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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On December 05 2016 21:12 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2016 20:46 SoSexy wrote:On December 05 2016 19:58 kwizach wrote:Bad news for Italy. The reform was not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction to allow for more effective and stable governance. On December 05 2016 08:35 SoSexy wrote:Sorry guys, I promised I would give you insight but ended up watching it live with my parents. Anyways, Italian PM just announced his resignation. Current coverage is: YES 40,5 NO 59,5 And just to look cool: On December 05 2016 01:30 SoSexy wrote: Hey there, I can provide impressions for the referendum if you want.
The voting will close at 23 CEST. I think we will start to have some results around midnight/one o clock.
I'm posting my predictions just to quote me later and look cool if I got it right: The No will win ranging from 52% to 58%. So not only was your prediction pretty much what everyone else was predicting, but you apparently got it wrong since the No is currently at 59,11%. Congrats, I guess?  It was definetely not what everyone else was predicting - at least not the majority of the italian press. If I were off by 1% in every prediction I do in my life? I'd happily accept that. The outcome was way more volatile than what people abroad perceived. Now, today Renzi will go to the president of the republic and resign. A new PM will be appointed. I will tell you my prediction: Padoan (minister of economy) or Grasso (president of the Senate). I elaborated it yesterday night at 2.00 am, now it's shared by many. Especially because Padoan canceled all the meetings he had today in Bruxelles. All of the latest polls showed the No would most likely win. Renzi's last hope was high turnout in areas favorable to him and undecided voters swinging his way, but it was much more likely that the No would win it.
Oh yeah, those pools. So reliable...just like the 85% Clinton win. I prefer to check my personal sources (mainly: streets) coupled with a dash of press here and there. Definetely not falling into the press trap again.
Also, La Repubblica is the 2nd biggest italian newspaper, which many people believe to trumple even the most sold in italy (which is Corriere della Sera) . The pool they showed was 41% no and 34% yes. So they are off by 19 points. I'm off by 1% but better to critique me, right?
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On December 05 2016 21:13 Mafe wrote:A more telling map (for the first runoff election which has been invalidated), can be found here: http://zurpolitik.com/2016/05/23/hat-osterreich-gewahlt-eine-karte-nach-bevolkerungsgrose-bpw16/Also it should be noted that presenting an austrian map simply with such colors as in "who won which district" does not make much sense, as the is no electoral commitee as in the USA. Essentially, the difference between, say, a 60-40 district and a 51-49 district is much more important than the difference between a 51-49 and a 49-51 district. Yet in those maps, the former a both colored the same, but the latter are not. Yes im nitpicking once more, sorry about that.
That one is from May though.  There are obviously better representations, that's just the only won that I found floating around so far, since all more exact ones are probably going to wait till the final results are in, which may take until tomorrow.
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On December 05 2016 21:18 SoSexy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2016 21:12 kwizach wrote:On December 05 2016 20:46 SoSexy wrote:On December 05 2016 19:58 kwizach wrote:Bad news for Italy. The reform was not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction to allow for more effective and stable governance. On December 05 2016 08:35 SoSexy wrote:Sorry guys, I promised I would give you insight but ended up watching it live with my parents. Anyways, Italian PM just announced his resignation. Current coverage is: YES 40,5 NO 59,5 And just to look cool: On December 05 2016 01:30 SoSexy wrote: Hey there, I can provide impressions for the referendum if you want.
The voting will close at 23 CEST. I think we will start to have some results around midnight/one o clock.
I'm posting my predictions just to quote me later and look cool if I got it right: The No will win ranging from 52% to 58%. So not only was your prediction pretty much what everyone else was predicting, but you apparently got it wrong since the No is currently at 59,11%. Congrats, I guess?  It was definetely not what everyone else was predicting - at least not the majority of the italian press. If I were off by 1% in every prediction I do in my life? I'd happily accept that. The outcome was way more volatile than what people abroad perceived. Now, today Renzi will go to the president of the republic and resign. A new PM will be appointed. I will tell you my prediction: Padoan (minister of economy) or Grasso (president of the Senate). I elaborated it yesterday night at 2.00 am, now it's shared by many. Especially because Padoan canceled all the meetings he had today in Bruxelles. All of the latest polls showed the No would most likely win. Renzi's last hope was high turnout in areas favorable to him and undecided voters swinging his way, but it was much more likely that the No would win it. Oh yeah, those pools. So reliable...just like the 85% Clinton win. I prefer to check my personal sources (mainly: streets) coupled with a dash of press here and there. Definetely not falling into the press trap again. Also, La Repubblica is the 2nd biggest italian newspaper, which many people believe to trumple even the most sold in italy (which is Corriere della Sera) . The pool they showed was 41% no and 34% yes. So they are off by 19 points. I'm off by 1% but better to critique me, right? I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. My point was that a No victory was expected by most observers, and I just provided you with the four latest polls which all pointed to a comfortable No victory. The result was not unexpected at all, so bragging about making a prediction with a high range (52-58) which still ended up not being correct is pretty funny, that's all. Also, the Repubblica poll results included the "Don't know" choice, which obviously is not in the final results, and it still showed a significant advance of the No.
In other news, Russian MPs know where the real dangers lie:
Russian MPs accuse FIFA 17 video game of 'gay propaganda'
Russian MPs have asked the state communications oversight agency to take action against the FIFA 17 video game for violating the country’s law against gay propaganda.
Communist MPs sent a letter to the communications oversight and state consumer protection agencies complaining that the popular EA Sports football game, which is rated all ages, “invites users to support the English football premier league’s Rainbow Laces action, a massive campaign in support of LGBT”, Izvestia newspaper reported.
According to the 2013 law, such propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations can cause “harm to children’s health and development”, the letter said.
The UK-based LGBT rights group Stonewall began the Rainbow Laces campaign last month to combat homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football, noting that 72% of fans had heard anti-LGBT remarks at games over the past five years. Premier League matches and social media platforms have featured materials from the campaign.
EA Sports also backed the campaign by allowing FIFA 17 players to obtain free rainbow-coloured uniforms for their virtual footballers in the game’s ultimate team mode. This action expired on 28 November.
Nonetheless, parliamentarians suggested FIFA 17 could be banned in Russia. United Russia MP Irina Rodnina, a former figure skater who won three Olympic gold medals for the Soviet Union, told Izvestia that the authorities needed to “verify the possibility of distributing this game on the territory of the Russian Federation”. Source
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Valls just announced his candidature for the primary of the PS. He will resign tomorrow. His speech is absolutely mind-boggling, it's like he forgot he was governing those past 5 years...
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On December 05 2016 20:53 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2016 20:45 MyTHicaL wrote: I'm confused. Green is the green party aka the guy who won. Blue is the far right? I have never been to Austria so am completely ignorant but are the green areas the most densely populated? o_o By a very large margin? That map can't be right!? Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Graz are all green. Insofar as I remember from geography those are the top 4 cities. In case they're not, Linz, Klagenfurt and Bregenz are also green, and so is Eisenstadt (had never heard of that city before, but it is written in big bold letters). Basically, every city with big bold letters is green on that map. And that ties into something I just don't understand in general. I understand the countryside is socially conservative due to demographics. That seems to be a general thing, whether you're in China, Brazil, the US or anywhere in Europe. But Hofer isn't a social conservative. He's all about limiting immigrants. But immigration problems are primarily CITY problems. Immigrants don't go to some farming town in the middle of the Alps. So how come right wing politicians always have their main power bases in rural areas?
Because immigrants/minorities aren't actually a problem and people in the cities know that. People in more distant areas get to add that to the reasons they're feeling displaced by urban dominance in other spheres.
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I don't get why all the media I see about the Italian referdum seems to think it was a vote on the EU. Was it not just a simpler way of passing legislation? instead of needing both houses to say yes only the lower one needs to? A revolution needs to happen in the media. This fear mongering agenda just drives me insane.
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On December 06 2016 04:06 MyTHicaL wrote: I don't get why all the media I see about the Italian referdum seems to think it was a vote on the EU. Was it not just a simpler way of passing legislation? instead of needing both houses to say yes only the lower one needs to? A revolution needs to happen in the media. This fear mongering agenda just drives me insane. I think some European institutions asked for such a reform a few years ago, ask Italian people around here. And obviously the reject of Renzi's policy, strongly linked to what the EU was asking, also played a role in the result. Plus, from what I understood, the main forces behind the no were anti-EU.
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On December 06 2016 02:49 TheDwf wrote: Valls just announced his candidature for the primary of the PS. He will resign tomorrow. His speech is absolutely mind-boggling, it's like he forgot he was governing those past 5 years...
Isn't Valls your best candidate? Assuming he's not, who do you even support (or detest the least, I guess)?
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On December 05 2016 06:48 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2016 06:23 Hryul wrote:On December 05 2016 05:38 Big J wrote:On December 05 2016 03:56 nojok wrote:On December 05 2016 03:31 Noizhende wrote:polls were 50-50 all the time since the last election, which was very close here's a summary of the polls: https://neuwal.com/wahlumfragen/btw we have the first green party president in the world now i think. woohoo! :D also this election for president was probably not as important as the upcoming one for parliament will be, and there the fpö is far ahead in the polls Good news for you but it's still surprising to me that Austria don't share the German approach towards far right given their relatively close experience from WW2. Austria is a strange case of a nation. We used to rule over Germany as a germanic state until Napoleon and Bismarck divided Germany and until the Austrian Empire failed in WW1. So the country was left with no real identity and wanted to join Germany which it did when the Nazis rose to power. After WW2 Austria had to rebuild its own identity which led to neutrality, the lie that we were the first victim of Hitler and therefore also a vastly different cultural approach to dealing with the Nazi past, although real Nazism with its symbols is forbidden just like in Germany. After a few tries to form a Naziesque party ultimately FPÖ suceeded in just being not openly Nazi enough to be forbidden, which at that time was an economic-liberal, germannational miniparty. End of the story is that a clever politician named Jörg Haider took over the right-winged, liberal FPÖ and transformed it into a people's party through right-winged populism. When he couldn't get rid of the Nazi parts of the party he formed a new right-winged party, but died soon after and his new party with him, leaving the field, the established brand FPÖ as "the thrid power" and his techniques of right-winged provocation to exactly those ultraright people he wanted to get rid of. So it is basically a story of making people get used to far-right ideas over a long time. Germany is probably going to take the same road over the longrun, although they have the advantage that AfD didn't take over an established label like FDP (germanys iberals), they have an existing left-wing protest voice (which Austria doesn't, which is why FPÖ is reaching far into the working classes whenever there is no good socialist alternative) and Bavarian conservatives CSU with a much more hardline profile to take on AfD's core topics, assuming there comes a time when this becomes necessary. Well if you're telling the story, you can't leave some parts out. b/c after WWI austria did indeed want to join Germany, but the allies prohibited it. Some years later a guy named Engelbert Dollfuss came to power and transformed Austria into a fascist country. (after a civil war but without genocide.) "Austria" was at that time allied with with Italy b/c they didn't want to join Germany. After a failed coup d'etat by the german nazi party Dollfuss died and Schuschnigg came to power. Hitler turned Italy to an ally of Germany and Austria was left alone. Hitler blackmailed Schuschnigg, but he in turn wanted to hold a referendum if Austria should join Germany or not. Germany invaded Austria two days before the referendum and forged the referendum for Austria to join. Now the water becomes muddy. B/c of the close historical ties with Germany, Schuschnigg ordered the Austrian military to not resist Germany. This resulted in "no bullet" fired while the German invasion. There are pictures published by the Nazi Party which show the Vienna "Heldenplatz" full of people cheering for Hitler while others exist that show that the Heldenplatz was partly empty. And during the war Austrians joined the SS and committed war crimes. During the war however and to ease the transistion there was a document by the allies (moscow declaration) which called "Austria the first victim of Hitler". Most austrian politicians used this as official stance of the country after the war to not look too closely on the war crimes committed by Austrians. it's a very grey subject. Only if you recognize Austro-fascism and their fight for an independent Austria as the legimate government of the people. Which I do not, they were murderers, fascists and surpressors and part of the reason why many Austrians welcomed Anschluss even harder. It's not a grey area, people used to fight with the Nazis in Germany as well. Hitler was put into jail, socialists and communists fought with them on the street and died for a democratic germany. If that was not enough to create a story of germany being a Nazivictim, ÖVP breaking the democratic powers of Austria before Hitler cannot be either. By the power of false analogy the Nazis didn't form the legitemate governemnt of Germany because
they were murderers, fascists and surpressors .
but maybe you start by telling us what a "legimate government" is and how it can come to power.
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On December 06 2016 04:54 Hryul wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2016 06:48 Big J wrote:On December 05 2016 06:23 Hryul wrote:On December 05 2016 05:38 Big J wrote:On December 05 2016 03:56 nojok wrote:On December 05 2016 03:31 Noizhende wrote:polls were 50-50 all the time since the last election, which was very close here's a summary of the polls: https://neuwal.com/wahlumfragen/btw we have the first green party president in the world now i think. woohoo! :D also this election for president was probably not as important as the upcoming one for parliament will be, and there the fpö is far ahead in the polls Good news for you but it's still surprising to me that Austria don't share the German approach towards far right given their relatively close experience from WW2. Austria is a strange case of a nation. We used to rule over Germany as a germanic state until Napoleon and Bismarck divided Germany and until the Austrian Empire failed in WW1. So the country was left with no real identity and wanted to join Germany which it did when the Nazis rose to power. After WW2 Austria had to rebuild its own identity which led to neutrality, the lie that we were the first victim of Hitler and therefore also a vastly different cultural approach to dealing with the Nazi past, although real Nazism with its symbols is forbidden just like in Germany. After a few tries to form a Naziesque party ultimately FPÖ suceeded in just being not openly Nazi enough to be forbidden, which at that time was an economic-liberal, germannational miniparty. End of the story is that a clever politician named Jörg Haider took over the right-winged, liberal FPÖ and transformed it into a people's party through right-winged populism. When he couldn't get rid of the Nazi parts of the party he formed a new right-winged party, but died soon after and his new party with him, leaving the field, the established brand FPÖ as "the thrid power" and his techniques of right-winged provocation to exactly those ultraright people he wanted to get rid of. So it is basically a story of making people get used to far-right ideas over a long time. Germany is probably going to take the same road over the longrun, although they have the advantage that AfD didn't take over an established label like FDP (germanys iberals), they have an existing left-wing protest voice (which Austria doesn't, which is why FPÖ is reaching far into the working classes whenever there is no good socialist alternative) and Bavarian conservatives CSU with a much more hardline profile to take on AfD's core topics, assuming there comes a time when this becomes necessary. Well if you're telling the story, you can't leave some parts out. b/c after WWI austria did indeed want to join Germany, but the allies prohibited it. Some years later a guy named Engelbert Dollfuss came to power and transformed Austria into a fascist country. (after a civil war but without genocide.) "Austria" was at that time allied with with Italy b/c they didn't want to join Germany. After a failed coup d'etat by the german nazi party Dollfuss died and Schuschnigg came to power. Hitler turned Italy to an ally of Germany and Austria was left alone. Hitler blackmailed Schuschnigg, but he in turn wanted to hold a referendum if Austria should join Germany or not. Germany invaded Austria two days before the referendum and forged the referendum for Austria to join. Now the water becomes muddy. B/c of the close historical ties with Germany, Schuschnigg ordered the Austrian military to not resist Germany. This resulted in "no bullet" fired while the German invasion. There are pictures published by the Nazi Party which show the Vienna "Heldenplatz" full of people cheering for Hitler while others exist that show that the Heldenplatz was partly empty. And during the war Austrians joined the SS and committed war crimes. During the war however and to ease the transistion there was a document by the allies (moscow declaration) which called "Austria the first victim of Hitler". Most austrian politicians used this as official stance of the country after the war to not look too closely on the war crimes committed by Austrians. it's a very grey subject. Only if you recognize Austro-fascism and their fight for an independent Austria as the legimate government of the people. Which I do not, they were murderers, fascists and surpressors and part of the reason why many Austrians welcomed Anschluss even harder. It's not a grey area, people used to fight with the Nazis in Germany as well. Hitler was put into jail, socialists and communists fought with them on the street and died for a democratic germany. If that was not enough to create a story of germany being a Nazivictim, ÖVP breaking the democratic powers of Austria before Hitler cannot be either. By the power of false analogy the Nazis didn't form the legitemate governemnt of Germany because . but maybe you start by telling us what a "legimate government" is and how it can come to power.
I said "of the people". Nazis weren't a government of the people either eventually. Neither of which matters, what matters is how people behaved in that time.
What I was saying is that Austria was no victim at all. Just because the Austro-fascists in the government were against Anschluss does not make Austria a victim. By no means was that government representative for the Austrian people, which they knew and why they didn't even try to "defend" the country. The vast majority of the Austrian people welcomed the Nazis or at least, were not opposed to them and Austria was fully integrated into Nazi Germany without any resistance. That's why I call the victimization of Austria a lie. Probably a necessary one to rebuild our own state, but if someone is asking why we have been dealing with our past differently than Germany it is important to understand that Austria was given a different conscience than Germany after the war.
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Euro zone finance ministers agreed on Monday to grant Greece short-term debt relief measures that would reduce the amount of the country's public debt by 20 percentage points of GDP by 2060, euro zone officials said on Monday.
Speaking after a meeting of euro zone finance ministers, the head of the euro zone's ESM bailout fund Klaus Regling told a news conference the implementation of the measures would take a while, but the fund would start the process in the coming weeks.
The measures, detailed in an ESM paper prepared for the ministers, would help smooth out debt repayment humps in the 2030s and 2040s, Regling said. Switching from floating to fixed interest on loans would raise the costs for Greece in the short term, although lower them in the longer-run. uk.reuters.com
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Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was asked by the head of state to put his resignation on hold until next year’s budget has been approved by parliament, as Italy sought to minimize the political instability triggered by his stinging defeat in a constitutional referendum.
Renzi, 41, met with President Sergio Mattarella on Monday evening and offered to step down, Mattarella’s office said in a statement. Instead, he was asked to hold off, a move that gives the president time to work out how to form a new government -- Italy’s 64th since World War II -- and the Senate time to give final approval to the budget as early as Friday.
Like David Cameron over Brexit, Renzi had staked his political future on a plebiscite and fell victim to an anti-establishment revolt. Renzi was forced to step down after Italians voted overwhelmingly against his flagship reform to cut the power of the Senate, seizing on the chance to boot him out of office.
Temporary Government
Mattarella will have to determine who can form a temporary government that will likely have to pass an electoral reform before elections can be held. The current electoral system could benefit the anti-euro Five Star Movement because the biggest party automatically gets a majority. Five Star wants elections to go ahead as soon as possible.
Polls suggest Five Star, clamoring for a referendum on Italy’s euro membership, would win an early election, though a poll last month showed that 67 percent of Italians want to remain in the single currency all the same.
Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan is a potential candidate for premier along with Transport Minister Graziano Delrio, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini and Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso. Padoan would be a familiar figure for financial markets, which reversed an initial sell-off on the referendum result as investors came to terms with Renzi’s impending departure.
Much of the attention remains focused on Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, which is in the middle of a 5 billion-euro ($5.3 billion) capital raising and is vulnerable to government instability. Its stock fell 4.2 percent on Monday.
Renzi’s resignation also halts his reform plans. For the near future, he had pledged tax cuts, more state investment, and steps to tackle corruption and make the state sector more efficient before the referendum campaign came to monopolize his attention. www.bloomberg.com I don't see how this is an anti establisment revolt like Bloomberg says when all other parties and even some in Renzi's party were against the reform.
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French conservative presidential election candidate Francois Fillon would beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of France's presidential election with 65 percent of the vote, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.
The Ifop-Fiducial poll for iTele, Paris Match and Sud Radio also said that no candidate from the Socialist party would do better than a fifth placed-score.
The poll was conducted among over 3,200 people questioned online between Nov. 28 and Dec. 3 as to how they would vote if next April's first round of the election was to be held on Sunday.
The questions were asked after Socialist President Francois Hollande announced he would not be a candidate and before his Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he would seek election.
The poll also asked how people would vote should independent candidate Emmanuel Macron come up against Le Pen in the run-off second round, and showed him winning with 62 percent of the vote.
Macron, Hollande's former economy minister, is shown coming third in first round scenarios.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-election-poll-idUKKBN13V0QG
It seems for now ~60% would vote a piece of driftwood over Le Pen, but a lot can change in 5 months
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On December 06 2016 19:20 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +French conservative presidential election candidate Francois Fillon would beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of France's presidential election with 65 percent of the vote, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.
The Ifop-Fiducial poll for iTele, Paris Match and Sud Radio also said that no candidate from the Socialist party would do better than a fifth placed-score.
The poll was conducted among over 3,200 people questioned online between Nov. 28 and Dec. 3 as to how they would vote if next April's first round of the election was to be held on Sunday.
The questions were asked after Socialist President Francois Hollande announced he would not be a candidate and before his Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he would seek election.
The poll also asked how people would vote should independent candidate Emmanuel Macron come up against Le Pen in the run-off second round, and showed him winning with 62 percent of the vote.
Macron, Hollande's former economy minister, is shown coming third in first round scenarios. http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-election-poll-idUKKBN13V0QGIt seems for now ~60% would vote a piece of driftwood over Le Pen, but a lot can change in 5 months
Who would you vote for instead?
I asked Dwf the same question and got ignored pretty hard.
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On December 06 2016 19:54 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2016 19:20 Dan HH wrote:French conservative presidential election candidate Francois Fillon would beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of France's presidential election with 65 percent of the vote, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.
The Ifop-Fiducial poll for iTele, Paris Match and Sud Radio also said that no candidate from the Socialist party would do better than a fifth placed-score.
The poll was conducted among over 3,200 people questioned online between Nov. 28 and Dec. 3 as to how they would vote if next April's first round of the election was to be held on Sunday.
The questions were asked after Socialist President Francois Hollande announced he would not be a candidate and before his Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he would seek election.
The poll also asked how people would vote should independent candidate Emmanuel Macron come up against Le Pen in the run-off second round, and showed him winning with 62 percent of the vote.
Macron, Hollande's former economy minister, is shown coming third in first round scenarios. http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-election-poll-idUKKBN13V0QGIt seems for now ~60% would vote a piece of driftwood over Le Pen, but a lot can change in 5 months Who would you vote for instead? I asked Dwf the same question and got ignored pretty hard. Melenchon in the first round. In the runoff if Le Pen is one of the candidates, whoever her opponent is (including Fillon) If Le Pen isn't one of the candidates, whoever is Fillon's opponent If none of Fillon/Le Pen/Melenchon are in the runoff it means the world has turned upside down, I'd probably take Bayrou over Macron or Valls
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I very much dislike them both, but I wish Mélenchon and Macron agreed to compete in the left's primary and I'd support them if they won it. Unity behind that primary's winner is virtually the left's only (slim) hope of qualifying for the second round.
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On December 06 2016 21:06 kwizach wrote: I very much dislike them both, but I wish Mélenchon and Macron agreed to compete in the left's primary and I'd support them if they won it. Unity behind that primary's winner is virtually the left's only (slim) hope of qualifying for the second round. Mélenchon has no reason to compete in the PS primary, his whole strategy since he left the PS in 2008 is to rebuild something outside of a party he (rightfully) perceived as hopelessly irreformable from the inside and slowly drifting to the right; and the final catastrophe of Hollande's term, where all the fundamentals of the left were systematically betrayed, pretty much confirms his intuition. Besides, people who vote in the primary belong to the CSP+ and are older than usual + Show Spoiler +For the UMP primary : For non-French speakers, this is the comparison between the profile of people who voted in the primary of the right and the general population; first graph is age, second one is social class [upper classes, lower classes, retired, inactive] , while his goal is to mobilize the youth and lower classes. The PS primary will flop badly compared with the 2011 one (the 2011 PS one and the 2016 UMP-LR one drew many people because it appointed a possible winner, the 2017 PS one simply decides whoever will go down to the lion's den to be slaughtered), so it should further reinforce that trend. On top of that, his ideas are barely compatible with the majority of the PS (internal support to the government's policy was 70:30 at the last congress). Let us be real, the PS would never do Mélenchon's campaign, and should he win most of the “liberal left” would simply fly to Macron. He refused for months to participate, and now he would suddenly change his mind after he said 100 times no? How would that be perceived given the general disillusion in our political life?
Macron's social-liberalism is compatible with the right of the party, but he was never part of the PS and would be cornered in one way or another. Parties like the PS function like a mafia, the godfathers would never allow the family to be stormed by an outsider. Macron thinks the PS is a liability rather than an asset, and he wants to drain center-right votes (which is harder to do with the PS label).
The PS talks all the time about “unity” and “useful vote,” but ironically it now completely backfires on them. They became the ones who are completely dispensable. Mélenchon and Macron both represent the two internal currents of the left which aims at governing: classic socialism for the former, social-liberalism/centrism for the latter. There is no need for a PS candidature, it would add nothing to this 30 years old debate. The PS lost its centrality in the left for the first time for 45 years, yet they still feel like they can command people who score twice their voting intention…
They never had as much power under the Vth Republic as they did during Hollande's term; they had everything, presidency, both chambers, most regions, most big cities. And they totally failed to impulse any major change. Why the hell should much healthier challengers bow to a failed party which produced approximatively zero new idea for 15 years and blew a historic position? They never analyzed why they failed in 2002, all they could come up with was this “useful vote” trick, and a scam like the primary to inflate their mediatic presence and further legitimize the winner. Where is the political thinking in there?
Even today, they are merely fighting to know who will rule over the ruins of the PS. Valls isn't completely stupid, he knows that he has zero chance to win, but he wants to take the party and lead the opposition. And even in that, he has strong chances to fail…
People talk about “unity,” but a party (or overall a whole camp like “the left”) cannot indefinitely maintain cohesion between textbook socialists (there are some of them left in the PS...) and right-wingers like Manuel Valls. Valls is currently closer to the UMP-LR than Mélenchon, that's the truth. It would make no sense for them to compete in the same primary, because the intersection of their views is pretty much an empty set barring “not being labelled right or far-right” … “Au secours, la droite revient !” [Oh no, the right is coming back!] isn't a political program.
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The primary isn't only open to the PS but to all left-wing candidates, which is why participating in it would not contradict what you pointed out for Mélenchon and Macron. They have no chance of making it to the second round "alone", which makes their candidacies outside of the primary two exercises in self-promotion. Getting more votes alone than the candidate who'll emerge out of the left's primary brings you no prize -- you'll still be eliminated if you're not in the top two. The only way to achieve that is by uniting as much of the left as possible behind the winner of a comprehensive primary. It doesn't mean Mélenchon should join the PS.
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The "left primary" is a way for the PS to try to enforce their candidates as the only one being representative of the """left""". No way people like Melenchon, NPA and such bring their caution to this. Macron cant join either as he is in a desperate need of showing his supposed differences with the PS.
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If I were a french center-left / center-right elector, after those last regional elections I would be so ashamed. Basically they showed that they are the two sides of the same dirty coin, who have no problem in saying a big 'fuck off' to their respective principles and tradition just to stop the rise of LePen - or, better, the stop the risk of going home and not taking those juicy citizen money anymore.
As far as Italy is concerned, it's very important that we vote before Autumn 2017. After 4 years and 6 months, politicians will get access to a monthly retirement sum when they will get old. You read it well - normal people work 40 years, but if you are a politician you get your salary just by working 4 years 6 months. In case you were already there (2nd, 3rd legislature) the amount goes up and the retirement age goes down.
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