Hung parliament in UK as Theresa May's election gamble backfires

June 9, 2017

London, Jun 9: British Prime Minister Theresa May's bet that she could strengthen her grip on power by calling an early election backfired spectacularly on Friday, with her Conservative Party on the verge of losing its parliamentary majority and May facing calls to resign.

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The outcome - an astonishing turn following a campaign that began with predictions that May would win in a historic landslide - immediately raised questions even among her fellow Tories about whether she could maintain her hold on 10 Downing Street.

It also threw into disarray the country's plans for leaving the European Union, threatening to render Britain rudderless just days before talks were to begin with European leaders over the terms of the nation's exit.

As of 5 a.m., a projection based on a combination of exit polls and official results put the Conservatives at 318 seats - eight short of what they would need for a working majority in the 650-member Parliament and well down from the 331 they won just two years ago.

The Labour Party was forecast to win 262 seats - an unexpected gain of dozens of seats under far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn. The outcome gave him at least a chance, albeit a remote one, of becoming prime minister - something virtually no one had thought possible before Thursday's vote.

The results mark the second time in as many years that the British body politic has defied predictions, scrambled the country's direction and bucked the will of a prime minister who had gambled by calling a vote when none had been required.

But unlike last year's E.U. referendum - which delivered a clear if close verdict to get out of the bloc - the will of the voters who cast ballots on Thursday was not nearly as easy to decipher.

There was little doubt that the Conservatives would emerge, again, as the largest party. But as Labour unexpectedly picked off seats - especially in areas of London that had voted last year to remain in the EU - May's once-undisputed political authority was being called into question.

A triumphant Corbyn, crowing that the country had "had enough of austerity politics," demanded that she resign.

"The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate," Corbyn said in an early morning speech after winning reelection to his north London district. "Well, the mandate she's got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough for her to go, actually."

Minutes later, May - her voice trembling - delivered her own speech in which she said that as long as the Conservatives remain the largest party, they should be allowed to govern.

"The country needs a period of stability," she said.

But it was not a given that May would be allowed to stay on. Within her own party, Thursday's results represented a catastrophic outcome that may prompt a search for a new leader - even if the Tories ultimately have the votes necessary to continue to govern.

"It was a dreadful campaign - and that's me being generous," Anna Soubry, a Tory member of Parliament who narrowly won reelection, told the BBC.

Asked whether May should resign, Soubry replied: "It's bad. She's in a very difficult place."

Other top Tories were declining to appear on television to discuss May's fate amid internal party discussions over whether Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or another senior figure should be brought in to replace her, BBC anchors reported as dawnc broke on Friday.

The election results suggested no party is likely to win a majority - a scenario known as a hung parliament.

If the Conservatives fall short of 236 seats, it will set off a free-for-all, with both Labour and the Tories seeking to forge alliances that get them to the magic number for a majority.

It is far from clear which parties would team up, or under what arrangements, to try to govern. A "progressive alliance" - including Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and others - may have as many seats as the Conservatives. But the Conservatives would also have potential coalition partners if they fall short of a majority, including Unionists in Northern Ireland.

The results - and the turmoil they portend - prompted an immediate drop in the pound, which fell 2 percent against the dollar within minutes after exit polls were released following the end of voting Thursday night.

Tories were incredulous at the early numbers, saying that they thought the results had undersold the party's performance and that official tallies would give them a higher total.

But as the results rolled in, they grew more somber and acknowledged suffering losses that virtually no one had foreseen.

In Europe, observers were bracing for yet more instability out of Britain.

"Could be messy for the United Kingdom in the years ahead," tweeted former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt. "One mess risks following another. Price to be paid for lack of true leadership."

The results drew intense scrutiny to May's choice to gamble by going back on repeated promises not to call an election before the one that had been due in 2020.

In April, with her popularly spiking and the country seeming to rally around her vow to be a "bloody difficult woman" in talks with European leaders, May stunned Britain with her call for a snap vote that she believed would give her a stronger mandate before the negotiations began.

Observers hailed the move as a cunning bit of political strategy and predicted she would secure the sort of overwhelming parliamentary majority that predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had enjoyed.

But after that, little went according to plan.

Thursday's vote follows a turbulent campaign that was interrupted by two mass-casualty terrorist attacks, and that was marked by a faltering performance by May even as Corbyn exceeded expectations.

May - known for her resolute and no-nonsense persona - claimed the nation's top job only last year, emerging from the political wreckage of the country's choice to leave the EU.

Since then she has had only a slender majority in Parliament - won in a 2015 election when the country was governed by her predecessor, David Cameron - and she had feared that without a bigger cushion she would lack the latitude she needs in steering the country to Brexit.

But the approval May enjoyed in office didn't translate to the campaign trail. A politician who endlessly touted herself as a "strong and stable" finished the race being tagged by critics as "weak and wobbly" after high-profile U-turns, including a particularly disastrous bid to force senior citizens to pay more for social care - a measure derisively dubbed "the dementia tax."

She also ducked debates, and rarely mingled with voters in unscripted moments.

"We've learned what we suspected all along: She's not particularly fast on her feet, she's not a natural campaigner, she's not really a people person," said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Lacking the common touch, May's strategy was to focus the campaign on a presidential-style choice between her leadership skills and those of Corbyn. She relentlessly hammered her rival as a far-left throwback to another era who would leave the country vulnerable in both the Brexit talks and at a time of growing terrorist threats.

Corbyn - for decades a backbencher who unexpectedly vaulted to the party's leadership in 2015 with his Bernie Sanders-style message of taking on the 1 percent - faced a steeply uphill challenge to sell himself as a potential prime minister.

But he was widely seen to have mounted a far more credible challenge than many thought possible, running a nothing-to-lose campaign focused on ending seven years of Tory austerity policies and shrinking the gap between rich and poor.

Even if he doesn't prevail, his performance has undoubtedly saved his job as Labour leader - a stinging blow for more-centrist party figures who had quietly hoped the harsh glare of a national campaign would leave him exposed and force him to step aside.

Deep into Friday morning, Labour lawmakers who had spent nearly two years trying to overthrow Corbyn lined up to appear on television and sing his praises.

The results are a vindication of Corbyn's decision to focus the campaign on Tory budget cuts, rather than allow it to be defined by Brexit.

May had wanted the vote to be a referendum on her Brexit plan. But Corbyn spent little time discussing the issue.

Like the prime minister, Corbyn halfheartedly favored a vote to "remain" in the EU during the Brexit referendum. But also like May, he promised not to obstruct the will of voters and to follow through on their desires if they approved an exit.

Negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the EU are due to kick off in a little over a week. Even before Thursday's vote, May had faced long odds in delivering the successful exit she has promised. If she is still in office, her job has become even harder following the rejection of her plea for a broader mandate.

May had vowed a hard break with the bloc that leaves Britain outside the single market, the customs union and the European Court of Justice. But she has also promised to deliver a free-trade deal that will preserve the best elements of membership without many of the onerous burdens.

European leaders scoff at such a notion, and say that Britain's demands for EU benefits without responsibilities will have to be denied lest the country's departure trigger a rush to the exits by other nations demanding the same sweetheart deal.

If she prevails, May also will be under pressure to deliver on pledges to expand the powers of police and other security services following three deadly terrorist attacks this spring, including two in the midst of the campaign.

After the most recent attack - a van-and-knife rampage in London that left eight dead - May said "enough is enough" and promised a sweeping review of the nation's counterterrorism rules.

Many observers thought the attacks would play to May's advantage. But Corbyn managed to flip one of his potential areas of weakness - security - to a strength by hitting out at May for the cuts to police budgets she had authorized as the nation's home secretary, the top domestic security official.

He promised to put more cops back on the beat - a message that aligned with his broader mantra.

"It's sort of like Labour offering a huge platter of beautiful juicy burgers and steak and fried food in front of voters. And the Tories are like, 'Think about the bill!' and the voters are like, 'We don't want cold radish again!' " said Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester. "You can see why people find that appealing."

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News Network
June 16,2020

Beijing, Jun 16: The coronavirus situation in China's capital is "extremely severe", a city official warned Tuesday, as 27 new infections were reported from Beijing where a new cluster has sparked a huge trace-and-test programme.

The COVID-19 resurgence -- believed to have started at the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market in the capital -- has sparked alarm as China had largely brought its outbreak under control through mass testing and lockdowns imposed earlier in the year.

The new cases took the number of confirmed infections in Beijing over the past five days to 106, as authorities locked down almost 30 communities in the city and tested tens of thousands of people.

"The epidemic situation in the capital is extremely severe," Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned at a press conference.

The World Health Organization had already expressed concern about the cluster, pointing to Beijing's size and connectivity.

Officials in the capital have said they will test stall owners and managers at all of the city's food markets, restaurants and government canteens.

Beijing's coronavirus testing capacity has been expanded to 90,000 a day, according to China's official news agency Xinhua.

On Tuesday, the capital's transport commission banned taxi- and ride-hailing services from driving out of the city, Xinhua reported, in another move to try and contain the new outbreak.

All indoor sports and entertainment venues in Beijing were ordered to shut on Monday, and some other cities across China warned they would quarantine those arriving from the capital.

The National Health Commission also reported four new domestic infections in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, and a case reported in southwestern Sichuan province was linked to the Beijing cluster.

Authorities were also racing to track people from Beijing who had travelled to other parts of China, and those who visited the capital have been encouraged to get tested.

Beijing spokesman Xu said: "High-risk people who have left Beijing must inform local authorities immediately."

Market inspections

Authorities shut down another market on Tuesday -- Tiantaohonglian in the central Xicheng district -- after one employee there was diagnosed with COVID-19, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Seven residential estates surrounding that market were also locked down.

In total, Beijing officials said Tuesday they have disinfected 276 agricultural markets, closed 11 markets, and disinfected more than 33,000 food and beverage businesses in a bid to stamp out the new cluster.

Officials had warned Sunday that since May 30, 200,000 people had visited the Xinfadi market -- the original site of the new outbreak.

More than 8,000 workers from Xinfadi have been tested and sent to centralised quarantine facilities.

Until this recent outbreak, most of China's cases in recent months were nationals returning home as the pandemic spread to other countries.

China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the virus strain found in the Beijing outbreak was a "major epidemic strain in the European countries".

While the virus was detected on chopping boards used to handle imported salmon at Xinfadi, "it does not clearly or definitely indicate it's from imported seafood", Wu Zunyou, the body's chief epidemiologist, said in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.

"Ever since new cases suddenly emerged in Beijing, we have tried to figure out the reasons for the outbreak since there were no COVID-19 cases found over the past two months," Wu Zunyou said.

"We came up with several possibilities, and the most likely one is that the carrier of the novel coronavirus comes from outside China or other parts of China and brought it here."

On Tuesday, another eight imported cases were reported.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Moscow, Jul 2: Russian voters approved changes to the constitution that will allow President Vladimir Putin to hold power until 2036, but the weeklong plebiscite that concluded Wednesday was tarnished by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities.

With most of the nation's polls closed and 20% of precincts counted, 72% voted for the constitutional amendments, according to election officials.

For the first time in Russia, polls were kept open for a week to bolster turnout without increasing crowds casting ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic a provision that Kremlin critics denounced as an extra tool to manipulate the outcome.

A massive propaganda campaign and the opposition's failure to mount a coordinated challenge helped Putin get the result he wanted, but the plebiscite could end up eroding his position because of the unconventional methods used to boost participation and the dubious legal basis for the balloting.

By the time polls closed in Moscow and most other parts of Western Russia, the overall turnout was at 65%, according to election officials. In some regions, almost 90% of eligible voters cast ballots.

On Russia's easternmost Chukchi Peninsula, nine hours ahead of Moscow, officials quickly announced full preliminary results showing 80% of voters supported the amendments, and in other parts of the Far East, they said over 70% of voters backed the changes.

Kremlin critics and independent election observers questioned the turnout figures.

We look at neighboring regions, and anomalies are obvious there are regions where the turnout is artificially (boosted), there are regions where it is more or less real, Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the independent election monitoring group Golos, told The Associated Press.

Putin voted at a Moscow polling station, dutifully showing his passport to the election worker. His face was uncovered, unlike most of the other voters who were offered free masks at the entrance.

The vote completes a convoluted saga that began in January, when Putin first proposed the constitutional changes.

He offered to broaden the powers of parliament and redistribute authority among the branches of government, stoking speculation he might seek to become parliamentary speaker or chairman of the State Council when his presidential term ends in 2024.

His intentions became clear only hours before a vote in parliament, when legislator Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet-era cosmonaut who was the first woman in space in 1963, proposed letting him run two more times.

The amendments, which also emphasize the primacy of Russian law over international norms, outlaw same-sex marriages and mention a belief in God as a core value, were quickly passed by the Kremlin-controlled legislature.

Putin, who has been in power for more than two decades longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin said he would decide later whether to run again in 2024.

He argued that resetting the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work instead of darting their eyes in search for possible successors.

Analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin political consultant, said Putin's push to hold the vote despite the fact that Russia has thousands of new coronavirus infections each day reflected his potential vulnerabilities.

Putin lacks confidence in his inner circle and he's worried about the future, Pavlovsky said.

He wants an irrefutable proof of public support.

Even though the parliament's approval was enough to make it law, the 67-year-old Russian president put his constitutional plan to voters to showcase his broad support and add a democratic veneer to the changes.

But then the coronavirus pandemic engulfed Russia, forcing him to postpone the April 22 plebiscite.

The delay made Putin's campaign blitz lose momentum and left his constitutional reform plan hanging as the damage from the virus mounted and public discontent grew.

Plummeting incomes and rising unemployment during the outbreak have dented his approval ratings, which sank to 59%, the lowest level since he came to power, according to the Levada Center, Russia's top independent pollster.

Moscow-based political analyst Ekaterina Schulmann said the Kremlin had faced a difficult dilemma: Holding the vote sooner would have brought accusations of jeopardizing public health for political ends, while delaying it raised the risks of defeat.

Holding it in the autumn would have been too risky, she said.

In Moscow, several activists briefly lay on Red Square, forming the number 2036 with their bodies in protest before police stopped them.

Some others in Moscow and St. Petersburg staged one-person pickets and police didn't intervene.

Several hundred opposition supporters rallied in central Moscow to protest the changes, defying a ban on public gatherings imposed for the coronavirus outbreak. Police didn't intervene and even handed masks to the participants.

Authorities mounted a sweeping effort to persuade teachers, doctors, workers at public sector enterprises and others who are paid by the state to cast ballots. Reports surfaced from across the vast country of managers coercing people to vote.

The Kremlin has used other tactics to boost turnout and support for the amendments.

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Agencies
June 6,2020

The President of United States Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America if they conduct more tests.

“I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs,” the US president said on Friday.

Trump said that the US has carried out 20 million tests while compared to America, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests. He made the remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data.

India has so far conducted over 4 million COVID-19 tests, according to the health ministry.

Trump said, “we will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.”

“Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing. And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA,” Trump said.

“Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would’ve thought possible,” he added.

Trump also spoke about the huge unemployment problem the country is currently facing. He said that the economy is now back on track, referring to the latest monthly employment numbers,.

“We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that’s a long time,” Trump said

“I think it’s more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we’re going to have a phenomenal next year. We’re going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date,” the president said.

Keeping an eye on the November 3 presidential elections, Trump is seeking re-election for his second consecutive term. He is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden who in opinion polls is surging several points of Trump.

“It’s going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country,” Trump said.

Trump also vowed to bring the American economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. He reiterated that his administration has built a strong economy in the last three years.

Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.

“It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn’t do that,” he alleged.

The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines.

“And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one,” the US president said.

The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam-tipped swabs each month.

“Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month,” Trump added.

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