MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight

This time, we dive into the depth of Macedonian politics on the occasion of the recent presidential and legislative elections that were held in the country on the 8th of May 2024. Dr. Marko Troshanovski, president of the Skopje-based think-tank Institute for Democracy (IDSCS), explains us that the main contest was between the then ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, and the major opposition party, the...

In mid-March 2024, the MPs unanimously voted for the dissolution of the Sabor, the Croatian parliament upon the initiative of the governing parties. Following the decision welcomed and widely supported by the left-wing opposition, president Zoran Milanović called for an early election on 17 April 2024, well ahead of the EP election in June and the legislative election scheduled later this year. In...

In this episode, we are analyzing the background of and the lessons learnt from the presidential election that was held in Slovakia in 2024. Dr. Jaroslav Ušiak from the Matej Bel University helps us understand the factors that might explain the somewhat unpredicted victory of the social democratic Peter Pellegrini over the centrist Ivan Korčok, with special regards to the main campaign messages of...

With the most appreciated contribution of Mr. Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho from the University of Coimbra, the Votes&Seats podcast series gladly issues its episode on the March 2024 Portuguese early legislative election. With our guest expert, we reflect on the background and the process of the election, with special regards to the factors that resulted in the victory of the center-right Democr...

This time, we discuss the background, the outcome and the possible repercussions of the legislative, regional, and local elections that took place in Serbia on the 17th of December, 2023. Dr. Miša Đurković guides us through the deep forest of Serbian party politics. The principal research fellow of the Institute of European Studies Belgrade stressed that SNS, the Serbian Progressive Party of head-...

This time, we talked about the November 2023 Dutch early general elections with Mr. Dave van Ginhoven from the Hague University of Applied Sciences. The 150 members of the Netherlands' House of Representatives were up for election. Defying all expectations, Geert Wilders' right-wing conservative Freedom Party finished first, securing 37 mandates – far more than Frans Timmermans’ Labor/Gr...

Leading EU and member state politicians and political commentators closely observed the election campaign in Poland in recent months. Indeed, the stake of the October election was high and centred around the question whether Law and Justice (PiS) would stay in power, or the opposition would finally succeed in gaining power after eight years. And this question also had EU relevance seeing recent ye...

After several years of political crisis, the cards are reshuffled in the Slovak National Council. Veteran PM Robert Fico’s left-wing Smer party finished first, although, not many predicted a bright future for the sovereignist politician after his resignation as head-of-government in 2018. The pro-West liberal Progressive Slovakia party came in second, while the pro-EU social democratic Hlas receiv...

Even if PP won, Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s right-wing conservative political party fell short of an absolute majority in the legislature. Our guest expert, Mr. Jorge González-Gallarza from the Center for Fundamental Rights explains that Núñez Feijóo failed to capitalize on the public anger on the outgoing leftist coalition government led by PSOE. The socialists maintained their 2019 results, yet incum...

This time, we talked about the background, the circumstances, and the outcome of the 21 May and the subsequent 25 June legislative elections that took place in Greece. Our guest expert, Dr. Anastasia Kafe from the Panteion University helped us understand the different interesting aspects of the election and campaign process. The political scientist explained the impact of the recent amendments to...

From a European – and maybe even global – point of view, the Turkish elections definitely ranked among the most significant political events of May 2023. The legislative election and the first round of the presidential election were held on 14 May, and, since none of the presidential candidates reached an absolute majority in the first round, a second round was also due for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan an...

Exactly two years after the regular parliamentary election, on April 2nd, 2023, Bulgarians were called to the polls for the fifth time in a row to elect the representatives of the National Assembly. Since April 2021, due to the absence of sufficient electoral support and political will, all attempts failed to result in a long-term governing coalition. Our guest expert, Dr. Mariyan K. Sabev from th...

The latest Votes&Seats podcast episode focuses on the 2 April 2023 Finnish legislative election. The liberal-conservative National Coalition Party (KOK) won from opposition securing 48 mandates, which proves to be the third highest result in the party’s history. The nationalist conservative Finns Party gained 46 parliamentary seats, while the governing center-leftist Social Democrats came thir...

Estonia is a rather unique country located in the intersection of the Scandinavian, Baltic, and Central East European regions. As detailed in the debut episode of our podcast series' third season, such geopolitical attributes determine the country's political landscape and party system as well. On 5 March, Estonians went to the polls to elect the 101 members of the Riigikogu, the country...

Úgy tűnik, Szerbia új kormányának is az európai uniós csatlakozási tárgyalások felgyorsítása lesz az egyik fő feladata, mégpedig az ukrajnai háború miatt rendkívül feszültté váló nemzetközi környezetben. A balkáni ország vezetésének előbb–utóbb választania kell Kelet és Nyugat között, hiszen a Josip Broz Tito Jugoszláviájának egykori „el nem kötelezettségéből” eredő hintapolitika egyre kevésbé fen...

Israel held its fifth legislative election in four years on 1st November, 2022. Political commentators and analysts expected a close battle between the left-wing and the right-wing blocks. The main stake of the election was whether the country would finally have a cabinet with a confident majority in the Knesset. Another key question was whether Netanyahu, who continued to be a divisive person in...

Following the publication of the study on the killing of minks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was persuaded to announce a snap parliamentary election. Our guest analyst, Dr. Christian Egander Skov explains that the election campaign centered around issues of economic unpredictability as well as energy and defense security. Frederiksen’s center-left bloc came out on...

Due to the fall of Kiril Petkov’s four-party government, this October, Bulgarian citizens went to the polls for the fourth time since April 2021 to elect the members of the National Assembly. This time, the expert team hosted by Bálint L. Tóth (Center for Political Science, MCC) consisted of Neli Kirilova (ESDC & Corvinus University of Budapest) and Piotr Pietrzak (In Statu Nascendi). The anal...

This time, Bálint L. TÓTH from the MCC Center for Political Science hosted Jasmin Hasanović and Osman Sušić senior teaching assistants from the University of Sarajevo. The researchers had a markedly thought-provoking conversation about the background, results, and consequences of the October 2, 2022 general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country with Europe’s most complicated political a...

In this MCC Votes & Seats edition, Ms. Margherita Saltini, international relations and geopolitical expert from the foundation Nazione Futura helps us understand the circumstances and importance of the September 2022 Italian snap legislative election. An absolute majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic were won by the center-right alliance led by Giorgia Mel...

As a result of the most recent Swedish legislative election held on 11 September 2022, a right-wing government will be formed, as the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals secured 176 seats together with the Sweden Democrats, while the left-wing bloc has as many as 173 seats out of the total 349 in the Riksdag. One of the most exciting developments is that the Sweden Democrats h...

As the hugest surprise of the French legislative elections held on 12 and 19 June, Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party coalition Ensemble failed to ensure an absolute majority in the National Assembly. In the meantime, the left-wing alliance NUPES – led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon – was able to deliver a better than expected result with 31.6 percent of the votes and 131 seats from the available 577 in the...

This time, the Votes & Seats podcast focuses on the 24 April 2022 parliamentary election in Slovenia. Businessman Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement (GS) defeated the ruling Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), led by Prime Minister Janez Janša. Former Minister of Defence Matej Tonin’s Christian democratic New Slovenia (NSi) came in third, followed by journalist Tanja Fajon’s Social Democrats (SD) a...

In the latest edition of the MCC Votes & Seats podcast series, we talked about the 2022 general election in Serbia that was held on 3 April 2022 to elect both the head of state and members of the National Assembly. This time, we had the pleasure to have Dr.  Miša Đurković, a principal research fellow at the Institute of European Studies Belgrade with us, who helped us understand the background...

As of April 6, 2022, the Fidesz-KDNP leads the vote by a wide margin and will gain 135 parliamentary seats, two more than in 2014 or 2018. In addition to the two-thirds majority of Fidesz, the opposition alliance United for Hungary won a total of 56 seats, and the far-right Our Homeland party also won 7 seats. In light of the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the voters’ desire for peace an...