Election round-up

4.30.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 23rd Oct 2007

Ballot Box

Both Poland and Switzerland have had their Parliamentary elections, with very differing results.

In Poland the Civil Platform gained 41.4% of the voting ousting the Law and Justice Party. The Civic Platform are much closer to the Liberal Democrats so I certainly welcome the result, they seem set to work out a coalition deal with either the Peasants' Party and/or the Left and Democracy Party. It is very likely that the Civil Platform will move to adopt the Euro and become a real player in European politics.

In Switzerland however the far right Swiss People's Party increased their vote and MPs to record the highest vote for any party since 1919! they now have 62 out of the 200 MPs and will be in coalition with three other parties. This is a terrible result for Switzerland and the whole of Europe. Rather than ignore the result liberals of all types need to look at identifying why they SVP have been successful and see what we can do to stop a repetition of the results elsewhere.