Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
On Sunday European elections were held in Romania, Portugal and Poland. At the Romanian presidential runoff election, the pro-Western centrist Nicușor Dan, who is a mathematician and the current mayor of Bucharest, defeated the far-right George Simion by a 53.6-46.4 margin. Dan had qualified for the runoff with 21.0% in the May 4 first round, edging out another pro-Western candidate who won 20.1%, while Simion dominated with 41.0%. This election was rerun after the first election in December was annulled by the courts owing to concerns about Russian influence.
Portugal used proportional representation by region to elect its 230 MPs. Four seats are reserved for expatriate Portuguese and won’t be decided until later. This was a snap election called after the conservative AD lost a confidence vote. The AD won 89 seats (up nine since the March 2024 election), the centre-left Socialists 58 (down 20), the far-right Chega 58 (up eight), the economically right Liberal Initiative nine (up one) and the Greens six (up two). This was the Socialists’ worst seat share since 1987.
Sunday was the first round of the Polish presidential election, with the runoff on June 1. Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the centrist and pro-Western Civic Coalition, won 31.4%, followed by Karol Nawrocki, the candidate of the economically left but socially conservative Law and Justice (PiS) on 29.5% and the far-right Confederation on 14.8%. In runoff polling, Trzaskowski led in a first round exit poll by 47-38 with 15% undecided, and he has led in most runoff polls. A win for Trzaskowski would give the Civic Coalition and its allies, who have a parliamentary majority, control of government, with PiS currently holding the presidency.
In case you missed it (I posted this on the day of the Australian election), I had a results wrap of the May 1 UK local elections. The far-right Reform won 30% of the BBC’s Projected National Share, with Labour on 20%, the Liberal Democrats on 17% and the Conservatives on 15%. Since these elections, Reform has surged in national polls. In the Election Maps UK poll aggregate, Reform now has 29.1%, Labour 23.3%, the Conservatives 18.6%, the Lib Dems 14.2% and the Greens 8.9%.
The 140 Albanian parliamentary seats were elected using PR at the May 11 election. The governing Socialists won a fourth successive term, with 83 seats (up nine since 2021), the conservative Democrats won 50 seats (down 13) and others seven (up four). The election was marred by widespread misuse of public resources and institutional power by the Socialists.
Canada and South Korea
In my May 1 wrap of the April 28 Canadian federal election, I said the centre-left Liberals won 169 of the 343 seats, the Conservatives 144, the separatist left-wing Quebec Bloc (BQ) 22, the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) seven and the Greens one. It appears that rechecking put the Liberals ahead in a seat the Conservatives led, and the BQ ahead in a seat the Liberals led.
However, a recount in the BQ-led seat reversed the result, with the Liberals winning by just one vote, overturning a 44-vote BQ lead. A recount in a seat the Liberals won narrowly against the Conservatives confirmed the initial result. Results of two recounts are still pending, one with a narrow Liberal margin over the Conservatives and the other with a narrow Conservative margin over the Liberals. If remaining recounts confirm the initial results, the overall seat totals will be 170 Liberals, 143 Conservatives, 22 BQ, seven NDP and one Green, putting the Liberals two seats short of a majority.
The South Korean presidential election will be held on June 3, about two years earlier than scheduled after the previous president of the right-wing People Power Party (PPP) was impeached then removed from office. The president is elected by first past the post. Polls have the centre-left Democratic nominee, Lee Jae-myung, leading PPP’s Kim Moon-soo by between seven and 22 points. Democrats have a large parliamentary majority, so a win for Lee would give them control of government until the next parliamentary elections in 2028.