Current Events > Non-Americans - what is the current political situation like in your country?

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By now it's loud and clear to everyone who follows the news and/or social media what the US political landscape is like, especially since many famous and prominent people have something to say about it, including political leaders worldwide.

I'm curious what the current political situation in other countries is like, and whether it has been affected by the situation in the US at all.

What kind of political party / parties currently govern your country?
Are there any other parties that are very popular?
Why do you think this is, and how do you personally feel about all that?

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I live in the Netherlands, where as far as I can find, the democratically elected government has always consisted of a coalition of at least two parties - never has a single party gained enough votes to form an absolute majority.

The current government in the Netherlands consists of a four-party coalition, the largest of which is a conservative liberal party (VVD) that favors large international corporations, big banks and the free market. It has been the largest party for a decade now and it looks like they'll remain the largest party after the general elections next year.
I think there are three main reasons for this:

• Over the past decade the VVD has shifted from right-wing to sort-of center and somewhat less conservative, due to its tactic of trying to please everyone and make compromises to an extent.
• Two populistic right-wing parties have gained popularity in the past several years, and a lot of people who don't support them really, really, really do not want either of those two in the governing cabinet, let alone become the largest party, so they'll throw in their lot with the only other party that has a chance of being top dog.
• As far as covid countermeasures go, the government has actively set up measures to slow the spread, though so far there has been no actual lockdown, nor does it seem likely that one is going to be implemented any time soon.

There are also progressive and/or left-wing parties, some of which I hope will gain enough votes to make an impact. However, I do think that it would work in their benefit for some of them to fuse, as there are just too many of them right now to form a solid force, and some really aren't that different from each other. Besides, the current political landscape in the Netherlands is divided enough as it is, with no less than thirteen parties currently holding seats in the Dutch House of Representatives.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for democracy and different movements providing different ideas, though I think too many cooks in the kitchen tend to result in making so many compromises that the end results are unsatisfactory to anyone.

Fortunately, the situation doesn't seem nearly as tense as it seems to be in the US. For one thing, it perfectly conceivable that two opposing parties can agree on some legislative proposals, without their supporters all reeing about it.

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One word:

Bolsonaro.

SoIidLegacy posted...

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for democracy and different movements providing different ideas, though I think too many cooks in the kitchen tend to result in making so many compromises that the end results are unsatisfactory to anyone.

That sounds better than having two parties, one of which actively blocks relief during a pandemic.

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PMarth2002 posted...

That sounds better than having two parties, one of which actively blocks relief during a pandemic.

Yeah, true. Sometimes it kinda feels like a meeting in the Senate Chamber from the Star Wars prequels (imagine getting anything done when thousands of representatives from different factions all have a say), though I definitely prefer this over a bipartisan system.

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tote_all posted...

Massive shift away from capitalism. Next elections are gonna be a massacre for the right.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Chilean_protests

It's good, but it's also quite scary.

I can understand that. I don't know much about South-American politics, though they either seem to go either extreme-left or extreme-right. Hope Chile gets a little more balanced now.

cousinvini posted...

One word:

Bolsonaro.

Sometimes it sounds like he's even worse than Trump, especially with him treating the Amazon forests as his personal stove.

SoIidLegacy posted...

Yeah, true. Sometimes it kinda feels like a meeting in the Senate Chamber from the Star Wars prequels (imagine getting anything done when thousands of representatives from different factions all have a say), though I definitely prefer this over a bipartisan system.

Heh, nice comparison. I guess a little progress is better than no progress at all.

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Brexit.

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in australia

the current liberal party is the most blatantly corrupt party ive ever seen and they arent even hiding it. yet they are winning election after election after literally trashing australia, causing suicides via robodebt, destroying the economy and environment etc. the population of australia are some of the stupidest people in the world

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Shit

Because the other party try to make healthcare like USA.

I mean my country have free healthcare since independence day but those shitty politics people try to brainwashing graduate student that free healthcare is shit because you need to pay taxes.

I just hope those politics people will never win.
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The political attitude in Scotland is pretty much "look you can do anything you want but just don't fuck a tory".

In England it's like "Well we hate tories too but let's just vote for them again, just in case they've had a change of conscience"


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Aressar posted...

I don't know much about South-American politics, though they either seem to go either extreme-left or extreme-right. Hope Chile gets a little more balanced now.

Chile is one of the few countries in the region to escape that kind of populism. Introduced good economic reforms in the 70s, kicked Pinochet out in 1990 and has been a stable democracy ever since. They went from being one of the poorest nations on the continent to the richest in that time.

But there are a lot of young people who don't remember the Allende/Pinochet days and are embracing extremist politics again.

Canada is fairly stable right now.

Justin Trudeau was reelected last year, though his Liberal Party lost seats in Parliament and for now at least need to rely on either the NDP or Bloc Quebecois to pass bills. Usually it's the NDP, and they're social democrats so they push him to the left shen they can.

Most of the Liberals pandemic policies and Trudeaus daily briefings were pretty popular and got them some solid support (IIRC they've led in every poll by several points since the spring).

There's speculation that Trudeau is going to call another election in the new year (likely spring/summer) to take advantage of the goodwill he and the Liberals got from the pandemic. If that happens they'd likely win another term in power, probably with either an increased plurality or a majority of seats.


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There's a group desperately trying to turn Canada into US Jr. Thankfully the majority of people aren't as stupid as Americans so there's a lower chance of it happening.

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Aressar posted...

Sometimes it sounds like he's even worse than Trump, especially with him treating the Amazon forests as his personal stove.

He's just painfully incompetent and idiotic, and surrounds himself with like-minded idiots. His acting minister of health said he'd order shots of the Corona vaccine if there's demand for it. What????? Also apparently they didn't prepare enough materials for vaccination and subsequently ran out of syringes

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Stewman_Magoo posted...

There's a group desperately trying to turn Canada into US Jr. Thankfully the majority of people aren't as stupid as Americans so there's a lower chance of it happening.

Lol the Conservatives suck so much

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The same center-right party that has been in charge for most of modern Japanese history is still in a majority in both houses and likely will remain that way for the foreseeable future due to the continuing disintegration of the opposition. The Japanese Communist Party is actually the oldest party operating in modern Japan, and they get a consistent percentage and are the majority in my town, but they are also an actual communist party and opposed to things like dictatorships, removal or rights, etc. and are about supporting workers (they were opposes to the USSR and they oppose China now), but they also want to completely demilitarize Japan and I think that is the main thing that hurts them (constant threats from China and North Korea make it hard to build support for their stance and force the other opposition to straddle a middle ground of maintaining the status quo). Actual opposition parties that could secure a majority just don't exist currently.

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Doom_Art posted...

Lol the Conservatives suck so much

Their entire platform is 'lol look at the Liberals doing *thing* we wouldn't do that!'

Sooooo.... what do you plan to do differently?

And they wonder why they never win majority.

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Stewman_Magoo posted...

Their entire platform is 'lol look at the Liberals doing *thing* we wouldn't do that!'

Sooooo.... what do you plan to do differently?

And they wonder why they never win majority.

I was watching Erin O'Toole on the news this morning, and that was basically all he said. I don't think Trudeau is a particularly good PM, but he's still preferable to the Conservatives.

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jpenny2 posted...

I was watching Erin O'Toole on the news this morning, and that was basically all he said. I don't think Trudeau is a particularly good PM, but he's still preferable to the Conservatives.

I feel the same way. Conservatives can fuck off for all I care. They'd need at least a coherent plan before I vote for them. Even then my chances of voting for them are slim.

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we have been ruled by the same conservative pos for 15 years now

but it's ok because next year we're gonna elect an even worse conservative pos

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UK, more specifically England.

The Conservatives have been in power for 10 years now and with how they have near full control over the media and the manipulation of constituency boundaries I can't see them being out of power any sooner than another 10 years from now. They've massively fucked up (intentionally) with Covid and people have died as a result. They've also given contracts for ppe to companies owned by party members and family of government ministers that have no capability to produce the equipment. This is billions of pounds of money. No one seems to care or really be aware.

They're heading towards a no deal Brexit which will fuck up the whole economy, we're already seeing things like medicine shortages.

It's pretty much an institutionally racist party and government that also hates the poor and disabled.

They're also wanting to introduce China inspired Internet controls, recently voted to make it legal for government agents to kill, rape and torture (including undercover police working in the UK). They're making it illegal for schools to promote opposition to racists in terms of not giving them a platform and banning any material that criticises capitalism or could "damage society" from schools.

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Stewman_Magoo posted...

Their entire platform is 'lol look at the Liberals doing *thing* we wouldn't do that!'

Sooooo.... what do you plan to do differently?

And they wonder why they never win majority.

They spent 4 years on "Trudeau bad" and doing nothing to put forward an agenda and just ech chambering themselves

Then they're shocked when they barely pick up seats outside the prairies

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Choco posted...

we have been ruled by the same conservative pos for 15 years now

but it's ok because next year we're gonna elect an even worse conservative pos

To quote that one song

Nothing changes it all stays the same
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