Skip to main content

Global Left Midweek - Electoral Action and Strategies

Good news, bad news as elections reconfigure world politics

Students and activists gather outside the Commission on Elections to protest its unofficial tally of the national elections, showing presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on course to win the presidency, in Manila. Credit,REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez
  1. An Activist’s Guide to Getting Elected
  2. Brazil: Lula Ahead, Bolsonaro Still Raising Hell
  3. Makabayan in Philippines
  4. New Zealand’s Māori Party
  5. France: New Ecological and Social Popular Union
  6. Setback for the Left in Kerala
  7. Petros Progress
  8. Denmark Red-Green Alliance Gets to Work 
  9. Québec Solidaire Talks to Die Linke
  10. Lebanon’s MMFD

 

__________
An Activist’s Guide to Getting Elected

Peggy Nash / Canadian Dimension (Winnipeg)

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

Leading an organization or running for and winning office is very time consuming. You need to be motivated and energized. If it will tear you apart to run when you are pregnant or have your kids at home, then don’t do it. But know that it can be done and done successfully. 

__________
Brazil: Lula Ahead, Bolsonaro Still Raising Hell

Andrew Fishman / The Intercept (New York)

Lula’s lead is most dramatic among women and younger, poorer, and less educated voters, as well as Catholics, unemployed people, and Black Brazilians, who are a demographic majority. Bolsonaro’s highest approval ratings are among business leaders and the wealthiest voters.  

__________
Makabayan in Philippines

Jodesz Gavilan / Rappler (Manila)

The results of the May 9 polls reflect the fruition of the Duterte government’s long-running effort to malign and harass progressive groups. From six seats in the 18th Congress, the Makabayan bloc is set to occupy only three seats in the incoming 19th Congress.

__________
New Zealand’s M
āori Party

Tess McClure / The Guardian (London)

Election year is approaching, and it seems increasingly likely the party could hold the balance of power in New Zealand’s next government. The next election could deal Te Pati Māori a winning hand, but it’s not yet clear how they’d like to play it.

___________
Some Takes on France
s New Left Electoral Coalition

__________
Setback for the Left in Kerala

The Wire (New Delhi)

Voters swung to the center in a by-election in Thrikkakara. Uma Thomas' victory is being perceived as a shift in the public mood against chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and against the K-Rail project, which the LDF government has been pushing aggressively.

__________
Petro
s Progress

Forrest Hilton / London Review of Books

Along with the cities of Cali, Bogotá, Barranquilla, Cartagena and Buenaventura, Petro took the areas most devastated by war and by the cocaine, mining, agribusiness and petroleum industries; the majority of the country’s Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples live there.

__________
Denmark Red-Green Alliance Gets to Work

Dick Nichols and Line Barfod / Green Left (Sydney)

Last November, the radical left Red-Green Alliance (RGA) shook up Danish politics, coming first in the elections for Copenhagen City Council. Line Barfod is now in charge of the council’s work in the fields of urban renewal and development, climate, housing and traffic. 

__________
Qu
ébec Solidaire Talks to Die Linke

Alejandra Zaga MendezAndré Frappier and Stefan Liebich / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

In a wide-ranging discussion that covered Quebec’s independence movement, anti-racist politics, social housing, and the task of engaging grassroots networks, Linke’s Liebich and QS’s Zaga Mendez and Frappier talk about left platforms and campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic.

__________
Why Lebanon’s MMFD Couldn't Budge Hezbollah

Farah-Silvana Kanaan and Wael Taleb / L'Orient-Le Jour (Beirut)

Opposition party MMFD (Citizens in a State) appeared well positioned to secure several seats in Parliament in the May 15 elections. The party’s secretary general, Charbel Nahas, gained significant popularity, but when the votes were counted, MMFD came up empty-handed.