50%.

Predictably but amusingly, there was a stark ethnic division again. Despite being a hard-line General during the Civil War, Fonseka apparently managed to appeal more to Tamils than Rajapaksa could (though Rajapaksa managed a very good showing, comparatively, even in the hard-line Tamil stronghold of Jaffna in the far north). All of Fonseka’s victories came in districts with a non-Sinhalese majority of plurality, either Sri Lankan Tamil, Muslims or Indian Tamils (the green island in the middle of the blue sea of Rajapaksa). However, it is worth noting that turnout in Tamil areas remained very low – 25% in Jaffna for example (though turnout there in 2005% was 1%).

Fonseka has, as all opposition candidates do, denounced fraud.

Massachusetts by-election 2010

The special election for the US Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy was held yesterday, January 19. The Senate special election in a normally very safe Democratic state attracted national attention when polls showed that the Republicans were closing in on the seat and even leading the Democrats. I covered the candidates, the issues and other stuff in an election preview post.

Here are the results:

Scott Brown (R) 51.9%
Martha Coakley (D) 47.1%
Joseph Kennedy (L) 1.0%

Turnout was 54-55% or so, quite high for a special election. This makes the patterns in this election more notable and noteworthy than those in regular special elections with very low turnout. A lesson is to be learned here, to an extent.

Undoubtedly, a shocking Republican victory in such a Democratic state and a seat which has elected Democrats since 1953 and two Kennedys. Beyond the symbolism, this becomes the ’41st’ Republican seat, as Brown and his supporters made very clear last night. This is significant because it ends the Democrats’ filibuster-proof 60-seat majority. This allows Republicans to block Obama’s health-care reform in the Senate, which they are very likely to do.

The election has undoubtedly sent shock waves down the spines of many Democrats facing voters in November. What caused Coakley’s defeat and Brown’s underdog victory? Firstly, the candidate. Coakley won the primary in December and came out with a 20-point lead or so, but then went MIA and returned only when the polls showed that her lead had been cut from 20 points to a tie or a deficit of 1-5 points. The Democrats frantically tried to do anything they could, getting Obama and all the bigwigs to stump for Coakley. Coakley was undeniably a bad candidate with little charisma and campaigning abilities. While she was MIA, Scott Brown was actively fundraising and hitting the ground with positive and powerful ads. He put his name on the map, and his more populist campaigning style appealed to a number of voters.

Who were these voters? The map shows that Brown destroyed Coakley in traditionally centrist and affluent suburbs (as opposed to liberal affluent suburbs). Most voters here are independents, a group which forms around 50% of voters in the state, and oppose the administrations’ spending policies and high taxes – economy was a major point in Brown’s platform. In addition, Democrats lost the most (compared to 2008) in white working-class areas, notably old mill towns. Lowell, a name which immediately reminds one of the early industrial era which started in Massachusetts, narrowly voted for Brown. The towns in which Democrats lost the most grounds have an unemployment rate higher than the state as a whole. At the same time, reliably Democratic voters, notably minority voters, stayed home in larger numbers. What is worrying for Democrats is that these patterns were seen in the 2009 elections in New Jersey, Virginia and parts of New York.

On the other hand, Democrats held their ground better in the Berkshires (rural sparsely populated areas in the west of the state which are similar demographically to Vermont), college towns and rich liberal areas. Voters in these areas are more supportive of Obama and have less beef with the administration’s economic and healthcare policies.

The New York Times have an interesting set of maps. A comparison with the map of Romney’s 2002 victory is particularly interesting, showing that Brown appealed more than Romney to working-class voters but Romney performed better in Boston’s suburbs than Brown did last night.

Chile 2010

Chile held the presidential runoff election on January 17, 2010 to elect a new President to succeed term-limited President Michelle Bachelet. The runoff opposed right-wing billionaire Sebastián Piñera against former President Eduardo Frei, who represented the incumbent centre-left coalition. Piñera led Frei by a large margin in the first round, likely due to the 20% showing of left-wing independent Marco Enríquez-Ominami and the respectable 6% showing of Communist candidate Jorge Arrate. I said following the first round that the runoff would tighten significantly, and that it wasn’t a slam dunk for Piñera like the first round was. Frei managed to gain the endorsement of Marco Enríquez-Ominami and significantly closed the gap with Piñera. In the end, Piñera won, as expected, but it was not an acclamation.

Provisional results:

Sebastián Piñera (RN-CPC) 51.61%
Eduardo Frei (PDC-CPD) 48.39%

Frei did best in Chile’s mining centre, in the Atacama and the surroundings, and also in other important industrial or copper-mining areas south of Santiago. It is quite interesting how Frei’s support has become concentrated mostly in those mining and working-class areas. Piñera won the non-industrial areas, such as Santiago, which the left had won in 2006. In the realm of results in interesting places, the 50 Chilean scientists in Antarctica continue to prefer the right – it voted for Piñera in 2006 already – giving Piñera 78% of the vote. In the commune of Chaitén, destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 2006 or so, 2900 or so people voted and Piñera won 75%. Finally, Piñera won 60% on Easter Island.

Piñera’s victory represents the first right-wing President of Chile since Pinochet, who fell in 1989. It is also the first electoral victory of the right since 1958 (although in 1964 the traditional right supported the winning candidacy of Eduardo Frei Montalva – a Christian Democrat). It’s significant when dealing with stuff like ‘historical dates’ and so forth, and it could be interpreted as the end of Pinochet’s influence over Chilean politics. The centre-left Concertación (an alliance of parties opposed to Pinochet in 1988) has held power since 1989.

What, however, has caused the victory of the right? It’s not a widespread discontent with Bachelet – she leaves office with a glorious record and 80%+ approval ratings. It’s not entirely dissatisfaction with the Concertación: it still polled 44% in the parliamentary elections last December and it didn’t take a trouncing either way. Piñera’s ability to give the Chilean right a more centrist and pragmatic image has given him and his alliance a boost. It is significant in a country where the right was associated with the Pinochet dictatorship until very recently. His economic policies have been far from ultra-liberalism, and he’s praised some of the left’s policy. In fact, his main campaign theme was law and order and other non-economic issues. Piñera’s charismatic style helped him, especially in contrast to an old and uncharismatic Frei. Lastly, voters, while not rejecting the Concertación in a landslide, are unhappy with the Concertación’s “old ways” and the success of Enríquez-Ominami in the first round showed this.

That being said, Piñera doesn’t have a majority in either chamber and will need to rely, probably, on a bunch of independents and regional independents in both chambers. As a result of this parliamentary situation but also because he has proposed little radical change, his policies won’t be that huge of a change from the left. Chile’s pragmatic governance is likely to continue under a new face.

Ukraine 2010

The first round of the Ukrainian presidential election was held on January 17, 2010. The results were largely similar to what the polling had predicted, and the runoff will predictably oppose the leaders of Ukraine’s two major political camps: pro-Russian and pro-western.

Here are the results.

Viktor Yanukovych (PR) 35.32%
Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) 25.05%
Sergei Tigipko (Ind) 13.06%
Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Ind) 6.96%
Viktor Yushchenko (OU) 5.45%
Petro Symonenko (CPU) 3.55%
Volodymyr Lytvyn (LB) 2.35%
Oleh Tyahnybok (AO) 1.43%
Anatoliy Hrytsenko (OU) 1.20%
Inna Bohoslovska (Ind) 0.41%
Oleksandr Moroz (SPU) 0.38%
Yuriy Kostenko (OU) 0.22%
Liudmyla Suprun 0.19%
Vasily Protyvsih 0.16%
Oleksandr Pabat 0.14%
Serhiy Ratushniak 0.12%
Mykhaylo Brodskyy 0.06%
Oleh Riabokon 0.03%
None of the above 2.20%
Invalid 1.64%

turnout 66.76%

As expected, Yanukovych came out far ahead of the field. This doesn’t reflect a huge swing in his favour compared to 2004 (he did better in 2004 in fact), or even 2007 (he polled only marginally better than his party in the 2007 legislative election) but partly the fact that he has established himself as the main candidate of the pro-Russian vote. He has taken votes which in 2004 went to the Socialists (Moroz) and the Communists (Symonenko) and was not hurt much by the candidacy of the pro-Russian businessman Sergei Tigipko.

Yulia Tymoshenko didn’t benefit from the same unity on the pro-western side, which has been historically racked by divisions. A glance at the map reflects that she didn’t enjoy the huge margins that Yanukovych enjoyed in his strongholds. However, on a possibly positive note for the runoff, the division of the vote in western Ukraine doesn’t benefit Yanukovych a whole lot – though Yanukovych did gain some ground in those regions. She polled best in central Ukraine, which has usually been her electoral base. She suffered from good performances by Yuschenko and Yatsenyuk in Galicia.

President Viktor Yuschenko has set a world record for the lowest vote for an incumbent in a presidential election. He defeats former Slovakian President Rudolf Schuster who won 7% seeking a second term in 2004. Yuschenko polled best in Lvov and Galicia – up to 30% or so in Lvov and slightly lower elsewhere in Galicia. Arseniy Yatsenyuk polled best in Chernivtsi Oblast, his home region, and elsewhere in Galicia.

Yanukovych has a 10% lead over Tymoshenko, and both candidates have relatively strong reserves. Like in the recent Chilean election, a large margin in the first round hides a runoff which is much narrower. The geographic base of Tigipko’s votes would indicate that they would likely flow in large part to Yanukovych but Tigipko will not endorse a candidate and it remains to be seen if his voters stay home. Yanukovych can also count on the Communist votes, what’s left of them. The geographic base of Yatsenyuk and Yuschenko’s votes indicate that they would likely flow to Tymoshenko. However, there’s some very bad blood between Tymoshenko and Yuschenko, who pretty much hate each other and some have worried that Yuschenko might be tempted to endorse his 2004 rival, Yanukovych. The threat to Tymoshenko is if Yuschenko’s (and Yatsenyuk’s) voters stay home. Don’t let Yanukovych’s 10% first round margin blind you – like it did to many foreign observers (granted, they have limited knowledge of anything). The runoff is unpredictable and could go both ways. In addition, don’t expect a clear runoff. A close margin is to be expected, and Ukraine’s political divisions make it unlikely that anybody will win over 55% of the vote barring unforeseen events.

Turnout, finally, was 67%, down around 8% from the 75% turnout in the 2004 first round. This reflects the popular discontent in Ukraine with politicians and parties from both sides. There’s no love for Yanukovych, who has negative ratings, but the voters are equally discontent with the pro-western movement whose achievements in power have been limited. Lower turnout didn’t have a large effect on the first round, but if first round voters who voted for a minor candidate stay home, it will drive turnout down and make the runoff quite unpredictable.

Election Preview: Ukraine 2010

Ukraine holds the first round of presidential election today, January 17. These elections are important for the future of Ukraine’s political orientation and it may also hold important repercussions in the region.

The 2004 presidential election was closely disputed between Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. While Yushchenko, a pro-Western and pro-European former Prime Minister led in the first round of voting, the pro-Russian Yanukovych led in the disputed and later voided first runoff. Following the ‘Orange Revolution’, after the colour of Yushchenko’s coalition, the Supreme Court annulled the results of the first runoff – universally known to be fraudulent (101% turnout in Yanukovych’s oblast) and ordered a second runoff to be held. Yushchenko won the second runoff and became President. His victory signaled an important setback for Putin in Moscow.

However, Yushchenko did not fulfill the hopes his voters had originally vested in him. Firstly, Yushchenko sparred with his original Prime Minister, the ambitious pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko and later dismissed her. He dissolved Parliament twice, in 2006 and later in 2007 sparking a political crisis due to the dubious constitutionality of the dissolution. Furthermore, like most Ukrainian Presidents, Yushchenko was not able to fulfill his promises of all sorts. His very assertive and up-front style of governing, especially in his tough relations with parliamentarians, and his lack of results have resulted in his party and his popularity crumbling to levels between 10%.

Ukraine has been starkly divided between east and west for centuries, and independence has encouraged further polarization. The electoral results of 2004, 2006 and 2007 continued to reflect this polarization. In the east, historically part of the Russian Empire, a majority or at least a plurality of the population speaks Russian and a sizeable minority are actually ethnic Russians. These voters have always seen neighboring Russia as Ukraine’s obvious and natural ally economically and politically. To this region, rich in minerals (the Donetsk area is in the middle of a very large coalfield), can be added the Crimean peninsula. This region is even less ethnically Ukrainian (58% ethnically Russian), having been ceded to the Ukrainian SSR only in 1954. Attachment to Ukraine is extremely weak in this area: when 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence in 1991, only 54% of Crimeans voted in favour of independence. On the other hand is western Ukraine (including Galicia), historically influenced by Polish and part of Austria-Hungary until 1918. In Galicia, a sense of Ukrainian nationalism was developed under Austro-Hungarian rule (Vienna sought to prevent Moscow from gaining influence in this region) and was later the base of dissidents under the Soviet era. A large majority of voters here speak Ukrainian and there are a number of Greek Catholics in this area. Voters in western and central Ukraine have always tended to prefer moderate pro-Western parties and politicians. Yushchenko received over 90% of the vote in Galicia in the 2004 runoff(s).

The main candidates in today’s election are President Viktor Yushchenko, incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych. Despite the fact that he’ll lose by the first round and likely fail to win more than 10% nationally, Yushchenko insists on being a candidate. However, the strength of the Orange movement has seemingly shifted to Yulia Tymoshenko and her party (Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko). The pro-Western movement in Ukraine has always been divided, but on the pro-Russian side, Yanukovych and his Party of Regions have affirmed themselves as the major option for the eastern Ukrainian voter. The Communist Party, which remains very hard-left, has been progressively sidelined since their heydays in the 1990s. The Socialists, which used to be hard-left as well, have also be sidelined and lost all seats in 2007.

Tymoshenko and Yanukovych are very likely to be the top-two candidates. However, two populist candidates have gathered significant steam. The first is Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. He is generally centrist, leans to the west and supposedly supports political reforms. He had his peak in the summer, but has since come down to 6%. Sergei Tigipko had his surge later in the campaign, and he now polls around 15%. Tigipko is a businessman and former Governor of the Bank of Ukraine. He is a member of a small Labour Party, which supported Yanukovych in the 2004 campaign. Tigipko is generally leaning to the east, and criticized the Orange government’s foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia. The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn, leader of the Lytvyn Bloc and member of the Tymoshenko majority in the Parliament, is also candidate on a agrarian/populist platform.

Petro Symonenko, the nutcase leader of the Communist Party, who came second in the 1999 election but whose party has since fallen to around 4-6% of the vote, is candidate for a third consecutive time. His votes are concentrated nowadays in the mining region of Donetsk, and should likely flow to Yanukovych in a runoff. There are also a number of fringe candidates, a lot of them being crazy.

Exit polls show that Yanukovych has around 35-36% of the vote against around 25% for Tymoshenko. Tigipko has around 11-15%, Yatsenyuk around 5-7% and only 5% or so for President Yushchenko. Turnout is lower than in 2004, highlighting the popular discontent with politicians all across the board. Yanukovych remains unpopular, and so does the Orange movement.

Yanukovych leads by a large margin in the runoff polling because his voting base in the east is solidified, while the west is more divided (though still favours Tymoshenko) and undecided. The runoff will be closer than expected, but Yanukovych has an advantage there too after the perceived failure of the Yushchenko and pro-western administration. However, I have a hard time seeing how Yanukovych could win a runoff by an decisive margin in such a polarized country.

Election Preview: Massachusetts Senate by-election 2010

A special election to fill the US Senate seat of late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, who died in summer 2009, will be held in Massachusetts on January 19. Ted Kennedy, brother of former President Joseph F. Kennedy and former Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was first elected in a special election in 1962 to fill a seat which his brother, President Kennedy, had held between 1953 and 1960. He was easily re-elected in 1964 through 2006.

Shortly before his death, he urged Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to change the law for filling vacancies to allow for interim appointments before a special election can be held. The law had been changed in 2004 by Democrats who feared that Republican Governor Mitt Romney would appoint a Republican to John Kerry’s seat if he had been elected President in 2004. The winner will be up for re-election in 2012.

Massachusetts, being the most Catholic state in the country coupled with a strong organized labour base and socially liberal streak, is one of the most Democratic states in the nation. It gave Obama 62% of the vote, and it was the only state in which John Kerry (who represents the state in the Senate) broke 60% in 2004. Democrats hold all state-wide offices (with the exception of Treasurer, which is held by a former Democrat, now Independent) and all 10 seats in the US House. In the State House, there are 144 Democrats to only 16 Republicans. In the State Senate, there are 35 Democrats to 5 Republicans.

Governor Patrick, who was successful in passing the new succession law, appointed Paul G. Kirk to fill the Senate seat before a special election is held and its winner sworn in. Kirk made it clear he was only a seat-warmer and would not run in the special election.

Martha Coakley, Massachusetts’ Attorney General won the December 8 Democratic primary with 47% against 28% for Representative Mike Capuano. Coakley, who supported Hillary Clinton in 2008 and offered only lukewarm support to Obama in November, is a rival within the state Democratic Party of Governor Patrick (who supported Obama in 2008). Coakley supports Obama’s healthcare plan and also stands with the party on social issues.

Republican State Senator Scott Brown easily won the Republican primary. Scott Brown is hard to pin-down, but he is certainly what is called an ‘economic conservative’ in the US and more wishy-washy on social issues. He opposes Obama’s healthcare plan and is known to be anti-tax, but he has not come out as fully pro-life though his website does say he ‘wishes the reduce the number of abortions in America’. He also states that marriage is between a man and a woman, but he’s made his real stance on gay marriage wishy-washy as well. In a state where Republicans tend to be quite liberal, he is probably to the right of most Massachusetts Republicans (and Democrats, obviously). However, Professor Boris Schor of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies contends that Brown is a liberal Republican.

There’s a third candidate, an Independent, with an original name. Joseph Kennedy, no relation to the Kennedy either by blood or political views. Kennedy is a libertarian, and some think he could get a small share of the vote from voters thinking they’re voting for a real Kennedy.

Massachusetts in a safe Democratic state, but a general growing discontent with Obama coupled with a series of verbal gaffes by an uncharismatic and rather poor candidate like Martha Coakley has changed this race into a very close race. A few polls have had Brown ahead, and all serious pollsters rate the race as a tossup. Rasmussen had Coakley ahead 49-47, and PPP has Brown ahead 48-47. The race remains very close and both candidates have a realistic chance to win. A Republican victory in such a Democratic state would probably send a shockwave signal to Democrats and Obama of the danger they’re in, especially in regards to the November 2010 mid-terms. However, it remains a special election where turnout patterns are different than those usually seen in November.

Democrats hope that a visit by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama can prevent Coakley’s vessel from sinking from the weight of her awful campaign. Democrats.