Thread by @Taniel

This past weekend was a wild day in European politics.

Gay marriage was legalized, abortion was legalized, the center-left will likely return to power in a major country, there was a housing referendum that grabbed headlines worldwide, ... and there's more.

Let's explore. ↓

1️⃣ GERMANY: Center-left is likely to lead Germany for the first time since 1998-2005.

The SPD (social-dems) bested the CDU (conservative) for the first time since 2002. CDU got the worst result of their history. And the Greens got their best result ever in a national election.

But: difficult negotiations are ahead to form a majority coaition. Likeliest scenario is that SPD & Greens ally with each other *&* with center-right FDP. (A big drop for the Linke [Left] made an all-left alliance mathematically impossible.) The far-right receded a bit too.

2️⃣ BERLIN (Germany): Is this the housing referendum that was heard around the world?

Voters said Berlin should expropriate housing from large landlords (that have at least 3K units) & socialize those 200K units. Measure is non-binding, though.

Preview: thenation.com/article/activi…

3️⃣ ICELAND came close to becoming first European (but not world) country to elect a Parliament with a majority of women, but a recount reversed that result.

Election was won by ruling colition (led by center-right, allied with center/left parties). Left parties had hoped to win.

4️⃣ Austria & 5️⃣ Portugal: Municipal elections in both countries saw noteworthy results including the Communist Party's strong showing in Austria's 2nd most populous city, and strong results for Portugal's ruling center-left except in the capital.

https://twitter.com/yfreemark/status/1442776877500928010

6️⃣ AUSTRIA (again): Country's powerful far-right party, the FPO, dropped a lot in a regional election in a stronghold. It lost a third of its vote, down from > 30% to < 20%. (But still high.)

Some support may have gone to anti-lockdown party: reuters.com/world/europe/n…

7️⃣ SAN MARINO: This microstate, located within Italy, voted to repeal its law criminalizing abortion, and legalize it, by a 77% to 23% margin. (Roughly 15K voters!)

Context: bbc.com/news/world-eur…

8️⃣ SWITZERLAND: The Swiss voted by a large margin in a referendum to legalize gay marriage. The referendum also legalized adoption for same-sex couples & the use of sperm banks by lesbian couples.

Read: nytimes.com/2021/09/26/wor…

A correction to 3️⃣ ICELAND: The ruling coalition, while indeed right/center/left, hasn't been led by the center-right party but by the head of the Left-Green Party. The center-right party came in first, though.
(h/t @kittyflandre)

9️⃣ FRANCE: Yannick Jadot narrowly won the Green primary in the presidential race. Greens got excellent results in local elections last year, & have hopes.

But Jadot shares left-of-Macron space with Mélanchon, Paris Mayor Hidalgo, others. Hopeless for all without more coalescing.