Return to boring expertise, all is forgiven.
After years in which populist showmen like United States President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson seemed to seal the triumph of alternative facts and nationalist outbursts, covid-19 has brought the qualities of calm, professional government to the fore.
Voters want to be in safe hands during a crisis. Five years ago, the British minister Michael Gove, who advocated for Brexit, said that people had "enough of experts". Today, expertise is the most sought-after commodity. Based on the recent elections in the USA, the German regions, the Netherlands and Bulgaria, it can be concluded that the extremes on the left and the right are going through a severe crisis.
Trump is the biggest political casualty of the pandemic, kicked out of the White House despite a thriving economy because most Americans disliked his belittling of the coronavirus, his open disdain for wearing masks and social distancing, his quack drugs and unpredictable management of a public health crisis. The irony is that his successor, President Joe Biden, profited from Trump's one correct decision: investing heavily in vaccines.
In Europe, the first months of covid-19 went hand in hand with incumbent leaders, whose popularity ratings were rising. Voters united around the flag. Governments and their health advisers controlled the narrative in the media. The opposition parties found themselves faced with the unusual choice of whether to accept national unity or otherwise risk acting unpatriotically in pursuit of political points.
In all recent European elections, radical right-wing and left-wing parties have been losing. Voters have shown they prefer to stick with experienced leaders, favoring pragmatic center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Netherlands and re-electing the incumbent in two German state elections.
It remains to be seen whether this trend will hold in Europe's biggest elections in the next 12 months: Germany's general election in September and France's presidential election in April 2022. In either case, the electorate is unpredictable. Germans are angry about corruption. The French are furious about the lack of vaccines.
The pandemic has changed the European political debate, reversing the practice of maintaining healthy public finances and avoiding excessive borrowing and deficits. Austerity is dead, at least for now. When it comes to public spending, there is no longer left and right.
Voters are now more interested in competence than that. Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovič last Sunday became the first EU leader to lose his job over his handling of the health crisis. He was forced to resign after losing the trust of coalition partners for ordering two million doses of Russian Sputnik V vaccines without consultation.
It is unlikely that Matovič will be the last EU leader to be shown the door. (Former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was also out of office, but the reason for this was more the debate over spending recovery money than his management of the crisis). The longer the return to normality is delayed and the death toll rises, the more governments will be held accountable for their actions during the health crisis, and their future will depend on the success of vaccinations.
Due to the successful vaccination campaign, the British probably forgave Johnson for his mistakes at the beginning of the pandemic. However, across the Channel the EU's frustratingly slow response has many politicians blaming Brussels for the slow delivery of vaccines.
Some, like Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, are trying to elbow their way to the front of the queue for additional doses. Others, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, rushed to buy alternative supplies from Russia and China.
Officials in Germany and France have opted for a more responsible direction, but that does not mean that they too are not exposed to a drop in support due to the coronavirus. In Germany, Angela Merkel's conservatives are reeling from losses in local elections amid a series of scandals, including one in which party officials pocketed hefty kickbacks to rig contracts to supply masks.
Merkel's ethics and judgment are not in question, but the dispute could decide which of the two leading conservatives will be the candidate to succeed her - and their chances of being elected chancellor.
Armin Lachet, the premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, embodies a more relaxed approach to health restrictions than Markus Zeder, the popular Bavarian premier who advocates a strict lockdown to keep infection rates down until mass vaccinations can take place.
Paris is even more vulnerable to having its plans disrupted by the pandemic. Germany, which has always been ruled by coalitions, has a strong center capable of political solutions. France, which suffers from an excessively vertical, centralized political system, does not. Its political spectrum is fractured, and voters can choose between centrist President Emmanuel Macron, the radical nationalist right and a handful of other feuding politicians who are unlikely to make it to the second round.
A survey conducted in February showed growing discontent in France as Macron tries to deal with the virus a year before the election.
Research participants were offered words to describe their mood. The French chose "distrust", "darkness", "exhaustion" and "fear". In contrast, the Germans chose "calmness", "well-being" and "trust". The British also chose the word "calm" the most, followed by "exhaustion" and "fear".
A result like this should set off alarm bells in the Elysée Palace.
The lesson of coronavirus politics seems to be that voters crave expertise, not show — and will first reward those who make them feel safe.
The article was taken from the "Politiko" portal. Translated by: N. Bogetić
Bonus video:
