Francis wrote:Watching the Portuguese TV - at the poll closing
Socialist Party : 45% to 49%
Social Democrats 25% to 29%
Right Wing : 6% to 8%
Left Wing : 6% to 8%
Wow that would be a
landslide!
These are the results from the previous elections, in 2002, with the parties listed from left to right:
---
7.0% -- United Democratic Coalition (unreformed communists plus symbolic green allies)
2,8% -- Left Bloc (Democratic People's Union, Revolutionary Socialist Party, a modern, libertine version of above)
37,9% -- Socialist Party (main leftwing party, allied with Labour/Socialist/Socialdemocrat parties elsewhere in Europe)
40,1% -- Social Democratic Party (main rightwing party, pro-market liberal)
8,8% -- People's Party (conservative)
---
So if those first exit polls are right, it would mean the Socialists gained 10%, and the Social Democrats lost 10-15%!
It seems to be a landslide!
Walter Hinteler wrote:It's all over now, since a couple of minutes: both tv stations agree that there will be a CDU/FDP majoity.
Since about 19:00 the conservatives for in the greatest party mood since months, if not years.
And now:
Last-Minute-Mehrheit für Simonis
It's my birthday present
Happy Birthday, Walter ! i had meant to buy a present , but i'm glad to hear it has already arrived. many happy returns ! hbg
Thanks for the updates, nimh and walter and the rest of yall. I reckon that, if any of these stories makes it into the US press, it will be the Spanish referendum on the EU.
What do yall feel was the the big story of the day?
By 70 votes!!! Thats amazing!
Yeeeee - haaa!
Congrats, Walter! May the red-green coalition(s) survive many more amazing near-death experiences still!
realjohnboy wrote:What do yall feel was the the big story of the day?
Hard to say. I'd say, perhaps, the Portuguese elections. But if the Spanish referendum had gone awry,
that would certainly have been by far the story with the biggest impact.
That's pretty scary, nimh, I guess. The election in Portugal? Significant? To whom? I'm a political junkie, albeit of amateur status.
Why was the election in Portugal important? Did it suggest to you a trend? Or is politics in Europe nothing more then a tempest in a teapot?
Interesting interview with Peter Mandelson, European commissioner for external trade:
Quote:Mandelson: Iraq shows why US needs EU
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
21 February 2005
The Iraq war has shown the "vulnerability" of America when it goes it alone and underlined its need for partnership with Europe, according to the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson.
At the start of George Bush's five-day trip to Europe, Mr Mandelson described recent US hostility to European unity as an "aberration" in policy, and said its President had appeared to do little to offset his poor public image in Europe.
In an interview with The Independent, Mr Mandelson also criticised members of the Government for failing to provide leadership over Britain's role in the Europe, and suggested that a third-term Labour government would not seek to join the euro. The close ally of Tony Blair also refused to rule out a return to British politics.
He argued that "the experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq showed America's vulnerability. He said: "Without allies working with the US in Iraq, the position would be even worse."
Source
Link to
Peter Mandelson:Complete Interview
Some different new from EU-Europe:
Quote:Italians irate at language snub
John Hooper in Rome
Monday February 21, 2005
The Guardian
Instantly dubbed il de classamento (the relegation), it has already prompted an anguished round of national soul-searching and breast-beating. Now, it is set to cause a diplomatic rift between Rome and Brussels.
The president of the European commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, will today find waiting on his desk an irate letter from Italy's permanent representative, protesting at the downgrading of Italian at commission press conferences. According to Italian press reports last week, the EU's bureaucracy has decided that, from now on, proceedings will be translated into Italian only on Wednesdays.
The news has initiated an impassioned debate in Italy over the country's international standing. It is particularly embarrassing for Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing government, which is committed to raising Italy's global profile.
Some commentators accused successive governments of failing to provide sufficient funds for bodies responsible for promoting Italian. But others blamed the Italians' love of sprinkling their speech with Anglicisms.
The European affairs minister, Rocco Buttiglione, said: "The decision to discriminate against Italian is unacceptable." Italy's commissioner in Brussels, Franco Frattini, threatened to hit back by speaking only in Italian at his own press conferences
Source
realjohnboy wrote:The election in Portugal? Significant? To whom? I'm a political junkie, albeit of amateur status. Why was the election in Portugal important? Did it suggest to you a trend? Or is politics in Europe nothing more then a tempest in a teapot?
Well, the elections in Portugal were pretty important to the
Portuguese ... and thats still ten million people. In comparison, the Spanish referendum for now remains of mostly symbolic importance and Schleswig-Holstein is just one of a dozen or so German states.
But no, no hailing of a new trend alas. If anything, the Portuguese are late: apparently, Socrates is a "Neue Mitte"/"New Labour" kind of reformed, market-oriented Socialdemocrat ..
He reminds me, from what I've read, of Wim Kok, the Labour Party leader here in the 90s. Led his party to a handsome election victory (eventually) and headed an economically successful "purple" government for eight years, the first government since 1918 without Christian-Democrats, which thus got to implement some long-overdue social reforms (gay marriage and the like). But he was a technocrat too, and he divided the left (agressively scorning the Greens and Socialists), alienated the Labour party from its traditional worker constituency (leading eventually to their mass defection to the far right), and presided over the definite advent of the culture of Grabbing, an era of privatisation, liberalisation and commercialisation.
I will always remember the nineties, esp the late nineties, as the years of resentful spoiledness, of satiated Dutchmen getting ever new tax cuts in a booming economy where their stocks and houses rose exponentially in value, but still always complaining, carping about foreigners, unwilling to give a dime to the homeless ... at the time, I was really disgusted with the gluttonish egoism I saw around me.
Of course, however, after the years of grabbing came the years of hating, and in comparison the nineties now look like Paradise Lost ...
Realjohnboy, did you read about Cav? It's
terrible.
I heard the news about Cav when I got home this evening. Very sad. I've never actually met anyone from A2K, which is the only "chat-room" place I visit. But I feel that I've made a number of friends. Cav and I hung out periodically in the Creative Writing category. He was clever with words.
I posted this on an other thread this AM. on second thought it would seem to be more appropriate for this thread.
White middle class leads emigration trend
AMSTERDAM Paul Hiltemann had already noticed a darkening mood in the Netherlands. He runs an agency for people wanting to emigrate and his client list had surged. .
But he was still taken aback in November when a Dutch filmmaker was fatally shot and his throat slit on an Amsterdam street. .
In the weeks that followed, Hiltemann was inundated by e-mail messages and telephone calls. .
"There was a big panic," he said, "a flood of people saying they wanted to leave the country." .
Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy? .
The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims. .
"The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure-cooker atmosphere," Hiltemann said. .
There is more than the concern about the rising complications of absorbing newcomers, now one-tenth of the population, many of them from largely Muslim countries. .
Many Dutch also seem bewildered that their country, run for decades on a cozy political consensus, now seems so tense and prickly and bent on confrontation. Those leaving have been mostly lured by English-speaking nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, where they say they hope to feel less constricted. .
In interviews, emigrants rarely cited a fear of militant Islam as their main reason for packing their bags. But the killing of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a fierce critic of fundamentalist Muslims, seems to have been a catalyst. .
"Our Web site got 13,000 hits in the weeks after the van Gogh killing," said Frans Buysse, who runs an agency that handles paperwork for departing Dutch. "That's four times the normal rate.".
Van Gogh's killing is the only one the police have attributed to an Islamic militant, but since then police reported finding death lists by local Islamic militants with the names of six prominent politicians. .
The effects still reverberate. In a recent opinion poll, 35 percent of the native Dutch questioned had negative views about Islam. .
There are no precise figures on the numbers now leaving. But Canadian, Australian and New Zealand diplomats here said that while immigration papers were processed in their home capitals, embassy officials here had been swamped by inquiries in recent months. .
Many who settle abroad may not appear in migration statistics, like the growing contingent of retirees who flock to warmer places. .
But official statistics show a trend. In 1999, nearly 30,000 native Dutch moved elsewhere, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. For 2004, the provisional figure is close to 40,000. .
"It's definitely been picking up in the past five years," said Cor Kooijmans, a demographer at the bureau. .
Ruud Konings, an accountant, has just sold his comfortable home in the small town of Hilvarenbeek. In March, after a year's worth of paperwork, the family will leave for Australia. The couple said the main reason was their fear for the welfare and security of their two teenage children. .
"When I grew up, this place was spontaneous and free, but my kids cannot safely cycle home at night," said Konings, 49. "My son just had his fifth bicycle stolen." .
At school, his children and their friends feel uneasy, he added. "They're afraid of being roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids." .
Sandy Sangen has applied to move to Norway with her husband and two school-age children. They want to buy a farm in what she calls "a safer, more peaceful place." .
Like the Sangens and Konings, others who are moving spoke of their yearning for the open spaces, the clean air, the easygoing civility they feel they have lost. .
Complaints include overcrowding, endless traffic jams, and overregulation. Some cite a rise in antisocial behavior and a worrying new toughness and aggression both in political debates and on the streets. .
Until the killing of Pim Fortuyn, a populist anti-immigration politician, in 2002 and the more recent slaying of a teacher by a student, this generation of Dutch people could not conceive of such violence in their peaceful country. .
After van Gogh's killing, angry demonstrations and fire-bombings of mosques and Muslim schools took place. In revenge, some Christian churches were attacked. .
The saying that the Netherlands is "full up" has become a national mantra. It was used cautiously at first, because it had an overtone of being anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim. .
But many of those interviewed now state it flatly, like Peter Bles. He makes a long commute to a banking job in Amsterdam, but he and his wife are preparing to move to Australia. .
"We found people are more polite, less stressed, less aggressive there," Bles said. "Perhaps stress has a lot to do with the lack of living space. Here we are full up." .
Space is indeed at a premium here in Europe's most densely populated nation, where 16.3 million people live in an area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Maryland. Denmark, which is slightly larger, has 5.5 million people. .
Dutch demographers say their country has undergone one of Europe's fastest and most far-reaching demographic shifts, with about 10 percent of the population now foreign born, the majority of them Muslims. .
Blaming immigrants for many ills has become commonplace. Conservative Moroccans and Turks from rural areas are accused of disdaining the liberal Dutch ways and of making little effort to adapt. Immigrant youths now make up half of the prison population. .
More than 40 percent of immigrants receive some form of government assistance, a source of resentment among native Dutch. Immigrants say, though, that they are widely discriminated against. .
Konings said the Dutch themselves brought on some of the social friction. The Dutch "thought that we had to adapt to the immigrants and that we had to give them handouts," she said. "We've been too lenient; now it's difficult to turn the tide." .
To Hiltemann, the emigration consultant, what is remarkable is not only the surge of interest among the Dutch in leaving, but also the type of people involved..
"They are successful people, I mean, urban professionals, managers, physiotherapists, computer specialists," he said. .
Five years ago, he said, most of his clients were farmers looking for more land. .
Buysse, who employs a staff of eight to process visas, concurred. He said farmers were still emigrating as Europe cut agricultural subsidies. "What is new," he said, "is that Dutch people who are rich or at least very comfortable are now wanting to leave the country.".
I find it interesting that its the "rich or at least very comfortable" who now want to leave the country, but that the explanation they give focus on the troubles caused by immigrants (or code words for it). I mean, these would be the people that actually have least to do with immigrants on a day-to-day basis, right, living in the comfy suburbs and sending their kids to the white schools there? I mean, the guy's from Hilvarenbeek for chrissakes, whats the Muslim population there, 2%? And he's "afraid of [his kids being] roughed up by the gangs of foreign kids"? What, because he saw it on TV? I swear we're spinning ourselves in a state of hysteria sometimes.
I dont exactly know what it all means but I do sure know that I instinctively have a lot more sympathy for the raucous List Fortuyn voters in the inner city who did, after all, see their cities and neighbourhood change around them - so fair enough that they're angry - than for these upper and upper middle class citizens who howl with the wolves even as they've themselves reaped the windfall of the boom of the nineties and experience the 'action' merely vicariously through alarmist reports in De Telegraaf and on TV.
The comparison with Spain, where they had "Madrid" for chrissakes, a multiple times Van Gogh, and still the mood is calm and restrained and tolerance for Muslims in general still intact, definitely puts us to shame. I mean, when exactly did the Dutch become such an unsympathetic mix of satiated and resentful? Oh, those asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants are oppressing us, poor rich villa-neighbourhood folks! Gggrrr... <shakes head>
<end of rant>
Always good to hear both sides of any argument. Your's sounds more reasonable/responsible. Thanks.
I went to see a movie tonight and I wrote a buncha stuff about it - not because it was a brilliant movie (it was fair) - but because the subject matter was so intriguing - and the essence of the subject matter was, ultimately, a story about Europe. In fact, I almost posted it in this thread - but instead, put it up in the Movie Journal thread:
Alias Kurban Said.
Pretty engaging stuff about Alias Kurban Said aka Nussimbaum etc. Will look for it coming to our area.
