Election Results, Elsewhere

For John, BLUF:  When political parties don't meet the needs of the people, "the worm turns".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From Night Watch for 25 May 2014 we have a report on the Presidential Election in Ukraine:

Ukraine: Chocolate candy billionaire Petro Poroshenko will be the new president of Ukraine, according to exit polls from Sunday's elections.  He won almost 56 percent of the vote against almost 13 percent for former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Press reports indicate a 60 per cent voter turnout generally, but almost no voting in the two eastern regions in secession.  Final results are due by Monday, but preliminary returns indicate no need for a run-off election.

Comment: Press reports about Poroshenko suggest he might be a fit Ukrainian president because he appears to be comfortable in capitalist circles and in statist systems.  His comments while casting his ballot indicate he will pursue aggressively integration with Europe and he also will support aggressive combat operations against the eastern separatists.  He said he wants peace; suppressing the secession is how he intends to obtain it.

Almost a landslide victory.

Now we get to see how President Vladimir Putin of Russia plays this.  Going back to Night Watch:

Russia:  Comment:  President Putin said last week that he would respect the outcome of the Ukrainian presidential election.  He did not clarify what he meant in referring to Ukraine.  Presumably Russia will not recognize Poroshenko's presidency as extending to Luhansk and Donetsk.

In the mean time, the Instapundit has linked to Guido Fawkes' blog, (Order Order, "of plots, rumors and conspiracy") for a report on the UK elections for the European Parliament.  To understand the results I am going to cartoon the outcome.  Think of the Conservatives (Tories) as the Republicans and Labor as the Democrats.  That leaves the question of what represents the UK Independence Party.  Maybe for Democrats the US Tea Party and for Republicans the Libertarians.&snbsp; For sure, the UKIP wants the UK to be independent of the European Union (EU).  The Green Party is a European kind of thing that represents Environmentalists.  The LibDems, or Liberal Democrats are a former powerful party that has been on the margin since the 1920s.  At any rate, here are the results:

Party	Percent	Seats
UKIP	27.5	23
Labor	25.4	18
Conservative	23.94	18
Green	7.87	3
Lib Dems	6.87	1

So what does it mean when a party opposed to the United Kingdom membership in the European Union is the big winner in an Election for seats in the EU's European Parliament?  Probably not much for the EU, since that is 23 seats out of 766 seats.  And, not much in the UK itself, since the UKIP is not a threat to the Tories or Labor in the House of Commons.  But, it is a sign that the voters are prepared to shift their voting if they decide the two major parties are not moving in the right direction.  Remember that the Lib Democrats, with only one seat in the new EU Parliament, ran the United Kingdom 100 years ago.

UPDATE:  I went to the blog ¡No Pasaran!, looking for comments on the French elections to the European Parliament, but found this item on the UKIP Leader, Mr Nigel Farage.

By the way, the same kind of voting that happened in the UK happened in France, with the National Front Party, lead by Marine La Pen, winning big.  I have only estimates:

Party	Percent	Seats (est)
National Front	26	19
UMP	21	16
Socialist Party	13.9	10

This is, of course, causing a big uproar in France.

Without waiting for the final result, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls went on television to call the breakthrough by the anti-immigration, anti-euro party in one of the EU's founding nations "an earthquake" for France and Europe.

An interesting turn of events.  Frankly, it bears watching and may, along with the Ukraine imbroglio, call into question the so called "Pivot to Asia".

Regards  —  Cliff