Live Commentary
10:37am Tuesday The composition of the 182 NFP members are 74 from the far-left LFI, 59 from the centre-left Socialists, 28 Greens, nine Communists and 12 others. Adding Ensemble’s 168 to NFP, but subtracting LFI and the Communists gives 267 seats, still 22 short of a majority.
12pm It’s been a long stretch of following international elections for me, including the UK, French, Indian and European parliament elections. Unless Joe Biden withdraws from the US presidential contest, I will next post in early August.
10:57am Wikipedia’s figures are 180 of 577 seats for the NFP (up 49 since 2022), 159 Ensemble (down 86), 142 RN and allies (up 53), 39 Republicans (down 25), 27 other righties (up 17), 12 other lefties (down nine), six other centrists (up two) and nine regionalists (down one). Adding others, 192 NFP (up 40), 165 Ensemble (down 84), 142 RN (up 53) and 66 Republicans (down eight). A majority requires 289 seats, so parliament is well hung.
9:55am Official runoff round results have been released. Le Monde has the NFP on 182 of the 577 seats, Ensemble 168, RN 143, the Republicans 45, other righties 15, other lefties 13, other centrists six and regionalists four. Adding the others would give the NFP 195 seats, Ensemble 174, RN 143 and the Republicans 60. To pass legislation, Macron’s Ensemble will need either the NFP or RN to also be in favour. In the previous parliament, he had an option of cooperating with the Republicans.
8:42am With six seats left, 179 NFP, 165 Ensemble, 143 RN and 45 Republicans.
8:17am With 16 seats left, 177 NFP, 160 Ensemble, 141 RN and 45 Republicans.
7:48am As expected, the NFP and Ensemble are surging as the final seats are finalised. With 28 seats left, it’s 174 NFP, 153 Ensemble, 140 RN and 45 Republicans.
7:40am Large first round leads for RN candidates are being overturned in the runoffs. In Sarthe’s fourth, the NFP defeated the RN by 50.2-49.8. First round results were 39.3% RN, 25.94% NFP and 25.88% Ensemble. The Ensemble candidate withdrew.
7:28am With 42 seats left, the NFP has 165 seats, Ensemble 149, RN 140 and the Republicans 44.
7:09am With 78 seats remaining, Ensemble takes second spot from RN. Current totals are 146 NFP, 140 Ensemble, 137 RN and 40 Republicans.
7:05am Le Monde has maps of the results so far. With 95 seats still to be finalised, the NFP has won 140 seats, the RN 135, Ensemble 133, the conservative Republicans 38, other righties 15, other lefties ten, other centrists six and regionalists four. The remaining seats, mostly from cities, should heavily favour the NFP and Ensemble.
6:57am The Ifop projection of components of the NFP alliance has the far-left LFI with 82-86 seats, the Communists at 9-10, the centre-left Socialists at 62-67 and the Greens at 34-35. There are also 8=10 other lefties.
6:28am Monday A big shock, with current projections, which are partly based on votes counted so far, putting the left-wing NFP in first place, followed by Macron’s Ensemble, and the far-right RN in third. An Ipsos projection has the NFP at 171-187 seats, Ensemble at 152-163 and RN at 134-152. Ifop has NFP at 188-199, Ensemble 164-169 and RN 135-139.
6:30pm Wikipedia has the results of 14 seat runoffs, presumably from French territories outside France that voted Saturday. Regionalists won five of these seats, the NFP three, other lefties three, other righties two and other centrists one. Adding the 76 seats decided in the first round with vote majorities, the total out of 90 seats decided is 38 RN and allies, 35 NFP, five Republicans and other righties, five regionalists, three other lefties and three Ensemble and other centrists. So 487 seats remain to be decided.
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, and his own website is here.
The 577 French lower house seats are elected by a two-round single-member system. The runoffs are today, with polls outside the cities closing at 3am AEST Monday. All polls are closed by 4am AEST.
In final results of last Sunday’s first round, the far-right National Rally (RN) and allies won 33.2%, the left-wing alliance of four parties (NFP) 28.1%, President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble 21.3% and the conservative Republicans and other right-wing candidates 10.2%.
Turnout was high at 66.7% of registered voters. This meant 76 seats were filled, where the winner had at least 50% of valid votes and at least 25% of registered votes. It also meant that many third candidates cleared the 12.5% of registered voters required to advance. On these results, 306 seats would go to three-way runoffs and five to four-way runoffs.
In today’s runoffs, first past the post will be used. To avoid splitting the anti-RN vote, there have been a large number of candidate withdrawals. Now there are only 89 three-way runoffs and two four-way runoffs remaining after the candidate registration deadline on Tuesday. Europe Elects said there are 154 NFP vs RN contests, 135 Ensemble vs RN, 50 Republicans vs RN, 83 are three or four-way runoffs involving NFP, RN and either Ensemble or the Republicans, and 37 seats don’t have RN candidates.
Polls released since Tuesday’s registration deadline give RN and allies 170-240 seats, the NFP 165-203 seats, Ensemble 95-160 and the Republicans 25-63. If today’s results reflect the polls, RN and allies will be far short of the 289 seats needed for a majority, and there’s some chance that the NFP wins more seats than RN. Polls conducted before the first round had RN much closer to a majority.
In an Ifop poll, centre-left and Ensemble candidates led RN by 53-47, while the far-left tied at 50-50 with RN and the Republicans led RN by 56-44. An OpinionWay poll had RN beating NFP by 53-47 but losing to Ensemble 52-48. In a three-way race, NFP had 36%, Ensemble 34% and RN 30%.
UK election most disproportionate in modern history
In Thursday’s UK election, Labour won 411 of the 650 seats, the Conservatives 121, the Liberal Democrats 72, the Scottish National Party nine, independents six, Reform five and the Greens four. Labour won 63.2% of seats on 33.7% of votes, the Conservatives 18.6% on 23.7%, the Lib Dems 11.1% on 12.2%, Reform 0.8% on 14.3% and the Greens 0.6% on 6.7%. Europe Elects said it was the most disproportional UK election in modern history. Large swings against Labour in their safe seats helped their vote efficiency, even though they lost a few seats to pro-Gaza independents.
In Scotland Labour won 37 of the 57 seats, to just nine for the SNP, on vote shares of 35.3% Labour and 30.0% SNP. In 2019, the SNP had won 48 of the 59 Scottish seats, to just one for Labour, on shares of 45.0% SNP and 18,6% Labour.
Other international electoral developments
More than seven months after the November 22 election, a new Dutch government was sworn in last Tuesday. The new government includes the far-right PVV (37 of the 150 seats), the conservative VVD (24 seats), the Christian democratic NSC (20 seats) and the agrarian right-wing BBB (seven seats). These four parties combined have 88 seats, well above the 76 needed for a majority. This is the first Dutch government to include the PVV and has been described as the most right-wing in recent history.
The Iranian presidential election was held in two rounds, on June 28 and Friday, to replace former right-wing president Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash. The reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian defeated the right-wing Saeed Jalili in the runoff by a 54.8-45.2 margin. In Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the most power, and presidential candidates need to be vetted by the religious Guardian Council.
In early May the Solomon Islands parliament elected the China-friendly foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele, of the previous pro-China PM, Manasseh Sogavare, as the new PM. Sogavare had withdrawn from the contest to be PM and backed Manele, after he failed to win a majority in an April election.