Tag Archives: Results

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GREAT NEWS! Center-right parties win EU election!

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Story is here at the BBC, entitled “European voters punish the left”. (H/T Gateway Pundit via Commenter ECM)

Excerpt:

Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left, according to exit polls and initial results.

…Centre-left parties are projected to have lost almost a quarter of their seats, while the centre-right is only slightly down.…The BBC’s Jonny Dymond in Brussels says it looks as if the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) will continue to hold power in the parliament.

Some specifics:

  • French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP trounced socialist opponents, while greens from the Europe-Ecologie party also made gains
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing centre-right grouping lost ground but finished ahead of its rivals. The Social Democrats, Ms Merkel’s partners in the grand coalition, saw their worst election showing since World War II with just 20.8%
  • In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition is ahead of the socialist opposition, with between 39% and 43% of the vote, exit polls suggested. The Italian group may be the largest within the EPP
  • In the UK, the governing Labour Party is expecting a serious defeat, slipping to third place
  • Spain’s governing Socialists were slightly behind the opposition Popular Party, according to partial results
  • Poland’s governing centre-right Civic Platform has gained ground at the expense of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party
  • Early results show Portugal’s ruling Socialists dropped a massive 18 percentage points, losing out mainly to Greens and far-left parties

In the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown’s left-wing Labour Party lost badly:

Labour is facing an historic defeat in European elections which have seen the BNP gain its first seat in Brussels.

Labour may dip below 20% of the popular vote in what deputy leader Harriet Harman called a “very dismal” night.

The party lost 12% of its vote in Wales, where they were beaten by the Tories for the first time since 1918.

The BNP win in Yorkshire and Humberside was branded a “sad day” by the Tories and Labour but the party said it was a blow against EU “dictatorship”.

With results starting to flow in, Labour looks on course to finish behind the UK Independence Party, which is currently on 17%, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is facing calls from leading figures within his own party to stand down.

Labour has been beaten into fifth place behind the Greens in two English regions – the South-East and South-West.

The Conservatives on course to repeat their victory of 2004 with 27% of the vote, but without significantly increasing their share of the vote.

The Lib Dems are neck-and-neck with Labour on 16%.

And there are also local level elections in the UK, where the Conservatives gained over 10% from their already impressive showing in 2004.

In the English local elections held on Thursday the Conservatives got a projected 38% of the vote, the Lib Dems 28% and Labour 23%.

In the 2004 European elections the Conservatives won 26.7% of votes, Labour 22.6%, UKIP 16.1%, the Lib Dems 14.9%, the Greens 6.3% and the BNP 4.9%.

The BBC also has a country-by-country breakdown here in text, and an animated version showing seat counts by country.

I blogged before about the good news from the Lebanon and India election results as well.

UPDATE: Western Experience links to a more recent overview from the Wall Street Journal.

News

GREAT NEWS! Lebanon elects anti-Syrian coalition!

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Wow! This is the best news I’ve heard all week!

Yahoo news reports: (H/T My Dad)

An anti-Syrian coalition defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon’s parliamentary election on Sunday in a blow to Syria and Iran and a boost to the United States.

…Lebanon’s rival camps are at odds over Hezbollah’s guerrilla force, which outguns the Lebanese army, and ties with Syria, which dominated Lebanon for three decades until 2005.

…The United States, which lists Hezbollah as a terrorist group, has linked future aid to Lebanon to the shape and policies of the next government. Hezbollah, which says it must keep its arms to deter Israel, is part of the outgoing cabinet.

The anti-Syrian coalition has enjoyed firm backing from many Western countries since the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father Rafik al-Hariri.

The coalition took power in an election following Hariri’s killing, but struggled to govern in the face of a sometimes violent conflict with Hezbollah and its allies.

This good news follows on the good news of India’s election results, which I reported on here.

News

Indian Christians cheer election results

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In September of 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported on anti-Christian violence in India:

In the past week in Karnataka, the southern Indian state that is home to India’s high-technology capital of Bangalore, at least 17 attacks have been reported on churches and prayer halls, according to local Christian groups, independent monitors and police….Christians, who make up roughly 2% of India’s 1.1 billion population, have periodically been the targets of violence by Hindu-extremist groups who oppose Christian missionaries and the conversion of Hindus. Christianity has proven popular among those on the lowest rungs of Hinduism’s caste hierarchy, in part because Christian groups often offer education and health care.

Christians and churches also have been targeted in Kerala in southern India, Madhya Pradesh in central India and Uttar Pradesh in the north.

The incidents follow attacks on Christians in the eastern state of Orissa starting last month that have left about 25 dead. The Orissa attacks were sparked after a Hindu-fundamentalist leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, was found dead in a temple. Orissa police have said they suspect Maoist rebels for the deaths, but Hindu-extremist groups blame Christian missionaries.

The violence has taken on a political tinge as India prepares for national elections that must be held before May.

The article talks about the two main parties in the May elections:

The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is viewed as ideologically aligned with the extremist Hindu groups, such as the Bajrang Dal, that minority groups and some other parties blame for stoking the violence.

The BJP and the Congress Party are India’s two main national parties. The current government is a Congress-led coalition.

…”The BJP has always fallen back on a strategy that polarizes people on communal lines to get what they imagine will be electoral gains,” said Jayanti Natarajan, a Congress spokeswoman.

Check out these comments by the BJP, it’s scary:

Kalyan Singh, BJP national vice president, said the party doesn’t believe in sectarian agitation. “We condemn the violence in Orissa, but the main and deep root is the mass conversions by the Christian missionaries,” which the BJP opposes, he said.

Bajrang Dal is a militant youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, a Hindu-nationalist organization. Prakash Sharma, Bajrang Dal’s national head, said in an interview that the death of Mr. Saraswati in Orissa was “under the inspiration of the Christian missionaries and converts.” He said that as a result, “people all over India are responding spontaneously against them.” Asked if he could cite evidence of Christian culpability for the death, he failed to do so.

He denied any involvement of Bajrang Dal in the riots against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka.

CNS reported on the anti-Christian campaign waged by the BJP:

Orissa is one of five Indian states where BJP authorities have passed anti-conversion laws which the U.S. State Department says infringe upon an individual’s right to change religion.

…Christians say those who have become believers do so willingly, and in the process escape the discriminatory caste system.

The Christian ministry Open Doors, which maintains a watchlist of countries where Christians face the worst persecution, this year moved India to 22nd place, up from 30th last year.

The May elections are now completed! And here are the election results so far, from the BBC: (H/T Dr. Roy)

State television says Congress’s alliance has won or is ahead in 263 seats, compared with the BJP’s (154), the Third Front (60) and others (66).

…Prakash Karat, the leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the key mover in the Third Front, accepted Congress had won.

“The CPM and the Left parties have suffered a major setback,” he said.

It’s a Parliamentary system with 543 seats, you need a governing coalition with the majority of seats to govern.

Dr. Roy says:

…There will no need for commies to be part of the governing coalition. There was 60% turnout. Unfortunately 60 people died in attacks by maoist terorrists. Congress and its allies have won in Tamil Nadu. Probably not very good news for the ltte. The Prime minister will be ManMohan Singh for now, but it is likely a Gandhi will be PM in the not too distant future.

Great news for Christians in India!

UPDATE: The Competitive Enterprise Institute says that it’s a victory for free market capitalism, as well! Bonus!