End-of-summer update

People have been understandably focused on big-picture issues lately, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the detail as well. Here are some updates on world electoral news that you might well have missed.

Belgium

Belgium went to the polls way back in June of last year – here’s my report at the time. But it took nearly eight months from there to form a government. New prime minister Bart De Wever, leader of the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), was sworn in at the beginning of this month, at the head of a five-party coalition.

With twelve parties represented in parliament there were almost endless possible permutations, but the basic choice was fairly straightforward: whether to bring N-VA back within the tent (it has been in government once before, in 2014-18, which ended badly) or whether to try to construct a government without it. The latter was mathematically possible but fiendishly difficult; the former was always the more likely. And eight months wasn’t even close to a record: twice recently the process has taken more than a year.

So the new government, in addition to N-VA, brings together Christian Democrats from both French- and Dutch-speaking sides, plus French-speaking right-liberals and Dutch-speaking Social Democrats. This breadth enables it to command a majority in both communities as well as an overall majority of 14 seats, while also keeping out the far-right party, Flemish Bloc. It’s been nicknamed the “Arizona” coalition, since with a bit of imagination you can interpret the parties’ colors as reflecting that state’s flag.

Ecuador

Readers may remember that Ecuador went to an early election a year and a half ago, when then-president Guillermo Lasso fell into irreconcilable conflict with the legislature and used his constitutional power to dissolve it (which involved putting his own job on the line as well). He chose not to stand again, and cleanskin centre-right candidate Daniel Noboa won narrowly with 51.8% in the runoff.

But that only entitled him to serve the remainder of Lasso’s term, with this year’s election taking place on schedule. The first round was held three weeks ago, and Noboa led with 44.2%, about 20,000 votes ahead of the far left’s Luisa González on 44.0%. (See official results here.) The two will therefore contest the second round on 13 April in a rematch of 2023.

Last time González led in the first round by ten points and still lost; Noboa picked up most of the votes from the eliminated candidates. This time the vote is concentrated much more with the two frontrunners; only two other candidates scored more than 1%. Leonidas Iza of the Indigenous-rights party Pachakutik placed third with 5.3%, followed by environmental activist Andrea González on 2.7%.

Abkhazia

Abkhazia, at the western end of the Caucasus mountains, is recognised as a country only by Russia and a handful of others; most of the international community regards it as part of Georgia. Unlike other Russian protectorates, however, it has shown an independent streak in the past and has held genuinely competitive elections.

The last election, in 2020, chose Aslan Bzhania as president with 58.9% of the vote. He resigned last November as a result of protests against Russian influence, and was succeeded by his vice-president, Badra Gunba. It seemed to be a further sign of Vladimir Putin’s waning power in the region, following the defeat of Armenia in the Artsakh war and mass protests against the Russian-aligned government in Georgia.

But while Russia might be overstretched, it still has the capacity to bring Abkhazia into line, and the full weight of its bribery and intimidation was brought to bear in favor of Gunba, its preferred candidate, in the first round of the election two weeks ago. It was not enough to deliver him a majority, but he scored a comfortable lead with 46.4%, against 36.9% for the opposition’s Adgur Ardzinba, whom he will face in the runoff on Sunday Saturday.

The Abkhazians are in an unenviable position; Russia has repeatedly encroached on their independence (such as it is), but without Russian support they would be at the mercy of Georgia – especially if an anti-Russian government ends up taking power there. Most probably they will stick with the devil they know.

Austria

Finally to Austria, still without a government following its election last September. Last time we looked, early in January, negotiations for a coalition between centre-right and centre-left had broken down, and far-right leader Herbert Kickl – whose Freedom Party won the most seats in the election – had been asked to try to form a government.

But that didn’t work either. Although the centre-right, under new leader Christian Stocker, professed itself willing to work with the far right, after a month of talks they failed to reach agreement. Apparently the Freedom Party insisted on a more complete control of the government than Stocker’s People’s Party was willing to concede.

Kickl then called for fresh elections, but instead the other parties tried again for an agreement and this time they succeeded. The People’s Party, the Social Democrats and the liberal Neos announced yesterday that they would form a three-party coalition. Between them they command a solid majority, with 110 of the 183 seats, but there are some major policy differences that could make for difficult times ahead.

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UPDATES, 7 March: The new Austrian coalition was duly approved by the relevant parties and sworn into office last Monday. But the Politico report is a good example of what not to say about cases like this, with its tagline “coalition to prevent far right from coming to power despite its electoral victory.” Winning 28.8% of the vote is not, by any sensible meaning, “victory”: the three parties in the new government together won almost twice as many votes as the far right, so there’s nothing remotely undemocratic about the outcome.

And in Abkhazia, Russia’s man Gunba prevailed as expected in the second round, winning with 55.7% of the vote against 42.2% for Ardzinba and 2.1% for “none of the above” – a margin of a bit over 13,000 votes. Turnout was a respectable 70%, up slightly on the first round.