Europe: abstention and punishment

Since last Thursday until tonight, all Europe –well, all the EU- has gone to the polls. They were electing the members of the European Parliament, and there has been a clear winner: abstention.

In absolute terms, center-right parties won the elections -although they lost seats. The Greens also outcome winning a few more seats almost everywhere. On the other side, the biggest losers of the night have been the left parties. It’s funny how the Europeans have voted for those who brought us into the financial crisis in the first place to take out from it. Then some will say that Americans were dumb and didn’t know how to vote when they did so with Bush Jr.

However, the big percentage of abstention (only a participation of 43%) left over many questions and makes impossible to extrapolate congruent conclusions. Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist Party in Brussels, warned that if the pollings continue this way, the legitimacy of the European Parliament could be questioned. Pöttering, leader of the right parties, agrees with him but doesn’t think it could be so bad, as he explains that also in the US “nobody votes” for the Congress.

Truth is that even though they were European elections, nobody mentioned Europe anywhere. Each country was involved in an intestine fight, with their own targets. Global results were secondary, important issues were disputed locally.

That’s what happened in Sweden, for example. There, the P2P (peer to peer) file exchanges were in the eye of the political storm converted into hurricane. On one side, the Government and the opposition, together trying to ban the illegal downloads on the Internet. On the other side, the “Pirate” party, advocacying for free downloads. In the end, a huge triumph for the latter, with at least one seat in Brussels.


In Spain, legality was also the center of the political storm, but in a different way. There it was all about II-SP, the platform of the left independentists that the right-wing party PP tried to ban from the elections. The Popular Party sued the Basque party in court.

In the end, it didn’t matter, as the independentists didn’t get enough votes for a seat. But inside the Basque Country, II-SP and the PP gained a close amount of votes (only about 1,000 votes of difference), which can be a hard hit for the right wingers.

In the UK, Nick Griffith will become the first xenophobic, racist, far right-wing and anti-Europe euro parliamentary. Which is like choosing an atheist as bishop of Rome. Also the eurosceptics of the UKIP have gained support.

But the main interest was in Gordon Brown’s party, the Labourists. Everybody expected a fall, the question was around how big it would be. If only a big fall or a humiliating fall.

In the end, the fall was pretty big. In some demarcations, Labourism is now the sixth political force. In Scotland, where the Premier is from, according to the results form tonight, Gordon Brown wouldn’t even been elected as parliamentary.

In general, British votes have been a punishment to the Government and the political class. The two main parties fall in number of votes, but the Labourism, in power, falls further. The origin is the faith crisis around the country after the expenses scandal and the economic downturn.

In Ireland, also affected by the financial crisis and a Government crisis, Brown’s counterpart, Brian Cowen (pictured right) also has arisen badly hurt. His party, Fianna Fail, with a fall of 18 points, has harvested the worst results in their history since the 20s. That’s, almost since the creation of the Irish state.

On the other hand, Libertas’ eurosceptics (the ones to blame for the NO to Lisbon) have seen reduced their votes and won’t have any seats in Brussels. The Greens, Cowen’s partners in the Government, also are affected but less. A matter of numbers, anyway. If they didn’t have so much support before, they won’t lose so much after.

For now, the only issue clear is that Cowen is under pressure. The results of the European elections, plus the results of the local elections, draw a difficult landscape for Fianna Fail and it’s likely to see a new general election in Ireland before the end of the year.

But of course, in some places, nothing changes. I’m talking about Italy. There, it doesn’t matter how many underaged girls in topless or naked had been partying with the Premier; nor how many political scandals is he involved. Berlusconi’s support remains almost untouchable.

Photos: BBC, James Flynn