International news from European elections

Sunday remains a slow news day in American politics, so let's briefly turn to Europe where Poland and Switzerland held their parliamentary elections today.

Switzerland featured a brutal and controversial election between the right-wing Swiss People's Party party and the Social Democratic Party. The two govern together, but the balance of power within the large coalition is determined by these election numbers. With 29% versus the Socialists' 19%, it is the Right that triumphed in these elections. This is especially bitter news given the xenophobia of their campaign, largely based on issues of immigration. At the center of the controversy were the following SPP posters that show a black sheep being expelled from the country by white sheep:


"For more security" says the poster at the right. To make matters worse, the SPP candidates explicitly played on the poster's racial and immigration component instead of trying to tone it down to highlight its symbolic value as you might explain. Candidate Bruno Walliser had this to say: "The black sheep is not any black sheep that doesn't fit into the family. It's the foreign criminal who doesn't belong here, the one that doesn't obey Swiss law. We don't want him."

Meanwhile over in Poland, the Kacynsky brothers are finally out. The twins occupied the presidency and prime ministership. They were staunch social conservatives, very pro-American, and famously confrontational. They were defeated not by the Left, but by another right-wing party, less conservative and more focused on neo-liberalism and business. The "two Rights" were fighting against one another today, with the social-democratic party (which governed until 2005) relegated to a very distant third. This also means that Poland could soon withdraw its remaining troops out of Iraq.