Clearing an election backlog

I’ve been very much focused on Australia’s election for the last fortnight, but that doesn’t mean things haven’t been happening in the rest of the world. Today, an attempt to quickly catch up on some other electoral events.

Trinidad & Tobago

Trinidad & Tobago went to the polls on 28 April, the same day as Canada. You can read about the previous election, in 2020, here; the government of the People’s National Movement (PNM), then led by Keith Rowley, was returned for a second term with a three-seat majority off 49.1% of the vote. Rowley resigned as prime minister in March and his successor, former energy minister Stuart Young, decided on a snap election (otherwise due in August).

The country has a two-party system, divided largely along racial lines: the PNM is supported more by those of African heritage and its rival, the United National Congress (UNC), appeals to those of Indian descent. Ideologically both appear close to the centre of the spectrum; the BBC describes the PNM as “centre-left” and the UNC as “centrist”, but other sources put them the other way around.

This time voters decided it was time for a change. With 54.0% of the vote the UNC won 26 of the 41 seats, against 36.2% and 13 seats for the PNM. The Tobago People’s Party, which only contests the two seats on the island of Tobago, won both of them with 2.2% of the overall vote. (Official results here.) UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar becomes prime minister, having previously held the job from 2010 to 2015, and Young becomes the shortest-serving leader in the country’s history.

Singapore

Singapore voted the same day as Australia and also saw its government returned with an increased majority, but unlike Australia’s election this can hardly be described as an exercise in democracy. Nonetheless Singapore has a functioning opposition, which at the previous election, in 2020, had done unexpectedly well, winning ten of the 93 elected seats.

The People’s Action Party, which has governed the country since independence, went into this election [link added] with a new leader, prime minister Lawrence Wong, following the retirement last year of Lee Hsien Loong. He succeeded in increasing its share of the vote, up 4.3% to 65.6%, but failed to win back any seats from the opposition Workers Party (although it did win the four new seats created in a redistribution).

The Workers Party also increased its vote share, to 15.0% (up 3.8%), and again outvoted the government in the seats that it contested. But the smaller opposition parties all performed poorly, losing votes and failing to win any seats, although the Singapore Democratic Party’s leader managed 46.8% in his constituency. (Official results are here; I’m assuming that whoever aggregated them at Wikipedia did it correctly.)

Romania

Romania went to the polls a day later, on 4 May, in the first round of its presidential election (re-run after the first attempt was annulled; see my preview here). As expected, far-right candidate George Simion topped the poll, but with a bigger lead than was predicted: polls had put him at close to 30%, but he led with 41.0%. Independent reformist candidate Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest, will face him in the runoff next Sunday after placing second on 21.0%.

That’s a big gap to make up. Dan only led the third-placegetter, the establishment’s Crin Antonescu, by less than a percentage point, with Victor Ponta further back on 13.0%. His chances aren’t helped by the fact that Antonescu avoided explicitly endorsing him, and many of Ponta’s voters are also thought to be sympathetic to the far right. The polls show Dan trailing, but still within reach.

If Simion wins he will still have to work with a hostile parliament, but the latter, divided between establishment and reformists, may not be able to put up much resistance. Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu last week announced his resignation, leaving the way clear for Simion to appoint his own candidate to take Romania into the pro-Russian camp.

Albania

Finally to Albania, which voted last Sunday in its parliamentary election (read about the last one here). Socialist prime minister Edi Rama, in office since 2013, was seeking a fourth term and being challenged by the Democratic Party, traditionally centre-right but recently shifting towards Trumpism.

It’s fair to say that in the Balkans, the conspiratorial Trumpian narratives of the “deep state” and the like have some reality; Albania is deeply corrupt and Rama’s government has entrenched itself in the country’s institutions. Nonetheless it is also strongly pro-European and pro-Ukraine, and Rama campaigned on a promise of delivering European Union membership (in the pipeline since 2009) in his next term.

And the voters duly renewed his mandate. Counting is not yet complete, but with 92.2% reporting the Socialists have 52.3% of the vote, up 3.6% on last time and on track to win 82 of the 140 seats (up eight). The Democrats are down 5.3% to 34.2% and probably 52 seats (down seven); four smaller parties are set to share the remaining six seats, none of them with more than 4%.