LONDON — At first glance, the elections in France and Brittany They were a triumph for leftists and reformists over authoritarians and the right.
Even Iran — where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say in all matters of state — chose Masoud Pezeshkian, a lawmaker long associated with the reform movement.
In France, a left-wing coalition beat the far right to third place in Parliamentary election. The UK’s centre-left Labor Party swept back to power in a landslide victory after 14 years of conservative government. Iranian voters, offered a limited choice in a constituency presidential election, opted for the more moderate of two candidates to replace the late extremist Ebrahim Raisi.
But with voters in many countries still divided and disillusioned against a backdrop of economic pessimism, analysts say the right’s march may have been slower, not stopped.
“This is a crisis delayed, not averted,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia Group, of the result in France, where voters repudiated the far-right national rally but also turned their anger on centrist President Emmanuel Macron, who He called surprise elections. . Macron’s centrist group finished in second place after Sunday’s second round of voting, ahead of the far-right National Rally group.
The result was a huge disappointment for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which led after the first round on June 30. But with no political bloc with a majority and no easy path to a lasting government, it leaves France in confusion at a time of European crisis. and global instability.
“It is not a good situation for France, nor for Europe nor for NATO, ”said Rahman, managing director of Eurasia Group in Europe. “France is a member of the G-7, a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council… Anything that weakens Emmanuel Macron, anything that forces him to pay more attention to internal affairs… of course, “It will reduce its influence, and also the influence of France in the world.”
In contrast, the new British government promises to re-engage with the world after years in which the United Kingdom was marginalized and distracted by its exit from the European Union.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer The Labor Party won a large majority in Thursday’s election, winning 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, who had governed since 2010, were reduced to 121 seats, the worst result in the party’s 190-year history.
Labor will be able to implement its policies, but the outlook is more unstable than that majority suggests. Labor’s victory was built on shifting sands: anger at the Conservatives, tactical voting to expel them and an insurgent right-wing party, Reform of the United Kingdom, that devoured the support of the conservatives.
Reforma obtained only five seats but obtained almost 14% of the votes. Its leader, Nigel Farage, says his plan is to take over the role of real opposition to the Labor government from the diminished and demoralized Conservatives before the next election, due in 2029.
Europe as a whole is trying to deal with the electorate’s gradual loss of confidence in the government’s ability to deal with globalization and the winners and losers that have resulted from it, said Robin Niblett, former director of the Chatham House think tank.
“We are simply in a very, very turbulent period in domestic politics. So I don’t think it’s the return of the left either,” he stated. “We are in a very unstable and risky period, but one in which I would say that the parties of moderation still have the advantage if they can be creative.”
Meanwhile, Le Pen and her party in France “can bide their time and just wait,” said Philippe Marlière, a professor of French and European politics at University College London.
“Of course it’s a setback for National Rally, but they can say, ‘We were defeated because all the other parties ganged up on us… without that fun tactical voting we would have prevailed,’” he said.
“In particular, if the situation gets complicated, which is a possibility, they will bide their time. And in three years, we will have presidential elections and Le Pen would be in a strong position to win.”
In Iran, which held presidential elections after a helicopter crash killed Raisi in May, in two rounds of voting the country elected Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and longtime lawmaker.
He has been associated with a movement that aims to change the country’s Shiite theocracy from within while seeking better relations with the West, including Iran’s archenemy, the United States.
The first round of Iranian elections recorded the lowest turnout since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The theocracy selected the candidates and no internationally recognized observers observed the voting.
Iranians – and international observers – hoping for a major change may be disappointed. Pezeshkian has firmly stated that he believes Khamenei has the final say in all matters of state and has honored Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which the United States labels a terrorist organization.
Pezeshkian “faces major restrictions on his authority from Khamenei and his top aides and allies, all of whom are hardline conservatives,” the New York-based Soufan Center said in an analysis Monday.
“Khamenei called for unity and continuity after the results were declared, advising the president-elect to continue the path set by Raisi, an indirect warning to Pezeshkian not to overstep the limits of his authority,” reads the analysis.
Underlying elections in many countries is an anti-political sentiment in which anger towards incumbent governments remains strong.
Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said that around the world, voters hit by soaring inflation and a falling cost of living have “expressed great discontent with the performance of the government.”
“Ideology is systematically overvalued by those whose job it is to explain elections,” he said. “A lot of times what you see when you vote is what Ronald Reagan correctly identified: ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’ If the answer is “no,” do you stop to think about the various ideological aspects of why that might be the case? No, you don’t. “They just throw out whoever is in charge.”
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai contributed to this report.
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