Lefteast
While the defeat of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš at the hands of a right-wing coalition surprised everyone, the electoral results can hardly be heralded as the end of populism. They do mark the demise of the billionaire oligarch Babiš, but they also show how far the political scene has shifted towards xenophobic and authoritarian tendencies, […]
Elections in Putin’s Russia are usually predictable and rarely bring out any surprises. Even when the ratings of the ever-incumbent president or his subservient ruling party are down, media propaganda and widespread systemic election fraud ensure they remain in power. As the common saying goes: “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people […]
Germany’s ruling center-right CDU (Christian-Democratic Union) has the lowest number of politicians with immigrant backgrounds, yet it looks like in this election the party will be supported by immigrants and their descendants to an unprecedented degree. A study conducted this year has shown that in recent years the percentage of Turks who would vote for […]
Note of LeftEast editors: On the eve of this fall’s parliamentary elections, the room for political manoeuvre before our Russian comrades (and all other opposition forces) has shrunk to a bare minimum. In these circumstances, engagement with other opposition forces in a broad front against the party-state appears the only option. Mikhail Lobanov’s parliamentary candidacy […]
Whatever the international players do or do not do, they should immediately stop penalizing the primary victims of the regime, the peoples of Iran. In addition to the endless suffering of innocent people, the only tangible outcome to be expected from the continued economic sanctions is the antagonizing of more and more ordinary Iranians, which is precisely what the fundamentalist regime aims to accomplish.
Note from LeftEast editors: this post was first commissioned by French Left publication Contretemps, and you can read it on their website in the translation of Celine Cantat. To update the discussion on Zagreb je Naš/Možemo!, in the local elections held on 16 May 2021, the left-green coalition won 40.8% of the votes and 23 […]
First published in Viento Sur. Translated from the original French by International Viewpoint. After its overwhelming victory in the early parliamentary elections held on 13 February 2021 in Kosovo (1.8 million inhabitants, 90% Albanian), the Vetëvendosje (VV) party – the name means “Self-determination” – completed the consolidation of its institutional powers on Sunday 4 April 2021. Winning […]
Bulgaria held inconclusive general elections on April 4, 2021. The hitherto center-right ruling party GERB won them but with a result preventing it from forming a government. A nascent anti-GERB coalition is shaping up in Parliament, led by “There is such a people”: a new formation headed by a famous Bulgarian TV host.
The candidacy of Elton Debreshi – a mineworker from a peripheral town north of the country – in the upcoming general elections in Albania could be genuinely considered as an unwarranted intrusion into politics as usual. Thirty years after the collapse of the old regime, the political scenery has crystalized into the systemic rule of […]
With local elections due to be held in Croatia on 16 May 2021, a left-green political platform Zagreb je Naš (Zagreb is Ours – henceforth ZjN) stands on the brink of a historic achievement.[1] Its candidate for mayor, Tomislav Tomašević, holds a strong lead in the race and is predicted to defeat by a large […]