Click to Le Monde's Interactive election maps page.
The French Presidential election is finally over. Nicholas Sarkozy has defeated Segolene Royal fifty-three percent to forty-seven percent. Sarkozy won on a campaign promoting law and order and improving France's economy. While Sarkozy supporters celebrate anarchists and the microstates have begun to riot.
Up next is the parliamentary elections. Those tend to go the way of the presidential election so expect President Sarkozy to have a relatively easy effort pushing through his reforms.
Meanwhile the Socialists are torn whether or not to abandon their anti-capitalistic, anti-globalization rhetoric. Other left parties have done this in Europe and have found some success. New Labour of Tony Blair is a prime example.
Scotland, Wales, and England had their own elections. The local elections ranged from minor to catastrophic defeats for the ruling national Labour Party.
The Scottish National Party is now the ruling party in the Scottish Parliament with forty-seven seats. The Scottish National Party has one more seat then the Labour Party. The Liberal Democrats came in third with seventeen seats and the Conservative Party, which is in a long painful decline in Scotland, earned sixteen seats. The Green Party rounded out the parliament with two seats and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party lost their only seat.
The Welsh National Assembly was held by Labour but with modest gains by the nationalist Plaid Cymru (formerly "The Party of Wales"). Labour has twenty-six seats, Plaid Cymru fifteen, Conservatives twelve, Liberal Democrats six, and one independent.
It was center-left versus center-left in Scotland and Wales. Both the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru have center-left beliefs and appeal to those who still wish to keep the welfare state.
In England itself the Conservative Party managed to pick up more seats in local elections. While some on the right have been critical of David Cameron's leadership of the Conservatives, he has been much more big government and left on some issues, he has brought them electoral success so far. It appears that after Tony Blair steps down and Gorden Brown inherits the Prime Ministers position, Cameron has a chance at being elected to led the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
4 comments:
Red states and blue states reversed, eh?
The French have always been "different." I guess I'll spin it to be pink for the pinko Socialists and blue for the conservative who, 200 years ago, would have been pro-monarchy. Yes, that's the ticket...
Catholicgauze : You're right for the pink : it's the color of the rose, the french socialist "totem".
The blue is traditionnally associated to the republican party. The monarchy color was white.
Huh, I never knew about blue meaning the Republican Party. Thanks 1000 secrets!
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