It has been a bad week for political incumbents in elections around Europe. Things could get much worse for them.
A bad week for incumbents
Prime minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats had its worst result since 1903 in Denmark’s general election yesterday, although it remained the biggest party. And although her left-leaning “red bloc” of parties won 84 seats to the right-leaning blue bloc’s 77, Frederiksen is not certain to remain prime minister after what is likely to be weeks of coalition negotiations.
The centrist Moderates under foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen hold the balance of power between Frederiksen and defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen, whose centre-right Venstre party had the worst result in its history. Poulsen said last night he does not want to go back into government with the Social Democrats, calling for a new, centre-right coalition.
Frederiksen became a role model for some struggling centre-left leaders across Europe when she adopted harsh anti-immigration policies. But the far-right Danish People’s Party made big gains in yesterday’s election, as did the Green Left.
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Frederiksen’s restrictive policy, which makes migration unavailable as an instrument to regulate the labour market, has created a shortage of workers in some skilled occupations and in the care sector. Although Frederiksen’s robust response to Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland was popular, voters appeared to care more about the rising cost of living.
Last Sunday, Slovenia’s prime minister Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement suffered a sharp drop in support in an election that left them neck and neck with the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party under Janez Janša. The same day, Germany’s Social Democrats lost the Rhineland-Palatinate, a state they governed for 35 years, in an election that saw the far-right Alternative for Germany double its share of the vote to almost 20 per cent.
France’s municipal elections on Sunday produced a complicated picture that saw both the far-right and parties of the left make gains, although Marine Le Pen’s National Rally failed to win any big cities. Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party took control of Bordeaux and Annecy but the president’s mayoral candidates in Paris and Lyons lost.
The outcome of Tuesday’s referendum on judicial reform in Italy was, by contrast, a straightforward and resounding defeat for prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Voters rejected her proposal, which would have increased political influence over judicial appointments, by 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a high turnout of 59 per cent.
The result is a blow to the air of invincibility around the Italian prime minister, whose government has lasted longer than any since Silvio Berlusconi’s in 2011. Like many on the right, she inherited Berlusconi’s hostility to Italy’s independent judiciary and, like him, she has been distracted by efforts at constitutional change instead of focusing on the economy.
Meloni’s far-right coalition is ideologically aligned and enjoys a comfortable parliamentary majority but she has failed to improve Italy’s economic growth, which is stagnant. Italy, which depends on liquefied natural gas from Qatar, is vulnerable to further shocks from the war in Iran, the consequences of which are likely to bring more bad news for incumbents around Europe in the months ahead.
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