2015 could be year of political left

THE year 2015 will be a major election year across the globe with many key countries holding legislative and/or presidential ballots. Contests will be held in some five continents: Asia Pacific (including Myanmar and Sri Lanka); the Americas (for instance, Canada, Mexico and Argentina); Africa and the Middle East (including Nigeria, Israel, Turkey and Egypt); and Europe (for instance, the United Kingdom, Greece and Spain).

In developed countries in the Western world, a key trend to watch for will be a potential pick-up in performance of parties of the left and centre left which have generally failed to capitalise electorally, at least to date, on the most acute period of economic crisis since perhaps the 1930s. In the two years after 2008-2009 alone, for instance, parties of the left and centre left lost ground, or were jolted by significant electoral losses in countries as wide-ranging as Australia and New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Moreover, the Democratic Party in the United States lost badly in the 2010 mid-term elections in Congress, while retaining the presidency.

But the fortunes of these and similar parties may now be on the turn, spearheaded by a new generation of politicians. In the UK, Labour leader Ed Miliband, 45, hopes to win office in May on a platform of voter discontent over stagnant living standards, and has led most opinion surveys since 2011. Moreover, after almost a decade of conservative rule in Canada, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, 43, the son of former long-serving prime minister Pierre Trudeau, is championing a narrative of the struggling middle class in advance of the 2015 ballot and has enjoyed a poll lead for much of the period since he became leader of the Opposition in 2013.