Andrej Bajuk, former president of NSi (source)
Some 40.000 ballots were sent to Slovenian citizens living overseas, none of which have yet been counted. They will have been counted until Monday, 29 september and later that day the unofficial final tally of the Sunday elections will be known. Now, overseas vote is a well-known hunting ground for SDS and especially NSi, which at the moment has 3.26 percent of the vote, but – as you no doubt know by now – needed 4 percent to get in the parliament.
Since the percentage of the vote is calculated based on the number votes cast, this means that NSi need some 8000 votes more to make the treshold. This is not impossible. As I said in the beginning, some 40.000 empty ballots have been sent across the globe and it all depends on a) how many of those ballots are returned b) how many of those are valid and c) where will that vote go.
Previous experience dictates that most of the overseas vote goes to NSi (especially from both Americas and Australia). This time around, SDS apparently tried to channel a lot of overseas vote in general its way, but it remains to be seen how successful that particular enterprise was, especially since president of NSi Andrej Bajuk apparently wrote a personal letter to opinion makers in Slovenian diaspora, asking them for help in getting the votes.
Some believe that about a quarter of all overseas ballots will be returned, which just might generate enough votes for NSi to make the 4 percent treshold. Others, however, point out that a lot of the overseas vote comes from Europe (not exactly overseas vote then, is it, pengovsky?), and that votes from Europe more or less follow the dispersal at home, not making much difference in the end.
Either way, NSi will face its uncertain future with a new presiedent. In light of the less-than-satisfactory result Andrej Bajuk resigned as president of the party and will not even act as caretaker until a new president is elected. Thus Alojz Sok is now acting as caretaker president.
In my opinion NSi’s chances aren’t very good. But if they somehow make it, it means that those someone else will lose four seats. Since calculation of election results borders on alchemy it is impossible to say which party or parties would loose seats, but distribution of power in the parliament might change significantly.
I did a simple, innacurate, and quite possibly wrong calculation of parliamentary seats with NSi present. This is what came out of it – one seat less for SD, SDS, Zares and LDS, respectively.
Hummm… I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but am more than curious at how you got to that number. Because if that is the case, it throws the balance of power in the parliament waaay off…
You like to paint cliches, aren’t you? 😉 Since from the slovenian citizens living abroad 30 % are located in Ex-Yu (8.400 CRO, 3.800 SRB, 1.000 BIH) and 40 % in EU (6.300 GER, 3.400 ITA, 2.000 AUT, 1.400 SUI, 1.400 FRA) you absolutely can’t talk about overseas votes in general [Argentina (3.400), Australia (2.300) and USA (1.700)]
And: at the elections 2000 only 4.800 voters were registered for voting abroad. But it’s true that from 969 voters from Argentina 814 voted for NSi (565 in 2004). And don’t forget, that at the last presidential election only 7.000 votes returned…
As I noted self-critically in the fourth paragraph: it is not actually an overseas vote. It just sounds a lot better :). But you can call it “ex-pat vote” if you like. I think I used the phrase on this blog once or twice myself.
As for the second paragraph: true. However, this time around NSi made a concerted effort to get out the vote.
Again: their chances are slim, but not nil.
“ex-patria vote” 😆 Why have I Walter Wolf in my mind :)))
It’s interesting what mathematics shows: NSi needs 8000 – 10000 votes in case when 8000 to 50000 votes will come from exterritorial patriots. When 42000 more votes would come they need only 2000 more of them, but they really need the first 8000!
It’s possible only when all votes coming from Florida! 🙂
re: the calculation. I added up all the percentages in parliament, added an additional 4% for NSi and divided by 88, then divided the party percentage by the coefficient I got. It’s crude, innacurate, and quite possibly wrong, but the numbers I gave above are the are ones I came up with.
In other news, something above 800 votes from Argentina go to NSi, and something about 300 to SDS. (acc. to today’s Val 202 radio emmision of “Vroči mikrofon”.) So, no real hope for NSi to catch up, is there…
Just to prove your cliches 😉 “Now, overseas vote is a well-known hunting ground for SDS and especially NSi.”
Overseas vote: (data gathered by rvk.gov.si until 18:00 on 29.09.2008 subtracted by data gathered until 22.09. 17:00)
SD: 3.952 votes | 32%
SDS: 3.117 votes | 25%
Zares: 972 votes | 7,9%
Desus: 741 votes | 6,0%
SNS: 231 votes | 1,8%
SLS: 481 votes | 3,9%
LDS: 796 votes | 6,4%
NSi: 1.971 votes | 16%
SDS+NSi+SLS: 44,9%
SD+Zares+LDS: 46,5%
All calculation is unofficial. Estimates have no legal effect and cannot be the subject of any legal proceedings 😉
Well, according to your calculation NSi did get 16 percent of the “overseas” (i.e.: ex-pat) vote, as opposed to 2,5 percent of the domestic vote. 🙂
So it is a good hunting ground, no? 😉 Sadly, it wasn’t enough. And I’m not being sarcastical here.