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Thanks, I wasn't really paying close attention then, rather preoccupied with working on the American election. An extra question, how genuinely left is the left when it is in power?

 Just a note relevant to your comment on the Polish post-communist victory in 1993, and DoDo's comment about the large percentage of votes going to parties that didn't get into parliament:

In 1993 the postcommunists got 20% of the vote but 37% of the seats. The various right wing parties got 35% of the vote but 8% of the seats, since most of them didn't make it in, and the electoral system was a sort of proportional one with 5%/7% threshold and heavy favouring of those that got more votes. The remaining votes were a non-communist genuinely leftwing party (8%), soon to be coopted and destroyed by the postcommunists, the peasant party - a direct heir to the old puppet party of the communist era, well on its way to turning itself into a patronage/single interest group got 15/29, and the left-liberal branch of the post-solidarity camp with 11%. The left, the peasants, and much of the right ran against shock therapy. In power the post-communists in alliance with the peasants continued them with increased corruption and cronyism.

by MarekNYC on Sat Feb 7th, 2009 at 01:02:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
DoDo's comment about the large percentage of votes going to parties that didn't get into parliament

I only highlighted it in the data, it was askod who noted it.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sat Feb 7th, 2009 at 07:23:03 AM EST
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