21Apr/02Off
European dismay over Le Pen vote
BBC News | EUROPE | European dismay over Le Pen vote
"I hope that all democratic powers will unite against right-wing extremism and xenophobia," Sweden's Social Democrat Prime Minister Goran Persson said.
I'll be watching this situation over the next few weeks. If Le Pen wins I'll have to scratch France off my lists of places I'd like to visit.
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April 22nd, 2002 - 07:53
I live in Belgium, and travel to Paris on average twice a week for work. To say that we were shocked when we learn the news is an understatement. Still trying to digest it.
Something is really rotten in the republic of France. To realize that the people of France, “la patrie des droits de l’homme” as they’re fond of saying, have decided to restrict their choice for their new president between a thief and a fascist in really revolting.
= tmk =
PS: How does one send a post through e-mail? I tried simply answering the e-mail but it bounce back with the following error message.
April 22nd, 2002 - 10:08
A picture is worth a thousand word (from the front page of Libération)
http://www.libe.com/imagedujour/images/20020422manif_2.jpg
April 22nd, 2002 - 08:16
At 11:59 AM 4/22/02 -0400, TMK wrote:
>I live in Belgium, and travel to Paris on average twice a week for work.
>To say that we were shocked when we learn the news is an understatement.
>Still trying to digest it.
I can never understand why people are shocked by such results (or why there
was such surprise at the xenophobic Right’s win in Austria). This is a
rather predictable result of European election systems, most of which are
consciously designed to empower smaller parties. Any system that does that
is going to run in to situations where the mainstream candidates split
lukewarm support and some nutcase sneaks in.
This does occasionally happen in the United States (Jesse Ventura comes to
mind) but certainly not with the frequency at the national level that it
does in Europe.
April 22nd, 2002 - 10:04
This is a rather predictable result of European election systems, most of which are consciously designed to empower smaller parties
It’s so predictable that no one had imagine this…
What exactly is “European election systems”? Such a statement have me wonder if you have any clue about what you’re talking about Brian (this is ment respectfully indeed)
= tmk =
April 22nd, 2002 - 10:30
On Monday, April 22, 2002, at 09:16 AM, Brian Carnell wrote:
> This is a rather predictable result of European election systems, most
> of which are consciously designed to empower smaller parties. Any
> system that does that
What’s “that”? I haven’t studied the European election systems as
closely as you have, so I don’t know what you mean.
Jim
April 22nd, 2002 - 11:06
Yo,
After my first response to Brian I felt I needed to elaborate on why
I think is response is clueless.
On Monday, April 22, 2002, at 06:16 , Brian Carnell wrote:
> At 11:59 AM 4/22/02 -0400, TMK wrote:
>
>> I live in Belgium, and travel to Paris on average twice a week for
>> work.
>> To say that we were shocked when we learn the news is an
>> understatement.
>> Still trying to digest it.
>
> I can never understand why people are shocked by such results (or
> why there
> was such surprise at the xenophobic Right’s win in Austria). This is a
> rather predictable result of European election systems, most of
> which are
I assume you that by “European election systems” you mean systems
that contrary to the US’ don’t use a primary?
> consciously designed to empower smaller parties. Any system that
> does that
That’s indeed plain wrong. Le Front National is emphatically *not* a
small party. It’s been the second or third french political party
for more than 10 years now.
> is going to run in to situations where the mainstream candidates split
> lukewarm support and some nutcase sneaks in.
President Mitterand originated a change for the *legislative*
elections to add a dose of proportionality. This mecanism indeed
favors the smaller parties.
On the contrary, the presidential election is *designed* to favor
big parties since only the two biggest ones go to the second round.
= tmk =
>
> This does occasionally happen in the United States (Jesse Ventura
> comes to
> mind) but certainly not with the frequency at the national level
> that it
> does in Europe.
>
>
>
>
April 22nd, 2002 - 11:55
At 03:06 PM 4/22/02 -0400, TMK wrote:
> > I can never understand why people are shocked by such results (or
> > why there
> > was such surprise at the xenophobic Right’s win in Austria). This is a
> > rather predictable result of European election systems, most of
> > which are
>
>I assume you that by “European election systems” you mean systems
>that contrary to the US’ don’t use a primary?
I meant exactly the sort of system that France uses, and variations of
which are used in other parts of Europe and disproportionately give a lot
of power to groups that represent small political minorities.
> > consciously designed to empower smaller parties. Any system that
> > does that
>
>That’s indeed plain wrong. Le Front National is emphatically *not* a
>small party. It’s been the second or third french political party
>for more than 10 years now.
> > is going to run in to situations where the mainstream candidates split
> > lukewarm support and some nutcase sneaks in.
>
>President Mitterand originated a change for the *legislative*
>elections to add a dose of proportionality. This mecanism indeed
>favors the smaller parties.
>
>On the contrary, the presidential election is *designed* to favor
>big parties since only the two biggest ones go to the second round.
I completely disagree. If people think this elections will produce
advantages for bigger parties, then they are deluding themselves.
Look at how this vote breaks down:
Chirac: 19.7%
LePen: 17.06%
Jospin: 16.05%
That means that 47.19% of voters cast their ballots for someone other than
the top three vote getters.
This is an example of a classic problem with voter preference in these
sorts of runoff-style systems. About 30% of people in France voted for Left
Wing candidated other than Jospin. There were, it is my understanding, at
least 8 other Left Wing candidates, including some from green-oriented
parties, a Communist party candidate, etc.
Now presumably all of those voters would prefer Jospin to LePen, but since
this sort of runoff system where it is easy to field a candidate ends up
dispersing the votes, it creates an odd preference system whereby a voter
might say have a voter preference that looks like this:
Communist Candidate–>Jospin–>LePen
…but the main effect of voting for the Commie candidate is to empower LePen.
So rather than have a serious runoff between Jospin and Chirac, the result
is an all-but-guaranteed lopsided victory for Chirac as well as an
international platform for LePen to spew his nonsense for awhile.
This is, btw, a well known problem with all election systems that is simply
compounded by the system used in France where the threshold for fielding a
candidate is so low and the winners for the next round are determined
strictly by total votes.
April 22nd, 2002 - 12:14
At 02:30 PM 4/22/02 -0400, Jim wrote:
>What’s “that”? I haven’t studied the European election systems as
>closely as you have, so I don’t know what you mean.
1. The threshhold for entering the contest is very low. 2. Victory is
determined by total votes in a single election (as has been pointed out by
more than one observer, had people realized that LePen was actually likely
to obtain more votes than Jospin, many LePen voters would have likely voted
for Jospin).
In the United States, these two problems are solved by (1) having a
relatively high threshhold to make it on a ballot, and (2) weighting
ballots geographically.
This does, OTOH, have other drawbacks. I am definitely not arguing that one
system is superior to the other, since it depends on what people want out
of an electoral system.
But at the same time, people shouldn’t be surprised that this sort of
runoff produces such a goofy result. I saw a quote from Gerhard Schroeder
where he was wondering how the hell the right wing in France gained so much
power. But that’s the problem — it doesn’t. LePen couldn’t even get 1 in 5
voters to cast their ballots for him, and a significant number of them are
probably protest votes who will desert LePen in the runoff with Chirac.
But since all the left-liberal voters were busy voting for one of the eight
Communist, Trotskyite, socialist, green candidates, that allowed LePen to
squeak by ahead of Jospin.
April 22nd, 2002 - 15:38
Dear Brian,
I see your point. But I still disagree.
My understanding is that we’re not talking about the same thing.
What got me started is my understanding that you were implying that
the outcome of the election was predictable. I disagree with that.
It was not!
You “demonstrate” (based on the numbers from the election!) that
these numbers were the predictable outcome of the elections!
That’s a what I disagree with. What you show is that something *can*
happen. The subtlety here is that when it happens it’s a surprise
because it was *not* very probable.
It is such a huge surprise for everybody here because for all the
presidential elections (with similar configuration), the two
candidates that go to the second round do so with a very comfortable
margin separating them from the third.
The surprise comes from the fact that contrary to what *usually*
happen this time the margin has all but disappear. And no one (or
could have unless they took a wild guess) predicted it. That’s *why*
it’s a surprise
It’s like knowing (by observation) that the temperature in some
place is usually between 25° and 35°. Indeed the temperature *could*
go down to 0°. But since it has essentially never happened, although
people know it *can* happen, when it does happen it’s a huge
surprise.
You reasoning is only based on a posteriori numbers (you use what
you want to demonstrate to demonstrate it whereas the surprise what
the numbers are!) so it’s not conclusive.
Hence, in your reasoning below what’s interesting is to gauge the
weight of each alternative in a voter’s preferences (e.g.
communist -> Le Pen -> Jospin). The surprise comes from the fact
that the weights are substantially different from what they usually
are.
= tmk =
On Monday, April 22, 2002, at 09:55 , Brian Carnell wrote:
> At 03:06 PM 4/22/02 -0400, TMK wrote:
>
>>> I can never understand why people are shocked by such results (or
>>> why there
>>> was such surprise at the xenophobic Right’s win in Austria). This
>>> is a
>>> rather predictable result of European election systems, most of
>>> which are
>>
>> I assume you that by “European election systems” you mean systems
>> that contrary to the US’ don’t use a primary?
>
> I meant exactly the sort of system that France uses, and variations of
> which are used in other parts of Europe and disproportionately give
> a lot
> of power to groups that represent small political minorities.
>
>>> consciously designed to empower smaller parties. Any system that
>>> does that
>>
>> That’s indeed plain wrong. Le Front National is emphatically *not* a
>> small party. It’s been the second or third french political party
>> for more than 10 years now.
>>> is going to run in to situations where the mainstream candidates
>>> split
>>> lukewarm support and some nutcase sneaks in.
>>
>> President Mitterand originated a change for the *legislative*
>> elections to add a dose of proportionality. This mecanism indeed
>> favors the smaller parties.
>>
>> On the contrary, the presidential election is *designed* to favor
>> big parties since only the two biggest ones go to the second round.
>
> I completely disagree. If people think this elections will produce
> advantages for bigger parties, then they are deluding themselves.
>
> Look at how this vote breaks down:
>
> Chirac: 19.7%
> LePen: 17.06%
> Jospin: 16.05%
>
> That means that 47.19% of voters cast their ballots for someone
> other than
> the top three vote getters.
>
> This is an example of a classic problem with voter preference in these
> sorts of runoff-style systems. About 30% of people in France voted
> for Left
> Wing candidated other than Jospin. There were, it is my
> understanding, at
> least 8 other Left Wing candidates, including some from green-oriented
> parties, a Communist party candidate, etc.
>
> Now presumably all of those voters would prefer Jospin to LePen,
> but since
> this sort of runoff system where it is easy to field a candidate
> ends up
> dispersing the votes, it creates an odd preference system whereby a
> voter
> might say have a voter preference that looks like this:
>
> Communist Candidate–>Jospin–>LePen
>
> ..but the main effect of voting for the Commie candidate is to
> empower LePen.
>
> So rather than have a serious runoff between Jospin and Chirac, the
> result
> is an all-but-guaranteed lopsided victory for Chirac as well as an
> international platform for LePen to spew his nonsense for awhile.
>
> This is, btw, a well known problem with all election systems that
> is simply
> compounded by the system used in France where the threshold for
> fielding a
> candidate is so low and the winners for the next round are determined
> strictly by total votes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
April 22nd, 2002 - 18:14
At 07:38 PM 4/22/2002 -0400, TMK wrote:
>You “demonstrate” (based on the numbers from the election!) that
>these numbers were the predictable outcome of the elections!
>
>That’s a what I disagree with. What you show is that something *can*
>happen. The subtlety here is that when it happens it’s a surprise
>because it was *not* very probable.
Consider it is not very probable, it happens with alarming frequency in
European democracies.
Haider’s Freedom Party was able to form a government in Austria even though
it received 27% of the vote as opposed to 33% for the Social Democrats.
That is, of course, the other issue of instability wherein there is the
menagerie of coalition governments that even supporters of individual
parties might oppose (obviously some CP members might have changed their
vote had they known the CP might hook up with the FP).
The main advantage/disadvantage is that these sort of systems promote a
relatively large number of political parties and build in rewards not for
parties that can register a majority of voters, but rather it rewards those
parties who are very good at targeting a sizeable minority. If you can put
together a party that can consistently poll 20 to 25%, you’re a player.
OTOH, systems that discourage independent parties, such as in the United
States, tend to result in bland amalgams. An honestly anti-immigrant
presidential candidate wouldn’t have a chance in American politics — but
then neither does anyone who strays very far from a rather stifling script
due to the broad appeal necessary to garner votes (and especially when
coupled with the geographical limitations — which also distort politics in
their own way).