26 May 2019 saw an election paradox in Hungary: a long-serving government won big on a record-high turnout, yet the winners looked frustrated and the losers positively re-charged. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP electoral alliance took well over 52% of the popular vote and 62% of the country’s 21 seats in the European Parliament. That is one seat and one percent of the vote up compared to the 2014 EP elections, and just one seat and four percent of the vote less than their all-time best in 2009. But Fidesz’ leaders appeared disappointed and the government shortly announced unexpected...

di Marcello Carammia e Roderick Pace Introduction On Saturday 24 May the third European election since Malta joined the EU was held. Malta elected six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), one more than in 2009. The electoral system is the same as the one used in national elections, the major difference being that the 13 electoral districts are merged into one. It is a proportional system based on the Single Transferable Vote (STV), that permits voters to enumerate as many preferences as the candidates listed on the ballot sheet (Katz 1984). The small dimension of districts, the fact that...

Le elezioni europee 2019 sono state seguite con grande interesse nel mondo politico italiano, in quanto hanno rappresentato il primo “test” elettorale dei due partiti di governo, e difatti hanno messo in evidenza un aspetto cruciale e oramai chiaro ai più: il consenso del Movimento 5 Stelle sta scemando a favore del partner di governo ma concorrente elettorale, la Lega (D’Alimonte 2019). Infatti, dopo la débâcle elettorale del M5S, nonostante gli iscritti alla piattaforma Rousseau abbiano votato per rinnovare la fiducia a Di Maio, è chiaro sia che il referente politico del Movimento non è in grado di contrastare la...

  Like five years ago, the Belgian elections to the European Parliament (EP) coincided with the regional and federal elections. As voting is compulsory, the exceptional turnout of 88.5% is a bad indicator of the salience of the election. But from the near absence of European campaigns and candidates from public debate and media, as well as from the marginal differences in the election results between the three levels, we may read the EP election was again overshadowed by national campaigns and candidates. Nevertheless, this competition had a European dimension, as it was dominated by two transnational issues: the climate...

di Liisa Talving e Lukas Pukelis Estonia Le terze elezioni europee in Estonia erano considerata già dalla vigilia come un importante test in vista delle prossime elezioni politiche (previste per la primavera del 2015), soprattutto per misurare i rapporti di forza tra le diverse formazioni nazionali. Tra l’altro, l’introduzione di liste di partito aperte con la possibilità di voto di preferenza (diversamente dal 2009) ha coinvolto in prima persona i più importanti esponenti politici estoni. In un contesto di partecipazione al voto complessivamente bassa (36.4%), va tra l’altro osservato che la quota di e-voters (che hanno espresso il voto elettronicamente,...