Lots of elections! I wrote about the British election and how the splintering of the right into Conservatives and Reform UK/Brexit led to historic margins for Labour.
Today, we have the second round of French parliamentary elections. Very much the opposite happened in France. If in Britain, the first-past-the-post system can disproportionately reward a party like Labour when the other side has a schism, in France, the two round system means that everyone votes their heart in round one, and then makes a cool political calculation in round two. So, you might go to the polls in round one and vote for the centrist candidate, but if that candidate doesn't make the second round, you might shift to the leftist, if that means defeating Le Pen's National Rally.
Sadly, our system does not accommodate this two rounds of voting except in a few states like Maine and Georgia, where the candidate has to get 50%+1 to win the election. If we had, say, a national popular vote where there were two rounds, I doubt very much that Trump would have won in 2016. In fact, his reasonable showing might've shocked people into voting for Hillary in round two.
Meanwhile, in Iran, democracy is very much a constrained, withered, stunted thing, but it does survive barely. The death of President Raisi led to a new election. Typically, the Guardian Council of religious figures bans reformist candidates or anyone who might shake the status quo. For whatever reason, they agreed to let Masoud Pezeshkian run...and he won. Given that real authority in Iran remains with the Supreme Leader, other clerics and the Revolutionary Guard, it's unlikely that Iran will suddenly open to the West. It's not impossible though, that this could thaw relations and speed a resolution in Gaza.
Taken together, we are seeing in Britain, France and Iran the limits of right wing populism on a global scale. Even in Iran there seems to be a ceiling for this shit.
Are you listening America?
No comments:
Post a Comment