MSEAP Members this week
General Elections
PHOTO: Dean Lewins/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
On Saturday, in a result that stunned most analysts, Australia re-elected the conservative Liberal-National coalition and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to the House of Representatives. With 76.2% of cotes counted as of 10:00 May 20, 2019, Liberal-National Coalition is predicted to take 77 seats according to the Australian Electoral Commission, one seat more than the 76 seats required for a majority. The Liberal-National Coalition saw a surge in support in Queensland, the rural, coal-producing state where a proposed Carmichael coal mine would be among the largest in the world if it is approved by the Coalition. Opposition Labor is predicted to take 68 seats; Labor leader Bill Shorten admitted defeat and resigned party leadership, and former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbot lost the seat he had held since 1994. Mr. Morrison campaigned primarily on economic issues, while Labor leader Shorten promised to cut tax breaks for the wealthy and to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
PHOTO: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
Exit polls in world’s largest democracy, India, showed that incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi is most likely to be re-elected. At least seven exit polls released by Indian media organizations on Sunday night predicted that Mr. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., and its allies would win at least 280 of the 545 seats in Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, meeting the 272 seat requirement to form a government and empowering them to choose the next prime minister. The polls also forecasted that the Indian National Congress, the leading opposition party, marginally did better than the last elections in 2014 but remains a distant second. Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that the election commission has been compromised. Official results will be announced on 23 May.
Election of Speakers in Parliament
PHOTO: Khaama Press
Afghan Lawmaker Mir Rahman Rahmani has been elected as speaker of the Lower House of Afghan Parliament, Wolesi Jirga, on Saturday. Rahmani, an MP from Parwan, is a former military general who has completed his studies in Russia in 1982. He received 123 votes in the second round of the vote, wheras his close competitor Kamal Nasir Osuli got 55 votes. In the first round of the voting on May 16, four MPs competed for the seat of House Speaker in which Rahmani and Osuli got the highest votes and succeeded to enter the next round. Some MPs challenged the result as they said he had not received the required votes (124/247 votes for a simple majority), but acting speaker Atta Mohammad Dehqanpoor said that with three MPs absent, 123 votes were sufficient for majority.
PHOTO: AFP
Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn approved the 250 members for the Senate, releasing a statement that the parliament is due to meet on May 22 – exactly five years since the military coup that brought the current junta into power. The statement also said that under the constitution, the first parliamentary session must be held 15 days after the government unveiled the election results of members of the lower house (May 7), which secured May 22 as the first session. New Speakers for both the lower and upper houses will be likely chosen in the May 22 session, with a session to select the next Prime Minister likely to take place before the end of May. Former House Speaker Chai Chidchob has agreed to be the acting House speaker and preside over the first meeting of the Lower House, according to House of Representatives Secretary General Pornsak Pianvech. The King and Queen will preside over the opening of parliament on May 24, according to the cabinet’s secretariat office.
Parliament News
PHOTO: News.am
Armenia’s National Assembly President Ararat Mirzoyan proposed transferring some of PM’s powers to government and the legislature on May 17, 2019. The bills propose to change the precept for setting up the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition, and the Public Services Regulatory Commission. Under current regulations, the National Assembly appoints the chairpersons and members of these commissions, but upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister. The new bill envisages that after the termination of cessation of the powers of the chairpersons of these commissions, the right to nominate candidates for these vacant posts shall be reserved for the government instead of the Prime Minister. The draft law also proposes that the government as well as the ruling and opposition factions in the National Assembly successively nominate candidates for the vacant posts of members of these commissions.
PHOTO: BiHVijesti.ba
On May 16, 2019, Croatian Parliament Speaker Gordan Jadrokovic laid wreaths at a monument in the Loibach field near the Austrian town of Bleiburg, saying that he came to pay tribute to all victims and nothing that he did not come to downplay the nature of the World War II Ustasha regime. He said, “I came here to pay tribute to the victims, to people who were killed without a verdict and out of revenge, who were thrown into mass graves and whose identities and exact number we don’t know…it is the duty of all of us to commemorate these victims.” The Bleiburg commemorations are held in tribute to tens of thousands of Croatian civilians and soldiers of the defeated pro-Nazi Independent State of Croatia (NDH) who surrendered to allied forces, but were handed over by British troops to Yugoslav forces. Earlier on March 1, Austria amended its law that bans the display of symbols of outlawed organizations to include Ustasha insignia.
More elections to come
PHOTO: ALEX HALADA / AFP - Getty Images
On Sunday, the Austrian president called for new elections in September, a day after the government collapsed over the emergence of a video that showed the country’s far-right vice chancellor discussing financial campaign contributions in exchange for lucrative public contracts to a woman who claimed to be a Russian investor. Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache resigned after the compromising video, filmed before the 2017 elections, was released on Friday, and Chancellor Sebstian Kurz said that he would no longer work with Freedom Party, led by Strache despite the resignation. Opposition party and members of his own conservative People’s Party called for all Freedom Party ministers to quit their posts. This scandal, which comes just a week before the EU elections, is likely to be a blow to attempts by Italy's Matteo Salvini to forge an alliance of nationalist European parties.
PHOTO: AFP
Ukraine’s main parliamentary coalition broke up on May 17, 2019 after the People’s Front party quit outgoing President Petro Poroshenko’s faction, the parliamentary speaker said. The Ukrainian parliament now has one month in order to form a new coalition; if no new coalition forms within the deadline, the president can dissolve parliament and call snap parliamentary elections.
PHOTO: Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
From May 23 to 26, 28 EU members will go to the polls to elect 751 members to the European Parliament for a five-year term that starts 2 July. The elections are expected to change the size of the political blocs represented in the 751-seat parliament. The centre-right European People’s Party is projected to remain the largest bloc with some 180 seats, 37 less than it had in 2014. The Socialists and Democrats are also expected to lose about 37 seats. Those likely to gain seats are essentially the liberals (a gain of eight) and, more important, the far right and nationalists, whose representation is expected to rise from 37 to 62 seats. If Brexit happens, British Members of European Parliament will resign; the European Parliament will be reduced to 705 members, and remaining 27 of UK’s 73 seats will be redistributed to other states.
Sources
Australia
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-20/election-coalition-get-77-seats-wentworth-boothby-bass-chisholm/11128652
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-australia-48304993
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDefault-24310.htm
https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/05/18/a-conservative-government-is-returned-to-power-in-australia
India
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/india-modi-election-polls.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48328259
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/19/indians-vote-final-stage-gruelling-election-campaign-narendra-modi
https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/lok-sabha-2019-exit-polls-know-the-exit-poll-results-for-individual-states-1529123-2019-05-19
Afghanistan
https://www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/mps-elect-rahmani-wolesi-jirga-speaker
https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/19/first-session-of-afghan-parliament-ends-in-brawl-over-new-speaker
https://www.rferl.org/a/new-afghan-parliament-session-ends-in-brawl-over-speaker/29951165.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/asia/afghanistan-speaker.html
Thailand
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-05/14/c_138057962.htm
http://www.khaosodenglish.com/politics/2019/05/15/king-to-inaugurate-new-parliament-on-coup-anniversary/
https://elevenmyanmar.com/news/thailands-pro-junta-bloc-claims-deal-with-two-key-medium-sized-parties-asianewsnetwork
https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/1680136/king-queen-to-open-parliament
Armenia
https://news.am/eng/news/513141.html
Croatia
https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/35938-bleiburg
https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/35982-bleiburg
Austria
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/world/europe/austria-elections-far-right.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48320983
https://www.politico.eu/article/austria-chancellor-sebastian-kurz-says-far-right-freedom-party-destroyed-itself/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/19/austria-prepares-for-elections-after-ibiza-video-scandal-strache
Ukraine
https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/17/ukraine-parliament-coalition-breaks-up-speaker
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-coalition/ukraine-ruling-coalition-breaks-up-in-setback-for-incoming-president-idUSKCN1SN0PT
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-s-main-parliamentary-coalition-breaks-up-ahead-of-president-elect-s-inauguration/29946934.html
European Parliament
https://thearabweekly.com/european-parliaments-elections
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/19/european-election-all-you-need-to-know-dos-dhondts
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-european-parliament-elections/
BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr) |
