The links between voting patterns in Bolivia and the UK are well known, aren’t they?

Don’t forget Uruguay! Unfortunately the Honduras situation is a massive blight on what would otherwise be an excellent set of results.

Both were incumbents. In what possible way can this be construed as a ‘swing’ to the left? And only one of those, Morales, is a person that the left would actually want to identify as being one of its own, IMO.

Wishful thinking based on a crumb of evidence.

1 – “The links between voting patterns in Bolivia and the UK are well known, aren’t they?”

Hopefully 🙂

The Romanian election was interesting, though, with a sort of similar divide on economic policy to that which there will be in the UK.

2 – “Don’t forget Uruguay! Unfortunately the Honduras situation is a massive blight on what would otherwise be an excellent set of results.”

That’s a good point – last week the left won in Uruguay for the second time in a row.

3 – “Both were incumbents. In what possible way can this be construed as a ’swing’ to the left? And only one of those, Morales, is a person that the left would actually want to identify as being one of its own, IMO.

Wishful thinking based on a crumb of evidence.”

Fair points – though the left vote was up in both cases (Morales was up by nearly 10%!) When I first drafted the article, I was going on the exit polls which suggested that the Social Democrat had won in Romania.

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The general point is that the argument that “the left is doing badly in response to the economic crisis” isn’t really supported by the facts internationally.

The links between voting patterns in Bolivia and the UK are well known, aren’t they?

Ummm… as far as I can see there is no mention in the original article of the UK. Nor is there any inference that there is any link between voting patterns in Bolivia and the UK.

Both were incumbents. In what possible way can this be construed as a ’swing’ to the left?

You do understand the difference between “winning an election” and “swing in the vote”, don’t you? Apparently not.

Thanks, good idea to have some international politics and election updates on LC.

Though neither Romania nor Bulgaria will be at the football World Cup, the left is overall pretty well placed among those countries competing in South Africa, particularly having won elections in the last couple of years to come to power in several (Greece, Australia, USA, Japan) and being reelected in others including Uruguay, Portugal and Spain.

Of course, you lose some too – including Germany and New Zealand as well as the Honduras coup then election .. the Chilean elections next weekend may go to the right despite the popularity of the government and President Bachelet (who can’t run again under the constitution), though that may remain up for grabs.

We may try to keep an eye on the politics of the competing countries between now and the summer over on Next Left.

http://www.nextleft.org/2009/12/come-on-you-reds-why-left-should-lift.html

Frollix22 rer: Comment 5,

This article was posted within the context of the upcoming general election in the UK and the conversations about whether voting is swinging to te right or the left.

Not a direct link – but connection enough.

Had it it been a story about the recent votes for Stacey, John, or Olie – then I could see you might not see any inference.

This article was posted within the context of the upcoming general election in the UK and the conversations about whether voting is swinging to te right or the left.

Really? I don’t see it. I mean, we all know there is an election next year, and this article is about elections (in other nations) but that is about as far as it goes. There is nothing in the article which establishes the link you claimed in your first post, nor is there the remotest hint in the article that results in these two other nations have any real relevance to the way the vote will go next year in the United Kingdom.

Which is a jolly good job too for the author, since Brown and his little crew are plainly heading for oblivion.

One might also think that a “swing to the left” in Britain would not correlate quite as closely with a swing to Labour as it once did.

A “swing to the left”… comprising the re-election of two incumbents, one of which (according to the article) managed to win by a 1-2% margin. This is essentially saying “Evo Morales did well, so there is a swing to the left in international elections”. Unfortunately, the article gives no evidence that Mr. Morales success can be attributed to the international left, rather than matters of personality or strictly national politics.

Frollix22 re: Comment 22,

Ok, I get it, the fact the we are chewing over the likely voting patterns in the UK election had no bearing on the choice of an article about the Bolivian + Romanian elections.

I suggest that to dispute this would make you either a ‘denier’ or a ‘flat earth’ pundit.

Ok, I get it, the fact the we are chewing over the likely voting patterns in the UK election had no bearing on the choice of an article about the Bolivian + Romanian elections.

Well you started it, old bean, not the article. I just went along with you. I think the fact that this is a lefty website is quite adequate justification for publication of lefty electoral successes, but there you go. Maybe I am just hopelessly rational about these things.

I’d be interested to see if there’s any connection between this and perceptions of the relative burden/benefit of taxes/social security. Both Bolivia and Romania are far poorer countries than the countries across the EU, where we’ve seen the centre-right gain ground throughout the recession. It seems plausible that in more developed countries people tend to feel that the real problem facing them is too much tax (since loss of disposable income is directly felt, whereas the benefits provided by the government are not experienced so personally- everybody feels that they’re in the middle and getting a bad deal). Whereas in poorer countries, where people are closer the breadline and more likely to be suffering for lack of basic services, people are more likely to be afraid of lack of provision of welfare/services.