election

Zoran Milanovic inaugurated as Croatian president

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic

Former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic was sworn in here on Tuesday as the fifth Croatian president at the President’s Office.

“I will invest everything I know and everything I have to build a presidential term that will benefit Croatia and all its citizens,”

Milanovic said in his inaugural speech after reading the oath before Constitutional Court President Miroslav Separovic.

Milanovic said he believes that the scientific community, the judiciary system and the media must improve the mechanisms for combating dishonesty and corruption.

This was the first time that a presidential inauguration ceremony in Croatia was not held at St. Mark’s Square in the city center of Zagreb, where the parliament and government buildings are located. Instead, Milanovic decided to forgo the usual pomp of the ceremony by inviting merely some 40 guests, including state officials, former presidents, his family and members of his campaign team.

Social-Democrat Milanovic served as Croatian prime minister from 2011 until 2016. He was elected on Jan. 5 in the second round of presidential election. With 52.7 percent of votes, he beat the incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

The 53-year-old new president will begin the first working day of his five-year term on Wednesday.

Joint opposition candidate wins by-election in Dunaújváros

kálló gergely mp jobbik

Gergely Kálló, the joint candidate of the opposition Jobbik, Democratic Coalition, LMP, Socialist, Momentum and Párbeszéd parties, won a by-election in Dunaújváros, in central Hungary, on Sunday.

The local ballot was held in a constituency for the mandate of Tamás Pintér, a former lawmaker of conservative Jobbik since April 2018 who was elected mayor of the city in the municipal elections last October.

Data released by the National Election Office after the ballot with 98.77 percent of the votes counted showed that

Kálló was elected with 56.29 percent of the vote, receiving 10,897 votes.

Tibor Molnár, an independent candidate backed by ruling Fidesz, came second, with 37.72 percent (7,302 votes), followed by Renáta Sürü, also an independent with 2.93 percent (568 votes).

Voter turnout was 28.87 percent in the city with 67,471 eligible voters.

Peter Jakab elected Jobbik leader
Read alsoFormer Hungarian radical party Jobbik elected new president with Jewish roots

Socialists to work for health-care improvements, pensioners, local councils in parliament

surgeon, emigration, health doctor healthcare

The opposition Socialists will work to promote health-care improvements, represent the interests of pensioners and local councils, and preserve the local business tax in its current form during the spring session of parliament to start next week, Socialist Party leader Bertalan Tóth leader said on Friday.

Bertalan Tóth, who also leads the parliamentary group, told a press conference that the experiences gathered by Socialist lawmakers at recent country visits had been discussed during the group’s first meeting this year.

Tóth said that most people they met mentioned the dismal condition of health care and complained about pension hikes remaining much below the rate of inflation.

Budapest people streetcar villamos tram everyday traffic
Read alsoCorruption, poverty, healthcare – What Hungarians worry about the most

The Socialists will duly consider these views upon drafting their two-year strategy to be approved at a party congress on March 14, he said.

The strategy will focus on developing a state which offers opportunities to people and serve as a basis for Socialist negotiators during their talks with other opposition parties on cooperation before the next parliamentary elections in 2022, he added.

The Socialists plan to increase the minimum pension considerably, implement a programme to eliminate the gap between pension increase and real wage increase, and reintroduce the Swiss indexation system for future pension increases, he said.

opposition cooperation
Read alsoSocialists: Opposition cooperation opportunity to draft programme for 2022 election

Planned changes to the local business tax constitute Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s “revenge” against local councils that have elected opposition leaders and they could result in several tens of millions of forints to be lost from tax revenues by smaller councils, Tóth said.

Commenting on new house rules to be introduced this year, he said these resulted from House Speaker “László Kövér sulking” against the opposition.

Commenting on an upcoming “national consultation” survey announced by Orbán, Tóth said the “migrant issue” seems to be not enough for ruling Fidesz to incite fear and hatred in people, so they want to introduce new issues where hatred can be incited. People should instead be asked about issues that affect their everyday lives, including health care and education, he said.

Ruling party retains majority in Azerbaijan’s parliament

President Ilham Aliyev

Azerbaijan’s ruling party has retained its parliamentary majority, according to initial election results announced on Monday.

The New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) secured at least 65 seats in the 125-member National Assembly of the South Caucasus nation, with 88.19 percent of the total votes counted, according to the country’s election commission.

Voter turnout was 47.81 percent.

Azerbaijan started its first ever snap parliamentary elections on Sunday to renew its dissolved 125-member top legislative body.

A record number of 1,314 candidates, of which 21 percent were women, stood for parliamentary seats. A total of 246 candidates were nominated by 19 political parties, including 122 by the ruling YAP.

Some 77,800 local and 883 international observers representing 59 international organizations and 58 countries monitored the voting.

Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections were initially set for October 2020. Last December, the legislative body approved dissolving itself and holding early elections, citing the need to keep up with the pace of ongoing reforms in the country. On Dec. 5, President Ilham Aliyev signed an order to dissolve parliament and set the time for snap elections.

Hungarian observers monitor parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan

 
Two Hungarians, the journalist Dunai Péter and the photographer Konkoly-Thege György, are among the group of independent international observers who arrived in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, to monitor the early parliamentary elections.
 
Speaking to AZERTAG news agency, Péter Dunai told that personal observations and impressions from the current elections will form а core of the research he is going to complete. 
 
“I am satisfied with what I have seen in Azerbaijan. I have visited four polling stations. There was a constant incoming human traffic.
 
People were saying that it is there civil duty to come and vote. The youth were particularly active”, said Dunai, adding that he hasn’t seen any difference between the Azerbaijani and European electoral systems.
 
Dunai noted a more rapid economic growth in Azerbaijan, compared to other countries in the regions. 

Election results reflect changing political landscape in Ireland

ireland irish flag

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Sunday night was re-elected by a narrow margin as a member of the lower house of the Irish parliament in the country’s general election, indicating declining support for his ruling party Fine Gael.

In Ireland, one can not be a prime minister or serve in the cabinet without being elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the country’s lower house.

The total number of votes Varadkar managed to grasp from his constituency Dublin West was 8,763, only 37 votes more than the minimum required quota for an elected TD, according to figures announced by a returning officer at Dublin West count center late on Sunday night.

More embarrassing is that Varadkar’s victory did not come until after five rounds of vote counting whereas a candidate fielded by Sinn Fein party in his constituency got elected in just one round of counting by amassing 12,456 votes, accounting for nearly 29 percent of the total votes of the Dublin West constituency.

Varadkar’s narrow escape reflects a drastic change in the country’s political landscape, which has surprised not only Varadkar himself, but also many others.

By 4:30 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) on Monday, the official results of the vote count showed that out of the 78 seats filled in the 160-seat Dail, 29 seats went to Sinn Fein while Fine Gael secured only 14 seats, not only much lower than Sinn Fein but also two seats less than Fianna Fail, another major political party in Ireland, which has swapped power with Fine Gael to govern the country since the 1930s.

In sharp contrast with Varadkar and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald easily beat her rivals to become an elected TD by winning nearly 36 percent of the votes from her Dublin Central constituency in the first round of counting.

Martin did not get elected from his Cork South-Central constituency until after six rounds of counting and received less than 20 percent of the votes from his constituency.

The rapidly growing popularity of Sinn Fein among the Irish voters, especially younger voters aged from 18 to 35, is mainly due to the party’s promises to combat soaring housing prices and deteriorating public health problems as well as its call for unification between Ireland and Britain’s Northern Ireland after Brexit, analysts said here.

Commenting on the performance of Sinn Fein in the election, Varadkar lamented that “it seems that we have now a three-party system.”

Nevertheless, he has insisted that his party will not form a coalition with Sinn Fein in the next government.

“You can’t force a coalition any more than you can force a marriage,” he said while visiting the Dublin West count center on Sunday afternoon, citing Sinn Fein’s incompatibility with his party’s views.

zoran milanovic croatia
Read alsoZoran Milanovic wins Croatian presidential election in runoff vote

However, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has softened his position, saying that his party is open to coalition talks with any party.

Though vote counting is still under way, many watchers here said that the final results of the election will basically match with the results of an exit poll released immediately after the conclusion of the election on Saturday night.

The poll showed that Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein were all tied at about a 22-percent support rate in the election.

Political analysts said that

the situation in which the three big parties in the country run neck and neck in the election would make the formation of the government very difficult and it could even take a few weeks to see the new government formed.

Some of them even warned that a new general election could be called under the worst scenario in which no coalition government or a minority government can be formed.
According to Irish law, any government to be formed must win the support from half of the members in the Dail.

Sinn Fein has fielded a total of 42 candidates in the general election, which means that the ceiling for the number of its seats in the Dail is capped.

In the last Dail, which was dissolved on Jan. 14, 2020, Sinn Fein held 22 seats, ranking third in the 158-seat Dail, whereas Fine Gael and Fianna Fail held 47 and 45 seats respectively.

The number of seats in the coming Dail has increased from 158 to 160 due to a change in the country’s population.

The counting of the votes, which kicked off at 9 a.m. on Sunday, was suspended at about 4:30 a.m. on Monday and will be resumed later in the day.

Slovenia's Prime Minister Marjan Sarec on Monday announced his resignation
Read alsoSlovenian PM resigns, calls for snap election

Former PM Gyurcsány: Opposition either wins together or not at all

democratic coalition opposition

Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the Democratic Coalition, has called on Hungary’s opposition parties to join forces, saying: “Either we’ll win together or we won’t win at all”.

In his annual speech on Sunday, the former Socialist prime minister said the opposition parties came from many different backgrounds, with different pasts and political tastes. “They don’t have to love each other, but they should love the homeland,” he said.

ORBÁN Viktor
Read alsoThe Economist discusses the plight of Hungary’s opposition

Gyurcsány said the opposition parties should not ignore their constituents. If they did win the 2022 general election, he added, they would be able to form a government only by joining together.

“It’s far better for a country to have a coalition government forced to compromise than an ignominious, selfish single party of the state,” he said.

Gyurcsány said a coalition government’s duty went far beyond linking together party lists. “Those who can’t stand each other while campaigning are hardly going to stand each other in government,” he said, adding that unless there was “an understanding that the opposition is diverse, there will not be an acceptance that the country needs greater diversity and understanding”.

Gyurcsány praised the Socialist Party for its efforts to help the disadvantaged. He also welcomed the Jobbik party’s efforts to turn itself into a “decent, nationalist, conservative party” after its “awful past”.

lászló-varju-democratic-coalition
Read alsoOpposition parties protest against criminal proceedings against DK deputy leader

He said the Momentum Movement’s members were “young, dynamic and sometimes cheeky, but have introduced a new generation of hundreds of thousands to politics.” Gyurcsány also noted that the Greens, formerly known as LMP, had filed a criminal complaint against him a few years ago. “But this doesn’t matter.”

“There’s no middle way between an authoritarian, populist, nationalist, anti-European world and democrats,” he said.

Gyurcsány also welcomed the election of Gergely Karácsony as Budapest’s mayor.

The leftist leader warned that a win by the opposition in 2022 would be followed by a “hideous” period in which they would be “hounded relentlessly”.

Meanwhile, referring to fellow DK politician Péter Niedermüller, the mayor of Budapest’s 7th district, who recently caused outrage with a remark about “white, Christian, heterosexual men and women”, Gyurcsány said Niedermüller should have added that “it is not enough to be white, heterosexual and Christian in present-day Hungary,” since “you also have to be Fidesz”.

The ruling Fidesz party’s director of communications, István Hollik, said in response that Gyurcsány had made it clear in his annual speech that he was the real leader of the liberal opposition.

Gyurcsány, he added, had “ruined the country” but had done “very well for himself”.

Hollik added that while hundreds of thousands had sunk into poverty and lost their jobs, Gyurcsány had been earning billions through “the privatisation robbery”. “Let’s not forget who Ferenc Gyurcsány actually is,” he added.

House speaker sees ‘total political war’ in domestic affairs

FIDESZ, Orbán, politics, Hungary

Hungary’s internal affairs amount to “total war”, with no dialogue in parliament and the opposition having “no arguments but invectives”, the house speaker said in an interview published by the weekly Mandiner on Thursday.

In the interview, László Kövér said that “before each election we must fight for victory and the adversary should not be underestimated”, but added that he saw “no emergency” as ruling Fidesz is on top of the polls in each age group.

Kövér touched upon recent remarks by Péter Niedermüller, opposition mayor of Budapest’s 7th district, who described “white, Christian, heterosexuals” as “a scary formation”. Kövér said he was “white, Christian and heterosexual”. “I was given all that by God, it is not my merit but I proudly claim (those properties).”

Kövér László
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Concerning the local elections last October, Kövér said that his party had lost municipalities in which “Fidesz had never had an absolute but a strong relative majority”. He mentioned, however, Budapest’s 10th and 21st districts as “baffling exceptions”, and said that a Fidesz victory was possible in such traditionally Socialist-leaning places then it would be possible elsewhere.

Kövér highlighted the importance of focusing on the young generation in the election campaign. They should be involved in politics and offered an alternative to some of the opposition parties.

ORBÁN Viktor
Read alsoThe Economist discusses the plight of Hungary’s opposition

The house speaker slammed the opposition for accusing the government of neglecting health services in Budapest, “while they are thwarting construction of a new hospital meeting requirements of the 21st century”, Kövér said. He added that “they are doing the same in culture”.

He insisted that all developments making Budapest an attractive tourist destination had been completed under Fidesz governments, while the opposition is “not capable of construction and if they happen to be on government, they will be aimed at destruction”. He added, however, that the government should “try to cooperate” but if cooperation is not possible it should “try and mitigate the damage caused by leftist partisan politics”.

Referring to Fidesz’s suspended membership in the European People’s Party, Kövér suggested that “the EPP will do what (Germany’s) CDU party tells them,” and added that a possible majority within the party for a vote to exclude Fidesz “will depend on what the Germans say”.

He said he saw no chance for the EPP “to return to its state 20 years ago and adopt conservative and Christian values at least to the extent they used to at the time of Helmut Kohl”. The EPP is “drifting towards destructive, seemingly ideology-free politics dictated by globalist powers”.

“There is life outside the EPP,” Kövér insisted, and said that should Fidesz join the European Conservatives and Reformers, they could be the third largest group in the European Parliament.

Slovenian PM resigns, calls for snap election

Slovenia's Prime Minister Marjan Sarec on Monday announced his resignation

Slovenia’s Prime Minister Marjan Sarec on Monday announced his resignation and called for a snap election in the European country, the official news agency STA reported.

During a press conference in the capital Ljubljana, Sarec said he was resigning as he was unable to achieve his aims within the current form of the minority government.

“With 13 MPs and this coalition, I can not fulfill the expectations of the people at the moment, but I can fulfil them after elections,” STA quoted Sarec as saying.

His resignation comes after Slovenia‘s Finance Minister Andrej Bertoncelj stepped down earlier on Monday over differences regarding health insurance.

The ruling center-left minority coalition led by Sarec held only 43 of 90 seats in parliament after losing the support of the opposition Left Party in November.

Fidesz-Christian Democrats’ candidate wins mayoral by-election in Győr

DÉZSI Csaba András győr mayor new

The candidate of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrats alliance Csaba András Dézsi has won the mayoral by-election in Győr, Hungary’s sixth biggest city, according to preliminary data published by the National Election Office on its website on Sunday.

Dézsi received 56.14 percent support based on all votes counted, the election office said. Balazs Pollreisz, the joint opposition Socialist-DK-Momentum-Jobbik-LMP candidate, was backed by 39.05 percent of voters, it added.

Fidesz said in a statement that

the joint candidate had scored a “sweeping victory”.

“Thanks to all who participated in the mayoral by-election and supported the development of Győr by casting their vote on Csaba András Dézsi,” the party said.

The by-election was held because previous mayor Zsolt Borkai, also of the Fidesz-Christian Democrats, resigned in November last year.

woman, prostitute, crime
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Taiwan leadership election result unveiled

taiwan-taipei-election

Tsai Ing-wen, candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and her running mate Lai Ching-te won Taiwan’s leadership election Saturday, according to the island’s election commission.

Tsai and Lai got more than 8.17 million ballots, or 57.1 percent of the total vote, while Han Kuo-yu, candidate of Kuomintang (KMT), and his running mate Chang San-cheng obtained over 5.52 million ballots, or 38.6 percent of the vote.

James Soong, the People First Party candidate, and his running mate Sandra Yu got more than 600,000 ballots, or 4.3 percent of the vote.

Taiwan’s legislative election was held simultaneously with the leadership election.
Among the 113 seats in the island’s legislature, DPP garnered 61 seats while KMT got 38 ones.

kürtőskalács
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Zoran Milanovic wins Croatian presidential election in runoff vote

zoran milanovic croatia

Former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic won the second round of presidential election on Sunday, according to results from the State Electoral Commission.

With over 99 percent of votes counted,

Milanovic scored 52.7 percent of the votes in Sunday’s presidential runoff against the incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic who got 47.3 percent.

A total of 11 candidates competed in the first round of presidential election on Dec. 22, 2019.

Milanovic, who was running as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and several other center-left parties, won in the first round with nearly 30 percent of the votes, while Grabar-Kitarovic, a conservative candidate supported by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), came second with almost 27 percent. Since none of the candidates had obtained over 50 percent of the vote, a second round with the top two candidates was held on Sunday.

According to the State Electoral Commission, nearly 55 percent of over 3.8 million eligible voters had cast their ballots in the presidential runoff.

MOL Hernádi MOL President-CEO Zsolt Hernadi
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Croatia‘s president is elected once every five years.

In his victory speech on Sunday night, Milanovic promised that he will listen and represent all citizens.

Grabar-Kitarovic congratulated Milanovic on his victory.

“I am giving my hand out to Zoran Milanovic to show the voters how a peaceful transition of the government looks like,” she said.

Milanovic, 53, served as Croatian prime minister from December 2011 until January 2016.

PM’s Office: 2022 election results to hinge on government achievement, communication

orbán speech

Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said on Tuesday that the Fidesz-Christian Democrat (KDNP) party alliance’s chances to win the 2022 general election would hinge on the government’s achievements and not on their challengers in the election campaign.

In an interview to the atv.hu website, Gulyás said the ruling parties need to show tangible achievements that Hungarians can perceive in everyday life and need to communicate those achievements clearly in order to garner the voters’ support.

Gulyás said the last three elections had demonstrated that Fidesz-KDNP, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, “know the spirit of the Hungarian nation better than anyone.”

Orbán takes care to keep channels of communication open where he can get direct feedback from voters on specific government decisions, Gulyás said.

All that makes it “unlikely that Fidesz would nominate someone other than Orbán as prime minister in 2022,” he said.

Speaking of Fidesz’s opponents, Gulyás called the leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) the strongest among opposition parties, adding, at the same time, that DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsány seems to have little support among young voters.

Gulyás called Momentum, which saw an upswing during the EU parliamentary and local elections last year, “a reincarnation of the [now defunct liberal] SZDSZ party but with weaker intellectual capital and even weaker ties to their own homeland”.

Speaking of Fidesz’s membership in the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Gulyás said that Fidesz’s staying or leaving the party family is a watershed for the EPP. “Without Fidesz and its European allies, the EPP will not be able to remain the Christian Democrat, centre-right, conservative alliance it was at its conception in the 1970s,” he said.

Leaving the EPP would be the “beginning of the end” for the EPP and the “beginning of something new for Fidesz”, Gulyás said.

On another topic, Gulyas noted that relations with Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who won the seat from Fidesz-backed Istvan Tarlos in October, are “correct for the time being” and that there are no “personal obstacles to cooperation in Budapest’s interests between the government and the municipality”.

UK lawmakers give massive backing to PM’s new Brexit bill

boris johnson brexit

Lawmakers in Britain’s House of Commons gave overwhelming backing Friday for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s re-shaped Brexit deal.

By 358 votes to 234, a majority of 124, MPs voted in favor of the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, giving Johnson a clear run to end Britain’s membership of the bloc on Jan. 31.

Johnson, buoyed by the 80-seat majority he won in last week’s general election opened a debate in the House of Commons, told MPs:

“We come together as a new parliament to break the deadlock and finally to get Brexit done. Now is the moment, as we leave the European Union, to reunite our country.”

Although the bill will have to return to the Commons and the House of Lords in early next year, it now seems unstoppable in completing the legislative procedures ahead of receiving Royal Assent by Queen Elizabeth II in the first half of January.

In his opening statement during Friday’s debate, Johnson said the Brexit bill must not be seen as a victory for one party over another, or one faction over another.

“This is the time when we move on and discard the old labels of leave and remain. In fact, the very words seem tired to me as I speak them,” he said.

The re-shaped bill, as well as ending Britain’s membership of the EU on Jan. 31, also requires a future permanent trading deal to be agreed with Brussels by the end of 2020.
It overturns an earlier bill which would have enabled talks to continue for up to two years beyond the end of 2020.

“This bill learns the emphatic lesson of the last parliament and rejects any further delay. It ensures that we depart from the EU on 31 January, and at that point Brexit will be done — it will be over,” Johnson said.

Socialists: Opposition cooperation opportunity to draft programme for 2022 election

opposition cooperation

Socialist party leader Bertalan Tóth said on Saturday that cooperation between a variety of opposition parties offers an opportunity to draft a “programme of national minimum” for the 2022 general election.

Speaking at a press conference wrapping up the year 2019, Tóth said the joint opposition has the chance to implement a programme containing the “national minimum” in education, health care, social services and the rule of law.

The opposition’s success in the October local election also justifies the pre-selections held ahead of the vote and the strategy of fielding a single joint candidate against ruling Fidesz, Tóth said, adding that those methods should be employed at the next general election, too.

Ágnes Kunhalmi, head of the party board, said 2019 was a “crucial and successful” year. However, the challenges ahead are even greater, she said.

Fidesz “will not rest until it can drive a wedge between the cooperation opposition parties”, she said, adding that the latter should close ranks even more. In the 2022 election campaign, the opposition should field one candidate in each constituency, set up a single list and back a single candidate for prime minister, she said.

“Those not supporting the joint list are endangering the victory of Hungarian democrats,” she said.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who as a Socialist-Párbeszéd candidate was elected with the backing of multiple opposition parties in October, said that election was the greatest opposition victory in a decade. In the two months since, the new leadership laid the groundwork for a socially inclusive Budapest, he said: the city has suspended the implementation of implementing the “slave law” of increased overtimes, suspended evictions and acquired 50 billion forints to develop outpatient care as well as made public transport free of charge for jobseekers, he said.

Conservatives win massive majority in UK election

boris johnson wins

An exit poll published after voting closed in the British election on Thursday night suggested the Conservatives are on course to win a massive Parliamentary majority.

The results of the poll were released by Britain’s main television organizations as soon as thousands of polling stations across Britain closed at 10 p.m. local time.

Based on interviews at more than 140 polling stations, the exit poll gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s governing Conservatives 368 seats in the 650-member House of Commons and the main opposition Labour 191 seats.

If the results of the exit poll turn out to be accurate, Conservatives would have an 86-seat majority in the Commons.

Boris Johnson
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British Home Secretary Priti Patel said it puts Johnson on course to carry out his pledge to end Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) within weeks.

It would be enough to give Johnson the majority he needs to pave the way for Britain’s exit from the EU on Jan. 31, 2020.

It would match a victory won by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987 and Labour’s worst performance in a general election since the early 1980s.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, of the Labour Party, described the result, if confirmed in the counts, as a catastrophe.

McDonnell said it was clearly a Brexit election and many voters had opted to use their votes to get the question of Britain’s EU membership out of the way.

Previous exit polls have usually proved to be an accurate litmus test of what to expect when the results start to pour in during the early hours of Friday from the 650 constituencies across Britain.

This time, divisions over Brexit between leavers and remainers could have an impact on the results.

Johnson went into the election heading a minority government with 318 seats, unable to get support in parliament for the Brexit deal he brokered with Brussels.

The exit poll gave the minority Liberal Democrats 13 seats while Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party will win no seat. The Scottish National Party would have 55 seats.

More than 20,000 people were asked how they voted as they left polling stations.

Sterling shot up by 2 percent to 1.35 U.S. dollars seconds after the exit poll result was published.

Britain’s political leaders gear up for general election

JOHNSON, Boris campaign

Thousands of polling stations in Britain will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, and the political leaders of the country are ready for the general election process.

The 46 million voters in Britain will be handed slips of paper containing the names of candidates in their respective constituencies, and some of them have already voted via postal votes, waiting to be added to the final toll.

The Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Labour main opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn were set for the last push for votes.

The general election was called in a bid to break the Brexit deadlock, which has gripped Britain ever since the seismic 2016 referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU). After struggling to lead a minority administration, Johnson hopes to secure a majority government that will enable him to take Britain out of the bloc on Jan. 31.

The first results from some of the smaller constituencies will be announced around an hour after the counting starts. But the majority of results will start to emerge as the returning officers announce the results. This is when the first accurate picture emerges of the likely winner of the election, and of who will be heading to 10 Downing Street.
Managers of the political parties will be eagerly watching the emerging results, hoping their party will pass the magic number of 326, exactly half plus one of the number of constituencies, which is 650.

If either the governing Conservatives and the main opposition Labour pass the finishing line “326,” they will be declared the winners to form the government.

If neither of the two big parties succeed in reaching 326, Britain faces another hung parliament.

It is only after a new government is in place, either a majority administration or a coalition, that the party leader could head to Buckingham Palace to seek authority from Queen Elizabeth to form a government. That is the exact moment when the next prime minister is “crowned.”

Unlike in a presidential system, people in Britain do not elect prime ministers, but vote for party candidates, and it is the leader of the winning party who will serve as prime minister.

A new poll of YouGov, which interviewed about 100,000 panelists over the past seven days, forecasted that the Conservatives would take 339 seats (up 22 on the last general election in 2017), and the Labour main opposition 231 (down 31).

The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) was on course for 41 seats, up six, while the Liberal Democrats are set for 15 seats, up three.

YouGov also warned that the final number of Conservative seats could be between 311 — hung parliament territory — and 367.

If the pollsters are correct, Johnson will return to 10 Downing Street on Friday.

The general election result will also determine Britain’s future. Johnson has vowed Tuesday to demolish three years of stalemate over Brexit, which is called the “Get Brexit Done” pledge, if he wins the election.

Trump warns against Russian interference in U.S. elections

TRUMP, Donald

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Russia not to interfere in U.S. elections during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who rejected any speculations about Russian interference in U.S. domestic politics.

“President Trump warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in United States elections,” the White House said in a statement regarding Trump’s meeting with Lavrov.
The top Russian diplomat, however, rejected any U.S. accusations on Russian meddling in U.S. domestic politics.

“We have highlighted once again that all speculations about our alleged interference in domestic processes in the United States are baseless; there are no facts that would support that,” Lavrov said in a joint press conference with his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo.

The two top diplomats discussed a wide range of issues on Tuesday, but little concrete achievement has been made given the overall frosty bilateral ties.

Ignoring Lavrov’s offer to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between Moscow and Washington, Pompeo insisted during the joint press conference that a broader arms control dialogue should be conducted, which put the New START’s fate at risk.

Signed in 2010 between the United States and Russia, the New START requires both countries to cut nuke warhead numbers down to 1,550 by Feb. 5, 2018, and reduce the number of delivery vehicles, including missiles and bombers, to 700-800 for each side.

The treaty is set to expire in February 2021.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia is ready to extend the treaty by the end of this year with no preconditions.

WOW! A Hungarian can be elected senator in the USA

Evelyn Farkas USA Hungary New York

Since the 82-year-old New York Congresswoman, Nita Lowey, announced that she would not run for re-election, the Hungarian-speaking Russian expert Evelyn Farkas has a real chance to win the 17th Congressional district.

The US presidential and congressional elections will be held on November 3, 2020, and the 51-year-old Democrat, Mrs Farkas, can become the only Hungarian-speaking member of the future Congress. Even though the 17th district is traditionally Republican, it has strong Democratic traditions, as well, and a large Hungarian American community – hvg.hu reported.

Evelyn Farkas served in the Department of Defense during the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. She was also an advisor of Senator Hillary Clinton as a respected Russian expert.

She got her Bachelor’s degree in the Franklin & Marshall College, and she did her Master’s and PhD in The Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of Trustees in her alma mater, the Franklin & Marshall College. Mrs Farkas and

her family is well-known in the Hungarian-American community.

Her father, Charles (Károly), came as a refugee after the revolution and freedom fight of 1956 and he published a critically acclaimed memoir, Vanished by the Danube in 2013.

Interestingly, as a Russian expert, Evelyn Farkas, was one of the first politicians in the United States who was talking about the possible threats of the Trump-Putin relationship on the country’s national security. She demanded then an investigation and “a security clearance on the president” voicing her suspicion that Trump was susceptible to blackmail from a foreign entity or individual.