Europe Elects Newsletter 🇪🇺

#11 — November 2024

What a month … so many elections, and the news just doesn’t seem to be slowing down. As promised, in this edition, we cover the recent Georgia and Moldova elections as well as brief looks at the results out of Romania, Iceland, and Ireland. But first, if you’d like to encourage others to subscribe, please use this link:

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Iceland Parliament Election Aftermath

The centre-left Social Democratic Alliance (S-S&D) officially confirmed their return from the political wilderness on 30 November. The party saw its support collapse in the 2013 parliament elections, losing more than half of its seats and dropping from the first to the third largest party in parliament. The next election saw the party almost completely wiped out before slowly rebuilding itself in 2017 and 2021. In this year’s election, the party regained its position as the largest in parliament, with 15 seats. Government formation negotiations are still ongoing but are expected to finish before the new year. The Social Democrats have been leading discussions with the Liberal Reform Party (C-RE) and the People’s Party (F~RE). The latter is opposed to EU integration, while the Social Democrats and Liberal Reform support Iceland joining the bloc.

Ireland Parliament Election Aftermath

The three largest Irish parties — Fianna Fáil (FF-RE), Sinn Féin (SF-LEFT), and Fine Gael (FG-EPP) — all increased their seat share following the 29 November election. However, the Irish Green Party (GP-G/EFA) which was in government with FF and FG lost all but one of its seats. FF and FG combined are two short of a majority so expect some change to the government, but not anything drastic beyond FF being firmly in the driver’s seat this time around.

Georgia Parliament Election Aftermath

The 24 October elections were supposed to be a change election for Georgia. With the exception of government aligned-GORBI, most polling firms predicted that the ruling Georgian Dream (GD~S&D) party would see their support decrease by between 12 and 30 pp and thus lose their parliamentary majority. Ahead of the election, our own Jan Jakob Langer wrote this for our website:

“In a country as polarised as Georgia, mobilisation will be the key factor in this election. Georgia’s past elections have followed a rough urban-rural division, which doesn’t align according to traditional political camps but rather along a pro- and anti-incumbency axis. Rural areas, especially those inhabited by ethnic minorities (mostly Armenians and Azeris), lean heavily in favour of the respective incumbent government, while the capital Tbilisi and larger cities tend to favour the opposition. GD’s win in 2020 can be attributed to running roughly tied with the opposition in the cities, while sweeping the regions by double-digit leads ... Saturday’s election in Georgia will thus be a battle of turnout, which will be published over the course of the election day. High turnout in the cities should indicate a good evening for the opposition, while high rural turnout would likely make GD more optimistic about its chances. Exit polls will be published right after poll closing, and results should be known shortly thereafter.”

Well, the turnout definitely went up. Beyond that, it’s a little hard to discuss the results with any level of confidence. Official results put GD at 53.93% — a 5 pp increase. However, this result — which was completely out of line with both reliable exit polls and pre-election opinion polls — has been disputed by the opposition, and there have been serious allegations of election fraud. EuropeElects has conducted and published our own research in this thread, but the summary is that GD received a suspiciously large percentage of votes from rural villages in a way that does not seem to follow normal distributions. What’s evolved since then is nothing short of a constitutional crisis. Georgia’s president Salome Zurabishvili (*) — who is up for election by parliament tomorrow — has called for new elections and mass protests. The opposition has boycotted parliament, while GD has insisted that it won the election outright and has continued to govern. Currently, protests are rocking the capital, Tbilisi. The opposition has refused to nominate any candidates, so the only person running is Mikheil Kavelashvili of the national-conservative People’s Power (PP~ECR). Zurabishvili has said she won’t resign until new elections are held and GD doesn’t have the 100 votes needed to impeach her legally, so expect things to be especially tense.

Moldova Presidential Election and Referendum Aftermath

Like Georgia, Moldova’s October elections were marred by accusations of fraud—although here, things are a little more complicated. In addition to presidential elections, Moldovans were asked to vote in a referendum to amend the constitution “with a view to the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the European Union.” The question passed, but only by .7 percentage points, despite a CBS poll from October placing support for EU integration at around 66.8 percent. 

While there was definitely widespread vote-buying by pro-Russia groups, the results were also influenced by three other factors.

Firstly, voters in Gagauzia — an autonomous region of Moldova with close ties to Russia — overwhelmingly voted against the referendum question. According to official results, 94.84 percent of Gagauzian voters voted no.

Secondly, the referendum itself was confusing and viewed with some suspicion, even by supporters of EU integration. The constitutional amendment does not advance EU membership nor did EU leadership require it. There are also serious questions about whether the Moldovan constitution can even be changed via referendum. The only avenue to amend the constitution laid out in the document is a law “adopted by a vote of two-thirds of the Parliament members.” However, the constitution also says that “problems of utmost importance confronting the Moldavian society and State shall be resolved by referendum” and that “decisions adopted according to the results of the republican referendum shall have supreme legal power.” Referendum critics and supporters have seized on both sections to defend their positions. Furthermore, many Moldovans saw the referendum as a way for incumbent president Maia Sandu (*-EPP) to increase turnout among her pro-EU base. Some voters did not appreciate the move and voted no despite supporting integration.

Lastly, Moldovans abroad overwhelmingly voted in favor of the referendum and essentially canceled out the no votes coming from places like Gagauzia.

Meanwhile, Sandu herself cruised to a convincing win in the second round of the presidential election, defeating former prosecutor and politician Alexandr Stoianoglo 55.35 to 44.65 percent.

Romania Presidential and Parliament Election Aftermath

Romania is part of why this edition has been so delayed. After the shocking first round, which saw far-right conspiracist Călin Georgescu come in first, we wanted to see how things would play out. Looks like we were right to do so. Romania now finds itself thrust into uncertain electoral territory.

Despite initially certifying it, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election results on 6 December. New elections will be set by parliament, and incumbent president Klaus Iohannis (*-EPP) has said he will remain in office until a new president is elected.

The court’s decision came after Romania’s National Security Council shared intelligence indicating “massive illegal election support,” according to President Iohannis. This includes previously undisclosed social media spending — and potential money-laundering — in the immediate run-up to the election, which officials believe helped propel Georgescu to victory.

Meanwhile, and despite major losses in their seat share, the main pro-EU parties in Romania’s parliament have been able to form a coalition government. The new formation includes the Social Democratic Party (PSD-S&D), the centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL-EPP), the liberal Save Romania Union (USR-RE) and the centre-right Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR-EPP).

European Parliament (EP) seats projection

It’s been a little over two months since the 2024 European Elections — so clearly, it’s time to look toward the next one in 2029.

The latest projection can be found here.

EPP: 183 (-5)

S&D: 134 (-2)

PfE: 100 (+16)

ECR: 77 (-1)

RE: 81 (+4)

G/EFA: 36 (-17)

LEFT: 53 (+8)

NI: 24 (-8)

ESN: 29 (+4)

Unaffiliated: 3 (+3)

+/- vs. 2024 EU Parliamentary Elections

European Council (EUCO) tracking + Other European Heads of State 

Europe Elects does not limit its coverage of EU politics to the European Parliament. Being composed of 27 political leaders from the entire continent, the European Council is an entity shaping the political priorities of the Union. 

The Council’s composition changes much more frequently than the Parliament’s—and thanks to our coverage, you can see the timeline of those dynamic shifts at any moment here.

Below, you can see the European Council's current composition, as well as its membership weighted by population.

Notable Updates 

• Austria and Belgium are still negotiating new governments — though nothing final is expected before Christmas. Bulgaria is also trying to form a government, but the chances of new elections there grow with each passing day. Ireland will also begin negotiations soon, but the general form of that government is pretty expected.

• The second Commission of Ursula von der Leyen was approved by the European Parliament on 27 November. António Costa (PS-S&D) is now officially European Council President.

Electoral Calendar 2023/2024

Do you want to be sure not to miss any major election coming up? 

Europe Elects doesn’t want you to either! Check out our publicly available electoral calendar for the upcoming year. 

https://europeelects.eu/calendar/

Some Upcoming elections

• Georgia (Presidential-indirect): 14 December

• Croatia (Presidential-first round): 29 December

Polling Highlights 

Want to stay informed about any polls published across the continent? Check out Europe Elects' Polling average to keep up with all the latest polls. 

• Czechia: right-wing Motorists for Themselves (Auto-PfE) reaches an all-time record high with 6.0% in the latest Median poll. If repeated in a national parliament election, the party would gain parliamentary representation for the first time. In June 2024, the party gained representation in the European Parliament with 10.3% in an electoral alliance with Oath – Robert Šlachta’s Civic Movement (Přísaha-PfE).
  

• Denmark: right-wing Denmark Democrats Party (Æ-ECR) rises to 11.7% in the latest Voxmeter poll. This is the highest poll result for Æ ever. If repeated in an election, it would award the party 21 MPs, a 14-seat increase from the 2022 elections.
  

• Greece: left-wing to centre-left Coalition of the Radical Left-Progressive Alliance (SYRIZA-LEFT) reaches a new record low with 6.5% in the latest Opinion Poll poll. If repeated in the next parliamentary election, it would be the party’s worst result since 2009. The party elected a new leader on 24 November after an extended leadership crisis. Meanwhile, far-right Voice of Reason (FL-PfE) reached an all-time record high of 7.0% in the latest Interview poll. The party was established in 2023 by Afroditi Latinopoulou and received 0.4% in the June 2023 election. In June 2024, the party gained representation in the European Parliament with 3%.
  

• Hungary: centre-right Respect and Freedom (TISZA-EPP) reached an all-time record high of 47% in the Medián poll released earlier in November. The party won 29.60% of the vote in this year’s European Parliament election. TISZA now sits at 38.6 % in our polling average, just 2.4 pp below the governing coalition of right-wing Fidesz–Hungarian Civic Union(Fidesz-PfE) and right-wing Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP-PfE). This is the highest an individual opposition party has polled since our average began in 2018.
  

• Slovakia: liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS-RE) reaches an all-time national record high with 25.1% in the latest NMS poll. If repeated in an national election, it would be the highest result for a list led by the party since it was founded in 2017. In June 2024, the party has won the European Parliament election in Slovakia with 27.8%.

Latest Podcast and Articles

• EU Parliamentary Projection: Would the New Commission Still Have Support?

• EE Podcast: How to form a government when the far-right is doing well?

• Romania: The Five Contenders Battling for the Presidency

• U.S. Election: Europeans Would Vote for Harris if They Could—but There’s a Wide Gulf Between East and West

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