Green Party Watch

In Spain’s recent general election, which was marked by a victory for the conservative People’s Party, Spain’s young Green party (EQUO) doubled its vote from the previous election. From the European Green Party:

Votes for Green parties doubled in when compared to the last parliamentary election three years ago in Spain; however the absolute majority obtained by the PP in the latest elections marks the beginning of a dark period for the country.

In Catalonia the EGP member party ICV consolidated their growing trend with a historical result and an important growth from 1 to 3 seats.

Overall, the newly-born party EQUO got over 300,000 votes all over the country, a good result for a party only two months old, which suffered from from the election being called early. It nonetheless managed to reach 2% of the vote in Madrid and 1.5% nationally in such a short time. Furthermore, the Compromis-Equo coalition obtained parliamentary representation thanks to the one seat gained in Valencia. read more »

From Straight.com in Vancouver, Canada:

Adriane Carr calls her win in the Vancouver civic election last weekend a “victory for democracy”.

On a budget of about $15,000, the Green candidate managed to secure a city council seat, narrowly beating out COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth by 91 votes. The win marks the first city council spot for the Green party in Vancouver. read more »

On top of polls that show the New Zealand Green Party heading for its best result yet in this weekend’s general election, here’s more good news for the Kiwi Greens’ future:

Otautahi Youth Council, an independent Christchurch-based youth body, ran an online project targeted at Cantabrians between 14 and 24, simulating the general election experience…

The results showed participants overwhelmingly preferred the Green party, giving them 53 per cent of the party vote, compared to 26 per cent for National and 22 per cent for Labour.

Read the full article at The Press NZ.

From the European Green Party:

Eurocrisis: Green Paris Declaration adopted

European Green Parties representatives adopted in Paris a 12-points political proposal to step out of the current financial, social and economic crisis affecting Europe, and a roadmap for the refounding of the European project: European Greens are convinced that the European project needs to find a new sense of direction and purpose.

“These crises are eroding social cohesion and leading to political disintegration of the continent, driving us to irrelevance in the 21st century. Any scenario leading to the break-up of the Euro-zone, which would be the first step of the political disintegration of Europe, is unacceptable to us. Conversely though, any enhanced political integration of the Euro-zone cannot lead to the crystallization of a two-speed Europe”, said Philippe Lamberts, MEP and co-chair of the European Green Party. read more »

From the National Post:

A pair of democratic rights groups are teaming up in a legal battle that is urging the nation’s top court to strike down Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system on the grounds that it doesn’t protect guarantees under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case would argue that the Constitution protects the right of Canadians to have “effective representation,” which goes beyond having the right to cast a ballot.The two groups, the Association for the Advancement of Democratic Rights and Fair Vote Canada, have also earned an endorsement from Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “The key issue is not that it’s unfair to the Green Party,” May said Tuesday at a news conference with representatives from the two groups. “It’s unfair to democracy. It’s unfair to voters, and I think it’s a big reason for the decline in voter turnout.”

May noted that more than 80% of people vote in Scandinavian countries and some other European nations, but she said the lowest voter turnouts in the world occur in countries with first-past-the-post systems, such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, where governments can be elected with majorities despite having received less than 50% of the ballots cast in elections.

Read the full article at the National Post.

The Green New Deal, a concept that British and American Greens have been promoting as an approach to solving the world’s economic and ecological crises together, has also been adopted by the European Green Party, who have unveiled a new multilingual website devoted to the Green New Deal. According to the site, “The Green New Deal is the Greens’ comprehensive response to the current economic, social and environmental crises. It aims to ensure prosperity and well-being for all, across the planet and generations, based on reducing inequalities within and between societies, and reconciling our lifestyles – the way we live, produce and consume – with the physical limits of our planet. ”

Check out the site at GreenNewDeal.eu.

On Tuesday, the Australian government, led by the Labour Party with support from the Green Party and independents, passed Australia’s first-ever carbon pricing legislation. After 2010 elections, the Green Party agreed to form a coalition with Labour in exchange for action on issues including the carbon tax. From Reuters:

Australia accounts for just 1.5 percent of global emissions, but is the developed world’s highest emitter per capita due to a reliance on coal to generate electricity. ..

It sets a fixed carbon tax of A$23 ($23.78) a tonne on the top 500 polluters from July 2012, then moves to an emissions trading scheme from July 2015. Companies involved will need a permit for every tonne of carbon they emit. … read more »

Falkvinge reports that the European Green Party has adopted a digital rights position that calls for legalizing filesharing, guaranteeing net neutrality and reducing copyright restrictions, a position similar to that of the growing Pirate Party:

The fifth largest party group in the European Parliament has adopted the Pirate Party positions on the copyright monopoly straight off the bat. This is a huge victory for the pirate perspective. Just like the Greens needed time and effort in their time to explain their new and odd perspective, the pirate perspective of openness, transparency and accountability gradually gains its foothold. Now, the European Green group (of which the Swedish Pirate Party is a member) has adopted the Pirate Party’s perspective on culture completely. This expands the exposure area of the pirate perspective considerably.

For more details on the position staked out by the European Greens on digital rights, read the full article at Falkvinge.

The German Green Party has gained support in another state election, this time in Berlin. From BBC News coverage:

The SPD – who have been in opposition nationally since 2009 – won around 29% of the vote, down from 30.8% in 2006. Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union gained just over 23%, up slightly from 21.3% in 2006, while the Greens won 18%, up from 13.1%. The Left party vote fell from 13.4% in 2006 to 11.5%. Meanwhile, the little-known Pirate Party, a libertarian party whose programme includes greater personal data protection and the legalising of cannabis, garnered more than 8% of the vote.

The Social Democrats already held control of the government of Berlin, but they are now expected to replace their current partners, the Left party, with the Greens.

Read the full article at BBC News.

Norway’s Green Party (Miljøpartiet de Grønne) is celebrating after this weekend’s regional elections, in which the Greens increased their number of local representatives from 6 to 18. Many local councils will get their first Green representatives after the vote, including Oslo and Bergen, Norway’s largest cities. From the Norwegian Green Party website:

From the preliminary count, the Greens appear to have won 17 local council mandates and 1 county council mandate. This is an increase of 12 seats from the 2007 election, if the county council mandate is included. The party has gotten mandates in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim (2), Kristiansand, Nesodden (2), Halden, Mandal, Tromsø, Lillehammer, Ås, Porsgrunn, Meland, Aurland, Flakstad, and Vestvågøy. In addition, the Greens got one representative on the county council in Hordaland. read more »

Sunday’s election in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Germany’s sixth-largest state by population, resulted in gains for the German Green Party. From the New York Times:

Parties on the German left prevailed in a regional election in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, with the center-left Social Democrats swept back to power and the Greens elected to the regional parliament for the first time, according to preliminary results… Perhaps the biggest winner of the day was the Green Party, which won 8.5 percent of the vote, more than double the 3.4 percent it received in 2006.

For details, read the full article at the New York Times.

The New York Times has published an article chronicling the rise of the German Green Party and its effects on sister parties around the globe:

The Greens surprised Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party when it took control of the affluent southern state of Baden-Württemberg this spring, which is akin to capturing the Texas statehouse. In the process, the party proved it was a force to be reckoned with in German politics, where one in five voters now say they support the Greens.

The German Greens also have served as the spearhead of a global coming out for other Green parties. In Brazil’s presidential election last year, the Green Party candidate won nearly 20 million votes to place third in the first round. The Green Party in Colombia was founded just two years ago, but in 2010 saw its candidate for president place second. Britain’s House of Commons welcomed its first Green Party member after last year’s election, and Australia’s Greens won their first seat in the lower house in 2010.

Read the full article at the New York Times.

The UK Huffington Post has this piece about popular Green Party Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas in the United Kingdom. Lucas is the first Green to get elected to Parliament in the UK.

Some excerpts:

Shortly after making history, Caroline Lucas gave a speech on Glastonbury’s pyramid stage, called for drugs to be decriminalised and won the Spectator’s much-coveted parliamentarian of the year award.

It’s been a busy year for Britain’s first Green MP – and she’s not planning to slow down. Her next project is shaking up the green movement, who she admits have “failed a little bit” to engage the public.

[...]

“Until recently I think the wider green movement and the green party included in it were too much focused, understandably, to waking people up to the climate crisis that would be rather than attracting people by painting a positive picture of what a zero carbon economy could look like. And I think fear isn’t a great motivating influence.”

For her, the green movement is about improving people’s lives – tackling the problem of fuel poverty, creating jobs and growth.

“Instead of just saying ‘we’ve got to act because climate change could be dreadful’, we’ve got to act because this could be a way of creating lots of jobs and also insulating lots of people’s homes and reducing their fuel bills so they’re not living in poverty and dying prematurely.

“I think we’ll have a much better job of doing it if we don’t always talk about the doom and gloom and hairshirts. The sense that the climate change agenda is one about doing without and giving things up is a very negative agenda. It turns people off.”

Sitting at a desk crowded with annotated print outs from bill sub-committees she speaks quickly, offering to help clarify quotes if my dictaphone can’t pick up it all up.

The sense of urgency is understandable. For Lucas, climate change has been relegated down the political agenda – and it’s up to her to tackle that within parliament as the most powerful representative of the green movement in the country.

“It’s just crazy”, Lucas says, that the Government aren’t instigating a 1930s style New Deal for green energy.

“We know climate change is happening, we know what is causing it, we know what we need to do to address it. What’s lacking isn’t the technical knowledge, it’s not even the money actually it just comes down to the political will to say ‘this is a priority’.”

She believe it comes down a Catch 22. Lucas thinks the politicians are waiting for the public pressure to act, whilst the public assume if it were serious the politicians would be acting already.

“That’s such a dangerous conclusion to draw because it is that serious and politicians aren’t doing something about it and they’re not doing anything about it because they don’t feel under the pressure from the public.”

Read the entire article here.

The Associated Press is reporting that Brazilian environmentalist and former Presidential candidate Marina Silva has left the Green Party. From the San Francisco Examiner:

Silva won a surprising 20 percent of the vote in the first round of last year’s presidential election in Brazil. Her candidacy rallied interest in the nation’s Green Party.
But she’s had differences with party leaders over the direction of the party, and says it has lost the “political vision” she would like it to have.
In 2009, Silva left the governing Workers Party, which she had helped found three decades earlier. She bolted after being ousted as environmental minister.
It is widely expected Silva will run for the presidency in 2014. But her announcement Thursday gives no hint of her political plans.

Meanwhile in Germany, police found pot plants growing in flower boxes at the Green Party office in Thuringia. From Business Insider:

The police are investigating the Green party office for drug law violations, though the initial defense given was that the plants were grown for “producing hemp”.

The Christian Democrats in the region have jumped on this as a chance to criticize the Greens.

Wolfgang Fielder, a Christian Democrat state member of parliament told the newspaper Thüringische Landeszeitung that any Green party member who participated in or knew about the cannabis-growing “must resign their high parliamentary office.”

When asked how the cannabis got to the Green party office, a party spokesman, Daniela Hoffman Weber claimed ignorance and said “that would interest us.”

She added that, “no one will seriously believe that we’re making hemp here.”

This article from Tico Times discusses the Green Ecological Party in Costa Rica and their attempts to gain a seat in the 57 seat National Assembly. Some exerpts:

In 2006, Arrieta and the Green Party received only 1,604 votes. In 2010, they received slightly more, with 2,901 votes. Still, both remain hopeful they can pick up a congressional seat in 2014 elections.

“In the last five years, people’s political consciousness has shifted,” Arias said. “Voters have realized the importance of strong environmental policies and they are starting to demand it from their candidates.”

The Costa Rican political landscape has changed dramatically in the last decade. In 2001, more than 90 percent of congressional seats belonged to members of the two traditional parties: the Social Christian Unity Party and the National Liberation Party. Today, lawmakers from eight different political groups occupy the Assembly’s 57 seats, representing a range of ideologies.

[...]

“Sometimes people don’t even listen to us because they believe environmentalists are against progress,” Arrieta said. “That’s a huge misconception. If we ever obtain a seat in Congress, voters will see how the Green Party’s strategy is based on sustainable development and not just the exploitation of nature.”

“Sometimes people believe only college students are the ones who fight for the environment,” said Arrieta. “This is especially true in the rural areas.”

“By 2014, many voters will have been born in the nineties, when environmental awareness gained momentum internationally,” Arrieta said, adding that, “these young adults have been raised under new paradigms and the Green Party will benefit from this, because we offer a fresh political option.”

But can older voters be persuaded? Arias thinks so. “Voters of a certain age have witnessed the deterioration of living conditions. During their childhood, they likely grew up next to rivers and trees. Today, much of that’s gone and they feel sad.”