I haven't closely scrutinized electoral outcomes of all countries in "the coalition of the willing," but, so far, the ruling parties that led their countries into "the coalition" lost a big time in Spain and Italy, but they (some of which are on the right, and others are "center-left" for lack of a better term) have either made an electoral gain or managed to hang on in the United States, Australia ("Howard won his fourth consecutive election as Liberal leader, increasing the coalition's primary vote by more than 3 percent, to 46.6 percent, largely as a result of the disintegration of the right-wing populist One Nation party, while the Labor Party primary vote remained at just over 38 percent-the second lowest result since 1931. After the distribution of preferences the result was a victory for the Howard government by 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent-representing a swing of just under 2 percent to the coalition" [<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/aust-o11.shtml>]), Japan (cf. Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party won "only 49 of the 121 seats up for reelection in the 242-seat upper house," a major decline since April 2001 when it won "64 of the 121 seats," but "[t]he LDP's coalition partner New Komeito increased its seats by one, from 10 to 11, and the ruling coalition retains a comfortable 139-seat majority in the upper house," though Minshuto [the Democratic Party of Japan] "increased its 38 seats by 12 to 50 and now holds 82 seats in the upper house," the major losers being the Japanese Communist Party [JCP], which won "only 4 of the 15 seats it had up for re-election," and the Social Democratic Party [SDP], which is down to "just 2 seats" [<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jul2004/japa-j28.shtml>]), and South Korea (cf. the Uri Party trebled its seats from 49 to 152 in April 2004 <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/kor-a17.shtml> but went down to 146 on April 30 this year <http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/05/05/200505050009.asp>). Besides, the Iraq War didn't differentiate the major electoral parties in all of the nations in "the coalition of the willing." In the US, both George W. Bush and John Kerry pledged to "stay the course," while, in Ukraine, both the candidates (one backed by Washington, the other by Moscow) advocated withdrawal from the Iraq War.
What can we say about the results? The electoral parties on the left in the Anglo and Asian countries suck worse than their counterparts in the Latin nations in "the coalition of the willing." Also, historically speaking, the UK, Australia, Japan, and South Korea (two of which joined the US in the Vietnam War) have been more closely integrated into the US empire than Italy, Spain, and France (where even the ruling party on the right has refused to participate in the Iraq War). -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>