Cordon sanitaire (politics)

In politics, cordon sanitaire is the refusal to cooperate with certain political parties. Often this is because the targeted party has an ideology perceived as unacceptable or extremist.

National politics

Origins in Belgium

Beginning in the late 1980s, the term was introduced into the discourse on parliamentary politics by Belgian commentators. At that time, the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok party began to make significant electoral gains. Because the Vlaams Blok was considered a racist group by many, the other Belgian political parties committed to exclude the party from any coalition government, even if that forced the formation of grand coalition governments between ideological rivals. Commentators dubbed this agreement Belgium's cordon sanitaire. In 2004, its successor party, Vlaams Belang changed its party platform to allow it to comply with the law. While no formal new agreement has been signed against it, it nevertheless remains uncertain whether any mainstream Belgian party will enter into coalition talks with Vlaams Belang in the near future. Several members of various Flemish parties have questioned the viability of the cordon sanitaire.

With the electoral success of nationalist and extremist parties on the left and right in recent European history, the term has been transferred to agreements similar to the one struck in Belgium.

Italy

The Italian Communist Party and the Italian Social Movement were excluded from Christian Democratic-led coalition governments during the Cold War. The end of the Cold War along with the Tangentopoli scandal and Mani pulite investigation resulted in a dramatic political realignment.

Germany

After German reunification, East Germany's former ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED), reinvented itself first (in 1990) as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and then (in 2005 before the elections) as the Left Party, in order to merge with the new group Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative that had emerged in the West. In the years following 1990, the other German political parties have consistently refused to consider forming a coalition with the PDS/Left Party on a federal level (which was possible in 2005 and 2013), while on state levels, so-called red-red coalitions with the SPD were formed (or red-red-green). The term cordon sanitaire, though, is quite uncommon in Germany for coalition considerations. A strict political non-cooperation (in which The Left would participate, should the instance ever arise) is only exercised against right-wing parties, such as the Republicans, and even the Republicans have exercised a cordon against the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. Since 2013, the established major parties have refused to form state-level coalitions with the new right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, a parliamentary cordon sanitaire was put around the Centre Party (Centrumpartij, CP) and later on the Centre Democrats (Centrumdemocraten, CD), ostracising their leader Hans Janmaat. During the 2010 Cabinet formation, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) charged other parties of plotting a cordon sanitaire; however, there never was any agreement between the other parties on ignoring the PVV. Indeed, the PVV was floated several times as a potential coalition member by several informateurs throughout the government formation process, and the final minority coalition under Mark Rutte between Rutte's People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and the Christian Democratic Appeal was officially "condoned" by the PVV. The coalition collapsed after PVV withdrew its support in 2012. Since then, all major parties refuse to cooperate with PVV.

European Union

All of the political groups declared cordon sanitaire on far-right Identity and Democracy group in the Ninth European Parliament.[1][2]

Some (though not all) of the Non-Inscrits members of the European Parliament are unaffiliated because they are considered to lie too far on the right of the political spectrum to be acceptable to any of the European Parliament party groups.

France

The policy of non-cooperation with Front National, together with the majoritarian two-round electoral system, leads to the permanent underrepresentation of the FN in the National Assembly. For instance, the FN won no seats out of 577 in the 2002 elections, despite receiving 11.3% of votes in the first round, as no FN candidates won a first-round majority and few even qualified (either by winning at least 12.5% of the local vote with 25% turnout or by being one of the top two finishers with less) to go on to the second round. In the 2002 presidential election, after the Front National candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen unexpectedly defeated Lionel Jospin in the first round, the traditionally ideologically-opposed Socialist Party encouraged its voters to vote for Jacques Chirac in the second round, preferring anyone to Le Pen. In 2017, his daughter and party successor Marine Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election; both the Socialist Party and Republicans encouraged votes for her opponent Emmanuel Macron.

Czech Republic

The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia is effectively excluded from any possible coalition because of a strong anti-Communist presence in most political parties, including the Czech Social Democratic Party. This policy remained up until 2018, when the KSČM supported the Andrej Babiš' cabinet.

A cordon sanitaire was also placed around Miroslav Sládek's national conservative party Rally for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia while it was active in the Czech Parliament between 1992 and 1998. When any of its members was set to speak, other deputies would leave the Chamber of Deputies.

Estonia and Latvia

In Estonia and Latvia, "Russian-speaking" parties (LKS and Harmony in Latvia, and the Constitution Party and Centre Party in Estonia) had been excluded from participation in ruling coalitions at a national level until leadership change. Differing interpretations of the Soviet occupation between 1940 and 1990 and attitudes towards Vladimir Putin's current United Russia government in the Russian Federation are often cited as reasons to conclude coalition talks with other parties, even if said parties are perceived to be on the radical right.

The cordon is not absolute; the Centre Party of Estonia has briefly participated in two coalition governments in 1995 and 2002–2003. In 2016 Jüri Ratas of Centre became Prime Minister of Estonia, effectively ending any cordon around the party. In Latvia the cordon against the Harmony remains up to this day.

In Estonia, the cordon also was set up against the Conservative People's Party of Estonia between 2015 and 2019.

Spain

Parties opposed to Catalan autonomy such as the People's Party have sometimes been excluded from any government coalition in Catalonia.[3]

Sweden

In Sweden, the political parties in the Riksdag have adopted a policy of non-cooperation with the far-right Sweden Democrats. However, there have been exceptions where local politicians have supported resolutions from SD.

Canada

In Canada, resistance to the formation of coalition governments among left-of-center parties has often been attributed to an unwillingness to be seen as collaborating with the Bloc Québécois, which advocates for the Quebecois independence.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the far-right British National Party is completely ostracised by the political mainstream. Prominent politicians, including former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron, have been known to urge electors to vote for candidates from any party except the BNP.[4] The Eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party has categorically refused even limited cooperation with the BNP.[5] Although the party has never held more than 60 of the some 22,000 elected positions in local government, it is generally agreed by all parties that the BNP should be excluded from any coalition agreement on those councils where no single party has a majority. When two BNP candidates were elected to the European Parliament at the 2009 election, the UK Government announced that it would provide them both with only the bare minimum level of support, denying them the ready access to officials and information that the other 70 British MEPs received.[6]

Slovenia

In Slovenia liberal, centre-left and left-wing parties led by LMŠ leader and later Prime Minister Marjan Šarec declared de facto cordon sanitaire and excluded Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) from coalition negotiations following the 2018 parliamentary election, due to its xenophobic and divisive rhetoric and policy, which was based primarily on the opposition to illegal migrations and the discreditation of political opponents. Same parties also claimed that SDS was illegally financed by foreign donations via its media (mostly capital from Hungarian companies close to Viktor Orban, with whom SDS closely cooperates) and by loans from foreign national Dijana Đuđić, who personally financed the party with almost half million €. SDS won the election but all parties from centre to left wing rejected its invitation to start negotiations.[7]

Former Cordon sanitaires

In Norway, all the parliamentary parties had consistently refused to formally join into a governing coalition at state level with the right-wing Progress Party until 2013 when the Conservative Party did so. In some municipalities however, the Progress Party cooperates with many parties, including the center-left Labour Party.[8]
In Israel, between 1984 and 1988 all other MKs boycotted the speeches of Kach leader Meir Kahane, to the point that they would even leave the Knesset restaurant whenever Kahane appeared. This process ended in 1988, when Kach was banned from participating in the upcoming election.

References

"MEPs apply cordon sanitaire against Identity and Democra..." agenceurope.eu. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
Fortuna, Gerardo (2019-07-11). "MEPs shut out nationalists from key posts". euractiv.com. Retrieved 2019-07-11.
"Criterios sobre actuación política general" [General Policy on Performance Criteria] (PDF) (in Spanish). Multimedia Capital. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
"Guardian: Cameron: vote for anyone but BNP". The Guardian. London. 18 April 2006. Retrieved 26 March 2010.
BBC News (3 November 2008). "UKIP rejects BNP electoral offer". Retrieved 19 November 2011.
Traynor, Ian (9 July 2009). "UK diplomats shun BNP officials in Europe". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
"Tudi če se Janša umakne, Šarec ne bi šel v koalicijo s SDS". siol.net (in Slovenian). Retrieved 2019-07-06.
"– Nulltoleranse mot Frp-samarbeid", Arbeiderpartiet Archived 2012-07-01 at Archive.today