Morning Consult Counter/Consensus: Global Political Risk Briefing, Feb. 22, 2024

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1. The European Union (Counter)

Everybody look right: Europe is not ideologically shifting right en masse. The picture is much more mixed: Across the countries where we ask about political ideology, about equal numbers of them have shifted slightly left and slightly right over the last two years. 

Recent electoral history bears out much of the data. In Spain, fears that Vox would become a junior coalition party with the Popular Party (PP) proved unfounded as the center held in the July 2023 elections. Poland tacked left after eight years of government by the conservative Law and Justice Party. Dutch adults, meanwhile, handed Geert Wilders and his far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) the most seats in the November 2023 elections.

The shares of adults saying they hold extreme right-wing views on our seven-point ideological scale is much lower than the shares saying that a far-right party is “closest to their own views” in a number of key European countries. Right-wing parties are overperforming — gaining support from people who are not themselves far-right ideologues. And in four out of seven of the European Union countries where we see far-right parties overperforming, when we ask respondents which domestic political party best reflects their own views, the most popular answer is “none.” Here’s France as an example:

So it appears that disillusionment, rather than ideology, is driving Europeans’ growing willingness to support far-right parties. For more thoughts on how these dynamics will feed through to E.U. parliamentary elections coming up in June, you can find our full analysis here. 

2. Pakistan (Consensus)

Cancel the honeymoon: Despite a stronger-than-expected showing by the jailed former PM’s PTI party, incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was able to eke out a win in Pakistan’s Feb. 8 elections. His Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party partnered with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to form a government with him remaining at the helm. The military’s support didn’t hurt. 

But Sharif is deeply unpopular as he enters his second term, with signs that his approval rating might be turning south again after a rally in the leadup to the elections. 

The bad mood extends to public views of Pakistan’s trajectory. The last time Pakistanis thought their country was headed in the right direction, on balance, was during the relatively brief tenure of former Prime Minister Imran Khan himself, prior to his military ouster in April 2022. That event ushered in a period of protests and unrest, which we are seeing repeated in recent weeks.

Low public support and political instability will hobble Sharif, making it difficult for him to fulfill campaign promises to reign in inflation and improve the economy, and with the IMF banging at the gates to boot. That, in turn, makes it highly unlikely Pakistani adults will change their mind any time soon about their once and future PM. 

3. Thailand (Counter)

Seeing green: The Bank of Thailand has put Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on the backfoot since December 2023, both by holding interest rates steady and by opposing Srettha’s digital wallet scheme to unleash $14 billion in public handouts across the economy. The implication on both fronts is that Srettha’s standing among the public has suffered and will continue to decline the longer the dispute goes on. 

Au contraire. Srettha’s standing among the public at large — measured as net approval — remains in line with its six-month average (mildly net negative) on both a 7-day and 30-day moving average basis.

A return to power by Srettha’s Pheu Thai party — if ultimately marred by the failure of a flagship policy initiative — would bode poorly for its tenure after a period of junta-led and subsequently military-dominated civilian rule. Yet even among Pheu Thai supporters (chart below), Srettha’s net approval remains firmly in positive territory and is currently above levels we observed shortly after he took office.

If Srettha’s failure to advance the digital wallet scheme to date is causing ennui among his supporters, we’re not seeing it. We think he has more staying power at the moment than is implied by prevailing narratives. 

4. Japan (Consensus)

Cautious courtship? This week marks the first time the family of a South Korean victim of forced labor during the Japanese occupation has received court-mandated compensation from a Japanese firm. Tokyo has already protested the award. But as some have suggested anecdotally, our data indicates the latest developments will be hard-pressed to undo a growing bilateral bonhomie. 

Japanese favorability toward South Korea has been on the rise since well before a historical bilateral summit took place in March 2023, and only wavered briefly in December — when South Korea’s Supreme Court delivered a ruling on the compensation matter — before resuming its upward trend.

To be sure, the provision of compensation is likely to displease some in Japan, and Japanese adults’ views of South Korea remain marginally net negative. But a dramatic fall in public sentiment would be required to undo several years of rapprochement. Our data suggests it’s unlikely to be in the cards.

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