Recent elections in Europe have not been kind to incumbents, with the Conservatives in Britain being tossed out in a landslide after 14 years in power and the French election, while narrowly avoiding the election of a hard-right government, still led to the resignation of centrist French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal (although French President Emmanuel Macron has refused to accept the resignation, at least for now).
The election results in those two countries, although clearly a repudiation of incumbents, resulted in vastly different outcomes. In Britain, which boasts a first-past-the-post system in which a candidate must only outrun the others in the race to win the seat, Labour secured a massive majority win over its rivals. In France, which saw the far-right take a lead in the first of two rounds, the result was nowhere nearly as clear. France also uses a first past the post system, but complicates matters with a two-round system which winnows the field down to those who secure more than 12.5 percent vote, based on the number registered to vote in the first round. This usually results in two candidates facing off and one of those must secure a majority of the votes cast in the second round. Occasionally there are three who succeed in meeting the threshold—which can make things very challenging. Right now, the French parliament is looking to be in a challenging split given the parties that won during the final tally.
Across the globe, incumbent governments are finding their populations are fed up and not going to take it any more—with only tenuous connections to any tangible reasons behind their frustration. It seems to be more a pox on all their houses.
In Britain, the government facing that public ire are the Conservatives, who have ruled from the right of the centre spectrum for 14 years. In France, it is the centrists who found themselves in the crosshairs—dependant on the left to shore up their flanks. It seems fear of the more extreme notions of the right played a big role in stopping right-wing Marine Le Pen from taking the lead—and by most media accounts most of Europe also heaved a sigh of relief when the right did not prevail.
Ms. Le Pen has spent much of the past several years after taking over the reins of her father’s right wing party, National Rally, distancing her and her party from the more extreme platform planks of her father—with some considerable success, judging from the first-round results.
In Canada, the current state of federal affairs (at least) seems to indicate the governing Liberals are facing the same electoral firing squad as the British Tories in the next election (although in the case of the Canadian federal Liberals, it seems the angst is aimed more squarely on the prime minister than the party itself. This can be traced more to a steady barrage of personal attacks on Justin Trudeau than necessarily most of the Liberals’ policies.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s biggest issue is a perception among the electorate of inauthenticity that he has garnered since first being elected. His trademark policy promise to “do politics differently” came a cropper when it met up with the realities of governing and the need for party discipline.
This makes it far easier to blame the current federal government, in the personification of the prime minister of the day, for the housing crisis (quite clearly a provincial responsibility), for inflation (which has gripped the entire globe since the pandemic and remains considerably worse south of the border), for Canada not meeting the notional two percent level of defence spending (which no government has pulled off outside of major wartime expenditures in living memory—Stephen Harper’s Conservatives brought the percentage down to its lowest ever at .97 percent) and for (insert your personal pet peeve here).
The invocation of anger and angst are the defining elements of how social media have impacted democracies—and anger seems the driving force behind the Canadian Conservatives’ climb in recent polls in a clear refutation of “sunny ways.” But is it really? Most of the flagship policies of the current government are actually applauded by the majority of the electorate—if polls are to be believed.
Fear is a powerful motivator, and the French politicians in the centre and on the right leveraged that emotion to stem the tide of right-wing electoral success. Fear isn’t a great reason to elect a government, but neither are anger and angst.
Over the next couple of years, until the federal election slated for 2026, Canadians will be able to assess how unleashing anger and angst are working out for our neighbouring democracies.
It is often said, and usually proven true, that governments are fired, rather than elected. But when contemplating hiring a replacement, it makes a lot of sense to take a hard look at the resume of potential candidates in the lists and to take a peek behind the curtain of their policies. If you can’t find those policies there—or the stage manager won’t let you look—then perhaps caution might be called for.
Over the next several months, as decision time draws nearer, Canadians need to pay greater attention to the political menu and assess why, and what kind of change they want. Let’s not choose a path blindly.
