Luxembourg General Election

[markgoodair]

Spying scandal PM resigns new election

[Sibboleth]

Details: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23264789

[Sibboleth]

Anyways, politics in Luxembourg is dominated by the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) which is your typical Benelux Catholic centrist conservative party, except that it still wins elections. It has won the most votes election since 1979, the most seats in all elections after 1945 and has only been out of power once since then (between 1974 and 1979 when there was a DP-LSAP coalition). Junckner himself has/d been in office since 1995 and generally shared power with the LSAP (the usual moderate socialist party) though once did with the DP (your typical Benelux secular conservatives who call themselves liberals). In some respects all much of muchness. Other parties include the Greens (the usual), the Alternative Democratic Reform party (pensioners lobby masquerading as some kind of conservative populist outfit), and The Left which is a hard left party. Luxembourg used to have a decently strong Communist party, but it lost its last seat in the first election after the Wall came down.

[iainbhx]

So this time it will be a CSV-DP coalition.

[Merseymike]

Jul 11, 2013 11:13:26 GMT iainbhx said:

So this time it will be a CSV-DP coalition.

I don't know much about the state of the parties, but would the Socialists have wanted elections if they were likely to lose ground? There could be a centre-left coalition with the Liberals (DP), Greens, and Socialists, if the CSV is seen as tainted

[johnloony]

I don't really care much about what parties there are in Luxembourg. Whenever I think of Luxembourg I usually don't get any further than Prince Louis of...

[Deleted]

Jul 12, 2013 3:29:09 GMT johnloony said:

I don't really care much about what parties there are in Luxembourg. Whenever I think of Luxembourg I usually don't get any further than Prince Louis of...

His father the grand duke looks rather like Nigel Farage.

[markgoodair]

Two new parties standing this time, the Pirate party and Partei fir Integral Demokratie.

[iainbhx]

The votes are being counted now, the results are at wahlen.rtl.lu/resultater/national/ It looks like the CSV are losing seats to the DP.

[andrea]

420/625 reported

Christian Social People's Party 33.2 (-4.84) 23 seats (-3)
Socialists 19.68 (-1.88) 13 seats (=)
Democratic Party (Liberals) 19.13 (+4.15) 13 seats (+4)
Greens 10.02 (-1.69) 6 (-1)
Alternative Democratic Reform Party (Conservatives) 6.55 (-1.58) 3 (-1)
The Left (far left) 4.92 (+1.63) 2 (+1)
Pirates 3.09 (+3.09) 0
Party for Integral Democracy 1.76 (+1.76) 0
Communists 1.65 (+0.18) 0

[iainbhx]

So it looks like they can actually carry on as they were.

[finsobruce]

Oct 20, 2013 18:45:09 GMT andrea said:

420/625 reported

Christian Social People's Party 33.2 (-4.84) 23 seats (-3)
Socialists 19.68 (-1.88) 13 seats (=)
Democratic Party (Liberals) 19.13 (+4.15) 13 seats (+4)
Greens 10.02 (-1.69) 6 (-1)
Alternative Democratic Reform Party (Conservatives) 6.55 (-1.58) 3 (-1)
The Left (far left) 4.92 (+1.63) 2 (+1)
Pirates 3.09 (+3.09) 0
Party for Integral Democracy 1.76 (+1.76) 0
Communists 1.65 (+0.18) 0

Can't find out what the Party for Integral Democracy stand for, although their campaign slogan translates as "One Step Ahead". Can anyone enlighten? 

[maxque]

A former ADR MP, which tried to defect to the Greens, but was refused. Direct democracy, homeopathy, forcing banks to lend money to small businesses, linking the numbers of students allowed into a university program to the demand on the market, if I believe an interview he gave.

Mostly, his votes came from the North, especially around his home area.

[tricky]

The Luxembourg papers are reporting that a Liberal/Socialist/Green coalition is going to be formed returning the CSV to opposition for the first time since 1979. The Liberal leader would become Prime Minister.

That would be a shock to put it mildly.

[erlend]

As only the second non CSV PM since liberation in 1994 that is quite a shock. The other was Gaston Thorn in the late 70s.

[iainbhx]

Oct 22, 2013 10:21:18 GMT tricky said:

The Luxembourg papers are reporting that a Liberal/Socialist/Green coalition is going to be formed returning the CSV to opposition for the first time since 1979. The Liberal leader would become Prime Minister.

That would be a shock to put it mildly.

Dear God, I never even thought of that happening, isn't this one of the signs of the End Times.

[tricky]

Confirmed. The Liberal Leader has been appointed as formateur and will seek to form a 3 party coalition.

www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/october/luxembourg-heads-towards-three-party-coalition/78568.aspx

In other news the weather in the underworld has been described as 'a bit parky' with a possibility of freezing over and the moon has been reported as blue.

[Sibboleth]

I think the circumstances of the election are key to this. Questionable whether such an obvious rag-tag-and-bobtail coalition will have much of a chance of re-election, but stranger things have happened.

[Merseymike]

But its not as strange as it might look. Remember Liberal parties can be either right or left leaning - in both Belgium and Luxembourg they are left leaning. Holland has two liberal parties one left liberal, the other right liberal.

This is a perfectly coherent centre-left coalition.

[mboy]

Oct 26, 2013 20:52:55 GMT tricky said:

Confirmed. The Liberal Leader has been appointed as formateur and will seek to form a 3 party coalition.

www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/october/luxembourg-heads-towards-three-party-coalition/78568.aspx

In other news the weather in the underworld has been described as 'a bit parky' with a possibility of freezing over and the moon has been reported as blue.

Looks like it's all on track:
www.dw.de/luxembourg-installs-bettel-juncker-out/a-17271782

Apparently they intend to enact substantial constitutional reform modernisations, including the separation of church and state, etc. I wish them well!