The environment resuscitated

In the run up to the 2005 general election, the New Statesman led with “how the greens were choked to death” - “why the environment isn’t an election issue”. Lacking vision and leadership, green groups had been compromised and marginalised within Labour’s “big tent” after throwing their lot in with the government in 1997. By 2005, only the Liberal Democrat's had a manifesto presenting green issues as fundamental to their platform - Labour gave the environment only a few paragraphs at the end of its ‘International policy’ and ‘Quality of life’ sections, while for the Conservatives it was buried within ‘Accountability’. But, since then, we have had the Stern Review and a growing acknowledgement of the potential impact of climate change, while the Tories have reinvented themselves as the party of the scribbled tree.

Green issues have accordingly risen in prominence on the major parties’ respective websites. Labour now place ‘Climate change and energy’ fourth on their list of policy areas, while the Lib Dems place the ‘Environment’ fifth. The Tories’ ‘Quality of Life Challenge’, which unlike Labour’s 2005 manifesto namesake is more or less exclusively devoted to environmental concerns, is second in its set of six key policy ‘challenges'. But don’t bank on the environment as a decisive factor in any future general election. As the parties gear up for this years’ polls in Scotland and Wales, the Welsh Conservatives may hope that emphasising ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’ gets them greater representation in the Senedd, but by burying their own track record on the environment the Scottish Labour party clearly doesn’t consider it crucial in determining whether they retain control of Holyrood. All parties want to talk tough on the environment, but none are going to feel particularly inclined to ask too many sacrifices of the electorate. The Conservatives at least seem likely to follow the Lib Dems in sweetening the pill of eco-taxes with tax reductions elsewhere. Labour are currently saying the least about climate change, but, after commisioning the Stern Report, expect Gordon Brown to make important announcements once Tony Blair steps down. 2006 was a year of environmental awakening, and it is hard to imagine a repeat of 2005’s electoral indifference to climate change. The main parties have accepted the prospect of global environmental catastrophe. But none yet seem ready to stake out a daring position to lead the electorate where they don't neccesarily want to go.

French choices

Opinion polls continue to show Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal all but neck and neck heading into next April/May's French Presidential election. But in order for such head-to-head polling to be meaningful, both first have to make it into the second round, which, in 2002, the Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin famously failed to do, when the National Front's Jen-Marie le Pen piped him by 200000 votes. This time around, should Sarkozy, as expected, defeat his only declared challenger for the UMP ticket, Michèle Alliot-Marie, both the main two candidates look set to sail handily into the runoff. But the spectre of a candidate who has no hope of securing the backing of half the French electorate in a second round nevertheless making it into such a situation is far from buried. IFOP-Le Monde's polling of 17th-18th November asked respondents their support for both Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, the current President who has not yet ruled out running for a third term. In the latter case, respondents gave Le Pen, Chirac and François Bayrou, the candidate of the Union of French Democracy who has promised a 'Third Way' in French politics, 15% of first round votes apiece. Bayrou's chances in a runoff with Royal are moot, but Le Pen would be almost certain to face a similar fate to his eventual humiliation in 2002, when he increased his share of the vote by less than 1% as 82.21% voters backed Chirac.

Chirac, however, aged and unpopular after a decade in power, is unlikely to stand again, so for now at least this issue perhaps seems academic. But a system which fails to deliver voters a real choice in the final round of an election is clearly flawed. What is needed is an 'instant runoff' regime - effectively when single transferable voting is applied to a single-winner election - which sees voters rank the candidates by preference, with the more successful accumulating votes as those with less support are weeded out. In France, votes initially given to alternative left or right-of-centre parties would tend to migrate towards the Socialists and UMP, thus excluding extremist candidates who have no hope of securing a mainstream majority. Instant-runoff would also have the beneficial effect of strengthening support for moderate third party candidates such as Bayrou, a vote for whom is currently effectively wasted, thus weakening the unhealthy duopoly the Socialists and UMP currently hold. Nevertheless, it would be best if instant-runoff was only used to whittle the field down to two, for maintaining an second round serves a useful function by emphasising the ultimate choice faced by the electorate. What is vital is ensuring that this choice is meaningful. In a year in which the power of the street trumped that of parliament in the furore generated by the doomed-CPE, there has been talk of a coming crisis in French politics and the potential end of the 5th Republic. If and when a new one is born, let us hope it delivers a healthier democracy than the current one.

Constitutional thaw?

Nicolas Sarkozy this week confirmed his widely anticipated bid for the French presidency. He is campaigning in part on a commitment to a European 'mini-treaty' - an attempt to salvage the practical parts of the ill-fated European constitution. If he wins, as opinion polls continue to suggest he will, he would thus have a mandate to put France's name to such a document without the need to risk another 'non' in a second referendum. But what hope of a 'mini-treaty' across Europe as a whole?

If commitment to the European project is a prerequisite to reviving any element of the constitution, the signs from member states are not encouraging. Public support for the bloc is brittle and waning even in the newly acceded east, after Labour markets in the west failed to liberalise beyond Britain, Ireland and Sweden and nationalists and populists took power in Poland to Slovakia while Hungary and the Czech Republic succumbed to governmental paralysis. Unless these trends are reversed such states will join traditionally more eurosceptic older members like Britain in being unlikely to endorse a treaty promising yet deeper integration. Britain itself, despite never actually rejecting the original, looks ever less likely to accept a simple constitution-redux, as Gordon Brown replaces a greater Europhile in Tony Blair as Prime Minister, while David Cameron, a Conservative leader who still needs to burnish his Eurosceptic credentials after failing to fulfil a pledge to pull the party out of the European parliament's pro-integration EPP-ED bloc, waits in the wings.

All of which is a great shame, for the constitution contained much of necessity if the EU is to function coherently as a 25-and-counting member bloc in the 21st century. A 'mini-treaty' could create the post of a European foreign minister, and reform the ludicrous situation whereby every member state is guaranteed a commissioner in Brussels, which is set to subdivide the bureaucratic pie into 27 once Bulgaria and Romania join the club next year. If Europe is to regain the momentum needed to forge such a rationalising document, a catalytic first step would be to regain a sense of mission, and a mission, moreover, with which Britain and the recent arrivals could sympathise. One appropriate agenda has already supposedly been agreed upon, at Lisbon in 2000, when member states committed themselves to transforming the EU into "the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by 2010. Yet little has been done to nurture the knowledge-based economy Lisbon promised, and the key Eurozone countries with their bloated public sectors continue to stagnate. With fragile coalition governments in Germany and Italy, however, it asks a lot of Angela Merkel or Romano Prodi to lead the way. Thus, if he serious about moving forward in Europe, not to mention getting to grips with long term unemployment in France itself, it falls to Nicolas Sarkozy to go further in his presidential platform than a promise of support for a new 'mini-treaty'. By putting his name to serious structural reform of the French economy now, he could claim a mandate to overrule the street protests which stymied Dominique de Villepin's sadly tepid CPE, re-establish the economic dynamism of his country, and pull Europe along with it.

The potpourri of the DRC

The wars and strife which beset Congo in the decade up to the fragile peace of 2003 was the world's bloodiest period of conflict since 1945, which makes it all the more remarkable that this years elections, if far from peaceful, were nevertheless successful in producing a clear cut winner. That man was transitional president Joseph Kabila, who defeated his rival former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba in the run-off of 29th October 52%-42%. It is the latter who now deserves praise for giving Congo's embryonic democracy a real chance of life, however, by swallowing his doubts over the conduct of the election and accepting the Kabila victory, vowing to forge a "strong republican opposition in the interests of the nation". It is vital that Kabila, flush with his successes and dominating Congo's National Assembly with around 300 of its 500 representatives (against Bemba's 100), allows him to do so by granting positions on parliamentary committees and effective government oversight. Congo remains a divided nation, with factions routed in once held territory as most Congolese voted against their former masters, and little evidence of the 'state' away from Kinshasa and the major cities. A return to the one party system of Mobutu Sese Seko would do nothing to mend a broken country. Political pluralism is vital if Africa's heart is to beat to a lighter tune.

Scotland's gain, Gordon's bain

This month saw an explosion of interest in Scotland's constitutional position within the union, sparked by an ICM-Scotsman poll of 27th-30th October which showed that 51% of Scots favoured independence and that the Scottish National Party was leading Labour in the race to become the biggest party in Holyrood in May's Scottish Assembly elections, a lead which had grown to 5% by the more recent ICM-Scotsman poll of 22nd-23rd November. Cue the emanation of increasingly shrill noises from senior Labour figures seriously concerned about a rout north of the border. In speeches over the past week, Gordon Brown has warned of the economic and cultural damage - and even the passports - that independence would supposedly entail, John Reid has sought to paint the SNP as helpless "in the face of the environment, international crime and terrorism, and mass migration", while Tony Blair has urged Labour activists to redouble their efforts to avoid the "constitutional nightmare" of "narrow" Scottish nationalism in power. All of which suggests that Labour itself believes it is set for a mauling in May, and that Westminster's highest echelons are terrified of what an SNP-dominated Holyrood might mean.

Whatever happens in the coming months, full Scottish independence is still a long way off. Anything shy of what remains an unlikely majority would force SNP leader Alex Salmond into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, a condition of which looks certain to be the stymieing of the proposed independence-referendum. Even if the SNP were to secure such a plebiscite and then go on to win it, it would take years to renegotiate and untangle 300 years of union. Nevertheless, a good result puts question marks over the medium term future of a united Britain, and this in turn inevitably puts question marks over the British premiership of a Scottish politician. Just as Gordon Brown ascends to the long-coveted post of Prime Minister - which few now doubt he will - he would indeed be faced with a nightmare, not so much over the constitution, but over his own credibility in power.

As Scotland decides it would really rather not send MPs to London, does the most powerful of those it currently does send seek to re-convince the Scottish electorate of the merits of union and risk alienating so-called 'middle' England? Does he appoint an English-dominated Cabinet, to hide from the inevitable efflorescence of the West Lothian Question? Or does Brown continue with his promotion of ‘Britishness’, a strategy which looks ever more impotent in the face of even higher English than Scottish support for the partial dissolution of Britain in the above-quoted November ICM poll. It would be a deeply destabilising situation for the Chancellor-cum-Prime Minister to endure, which of course explains the terror projected SNP gains engender among a Labour elite which has all but reconciled itself to an annointed succession in the Labour leadership. The prospect of SNP probing at the fundamental weakness of a Brown premiership has the potential to crucially buttress a credible Stop-Gordon candidate's support. But then no such candidate seems to exist.

Premature Presidents

Awoke this morning to find that leftist Ecuadorian presidential hopeful Rafael Correa had declared victory after taking 66% of the counted votes in his run-off with Álvaro Noboa. But this claim came after a bare 20% of cast ballots had been counted, continuing a worrying trend particularly in Latin American countries of premature declarations which have the potential to undermine often fragile democracies. In July of this year, after 25% of votes had been counted in the Mexican presidential elections, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador held a lead of over 3.5% from the governing National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. It was not until 97.70% of polling stations had declared, nearly 24 hours after the first declarations had been given, that Calderón took the lead, going on to open up a margin of victory of 244000 in over 40 million votes cast. Both candidates had however already claimed victory on the basis of an earlier quick count and private exit polls all of which had lain within margins of error, and while Calderón has since been vindicated López Obrador has refused to concede, bringing Mexico City to a standstill for much of the past four months and threatening further instability.

A Correa victory in Ecuador is clearly the most likely outcome of yesterday's poll; at the time of writing with nearly half the votes counted Noboa trailed by a massive 35%. But this only heightens the dangers of an unexpected but decisive late Noboa surge; the Banana magnate is after all yet to concede defeat, and should he ultimately claim legitimate victory, we will again end up with two self-proclaimed presidents. As López Obrador and his supporters found, once victory has been declared accepting defeat is an incredibly bitter pill to swallow. Yet the temptations to declare premature victory are obvious, when street protests have had the power to bring down governments across Latin America (most recently that of Bolivia's Carlos Mesa in 2005). A failure to declare could lose a candidate the initiative, look ineffectual and appear to tacitly concede the race.

Part of the blame, therefore, has to lie with electoral systems that release partial results to the public and press long before all the votes have been considered. In elections with a clear winner, as appears to be the case in Ecuador, this has the benefit of swifting curtailing the political uncertainty which inevitably follows an election. This is obviously important in a country of endemic political turbulence where three presidents have been extra-constitutionally forced from power in the past decade, and Rafael Correa has indeed begun naming ministers and pronouncing policy. Moreover, poor communications can indeed render full counts in rural areas protracted affairs; in Peru's presidential election first round of April 9th Lourdes Flores Nano was not forced to concede defeat to Alan García Pérez for the final run-off spot behind Ollanta Humala until a full 24 days after Peruvians actually went to the polls. Yet in such closer contests, by obliging candidates to second guess the ultimate outcome, partial counts run the dangerous risk of prolonging the uncertainty long after all the full results are actually in. Announcing provisional results does little to further aid transparency so long as election monitors are given adequate oversight of counting procedures, and it perversely allows candidates such as López Obrador to spuriously paint the thwarting of their ambitions before the eyes of electorate as fundamental electoral fraud. In an ideal world candidates would not declare until victory truly was assured, but it is naive to expect politicians not to do so while partial results continue to be released. It thus falls to election officials to hold back from announcing provisional results, and strive harder still to minimise the time it takes for fully definitive results to come in.

Double Dutch

With the votes all but counted in the Dutch general election of 22 November 2006, a chaotic and confused situation has emerged in which no two parties are able to secure a parliamentary majority. The most likely outcome will be a 'monster' coalition of the Christian Democratic (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) parties (with at least a third coalition partner) - the Dutch equivalent of Germany's Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats and a far from ideal situation with Labour leader Wouter Bos one of the harshest critics of Christian Democrat Premier Jan Peter Balkenende's four years of government. Dutch voters have granted defenders of Britain's 'first-past-the-post' electoral system yet another inconclusive European election result to point at to demonstrate the weaknesses of a proportional system, following similar recent ambiguous aftermaths to polls in Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as the inherent fragility of the ever-fragmented Italian system.

Should those in favour of electoral reform in Britain thus be questioning their beliefs? Far from it. The moderate centre's loss of ground to minor parties across Europe (and indeed in Britain, with yesterday's Guardian/ICM poll giving 'Others' (ie not Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats) 9% of a projected popular vote) has indeed made forming governing majorities difficult, but this is no reason to disenfranchise those disillusioned with the centre ground. Including extreme parties on both left and right within the mainstream political process is a far healthier means of containing such currents than attempting to suppress them, which can result in disquieting backlashes such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's success in reaching the second round run-off of the 2002 French Presidential poll - France having a single-member-constituency National Assembly like Britain's House of Commons. Moreover, if an element of Single Transferable Voting is included within the electoral system, as the Electoral Reform Society proposes, British general elections could well result in larger majorities and hence more rather than less governablity, allowing voters to vote for a party of choice without losing the ability to vote 'tactically' to keep out undesired candidates. No system of government is without its flaws. But recent events on the Continent have not diminished the argument for fundamental reform at home.