Anti-Incumbent & Anti-Immigrant Sentiment On The March

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Canadians vote today for their new House of Commons and Prime Minister.  Prediction markets say there's a 94% probability that the third place progressive Liberal Party will throw the ruling Conservative Party out.  It appears to be largely due to immigrants and refugees.

[quote=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/o ... as-mulcair]Ayesha Vahidy moved to Canada with her parents from Pakistan when she was six, and now lives in Ajax with her son. She described how the campaign has provoked fierce controversy within the Muslim community, with arguments spilling into mosques.

Some older Muslims, she said, were natural conservative voters; instinctively resistant to Liberal policies such as those promoting sex education in schools. Conservative ads have played to this, suggesting the Liberals would make pot accessible to children and open supervised drug injection sites in communities - a hyperbolic re-imagining of Liberal support for legalized marijuana and drug harm-reduction strategies.

But in June, the Conservatives passed bill C-24; a statute giving the government to strip citizenship from anyone born outside Canada for terrorism-related charges. During the campaign, Harper also chose to focus on the marginal issue of the niqab – specifically whether a Muslim woman can wear the full face covering during her citizenship ceremony – which became a defining issue in the campaign.

He doubled down on that wedge issue by promising to implement a police tip line for “barbaric cultural practices” - child or forced marriages, gender-based family violence - if elected. Immigrant communities felt attacked.

Vahidy said that this “fearmongering” united devout and lay Muslims against the Conservatives. “That was it for me and a lot of other people in the same boat as me, who’ve been here since we were little,” she said. “It was like: this is my country. My son was born here. How dare you.”

Harper turned to anti-immigrant campaigning because his usual message of sound economic stewardship would no longer fly. Canada returned to recession in 2015’s first quarter, the only G7 economy to do so. Karen McCrimmon, a retired air force lieutenant-colonel and former Liberal leadership candidate who is running for the Kanata-Carleton riding outside Ottawa, told the Guardian that the economic narrative became “weak” for her Conservative opponent.

“I drive down the main street here where my campaign office is; maybe it’s a kilometre,” McCrimmon told the Guardian. “On that one strip, there’s 25 vacant commercial properties. People don’t have to look very far to see the evidence that their economic plan isn’t working.” The Conservatives won by nearly 28 percentage points here in 2011, but the latest polls give McCrimmon a lead of 50-39 – indicating a truly stupendous vote swing in the order of 41 points, though this may in part be linked to the fact that the Conservative incumbent is not standing again.

A draconian counter-terrorism bill, C-51, also inspired opposition to Harper. But Trudeau’s Liberals, who also voted for the bill - though with amendments - were also caught in the controversy. Vahidy, a life-long Liberal supporter and energetic party activist, actually switched and became a card-carrying member of the left-wing New Democrat Party. “I was so angry,” she said. [/quote]

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Down to 83%.  Not sure when voting closes, but probably late tonight.

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Back up to 94%.

In other news, Switzerland also took to the polls yesterday, with results showing a parliamentary shift to the right.

[Libertarian666]

Back up to 94%.

In other news, Switzerland also took to the polls yesterday, with results showing a parliamentary shift to the right.

And the Swiss party that picked up the most votes is not very happy about their loss of sovereignty to FATCA. I think they should take the lead in creating a new payments system that eliminates the dependency on the US markets. If the Russians could invent the Eurodollar during the cold war, surely there should be a way around that now!

[MachineGhost]

And the Swiss party that picked up the most votes is not very happy about their loss of sovereignty to FATCA. I think they should take the lead in creating a new payments system that eliminates the dependency on the US markets. If the Russians could invent the Eurodollar during the cold war, surely there should be a way around that now!

China's been working on that.  It's launching this month I believe.

[Libertarian666]

And the Swiss party that picked up the most votes is not very happy about their loss of sovereignty to FATCA. I think they should take the lead in creating a new payments system that eliminates the dependency on the US markets. If the Russians could invent the Eurodollar during the cold war, surely there should be a way around that now!

China's been working on that.  It's launching this month I believe.

What do you think the eventual effect of that will be?
Let me guess: the $US will be king forever!!!
Right?

[MachineGhost]

What do you think the eventual effect of that will be?
Let me guess: the $US will be king forever!!!
Right?

The USD is only 58% of capital/trade flows, so its hardly "king".  I think what we'll see is a slow erosion of the Petrodollar Commodity Hegemony as countries closer to China in Asia transact with yuan instead (or badboy nations like Russia and Iran).  They're still going to need assets to park all that yuan cash and China isn't even remotely anywhere near having debt markets that anyone trusts, so it'll be interesting to see if the yuan/USD goes nowhere from being both bought and sold.

Of course, there will be downsides to a yuan payments network.  Increased criminal activity, terrorism financing, sexual trafficing, black market animal trade, etc. all the juicy things China turns a blind moral eye towards.  The enlightened, liberal West will not be happy.

[MachineGhost]

Winning over 40% of the popular vote, Justin Trudeau's Liberal party sealed a victory in Canada's general election on Monday, ousting Conservative PM Stephen Harper after almost a decade in power. Trudeau has pledged to run a C$10B annual budget deficit for three years to invest in infrastructure and help stimulate Canada's anemic economic growth. He has also promised to repair the country's cool relations with the Obama administration, refocus Canada's military role against Islamic State, legalize marijuana, and tackle climate change.

I guess that is what passes for "throw the bums out" up there, eh?

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[quote=http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34569881]The right-wing, anti-immigration Swiss People's Party (SVP) has won Switzerland's parliamentary election with a record 29.4% of the vote.

Its victory translates into 11 extra seats, giving it 65 out of the total 200 in the lower house.

Europe's migrant crisis boosted support for the SVP, commentators say - though Switzerland is taking in far fewer migrants than Germany.

The right-wing liberal FDP also got an electoral boost, coming third.

Swiss media are speaking of a "Rechtsrutsch" - a "slide to the right" - because the SVP, FDP and some small right-wing parties can now command a majority in the National Council (lower house).

No such slide has occurred yet in the 46-seat upper house (Council of States), as a second round of voting is required in many cantons.

The SVP won the 2011 vote with 26.6%, becoming the largest party, but now it has made further gains.

The SVP is sceptical about Switzerland's many bilateral agreements with the EU, telling voters that the country is better off remaining outside the 28-nation bloc.

In Sunday's election the leftist Social Democratic Party (SP) came second, winning 44 seats - two fewer than last time.

"The vote was clear. The people are worried about mass migration to Europe," said SVP leader Toni Brunner.[/quote]

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[quote=http://www.smh.com.au/world/antimigrant ... kicvi.html]Poland's Eurosceptic and anti-immigration Law and Justice party (PiS) claimed victory on Sunday in a watershed election that risked putting the ex-communist state on a collision course with key European Union allies.

Run by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of Poland's late president, Lech, PiS secured 39.1 per cent of the vote, enough to govern alone and well ahead of the incumbent, staunchly pro-EU Civic Platform (PO) at 23.4 per cent, pollster Ipsos said.

A victory by PiS would be the biggest in terms of seats by a single party since Poland held free elections after shedding communism in 1989; marking a decisive swing to its brand of social conservatism mixed with left-leaning economics in the country of 38 million people.

It would also be the first time that the socialist grouping that grew out of the pre-1989 communist party failed to win seats.[/quote]

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[quote=https://news.yahoo.com/comedian-favored ... 08182.html]Jimmy Morales, a former TV comedian who has never held office, swept to power in Guatemala's presidential election on Sunday after milking public anger over a corruption scandal that deepened distrust of the country's political establishment.

The 46-year-old Morales overwhelmingly beat center-left rival and former first lady Sandra Torres in a run-off vote despite his lack of government experience and some policy ideas that strike many as eccentric.

The headquarters of Morales' center-right National Convergence Front (FCN) party erupted in celebration as official returns showed he had around 68 percent support in a landslide victory.

Voters pointed to widespread discontent with Guatemala's political class, compounded by a U.N.-backed investigation into a multi-million dollar customs racket that led last month to the resignation and arrest of former president Otto Perez.[/quote]

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[quote=http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/governm ... -elections]France's far-right National Front pulled off a historic win on Sunday, largely topping the vote in the first round of regional elections, in a breakthrough that shakes up the country's political map before 2017 presidential elections.

Boosted by fears over the Islamic State attacks that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, as well as by record unemployment and immigration, Marine Le Pen's party secured 29.4 per cent of the vote nationally, the interior ministry said, with over 85 per cent of the votes counted.

That is the highest score ever for the anti-Europe, anti-immigration party, which came first in six regions out of 13. "This is a historic, extraordinary result," FN lawmaker Marion Marechal-Le Pen told TF1 television. "The old system died tonight." Twenty-five year old Marechal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, led the first round in southeast France with 42 per cent - twice her grandfather's score there in 2010.

Run-offs will be held on Dec 13.[/quote]

Marion is just 25 years old:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... right.html

[MachineGhost]

Marine's (Marion's aunt) recent speech at the EU parliament.  She is like the Nigel Farage of France!  I like that guy smiling in the beginning. haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO29xfBJ6KQ

[MachineGhost]

Still going strong!

[quote=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/a ... bert-hofer]Austria’s government was licking its wounds after the anti-immigration far-right triumphed in presidential elections, dealing a major blow to a political establishment seen by voters as out of touch and ineffectual.

According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom party came a clear first with 36% of the vote in the first round of elections for the largely, but not entirely, ceremonial post of head of state.

Candidates from the two ruling centrist parties, which have effectively run Austria since the end of the second world war, failed to even make it into a runoff on 22 May, coming fourth and fifth each with 11% of the vote.
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