This week was a largely poor one for European advocates of austerity, with center-left victories in the UK at the local level and France at the national level, and a muddled result in Greece.
Wednesday, Hungary's Parliament elected Janos Ader, member of the ruling right-wing Fidesz party, the country's President Wednesday. His term lasts until 2017; critics say he will be a rubber-stamp for Prime Minister Orban (with some boycotting the election). These were toothless, however, as Fidesz easily had the two-thirds majority necessary for confirmation.
Local elections in the United Kingdom were Thursday, with Labour making big gains, especially over the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats (with the notable exception of the London mayoral race). Best summary and analysis is in tom wedge's diary. A couple notes not covered in that diary: The defeat (in most places) of the largely Tory push for elected mayors, the collapse of the far-right BNP, and George Galloway's RESPECT party making advances in its targeted Bradford City Council.
The second round of Iran's parliamentary elections were held Friday; with reformers mostly boycotting the election due to massive candidate disqualifications, it was largely a contest between those supporting President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and those allied with Supreme Leader Khameinei, with the latter group making big gains.
In the French Presidential election Sunday, Socialist Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by a slightly narrower margin than expected.
Greek Parliamentary elections Sunday produced no clear victory, with the two traditional major parties (the only ones in favor of the EU austerity/bailout package) falling to a combined 149/300 seats (with the center-right New Democracy holding 108 of those with only 19% of the vote). The biggest winners were the (far) left-wing SYRIZA coalition, coming in second (and likely to do better in elections that will be called if no coalition government can be formed, which is likely). The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party (this isn't Godwin's Law kicking in, look at their logo on the official results page, it's the one that looks like a swastika) made it into Parliament with 7% of the vote.
The center-right lost its coalition in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, but the center-left is unlikely to be able to form one either, raising the possibility of a grand coalition government. (Small parties, including the Pirate Party, made gains.)
Armenian and Serbian results were still unclear as of publication time.
This week we have parliamentary elections in the Bahamas, Syria, and Algeria to look forward to, as well as those in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and local Italian ones.
Note: This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series, but I know it's not perfect and I'm probably overlooking stuff - if so, please say so in the comments. Also, consider this an active solicitation for people to help out with future editions of the International Digest - I ultimately want this to be a lot bigger and more comprehensive.