MCC Votes & Seats Podcast – Election insight Mathias Corvinus Collegium

Talking about the constant political crisis, our guest commentator, Dr. Katia Mihailova from the University of National and World Economy lays it down to us that Bulgaria needs new ethics to overcome the 4 year-long political agony in the country.Looking at the election results, the political sociologist calls our attention to the unequivocal decline of the socialist and neoliberal parties in Bulgaria. This marks the downcome of the citizens’ illusions too. Dr. Mihailova explains that in exch...

After 5 years, the EU citizens had the chance again to express their political preferences in the recent European Parliament (EP) election, held across the member states between 6–9 June 2024. Although the voting took the form of 27 different national elections with individual domestic campaign topics and party strategies also this time, the overall results shed some light on the possible policy orientation and role of the EP in the new term. European Parliament elections are traditionally co...

This time, we dive into the depth of Macedonian politics on the occasion of the recent presidential and legislative elections that were held in the country on the 8th of May 2024.Dr. Marko Troshanovski, president of the Skopje-based think-tank Institute for Democracy (IDSCS), explains us that the main contest was between the then ruling Social Democrats, SDSM, and the major opposition party, the right-wing VMRO DPMNE. The latter one had a landslide victory by gathering 45% of the vote. The pr...

In mid-March 2024, the MPs unanimously voted for the dissolution of the Sabor, the Croatian parliament upon the initiative of the governing parties. Following the decision welcomed and widely supported by the left-wing opposition, president Zoran Milanović called for an early election on 17 April 2024, well ahead of the EP election in June and the legislative election scheduled later this year. In our new Votes & Seats podcast episode, Szabolcs Janik (Centre for Political Science, MCC) ha...

In this episode, we are analyzing the background of and the lessons learnt from the presidential election that was held in Slovakia in 2024. Dr. Jaroslav Ušiak from the Matej Bel University helps us understand the factors that might explain the somewhat unpredicted victory of the social democratic Peter Pellegrini over the centrist Ivan Korčok, with special regards to the main campaign messages of the candidates. Based on the endorsements behind the 2nd round candidates, we discuss whether th...

With the most appreciated contribution of Mr. Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho from the University of Coimbra, the Votes&Seats podcast series gladly issues its episode on the March 2024 Portuguese early legislative election. With our guest expert, we reflect on the background and the process of the election, with special regards to the factors that resulted in the victory of the center-right Democratic Alliance. In our analysis, we dive into the main campaign topics, the scandalous issues, and...