Global News Journal

Irish fly from Brussels to push through EU treaty

If this morning’s flight from Brussels to Dublin is an indication of how Irish people will vote in Friday’s referendum on the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty, then the result will be an emphatic Yes on Saturday afternoon when the final results are expected to be known.

The majority of the Aer Lingus flight packed with Irish diaspora from Brussels – some of who hold office in the EU capital – seemed set to vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty, which aims to give the 27-nation bloc greater sway in world affairs and streamline its decision-making.

Irish MEP (member of the European Parliament) Liam Aylward said he was “quietly confident” of a positive vote in favour for the treaty.

The Fianna Fail politician from Ireland’s eastern region was accompanied on the flight by his British Liberal colleague Andrew Duff, who was among the lawmakers who helped shape the new Lisbon treaty after French and Dutch voters rejected the EU’s doomed constitution in 2005.

“I am travelling to Dublin because I want to hear from the people themselves, whether they vote Yes or they vote No. I am not going to make any predictions,” Duff said.

Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum in June 2008, plunging the bloc into crisis and halting its expansion.

Polls ahead of Friday’s plebiscite pointed towards a victory for the Yes camp this time around after the Irish government received guarantees from its EU partners in the sensitive areas of military neutrality, taxation, abortion and the right to retain an Irish commissioner in Brussels.

from The Great Debate UK:

German elections too close to call

- Erik Kirschbaum is a Reuters correspondent in Berlin. -

Has this been dullest German election campaign in decades or the most exciting?  Has the battle for power in Berlin between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that concludes with Sunday's election been a memorable showdown or a forgettably boring contest?

Many journalists, pundits and voters have complained it's all been a merciless bore compared to the high-octane battles of the past with little action and precious few highlights.

But I would argue that in many ways it has been one of the most interesting campaigns in decades. Why? Because the outcome is so uncertain and there are more different government possibilities that could result from it than at any time in Germany's post-war history.

Instead of the usual centre-right or centre-left choice that German voters had for the last 60 years, there are options galore this time -- at least in theory.

There could be a centre-right government, another grand coalition or several three-way coalitions that could include the Free Democrats, the Greens and from a purely  mathematical point of view even the Left party that have never been tried before at the federal level.

On top of that, the opinion polls have once again tracked a dramatic narrowing in the lead that Merkel's preferred centre-right coalition (Conservative  Christian Democrats  and Free Democrats) have over the three other parties -- Social Democrats, Greens and Left party .

Will Germany tamper with election law before vote?

Should Germany change its election law just a few months before September’s parliamentary vote? That’s the question that has been weighing on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition.

But fears that Germany might end up “smelling like a banana republic”, as Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper columnist Kurt Kister wrote, or be mentioned in the same breath as Iran if it ends up tampering with the law so close to the Sept. 27 ballot has helped kill the intriguing idea for the time being. There is also a tacit angst running through Merkel’s conservative CDU and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, that they could end up throwing away a possible victory once again (a 21-point lead melted to 1-point win in 2005) for their preferred centre-right coalition with the Free Democrats by changing the law now.

It’s a quirk of the German mixed member proportional two-vote system that has caused a mess with so-called “Ueberhangmandate” (“overhang seats”). Each voter can cast one ballot for a specific candidate in one of the 299 constituencies and a second ballot for a particular party. The second vote gives the percentage of seats each party wins. But if a party wins more direct seats in the constituency via the first ballot than it should have based on the percentage of second votes, new “Ueberhangmandate” are created. The CDU/CSU and SPD are the primary beneficiaries.

Der Spiegel news magazine cited research from political scientists showing that the CDU and CSU could pick up a record 24 “overhang seats” while the SPD is projected to pick up at most 3 additional seats. That would raise the odds of the CDU/CSU being able to form a centre-right coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and end their loveless marriage with the SPD in the grand coalition. The CDU/CSU currently enjoys a 11-point lead in opinion polls but their lead is expected to narrow by September — as it did in 2005.

The touchy issue of the “overhang seats” will flair up briefly in parliament on Friday, one of the final sessions before the election, when opposition parties put what is likely to be their doomed motion to change the law up for a vote.

The small parties feel justifiably disadvantaged by the law and the Constitutional Court agreed. Germany’s highest court in 2008 ordered changes to the election law to eliminate that built-in advantage that has often given a few extra seats in parliament at each election to the two larger parties, Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the SPD. “Overhang seats” helped cement Merkel’s position in the 2005 election and before that it helped the SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s ruling SPD-Greens coalition get a bit more breathing room in 1998 and 2002 with a slightly more comfortable majority. Before that CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl was the beneficiary of “overhang seats”.

The only catch was that the Constitutional Court in 2008 gave the government three years, until 2011, to make the changes. The CDU/CSU and the SPD were understandably in no rush to change the law that had helped them in past elections. The SPD, as it slowly dawned on them that they might be the big loser in the overhang seats sweepstakes this time, briefly entertained the notion of backing the measure by the Greens and Left party. But that would have immediately brought down the grand coalition and left the SPD out of power and left Merkel running a minority government in a caretaker role until September, according to Bild columnist Hugo Mueller-Vogg.

Angola votes

******Angola’s last election led to the resumption of civil war that took another decade to end and cost countless lives.******This time the atmosphere  around the election is very different, despite some initial problems at voting stations – scores failed to open on time in Luanda, which could lead to an extension of voting.******The ruling MPLA won the war in 2002 when UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed. His former rebel group has now been transformed into a political party, but it is given little chance of electoral success and is unable to do much but complain the campaign has been unfair.************Angola is one of the world’s fastest growing economies thanks to booming oil production – not that much of the wealth has trickled down to the two-thirds of Angolans who live on less than $2 a day.******The election is being touted by Angola’s government as a demonstration of how far the country has come from the civil war and an example in Africa after flawed elections elsewhere.************But the MPLA’s electoral dominance meant the contest was very one-sided and there appears little chance of a dispute on the scale of those that led to the troubles in Kenya and Zimbabwe, where election results were close.******The election is undoubtedly a big step for Angola. How significant will it prove for Africa as a whole?

Is the balance shifting in Zimbabwe?

This week’s reopening of Zimbabwe’s parliament had been seen by many as a show of defiance by President Robert Mugabe against an opposition that has so far rejected terms of a power-sharing deal that appear more acceptable to the veteran leader and to at least some of his regional counterparts.

But it may not have gone quite to plan.

The election of the parliamentary speaker chosen by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) came in spite of efforts by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to bring in the candidate of the breakaway MDC faction. Members of that faction appear to have sided with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rather than their own party leadership.

Then Mugabe faced unprecedented boos and jeers as he delivered his speech at the reopening of parliament, where ZANU-PF has lost its majority for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980. Mugabe nonetheless said he was optimistic that a power-sharing deal would be reached.

Is there a shift in the balance of power in Zimbabwe? What might it all mean for talks and for chances of an agreement that could help to revive the stricken country?

Who’s the biggest bully?

Each side accuses the other of trying to scare voters ahead of Ireland’s referendum on the EU treaty on Thursday. “No” groups have campaigned on issues ranging from abortion and euthanasia to taxation and Ireland’s military neutrality. They also say new decision-making mechanisms mean small states will lose influence and get trampled by the EU’s heavyweights.

The government’s response is to accuse treaty opponents of scaremongering by campaigning on emotive and extraneous issues that will not be affected by the treaty. In some cases neutral voices are inclined to agree, with the Catholic archbishop of Dublin and referendum commission weighing in to say there is nothing in the treaty that threatens Ireland’s strict abortion and euthanasia laws. The government warns of “dire consequences” for Ireland’s economy and diplomatic clout if a nation that has gained so much from EU support and subsidies is ungrateful enough to reject the treaty. The “No” camp accuses the government of bullying, blackmail and exaggeration. Indeed a number of economists say that while a “Yes” vote would be best for future prosperity, rejection of the treaty is unlikely to have any severe repercussions. So who is the biggest bully in the playground? Or is it just an inevitable flaw in referendums that they become a lightning rod for irrelevant issues and for politicians who don’t trust us to be able to debate the question we’re being asked?