The Face Of Putin

I'm watching the Russian elections live ... on Russian TV. From what I can see on the screen, Putin's party is down to 49%.

Medvedev and Putin are talking to the media. Putin has the tired, unhappy expression that people normally have when they have lost an election.

Another thought. Why on earth does Russia, of all places, have elections in December?

Winning Elections Is Easy

Winning elections is easy.

At least if you are Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

Never been to the constituency? Doesn't matter! Have problems with the local lanaguage? No problem!

Ruthe Ellen was a candidate for the New Democratic Party in last week's elections in Canada. As Wikipedia explains:

She is also an animal welfare activist who has worked to find homes for stray animals and help injured animals recover.

As of May, 2011, Brosseau is a single mother who resides in Gatineau, Quebec. Brosseau held the position of assistant manager for Oliver's Pub, a bar on the campus of Carleton University in Ottawa.


Brosseau ran for a seat to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2011 federal election. She stood as the New Democratic Party candidate in the electoral district of Berthier—Maskinongé in central Quebec. She was the second nomination choice of the party as the original candidate, Julie Demers, decided to run in Bourassa instead (where she lost).

Initially, Brosseau was considered a paper candidate who had been selected by the party due to the lack of a viable local nominee. She never put a serious campaign together and never went to the riding, which straddles the regions of Lanaudière and Mauricie, during the writ period. However, on election night, Brosseau defeated incumbent Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament Guy André and four other candidates winning with a plurality of 5,735 votes and taking just under 40% of all the votes cast. André finished a distant second, with only 29.4 percent of the vote.] Her victory was part of a wave of NDP support in Quebec--a province in which the party was virtually nonexistent prior to this election. By the end of election night, the party had seen a provincial seat increase from a single one in Montreal to a surprising total of 58.

The Toronto Globe And Mail has more here.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to see the funny side of this. I sincerely wish her well. She's going to have an interesting time....

In Deep Blue Rochford

Rochford District has been one of the bluest councils in England in recent years - before election day the Tories had 31 seats, we had 5 , the Greens had 1 and the Rochford District Residents Party had 1, with 1 vacancy in Hullbridge.

It was very much an election for us to focus on defense, as we had elections in all 3 wards where we had councillors....

The end result was that we lost one seat (Sweyne Park) where we were defending a majority of just 30. But we held our other wards (Downhall and Rawreth, and Grange) with over 73% of the vote in straight fights with the Conservatives.

So although it's disappointing to have lost in Sweyne Park, we still have a very solid base for the future. And we've found new helpers, a new candidate and a new agent , so it's not all doom and gloom.

Elsewhere in the District, the expected Green challenge faltered in a couple of Tory wards, but Christine Mason for the Rochford District Residents Party won Hawkwell West, so that Christine and her husband John are now an official party group, and we will be sitting next to them in the council chamber.

The Council is now 31 Tories, 4 Lib Dems, 2 Rochford District Residents and 1 Green, with one vacancy.

In Saudi Arabia, FPTP = Females Prevented Taking Part

From the Arab News:

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia announced Monday that it was not yet ready for women participating in next month’s municipal elections as voters or candidates. “We are not ready for the participation of women in these municipal elections,” Election Commissioner Abdul Rahman Al-Dahmash said.

On the Saudijeans blog, there's a call for an elections boycott:

The municipal elections deserve to be boycotted because democracy is not a ballot box. Democracy is about conceding power to the people. When the ballot box does not lead to conceding power to people and using this power effectively, then the ballot box does not lead to democracy. The municipal councils had no impact on the lives of people, and the comical manner in which their mandate has been extended for two years shows that they have nothing to do with the power of the people or delegating that power from them. How can an elected councilman gets his power from voters, then keeps to exercise it thanks to a government decision? This is, by the way, why democratic countries hold elections on schedule, because an elected official cannot continue to use his power without the consent of those — the voters — who have given him this power in the first place.

Have you noticed that they are using the same excuses that they have used to exclude women in 2004? The lack of separate polling stations for women, the need to learn from the experience with a promise to take part the next time around, etc. During the past seven years, we have built KAUST and sent 80,000 students to study abroad but somehow we still can’t prepare polling stations for women’s participation. Due to all this comicality and lack of seriousness, the municipal elections deserve to be boycotted.

Third Place.....

Wheatley Ward on Rochford District Council is a real Conservative stronghold - when the seat was contested in May, only the Tories and English Democrats actually stood.

Following the sad death of Conservative ward councillor John Pullen, we've just had a by-election, in which the Lib Dems and Labour dipped their toe into the electoral waters here. However the result was, as expected , a Conservative hold:

Aron Priest Conservative 417 61.0% (down 7.8% since previous election)
John Hayter English Democrats 142 20.7% (down 10.4%)
Sid Cumberland Liberal Democrats 78 11.4% (up 11.4%)
David Bodimeade Labour 47 6.9% (up 6.9%)

Turn out this time was 21.3 %

The Closest Election EVER in Essex?

Lib Dem Brentwood Councillor Karen Chilvers has just written about what happened in her area on Thursday:

We knocked on a lot of doors yesterday telling you it would be close - but I had no idea how close it would be.
.
At 6am, after four recounts and with over 3,000 votes cast it finally came down to 1578 votes for Nigel and 1578 for the Tory candidate - dead heat.
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The election was then decided by a drawing of lots and ....

Find out who won here.

News From A Blue Heartland

Down in deepest, bluest Rayleigh and Wickford , our Tory MP Mark Francois was swept back to Westminster with 57 percent of the vote and a majority of over 22000. And I wish him well - by the way, he doesn't seem to have the same right-wing reputation in Rayleigh that he seems to have outside the constituency.

It was really good to see Susan Gaszczak win 2nd place for us by a few hundred votes, pushing the affable Labour guy Mike Lesurf into third. Thanls, Susan....

The ten or twelve BNP supporters who came to the count left 90 minutes before the declaration, where they came sixth (behind the English Democrats and UKIP) and lost their deposit.

Incidentally, we have a very cosmopolitan set of names for candidates down here in Rayleigh - a Conservative with the middle name "Gino",Lib Dem with the surname "Gaszczak", Labour with the surname "LeSurf" and even a UKIP candidate with the first name "Tino". You could almost understand why the English Democrat candidate, Mr Hayter, thinks the way he does...

Next door in Castle Point, Brendan D'Cruz stood at very short notice and did a good job for us... he's definitely a guy to watch out for in the future. Spasibo Brendan!

Meanwhile in the Rochford district council elections we had to husband our resources carefully, so only put up 5 candidates.

But the results were gratifying - where we were challenging the Tories we improved our position and had three second places.

And the Tory attempts to take advantage of the general election high turn-out to wipe out the three defending non-Tories failed miserably.

Independent John Mason fought off a charmless Tory onslaught in Hawkwell West to win by over a hundred.

My Lib Dem colleague Chris Lumley, despite being ill during the campaign, won by 485.

And in Downhall and Rawreth - where Mark Francois is a resident - I won by 1846 to 770. With a turn-out of 71.4 percent, it seems that just over 50 percent of the ward electorate voted for me, which is a good mandate to take into the council chamber.


Finally, the Tories got punished in Hullbridge for poor performance on local issues, and having a candidate who lived in Hockley and is a parish councillor there. End result - the Greens get their first councillor on the District!

There's a lot to look forward to....

"Unpopular" Policies That Are Actually Quite Popular

From the Telegraph:

Mr Clegg will be boosted, however, by higher-than-expected levels of support for some of his party's more controversial policies. Some 46 per cent of voters backed replacing the Trident nuclear deterrent with a cheaper weapons system, 55 per cent were in favour of amnesties for illegal immigrants who have been in the UK 10 years and 49 per cent backed replacing prison sentences of less than six months with community service

However, 74 per cent disagreed with scrapping the pound and joining the euro when conditions allow – another key Lib Dem policy.

Andrew Sullivan: 'Clegg Triumph'

See here

Andrew Sullivan More Lib Dem Than Tory !

One of my favourite US bloggers finds he supports Lib Dem policies fractionally more than Tory ones:

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have unveiled their manifesto. Check it out here. When I filled out this questionnaire on policy positions, it turned out that I was regarded as 45 percent Lib Dem and 44 percent Tory, with 37 percent Labour. I suspect that's my civil liberties bent and fiscal conservatism coming through.

Latest April Election News.

The Guardian has an exclusive look at Labour's election posters ... here.

There are also rumours this morning that Lord Ashcroft is moving his holdings from Belize to the Indian Ocean republic of San Serriffe.

A Worrying Sign?

I've done a fair bit of canvassing in the past week. And I always like to talk and stroke cats when I'm canvassing.

But maybe I'm overdoing it. I mean, last night I dreamed that our cat Felix actually was Gordon Brown. And he jumped into a pond and I had to rescue the poor animal.

What's Going On Here?

I'm really puzzled by this article on the Southend Echo website:

A CONSERVATIVE councillor says he is running as an independent in another ward this year as a “practice run”.

Jason Luty, who is currently a Conservative councillor for Eastwood Park ward, will be standing in the May elections as an independent candidate in Westborough.

He says this is a “dry run” in preparation to challenging independent group leader, Martin Terry, whose term as an independent councillor in the Westborough ward comes to an end in 2011.

Mr Luty expects Tory Mel Day to win May’s elections because of national support for the Conservatives, but will use this experience as a practice run....

Full article here

Town Council By-Election Result

I've just come back from the count for the Whitehouse Ward Town Council by-election in Rayleigh. The result was:

Conservatives : 488 - 69 percent
Lib Dems (Corey Vost) 166 - 23 percent
BNP 57 - 8 percent

There was a 22 percent turnout.

So, a clear win for the Conservatives - and we offered our congratulations to Mr Ward (now Councillor Ward!).

Not a good result for the BNP.

But rather encouragingly, a better result for us than in the last District Council election here last year, which was:

Conservatives 641 - 56 percent
English Democrats 312 - 27 percent
Lib Dems 184 - 16 percent

(the last Town Council election was contested on the same day as the District election by 3 Conservatives and 1 Labour, the Tories winning with 809, 770, 744 and Labour getting 264)

What I Did On My Vacation From Blogging

In case anyone has been wondering, I haven't disappeared from the face of the earth, I merely stopped blogging because I was immersed in the County Council Elections in Rayleigh North.

To cut a long story short, I finished a cheerful second out of six candidates, closing the gap on the Conservative incumbent to about 6 percent:

Stephen Charles Castle The Conservative Party Candidate 2095
Chris Black Liberal Democrats 1739
John Hayter English Democrats 718
Tony Smith Say No To European Union 416
Lisa Byrne British National Party 278
David Dennis Bodimeade The Labour Party Candidate 226

I represent one-quarter of Rayleigh North on the District Council, and was ahead by a landslide there. So if I want to win in four year time, I know what I need to do.

The Conservatives didn't have any fun in the campaign, and were too frit to even put their candidate's home address on any of his campaign material (he lives more than 20 minutes away, on Canvey Island. And they had to, ahem, twist the truth quite a bit in their last leaflet.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems advance across Essex, making 4 gains and becoming the second party in the County with 12 seats.

Iran

It's not the voting that creates a democracy, it's the counting....

Moving The Date Of The 2009 County Council Elections

Has anybody else seen this from the Department of Communities and Local Government:

Summary
We are seeking views about moving the date of the English Local Elections from Thursday 7 May 2009 so that they take place on the same day as the European Parliamentary elections on Thursday 4 June 2009.

This consultation seeks, in particular, views of councils and other stakeholders on where the balance of advantage lies - holding the local and European elections on the same day or diffferent days four weeks apart. The results of this consultation will help us reach a decision as to whether or not the 2009 local elections should be moved.

A report on this is coming to our District Council all-Tory Cabinet next week, with a recommendation to support the switch.

On principle I think it's better for local elections to keep their own separate identity. When I stand in a council election, I aim to fight it on council issues....

(Incidentally, it's a little hard to find on the Communities and Local Government website anything that says it is a government department or government ministry. Somewhat confusing.)

My First Post on the 2012 American Presidential Election

It might be carried out on a more even basis:

"A Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza has formulated a compelling and pragmatic alternative to the Electoral College. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and has been hailed as “ingenious” by two New York Times editorials. In April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. And several other states, including Illinois and New Jersey, are likely to follow suit.

How NPV works is this: Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state’s winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This would be perfectly legal because the U.S. Constitution grants states the right to determine how to cast their electoral votes, so no congressional or federal approval would be required. NPV could go into effect nationwide as soon as enough states pass it (enough states to tally 270 electoral votes—the magic number needed to elect a president). In 2008, NPV bills are expected to be introduced in all 50 states.

“We’ll have it by 2012,” says Robert Richie, executive director of the reform group Fair Vote.....

....Illinois is the quintessential example of the flaws in the current system. As a safe state for Democrats, both major party candidates ignore it. There is little motivation to campaign there since the winner in Illinois gets only 21 electoral votes and the loser gets nothing. As a result, Illinois voters play virtually no role in shaping the issues of the election".

Hat-tip: Echidne of the Snakes

Kenya

"Uncertainty is the word I would use to describe the mood around Kenya this morning in contrast to fear and anger last night."

If you want to read some Kenyan blogs, Global Voices Online is a good place to start.

Making My Mind Up -

I have a consistent record of supporting unsuccessful candidates in national elections - whether for parliament or for party leadership. I wanted Ted Heath to be Prime Minister twice in 1974, and then switched my allegiance to the yellow rosette for all elections thereafter. I've also managed to support a losing candidate in every Lib Dem leadership election - Beith, Ballard (I used her bathroom once and I liked her) and Huhne.
So basically,my endorsement isn't worth having. But anyway...

My original thoughts on trying to decide how to vote were that I like what Chris Huhne says about policies, but Nick Clegg seems to have more personal warmth. Reading Cicero's blog yesterday has reconfirmed these feelings.

Cicero himself, a Huhne supporter, says:

Certainly Nick Clegg, one-on-one is attractive and charismatic....
....Several people have said to me that "of course Chris can be a bit of a bast*rd sometimes". This is not, however a popularity contest, it is a test of leadership, and an element of ruthlessness is clearly part of the job description.

To which I would say Charles Kennedy was a great leader for us without being a bit of a bast*ard. Maybe I shoudl vote Clegg.

Meanwhile in the comments to that post , Bullseye (a Clegg supporter) writes:

The point is not so much that Chris is a statist, having spoken to him privately at some length I don't believe he is - he is a localist first & foremost. Which is better than nothing but is not the ame as being an 'ideological liberal'

However, what really worries me is that Chris's campaign has pandered so blatantly to the statist tendencies which have so hampered our party. he has run an anti-chice , pro-status quo campaign that says the only reform needed to public services is to devolve them to local authorities.

That's not a liberal revolution that's social democratic managerialism.

To which my reaction is, I'm a localist with a few social democratic tendencies myself.... Maybe I should vote Huhne.

So I'm still unsure.... I'm tipping towards Clegg.For me the final deciding question now is : Which leader will be more effective at increasing our membership? Mmm, I wonder what the membership figures are in each candidates constituency...