International Politics

I voted, but I don't give a rat's ass
the party that will most likely to win now was the biggest party the last 2 years, and they have acchieved nothing. They have acquired nothing. They have fought and kept putting things away for whatever reason. And this party is going to win again?

It is like re electing Bush after his failures
We Belgians are dumb

Bregt, maybe these 2 charts will help you see what i mean better about the polarizing of people and the helplessness of the whole thing;)

Euro elections for Greece:
http://www.zougla.gr/news/data/upimages … jfklj9.jpg

Euro elections for Cyprus:
http://www.zougla.gr/news/data/upimages … iam111.jpg

I'm very satisfied with the Hungarian results. The two parties, the governing socialists and their ally, the liberals, who did everything they could to make things worse in this country, hardly got any votes. The liberals can't send any member to the European Parliament, the socialists can send only 4. In Hungary this election actually was rather about internal politics than anything else. It showed to the governing party that people got fed up with them and their politics.

Check the turnout statistic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_P … tion,_2009

Belgium & Luxembourg - 91%!

Eh. Not a big fan.
Greens tend to show their fundamentalist and totalitarian roots when you least expect it (all the while claiming environment issues as their very own).

I think, as per usual (though -maybe in wake of the financial crisis?- now more than ever) the votes went to represent the current sentiments about national government rather than a European one.

Which, in many ways, is understandable: the influence of the European Parliament in its current setup is negligible on any major issue, the necessity to create coalitions dilutes any possibility for strong change and the amount of money swallowed up by the institute is positively obscene (even though I'm very Europe-minded, one of my strongest gripes against the EP in its current state is the insane and inexcusable need to switch capitals every couple of months).

Interestingly while most national government parties lost, there seems to be a clamor for "Strong Men": Sarkozy's and Berlusconi's parties won significantly!

Hah! Norway is not part of the EU, yet we just got a member in your parliament, namely Eva Joly from - I believe - the Greens.

Well, we could have some sort of general International Politics thread, surely?
It's going to be an interesting election day: the Iranian people -generally sick and tired of their oppressive government (Iran is really held in thrall by a small iron ring of power mongers and a medieval clergy: honestly, one bomb on Teheran would free the country ...and kill about 15 million people in the process...dilemmas, dilemmas) - are very much looking towards change, but I'm not confident Ahmedinedjad is ousted that easily.

For one thing, he has built a very solid powerbase for himself among the ruling families, who will be loath to see him go: the trappings of power are very seductive. Secondly, the Iranian governmen has never been one for fair play or actual democracy (though they love to talk a good deal about it), and the possibility for election fraud and corruption is a very real one indeed.

Thirdly, while Mousavi (his main opponent) is very popular, the opposition is divided, with the very liberal (note for Americans: this in the rest of the world is actually considered to be a good thing) Karoubi drawing the truly reformist votes.

I strongly would have prefered the extremely popular and very reform-minded ex-statesman Khatami to stand for presidency again, but he has thrown his weight behind Mousavi. That may help Mousavi to overcome the last hurdle: Iranian elections are generally held in multiple rounds when a round doesn't present a clear winner with an absolute majority. While Ahmedinedjad would have stood a good chance in besting four reform candidates in the first round, it's going to be significantly harder doing that against the alliance of two such powerful opponents, leading -at the very least, in my opinion, to a second round of elections where it will really be Mousavi vs. Ahmedinedjad!

Whether or not the coutry will effectively benefit politically and economically will of course remain the question.
Mousavi speaks strongly about the current government's dictatorial tendencies and has some good ideas about economic leveling that will no longer see the nation's capital in welath and the rest of the country, so extremely rich in resources, poor. But IAEA papers reveal that it was that very same Mousavi who kickstarted Iran's nuclear program back during his stint as Prime Minister from 1981-1989...

I'll be happy to see the last of Ahmedinedjad, who has done NOTHING to further Iran's standing in the world after a decade of very slow but sure reform. But whether Mousavi will be an improvement in international politics rather than just domestically I will wait to see...

We'll have to see indeed.

Sure.
Probably driven by the clerics, I'm sure.

Apparently Iran is in an uproar. It's being described as a coup, as this is the first time there has been an election fraud perpetrated on the level of the old Soviet Union.

Well, we can safely say it's a shithole. Hope it stays as confined.

The difference is that Khatami was very reform minded (far more so than Mousavi).
Iran doesn't have a great record as far as freedom of speech is concerned, but the availability of Facebook and messengers never really was an issue, the sheer wealth of Iranian profiles (political ones too!) bearing witness.

The main issue here is that under Khatami, the Supreme Leader (i.e. the spiritual leader, Khameini), while still the penultimate power and accountable leader of the country, found himself at odds wkth the government over a great many things (freedom of speech and women's rights the main ones).
While slowly, and still obviously under the yoke of a monolithic religious dictatorship, the situation for students, women and the availability and stream of information was increasing steadily. And the economy flourished!

What we have now is the very same theocratic dinosaur backing an extreme political hardliner who has a powerbase through a small clique of power mongering scum who have not the least bit of interest in running a country, but furthering an ideal which is -not to put too fine a point to it- the annihiliation of anti-Islamic values in every which way.

And they're perfectly happy to sacrifice anything for that, witness the economic , political and humanitarian ruin Iran is fast becoming.

It seems many of the media in the west are trying to make this a good vs. evil story.
It isn't.
It's a hope vs. darkness story.
And I don't think we've seen that in Iran since the days of the Glorious <ptuih> Revolution.

Though obviously there are huge differences in too many ways to mention, Tien-a-min Square is still a bit too fresh in my memory to be too confident just yet about anything this side of a fully armed, well organized counterrevolution.

I heard about it his weekend. Haven't watched it, but it's getting bad over there. Somehow, the fact that the protests keep going on, against all 'laws', may lead to something ... positive (even though it clearly is far from that right now)?

It was not in the news here, but read about it in the more alternative news sources where there's no talk about the girl with stars on her face....

If you go to liveleak.com, there's some pretty graphic videos of militia / police shooting unarmed people dead; pretty nasty things.