Iraq a vote loser for Bush's European
allies By J Sean Curtin
Support for the Iraq war has dealt British Prime
Minister Tony Blair a series of devastating electoral
defeats, while his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi
has also suffered substantial setbacks. The European
Union and local elections in both countries have given
British and Italian voters their first real
opportunities to express discontent over the Iraq
conflict. The results have put Blair under intense
pressure to quit and have weakened Berlusconi's
authority within his coalition government.
The
British and Italian premiers are US President George W
Bush's closest remaining European allies in the
unpopular Iraq conflict and key players in his
"coalition of the willing". Analysis indicates Iraq
policy has cost both prime ministers heavily at the
ballot box. Parties aggressively opposed to the war were
clear winners in both countries, a pattern that was
repeated in other EU countries where Iraq was a major
issue.
In the UK local elections, Tony Blair's
once-mighty Labour Party came in an unprecedented third.
It got an abysmal 26% of the vote, and in the EU
elections did even worse, receiving just above 22%
support. These are the worse results in living memory
for a governing British party and will likely result in
increased pressure on Blair from politicians fearful of
losing their seats in a general election possibly less
than a year away.
Prime Minister Berlusconi's
Forza Italia Party suffered a string of defeats in the
local elections as well as a major setback in the EU
poll, where its support dropped to about 22.5%. In the
last general election, Forza Italia took 29.4% of the
vote and 25.2% in the previous European Parliament
election. Berlusconi had repeatedly told Italians that
his party would capture at least 25% of the vote. The
poll was widely seen as a crucial test of the premier's
popularity.
Berlusconi has faced strong
opposition for supporting the war in Iraq and
dispatching 3,000 troops to the country. So far, 20
Italian troops have been killed and one Italian hostage
executed. Three Italian hostages were recently freed,
easing some of the strain on the prime minister.
Iraq influences Spanish and Dutch
polls While many governing parties suffered
losses in the 25-nation European Union elections for the
732-seat European Parliament, Iraq was a significant
factor in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United
Kingdom.
In Spain, the recently elected anti-war
Socialist government did well as voters responded
positively to the party for having already honored its
pre-election pledge of withdrawing all Spanish troops
from Iraq. The new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero, said his country's presence in Iraq was
illegal because it lacked a mandate from the United
Nations. Opinion polls show that about 75% of Spaniards
support this position. Polls also indicate that 90% of
voters opposed former Popular Party prime minister Jose
Maria Aznar's decision to dispatch troops to Iraq.
Before losing office, Aznar was one of President Bush's
staunchest allies.
In the Netherlands, which
also has troops in Iraq, Dutch opposition parties
critical of the conflict made significant gains, with
losses registered for parties in the conservative
coalition government. However, Prime Minister Jan Peter
Balkenende managed to stabilize the vote for his
Christian Democrats, with his coalition partners
suffering the heaviest losses.
Blair faces
resignation calls over Iraq The results of the
European Parliament election were announced on Sunday,
compounding the woes of Tony Blair, whose party had
already suffered its most serious local-election defeat
in history on Thursday. The prime minister is facing
renewed calls from within his own party for him to
resign over his Iraq policy.
Commenting on the
catastrophic showing by his party, Blair admitted that
"Iraq has been a shadow over our support". He also
acknowledged that the decision to go to war in Iraq had
cost his party many seats across the country. However,
he signaled his determination to continue in office,
saying, "It's a question of holding our nerve and seeing
it through."
Prominent figures in his party
challenged this approach, implying he should quit. Robin
Cook, the former foreign minister who resigned from
Blair's cabinet over the war, said, "It's not enough to
simply say we are holding our nerve, we are seeing it
though." Addressing Iraq directly, Cook commented, "The
real problem is that in his heart Tony Blair remains
convinced that he was right and that he should be ready
to do it again. So long as that remains the case, many
of the voters who have deserted Labour will not return."
Clare Short, who also resigned as a cabinet
minister because of the Iraq War, was far more
forthright in her criticism of Blair. She said, "I think
that the electorate is sending a message to Tony Blair
because the Labour Party seems incapable of correcting
him. What we did in Iraq has brought disgrace and
dishonor on Britain around the world. As Tony Blair
won't change the policy, the only way to make a
correction is for him to step aside from the
leadership."
A senior figure in the Labour
Party, who did not wish to be identified, told Asia
Times Online, "There is growing momentum within the
party for Tony to step down over Iraq. It can only grow
after this double massacre and especially with many of
our people losing because of an unpopular war they
didn't even support. The problem is, how do we get rid
of Tony? There is no proper mechanism for that and, if
he refuses to budge, it would be a very bloody affair to
remove him, and that could cost us even more votes."
Key members of Blair's cabinet publicly backed
the prime minister, denying he had become an electoral
"liability". However, rumors persist that some in the
cabinet are plotting ways to unseat Blair while
supporting him in public.
Blair's Labour
Party hammered by Iraq war The massive scale of
Blair's losses are certain to fuel speculation about his
continued leadership. The local elections and EU results
were the most humiliating defeat in living memory for a
governing party. Labour's only real victory was in the
London mayoral election, which was easily won by the
fiercely anti-war incumbent Ken Livingstone. Livingstone
is one of the most high-profile critics of the war.
The polls were the first major opportunity for
the British electorate to register their disapproval of
the Iraq War and graphically illustrate how Blair's
popularity has nosedived since he supported Bush's
invasion of the country. Prior to Iraq, 51% of Britons
thought Blair was trustworthy, compared with just 39%
today. Last year 58% of people said going to war in Iraq
was justified, while only 38% now believe that to be the
case.
In the EU elections, Labour slumped to
about 22.3%, the worst election result by a governing
party since 1918 and the party's worse share of the vote
since its infancy in 1910. In local elections, Blair's
Labour Party suffered major losses in its traditional
heartlands, where strong discontent over Iraq was
identified as a prime factor for the rout that saw the
party lose 479 seats.
According to a British
Broadcasting Corp (BBC) news analysis of the local
election results, Labour only garnered 26% of the
national vote, knocking it into third place behind the
Conservatives with 38% and the anti-war Liberal
Democrats with 29%.
Prior to the Iraq conflict,
the Liberal Democrats had been a relatively small party,
but their leader's strong anti-war stance has given them
a tremendous poll boost. The party based its entire
local and EU election campaigns around opposition to the
war.
A BBC news projection based on the local
election results showed that Labour would win somewhere
in the region of 30% of the vote if a general election
were held now. With a general election possibly less
than a year away, Blair will now be under massive
pressure from politicians fearful that his Iraq policy
might cost them their seats. This will intensify demands
for the prime minister to resign, but Blair looks likely
to ignore these calls which may lead to a plot to topple
him.
The local and EU elections have landed the
White House's two closest European allies in dire
straits, as voters have finally been given a chance to
deliver their verdict on the unpopular Iraq War. The
double whammy of poll defeats poses a serious threat to
the British and Italian leaders' continued survival,
with Blair in extreme peril. It appears that Bush's Iraq
policy might produce some unforeseen regime changes in
Europe.
J Sean Curtin is aGLOCOMfellow at the Tokyo-based
Japanese Institute of Global Communications.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
