MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight

On the eve of the European Parliament election of 9 June 2024, French president Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and appointed 30 June and 7 July as the days of a snap legislative election. In the first round of the election, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally managed to repeat – and even slightly improved – its great result delivered in the recent EP election, and the key question was whether they could ensure an absolute majority in the Assembly. Between the two rounds, however, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing New Popular Front and Macron’s centrist-liberal Ensemble coalition called for coordinated action to prevent Le Pen’s absolute majority. The cordon sanitaire worked well also this time, as the National Rally came in only third in terms of the seats obtained after the left-wing and the centrist blocks, and the result was a hung parliament.

What motivated Macron in calling for a snap election? What was the campaign like? What was the stake of the election for the parties and the electorate? What happened between the two rounds? Who will form the new government? What are the prospects for Le Pen’s party? In the new episode of the Votes & Seats podcast series of the Center for Political Science (MCC), Szabolcs Janik discussed these and similar questions with Alexandre Pesey, founder and executive director of the Institut de Formation Politique, a conservative training Institute in Paris.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

It is not an exaggeration to say that 2024 is a year of elections around the world, including Europe where citizens have already voted or will vote in different elections in 30 EU or non-EU countries (excluding the EP election). The United Kingdom is not an exception either where a scheduled general election was held on 4 July 2024. In the voting taking place with a 7-percentage-point lower turnout compared to 2019 (59,9% vs. 67.3%), the Conservative Party has suffered a historical defeat, gaining only 23.7% of the votes (-19.9% after 2019) and losing roughly two-thirds of its seats in the House of Commons (121 vs. 372 in 2019). On the other hand, though it only improved its vote share by 1.6 percentage points after 2019 (to 33.8%), the Labour Party has won in a landslide as foreseen by commentators, attaining a comfortable majority with 412 seats, practically doubling its seat number after 2019 (201). As for the smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats can rightfully be satisfied seeing the surge in the number of their seats (8 in 2019 vs. 72 in 2024), and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party made it into the House for the first time with 5 seats and the third largest vote share (14.3%) after Labour, the CP, well ahead of the LibDems coming in fourth. The Scottish National Party, however, must be disappointed after losing 38 seats after 2019 to currently hold only 9.

In the new podcast episode of the Center for Political Science (MCC), Szabolcs Janik (senior researcher) had the honor of discussing the recent UK general election with Paul Gilfillan, senior lecturer in sociology at the Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. From the current episode, you can learn about, among other things, the campaign, the key messages and topics communicated by the parties, the interpretation of the results, voter behavior, the winners and losers of the election, the prospects of the government as well as whether we are witnessing a durable restructuring of the UK party system.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

The first round of the French elections delivered a powerful victory to Marine Le Pen and a humiliating defeat for French President Emmanual Macron. With another round of elections on July 7th, however, the actual outcome of the election still remains to be seen. Will Macron be able to successfully ally with Far-Left forces to overcome Le Pen? Will center-right voters choose Le Pen or Macron? These questions and more are discussed by MCC’s leading French experts, Yann Caspar and Thibaud Gibelin, moderated by Stephen Sholl.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

2024 is an exciting year in European politics not only because of the European Parliament (EP) election but also a number of national elections already or to be held this year across the member states. The Belgian federal election is definitely one to be mentioned, which was due on the same day as the EP election, 9 June 2024. In addition, Belgians had to elect the members of the regional parliaments as well. Belgian politics is itself interesting and unusual due to the state’s strongly federal character, resulting in a complex division of legislative and executive powers between the community, regional and federal levels.

In the latest episode of MCC’s Votes & Seats podcast series, Szabolcs Janik (senior researcher, Center for Political Science) had the honor to discuss the results and consequences of the Belgian federal election with Bjarn Eck, PhD-researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. According to our guest, the most surprising development was the weaker-than-expected performance of Vlaams Belang (VB), a Flemish right-wing nationalist party, strongly advocating for the independence of Flanders. It was also yet to be seen whether the cordon sanitaire erected around VB by mainstream parties would last after the election. It seemingly will, as the absolute winner of the federal and Flemish elections, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) ruled out the possibility of governing together with Tom Van Grieken’s party. Instead, as Mr. Eck argues, N-VA is likely to start coalition talks with the Flemish Christian democrats (CD&V), the conservative liberal Reformist Movement as the winner in Walloon, and a centrist power called Les Engagés also from Walloon. From our current podcast episode, you can also learn about the key campaign topics and party positions on them, or how different elections together make up the overall Belgian political landscape.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

Talking about the constant political crisis, our guest commentator, Dr. Katia Mihailova from the University of National and World Economy lays it down to us that Bulgaria needs new ethics to overcome the 4 year-long political agony in the country.

Looking at the election results, the political sociologist calls our attention to the unequivocal decline of the socialist and neoliberal parties in Bulgaria. This marks the downcome of the citizens’ illusions too. Dr. Mihailova explains that in exchange, parties with clear identities managed to increase their electorate (e.g. the ethnic Turkish DPS party or the anti-establishment ITN movement). The associate professor also stresses that the proportion of the nationalist electorate has reached the share of the pro-EU, pro-NATO voter base in Bulgaria. This should be seen as a warning, the analyst comments.

As for the record low turnout, according to Dr. Mihailova, the silence of voters is another flagrant exclamation mark showing that the moral, the social, and the emotional relationship between political parties and the Bulgarian citizens is broken for good. That connection has to be rebuilt in order to put an end to the constant political apathy. The way out of the crisis will not come from abroad but must be found in Bulgaria, the expert concludes.

For further mind-blowing facts and interesting theories, give a listen to our podcast on the 2024 Bulgarian snap parliamentary election.

• Katia Mihailova

Associate Professor (UNWE Department of Economic Sociology)

• Bálint L. Tóth

Researcher (MCC Center for Political Science)

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

After 5 years, the EU citizens had the chance again to express their political preferences in the recent European Parliament (EP) election, held across the member states between 6–9 June 2024. Although the voting took the form of 27 different national elections with individual domestic campaign topics and party strategies also this time, the overall results shed some light on the possible policy orientation and role of the EP in the new term. European Parliament elections are traditionally considered so-called second-order elections in the literature, which means that voters are generally less inclined to vote as they attach minor importance to them compared to national general elections, and so do the political parties themselves. Indeed, this year’s EU-level turnout (51.08%, though with a minor increase after 2019 and a high variance across member states) also seems to justify this argument.

In the latest Votes & Seats podcast episode, Szabolcs Janik, senior researcher of the Center for Political Science (MCC) had the chance to discuss the EU-level results and the potential political consequences with professor Emanuele Massetti from the University of Trento. Our discussant argues that the EPP, ECR and ID party families can be deemed the winners of the election, the S&D faces a seat allocation similar to 2019, while the Greens and the liberals (Renew Europe) experienced substantial losses. In Massetti’s opinion, the European Green Deal, the issue of further EU integration, the war in Ukraine and immigration could be the topics on which a significant share of voters disagreed with the underlying national parties belonging to the mentioned center-left and left-wing political powers. At the same time, he expects that the increased vote share and seat number of right-wing powers in the EP are not likely to change the earlier domination of mainstream, centrist party groups, but the EPP will be a ‘kingmaker’ in the European Parliament. Our latest podcast episode also touches upon the post-election political landscape in Italy and the possible future fate of the ECR and ID groups in light of the recent EP election.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

This time, we dive into the depth of Macedonian politics on the occasion of the recent presidential and legislative elections that were held in the country on the 8th of May 2024.

Dr. Marko Troshanovski, president of the Skopje-based think-tank Institute for Democracy (IDSCS), explains us that the main contest was between the then ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, and the major opposition party, the right-wing VMRO DPMNE. The latter one had a landslide victory by gathering 45% of the vote. The presidential election was also won by the VMRO-DPMNE candidate, Dr. Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova.

Dr. Troshanovski provides us a comprehensive insight into the major issues of and the interesting facts about the two contests, with special regards to the major divides in the society.

If you’re eager to learn more about the importance and consequences of the elections in terms of North Macedonia’s EU accession perspectives, fight against corruption, and rule of law endeavors, give a listen to the latest episode of the Votes & Seats podcast.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

In mid-March 2024, the MPs unanimously voted for the dissolution of the Sabor, the Croatian parliament upon the initiative of the governing parties. Following the decision welcomed and widely supported by the left-wing opposition, president Zoran Milanović called for an early election on 17 April 2024, well ahead of the EP election in June and the legislative election scheduled later this year. In our new Votes & Seats podcast episode, Szabolcs Janik (Centre for Political Science, MCC) had the chance to discuss the political background and results of the early election with professor Višeslav Raos from the University of Zagreb.

In our newest election podcast, you can get a genuine insight into the logic of party competition, key campaign issues (such as economic challenges, European issues or emigration) and party positions, voter attitudes, all these embedded in the context of the coming European voting. Moreover, we also had the opportunity to discuss the future chances of the new HDZ-Homeland Movement coalition, announced on 8 May 2024.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

In this episode, we are analyzing the background of and the lessons learnt from the presidential election that was held in Slovakia in 2024. Dr. Jaroslav Ušiak from the Matej Bel University helps us understand the factors that might explain the somewhat unpredicted victory of the social democratic Peter Pellegrini over the centrist Ivan Korčok, with special regards to the main campaign messages of the candidates. Based on the endorsements behind the 2nd round candidates, we discuss whether there is a quasi bipolarizing party system evolving in front of our eyes in Slovakia in which the nationalist, NATO/EU skeptic parties and the Hungarian Alliance support the sovereigntist Pellegrini and the anti-establishment as well as right-wing liberal formations endorse the pro-West Korčok. Dr. Ušiak shares his views with us about the future of Pellegrini’s Hlas party after the departure of its founding president. We also talk about the possible career plans of outgoing president Zuzana Čaputová after her moving from the Grassalkovich palace. Last but not least, our guest expert elaborates a bit on the possible repercussions of the presidential election on the upcoming European Parliament election in Slovakia.

• Jaroslav Ušiak

Professor, Vice-Dean for International and Public Relations, Matej Bel University

• Bálint L. Tóth

Podcast editor, Researcher, MCC Center for Political Science

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.

With the most appreciated contribution of Mr. Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho from the University of Coimbra, the Votes&Seats podcast series gladly issues its episode on the March 2024 Portuguese early legislative election. With our guest expert, we reflect on the background and the process of the election, with special regards to the factors that resulted in the victory of the center-right Democratic Alliance. In our analysis, we dive into the main campaign topics, the scandalous issues, and the social/demographic/economic background of the Portuguese party politics’ current tendencies.

With the help of guest experts and politicians, in the podcast series of MCC’s Centre for Political Science we endeavor to analyze which actors are the real winners of the parliamentary and municipal elections taking place this year in different European countries and what exactly can be considered a real victory after the ballot counts.