Latvia was one of the few EU countries that went to the polls on Saturday, May 25 although advance voting was also available for three days. According to the Central Elections Commission (CEC), there were 1’411’955 persons eligible to vote – a decrease by 4 percent from 2014. A party list system is used to choose eight MEPs, and a voter can express either a positive or a negative preference for each candidate on a list that s/he is to vote for. An electoral threshold of 5 percent is provided in the law but the effective threshold (due to...

Konstantinos Athanasiadis Abstention ruled supreme in the European elections held on the divided island of Cyprus (divided between the Republic of Cyprus and the so called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" recognised only by Turkey). According to the Ministry of the Interior more than the half of the electorate (56%) (Ministry of the Interior 2014) opted for abstention from the electoral process as a token of growing discomfort against the political system and the austerity measures put forward since last year. Paradoxically though, the high abstention rate provided a crucial lifeline to the political system of Cyprus as it enhanced...

The context During the last five years, Portugal has been regarded as a successful case in the European context from both an economic and political point of view (see Fernandes et al, 2018). On the one hand, the country has turned the page on its 2011-2014 crisis, when a financial assistance programme was implemented with painful austerity policies. On the other hand, unlike other Southern European countries, Portugal’s party system has proved to be very resilient. Although mainstream parties have struggled to retain their electoral support, the Socialist Party (PS, Partido Socialista) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD, Partido Social...

di Vlastimil Havlík Ventuno europarlamentari che rappresentano la Repubblica Ceca (1 europarlamentare in meno rispetto al 2009) sono stati eletti il 23 e 24 maggio. Nella Repubblica Ceca è in vigore un sistema elettorale proporzionale con liste bloccate, una circoscrizione unica nazionale e una soglia di sbarramento del 5%. Per l’allocazione dei seggi tra i vari partiti è usato il metodo d’Hondt (Chytilek et al. 2009). La campagna elettorale Il termine “invisibile” è forse ciò che descrive meglio la campagna che ha preceduto le elezioni. Ciò non significa che i partiti politici (e i media) abbiano del tutto ignorato le elezioni, ma...

European parliament (EP) election in Lithuania was overshadowed by the competitive direct presidential election. Three main contenders were close in the polls during the preceding months. The second round between two frontrunners Ingrida Šimonytė and Gitanas Nausėda was held two weeks after the first one, simultaneously with the voting for EP. Overlap of two elections raised the otherwise (potentially) low turnout in EP election (53.1 per cent of Lithuanians voted), but it also meant that less attention was given to EP campaign by the main political parties. Context and campaign European parliament elections in Lithuania quite closely conform to the second-order...