Elections of the weekend

Travelling and otherwise engaged the last few days, I have been delinquent in preparing my election coverage. What’s going on this weekend?

First, New Zealand, yesterday. The outcome was expected but deeply unfortunate.

New Zealand’s next prime minister will be Christopher Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand, whose center-right National Party will lead a coalition with Act, a smaller libertarian party….

The National Party won 39 percent of the vote, up from 26 percent in 2020. Among the smaller parties, the Green Party took 11 percent of the vote, and Act won 9 percent. But those results could shift slightly after “special” votes were counted, including those of overseas New Zealanders. That could potentially force Act and National into coalition with New Zealand First, a longtime kingmaker that played a role in Ms. Ardern’s ascent, to push the right-wing coalition over the halfway mark.

Addressing party members in Wellington, Mr. Hipkins said he had conceded the election to Mr. Luxon and celebrated Labour’s accomplishments on alleviating child poverty and navigating New Zealand through the coronavirus pandemic, the Christchurch massacres and the White Island volcano eruption.

“We will keep fighting for working people, because that is our history and our future,” he said.

One thing Labour accomplished was a set of housing policy reforms that effectively nationalized an earlier and highly successful set of reforms in Auckland. Hopefully it sticks.

Today, of course, was Poland’s national election, with the Law and Justice (PiS) is aiming for a third term. Exit polling suggests they may not get it. (I got burned on overly optimistic exit polls in the Slovakian election, so caution is warranted.) If this result holds, obviously, it would be a huge deal, and one of the most important blows against democratic backsliding in recent years:

Centrist and progressive forces appeared capable of forming a new government in Poland after securing more seats in a critical general election on Sunday, despite the governing nationalist party, Law and Justice winning the most votes for a single party.

Exit polls showing a strong second place finish by the main opposition group, Civic Coalition, and better than expected results for two smaller centrist and progressive parties suggested a dramatic upset that would frustrate the governing party’s hope of an unprecedented third consecutive term.

A jubilant Donald Tusk, Civic Coalition’s leader, declared the projected results a resounding “win for democracy” that would end the rule of Law and Justice, known by its Polish acronym PiS, in power since 2015.

“We did it! We really did!” Mr. Tusk, a former prime minister, told supporters Sunday night. “This is the end of this bad time! This is the end of PiS rule!”

The election for a new Parliament, held after a vicious campaign in the highly polarized nation, was closely watched abroad, including in Russia and Ukraine, and viewed by many Poles as the most consequential vote since they rejected communism in the country’s first partly free election in 1989. Reflecting the high-stakes, nearly 73 percent of the electorate voted, the highest turnout in a Polish election since the end of communist rule.

Finally, today is the runoff election for presidency in Ecuador. (The first round was discussed here.) Gonzalez won the first round as expected; her opponent is Daniel Noboa. NYT:

One candidate seeking to become Ecuador’s president is Daniel Noboa, a center-right scion of a banana empire who was lifted to a surprising second-place finish in a runoff in August by an electorate hungry for change in a country suffering from violence and an ailing economy.

Mr. Noboa is facing Luisa González, a leftist establishment candidate who, in trying to become the first woman elected the country’s president, is promising voters a return to a period when violence was low and the price of oil, a key industry, was high.

At stake in Sunday’s election is the future of this Latin American nation of more than 17 million, a once tranquil haven that has been upended by international criminal groups that have turned Ecuador into a key player in the global drug trade.

Working with local gangs, the global cartels have unleashed a surge of violence that has sent tens of thousands of Ecuadoreans fleeing to the U.S.-Mexico border, part of a migration wave that has overwhelmed the Biden administration.

Polling has been incredibly tight; most recent polls have it within 1%.

1/2 on the results so far, but if PiS really is forced out of Government and Tusk leads a cross-ideological, pro-Europe and Ukraine Polish government, that’s enough for a good weekend, I think, despite the NZ result.