MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight

According to Mr. Grigoryan, the 2026 Armenian parliamentary election took place in a transformed geopolitical environment following Azerbaijan’s 2023 takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, the displacement of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, and progress toward a draft peace treaty in 2025. The expert claims that the campaign focused on national security, the peace process with Azerbaijan, economic perf...

In this episode, Dr. Bálint L. Tóth sits down with Dr. Katia Mihailova of the University of National and World Economy in Sofia to unpack the far-reaching implications of Bulgaria’s 19 April 2026 legislative election—an unprecedented 8th snap vote since 2021. Against a backdrop of political crisis, corruption scandals, rising living costs, and allegations of vote buying, the conversation explores...

Slovenia held a scheduled legislative election on March 22, 2026. The citizens of this small Central European country – often referred to as Europe’s Green Heart – had the chance to choose from two large and several minor parties. The election was accompanied by an intensive and harsh campaign, centered around the clash between the governing leftist Freedom Movement (GS) led by prime minister Robe...

For the first time in decades, the Netherlands faces a virtual tie at the top: the social-liberal Democrats 66 and the right-wing populist Party for Freedom are both projected to secure 26 mandates each in the House of Representatives. It’s the best-ever election performance for the former party, while for the latter one, it’s a bitter reminder of their voter base’s volatility. The former coalitio...

Former PM Andrej Babiš’s ANO emerged as the largest party in the Czech Parliament’s Lower House, marking a major comeback with strong electoral support. According to political scientist Ladislav Cabada, a key factor in the victory was that Babiš positioned himself as the leader of the opposition, formed a visible shadow government, and maintained effective communication. Our guest expert stresses...

A scheduled parliamentary election was held in Moldova on September 28, 2025, a political event closely followed by the international press and western political leaders. Indeed, the stakes were high, centered around the country's future path towards EU membership or the building of closer ties to Moscow. The result reflects the electorate's western orientation as the pro-European party...

The episode analyzes Norway's September 2025 parliamentary election with expert Dr. Herman Smith-Sivertsen. The Labor Party won 28% of votes, securing government leadership in a minority. The Conservatives dropped to third place, while the conservative-libertarian Progress Party became the largest opposition force. Amid debates over electricity pricing, taxation, climate policies, immigration...

The second round of the Polish presidential election was held on 1 June 2025 with Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki as the two leading candidates standing after the first round. The head-to-head battle resulted in the narrow victory of the PiS-backed conservative Nawrocki, which is a challenging development and a huge blow for Donald Tusk’s government, already struggling advancing its agenda in...

Portuguese politics has gone through a turbulent period recently, the latest development being a snap legislative election held on 18 May 2025, the third one in a row in the past three years. Therefore, we have good reason to believe that government stability is at least problematic in the Iberian country, where political competition traditionally took place between two large parties (right-wing s...

In May 2025, the presidential election in Romania, which was annulled last December, was repeated amid considerable social and political tensions. Mathematician and independent Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan faced former football hooligan George Simion, the leader of the far-right AUR party in the second round. Our guest expert, Prof. Alexandra A. Iancu claims that the invalidation of the original el...

Chosen by God, elected by the cardinals In May 2025, the Conclave has elected the American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as the 267th Bishop of Rome, the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and the head of Vatican City State, the Holy See. Our guest expert, Mr. Marco Malaguti from Centro Studi Machiavelli claims that Pope Leo XIV is a compromise between the Latin American and the European car...

Following the collapse of the so-called “traffic light” coalition in late 2024, a snap federal election was held in Germany on 23 February 2025, 7 months before the “ordinary” one scheduled for late September. In the campaign, the economic situation and immigration and public security were the top issues on the agenda. The stakes of the election and voter expectations were high, which is indicated...

The first episode of the Votes & Seats podcast’s 5th season flies us to the heart of the Balkans. Thanks to the most valuable professional insights from Mr. Mehdi Sejdiu, we were lucky to have the bigger picture about the background, the circumstances, and the main conclusions of the February 2025 legislative election in Kosovo. Our guest expert pointed out that the internal cohesion of the go...

A scheduled Romanian legislative election was held on 1 December 2024, between, now we can say, the planned two rounds of the presidential election. Following the decision of the Constitutional Court annulling the result of the first round, many are guessing what comes next, when will Romania hold the presidential election and when will it have a properly elected new president. In the meantime, th...

The ruling Georgian Dream party declared its victory, while the four main opposition alliances won’t accept the results published by the Central Election Commission. Anti-government political actors claimed the election was "rigged," and so the mass protests continued with people demanding a re-run of the legislative election. While the major opposition players stated that the ruling par...

This time, we analyze the October 2024 presidential election and EU membership referendum that were held in Moldova on the same day. Mr. Nicolae Panfil from Promo-LEX claims that the referendum turned out to be a “double-edged sword” in the campaign of incumbent head-of-state Maia Sandu: it did boost the president’s pro-EU image, yet it also gave a momentum to the pro-Russia machinery in the count...

The oldest political player in Lithuania, the Social Democratic Party (LSDP) won the October 2024 parliamentary election securing 19% of the vote. On the other hand, the largest party in the outgoing center-right coalition, the Homeland Union (TS–LKD) finished second with 18%. In the latest episode of Votes & Seats, we analyze the background, the circumstances and the consequences of LSDP’s co...

Our podcast series goes on with the 7th episode of its ‘Bulgaria spin-off.’ This time, it was Dr. Mariyan K. Sabev from the Center for the Study of Democracy to give us insights into the ever-lasting Bulgarian political saga. As the expert pointed out: this election was not about political ideas but mere fighting among the parties for parliamentary representation. There were no coherent messages,...

The conservatives and the social democrats were in charge for 80 years, maybe now it’s time for something new – says Dr. Ralph Schölhammer, assistant professor of International Relations at Webster Vienna Private University. On 29 September 2024,  Austrians went to the polls to elect the members of the 28th National Council, the lower house of the country's bicameral parliament. The Freedom P...

On the eve of the European Parliament election of 9 June 2024, French president Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and appointed 30 June and 7 July as the days of a snap legislative election. In the first round of the election, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally managed to repeat – and even slightly improved – its great result delivered in the recent EP election, and th...

It is not an exaggeration to say that 2024 is a year of elections around the world, including Europe where citizens have already voted or will vote in different elections in 30 EU or non-EU countries (excluding the EP election). The United Kingdom is not an exception either where a scheduled general election was held on 4 July 2024. In the voting taking place with a 7-percentage-point lower turnou...

The first round of the French elections delivered a powerful victory to Marine Le Pen and a humiliating defeat for French President Emmanual Macron. With another round of elections on July 7th, however, the actual outcome of the election still remains to be seen. Will Macron be able to successfully ally with Far-Left forces to overcome Le Pen? Will center-right voters choose Le Pen or Macron? Thes...

2024 is an exciting year in European politics not only because of the European Parliament (EP) election but also a number of national elections already or to be held this year across the member states. The Belgian federal election is definitely one to be mentioned, which was due on the same day as the EP election, 9 June 2024. In addition, Belgians had to elect the members of the regional parliame...

Talking about the constant political crisis, our guest commentator, Dr. Katia Mihailova from the University of National and World Economy lays it down to us that Bulgaria needs new ethics to overcome the 4 year-long political agony in the country. Looking at the election results, the political sociologist calls our attention to the unequivocal decline of the socialist and neoliberal parties in Bul...

After 5 years, the EU citizens had the chance again to express their political preferences in the recent European Parliament (EP) election, held across the member states between 6–9 June 2024. Although the voting took the form of 27 different national elections with individual domestic campaign topics and party strategies also this time, the overall results shed some light on the possible policy o...