Decline of center-left parties

The decline of center-left political parties describes the decrease in vote share that has afflicted various social democratic and labour parties in the western world and elsewhere since the end of the Cold War.[1][2][3][4][5] In Europe, the share of vote for such parties was at its lowest for 70 years in 2015.[6]

Austria

The Social Democratic Party of Austria lost 5.7 percentage points in the 2019 Austrian legislative election resulting in a share of 21.2%, the party's worst result in a parliamentary election since the Second World War.

Czech Republic

The Czech Social Democratic Party lost much of its support in the 2017 general elections, falling from 50 to just 15 seats.

Hungary

The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) lost significant support in 2010 after a series of corruption scandals affected Ferenc Gyurcsány's government, and has suffered defeats again in 2014 and 2018 falling from 29 to 16 seats in the latter.

Ireland

The Labour Party fell from 33 to 7 seats after the 2016 general election.[7]

Israel

The Israeli Labor Party and its predecessor Mapai were dominant in Israeli politics from the founding of the nation in 1948 to 1977. Since then, however, it has declined and currently only hold 6 seats after receiving 4,43% of the vote in the April 2019 Israeli legislative election.

Sri Lanka

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party which lost the 2015 presidential election to a Sri Lanka Freedom Party defector Maithripala Sirisena, who campaigned on a broad alliance lead by the United National Party against the decade long rule of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, who faced allegations of corruption and nepotism. The following 2015 parliamentary election saw the formation of a national government, that soon faced major infighting. Rajapaksa went on to form a new party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and successfully contested several local government elections gaining 40.47% and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party only gaining 12.10%, along with the United National Party gaining 29.42%. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna nominated Rajapaksa's younger brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa for the 2019 presidential election, who gained 52.25% against the United National Party candidate Sajith Premadasa who gained 41.99%. Gotabaya Rajapaksa contested on a pro-nationalistic, economic development and national security platform. Sri Lanka Freedom Party which had hope to have its own candidate for the presidential election, eventually opted to support Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its Rajapaksa.[8]

United Kingdom
See also: Politics of Scotland

The Scottish Labour Party held the majority of Scotland's Westminster seats from the 1964 general election until the 2015 general election, where the Scottish National Party won 56 of the 59 seats in 2015 and then 35 of the 59 seats at the 2017 general election.

The national Labour Party has responded to the decline of centre-left political parties across Europe by turning to leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in order to remain relevant in European politics. Corbyn's leadership has been characterized as more left-wing than that of his predecessors of the New Labour era.[9]

On the other hand, the Scottish Labour Party had lost support since creation of the Scottish Parliament (in 1999 election party got 33.6 per cent of votes, while in 2016 it got 19.1 per cent of the votes). That allowed the Scottish National Party to overtake the Scottish Labour Party by 2007.

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See also

References
  1. "Western Europe's center-left parties continue to lose ground". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  2. "The collapse of Europe's mainstream centre left". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  3. Takenaka, Masaharu (2018-09-12). "Why is the center-left receding worldwide?". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  4. Henley, Jon. "2017 and the curious demise of Europe's centre-left". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  5. Berman, Sheri (2017-10-02). "Opinion | The Disastrous Decline of the European Center-Left". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  6. "Rose thou art sick". The Economist. 2016-04-02. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2020-01-02.
  7. MacGuill, Dan. "Labour just had the worst election in its 104-year history". The Journal. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  8. Hashim, Asad; Wipulasena, Aanya (15 Nov 2019). "In Sri Lanka, fear and uncertainty ahead of presidential vote". Aljazeera. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  9. "Why Labour is obsessed with Greek politics".
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