Today was an important day for the European Union, as it is the culmination of a four-day voting process in which about 14,670 candidates all across Europe compete for 732 5-year EP seats. Officially the elections kicked off on Friday in the UK, the Netherlands, Latvia, Malta, the Czech Republic and Ireland. Today, “Super Sunday”, it’s the turn to the remaining 19 countries (the EU currently consists of 25 countries with some 455 million people).
The pic I took this morning, below, shows you a row of Euroweenies awaiting their turn to cast their vote (in Belgium voting is compulsory). Location is a decrepit school in Deux-Acren, Wallonia. Belgium will send 24 MP's to the European Parliament, 15 of which are Flemings and 9 Wallonians.
I mentioned earlier that in general Europeans are rather lukewarm to participate in these elections. I fear that this is still largely due to our politicians, since most of them still focus on national politics, and hence the European Parliament, or the Commission (the EU’s “government”), for that matter, almost invariably attract second-rank personages, who are as yet unable to present the broader population with a sound perspective of the EU’s purpose and why it is, or should be, good for all of us. The lack of vision was apparent in the slogans with which the candidates campaigned: e.g. Flemish Liberal Annemie Neyts with Woman of the World – Woman for Europe, Spirit (green-red nutcases) minister Bert Anciaux with "For a warm Europe".(!)
A phenomenon that has been marring national elections throughout Europe for the last ten years is the emergence of public showbiz figures, TV anchors, sports stars etc… in politics. Well, this time it looks like the trend has moved to the European scene. If you Americans were a trifle embarrassed with Miz Carey showing up during the California Recall, well, don’t bother, since we Europeans had our own Dolly Buster, a Czech porn star. At first you’d think that this is evened out by the candidacy of her compatriot Vladimir Remek, former Czech astronaut… only the asshat is coming up on the KSCM list, the Czech Communists. Estonia brings up supermodel Carmen Kass, in France the Chairman of Radio France, Jean-Marie Cavada, has stepped down to be able to participate in the elections on UDF’s list – Chirac’s party. And in Italy, popular RAI journalist Lilli Gruber appears on Romano Prodi’s cartel list. Slovenia sport a.o. a soccer champion. In Poland Lech Walesa's son, Jaroslav Walesa, bids for a seat in the EP too, claiming to be a "real liberal". Ouch.
So up until now we have the fuzzy agenda of Europes traditional parties, the presence of high-profile entertainment figures on the lists… are there any other striking characteristics? Well, there seem to be. I mentioned that in six countries elections took place on Friday already. It looks like the parties that inisisted on supporting the US’s policy in Iraq are being punished, given the results of the polls in the UK and The Netherlands. The European public simply does not comprehend that, again, America is fighting its wars, since an American success in Iraq – imposing democracy and encourage it to spread to the neighbouring countires – will in time positively affect the ever increasing flood of malcontent backward Muslim immigrants to the European nannystates. Europeans have generally become absolute wimps, self-possessed, snobby, "sophisticated" (or so they kid themselves), and preoccupied mainly with their social security, wages, tan, holidays or sex life. If you ask me, it will have to become much worse before it gets better.
So I fear that the Parti Socialiste do-gooders, some of whom are depîcted below, are gonna gain again. These are the fine gentlemen who turned Wallonia into an impoverished region where ONE-IN-THREE of the "active" persons is in some kind of state service. I myself voted for the Front National, a Wallonian rightwing party with an anti-immigration agenda. So did my wife.
Results are to be expected in Brussels at 7pm local time, that would early afternoon for you Mainers. I’ll keep you updated.
UPDATE:
Not much to say yet, except that according to the most recent poll results in Belgium, in Flanders the Vlaams Blok gains strong. This is not so incongruous as it seems given my earlier assessment of the Left gaining decisively the upper hand. First of all, the term "gaining strong" in our country does NOT mean a landslide victory - positions are too entrenched and the "swing voter" is not so important as he is in The States. The Vlaams Blok is merely consolidating its position, and the other parties will keep isolating it by vowing never to cooperate with it. Secondly, Iraq was not an issue in Belgium, as it was in the UK, Poland or The Netherlands, since our government chose not to support the US. If the leading party in Belgium, the VLD, is punished, it's mainly because it allowed the others to pass legislation that grants immigrants who refuse to assume our nationality or to assimilate, the right to vote in municipal councils.
In a couple of hours I'll try to give the broader European picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment