kewpid.net

OK, there are a buck­et­load of elec­tions hap­pen­ing today-ish. My predictions:

Aus­tralia

I expect that Labor will win com­fort­ably in all the by-elections hap­pen­ing today. Even with the whole brouhaha over the Lib­eral lead­er­ship, there will prob­ably be a small swing to the Lib­er­als in Macquarie Fields. Des­pite a con­cer­ted effort from the Greens, Sam Byrne will prob­ably not man­age to get over the line in Mar­rick­ville

. Car­mell Tebbut alluded as much to her assured vic­tory by stat­ing that she will not return to her upper-house seat vacancy if she loses.

New Zea­l­and

Des­pite the all-over-the-place polls, and a move towards National in the bet­ting mar­kets, NZ Labour to romp home and remain in gov­ern­ment in an unholy Labour/Green/Progressive/United Future coali­tion. Not­with­stand­ing his com­mit­ment to tax cuts, Don Brash to me is NZ’s John Hewson. Eco­nom­ist by trade. Eco­nomic ration­al­ist by style. Very short time in par­lia­ment. A few dog-whistles to the more extrem­ist ele­ments in NZ soci­ety. He’s not going to win.

Ger­many

And now for a crazy one. Ger­hard Schr??der and his red/green coali­tion to hang on by the skin of their teeth.