Left out

By The Economist online

Fewer and fewer European countries are run by left-leaning governments

TEN years ago almost half of the 27 countries that now make up the European Union, including Germany, Britain and Italy, were ruled by left-wing governments. Today, following the defeat of the ruling Socialists in Portugal's general election on June 5th, the left is in charge of just five: Spain, Greece, Austria, Slovenia and Cyprus. In Spain, by far the largest of these, polls suggest the Socialists will be removed from office at an election that must be held by next March. There are many theories for the left's weakness in Europe. One is simply that left-wing parties struggle when times are hard. Our chart shows the number of left-wing governments in the EU-27 countries over the past couple of decades against the annual GDP growth rate in the region. The growth figure is shown with a two-year lag, the hypothesis being that economic changes take time to have political effects. So the five left-wing governments this year are shown against the growth (or, in this case, contraction) figures for 2009.

(Methodological note: in countries with ruling coalitions, governments are considered "left-wing" when the leading party is of the left and not otherwise. So Germany's "grand coalition" of 2005-09, comprising the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats, does not count as the CDU was the larger party.)