Cordon sanitaire (politics)

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In

Origins of term

Beginning in the late 1980s, the term was introduced into the discourse on parliamentary politics by Belgian commentators. At that time, the far-right

] the term has been transferred to agreements similar to the one struck in Belgium.

Examples

This section needs expansion with: Belgium. You can help by adding to it. (December 2023)

Austria

After Jörg Haider became leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in 1986, all other parties refused to cooperate with them until 2000 when the first Schüssel government was formed. This (FPÖ) government would last from 2000 to 2005, and a second (FPÖ) government would last from 2017 to 2019.

Canada

In Canada, resistance to the formation of coalition governments among left-of-centre parties has been attributed to an unwillingness to be seen as collaborating with the

All of the political groups declared cordon sanitaire on far-right Identity and Democracy group in the Ninth European Parliament, elected in 2019.^[2][3]

Some (though not all) of the

In Estonia and Latvia, "Russian-speaking" parties (LKS, For Stability! 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 three coalition governments in 1995, 2002–2003 and 2005–2007. The cordon was renewed in 2007, due to Edgar Savisaar's attitudes toward the Bronze Night. 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.

France

The policy of non-cooperation with

Nonetheless, the policy of cordon sanitaire applied against the National Rally (RN) has faded since 2011 when Marine Le Pen became party leader: her "detoxification" efforts that have led to a greatly improved image of the party, as repeatedly confirmed by polling numbers, and the fall of the left-right cleavage since Macron's election in 2017 are considered to be key components of the French cordon sanitaire's dwindling.

In 2022, the cordon sanitaire strategy symbolically broke twice, first in the parliamentary elections when Macron's coalition refused to openly endorse left-wing candidates facing RN candidates in the second round, in part helping the party to achieve a record number of elected MPs (89 out of 577, winning 55% of runoffs against left-wing candidates), and second, when 2 RN members of the National Assembly were elected as vice presidents of the Chamber. Additionally, due to RN being the largest opposition party in the Assembly, members from the party were designated or elected in key parliamentary roles (such as Caroline Colombier, an RN MP, who was designated by the centrist President of the lower house Yaël Braun-Pivet as the only opposition member of the National Assembly to sit in the parliamentary Intelligence Committee).

Furthermore, since the formation of the left-wing

Such a strategy being applied to left-wing parties as well as right-wing parties reminds of the policy of cordon sanitaire applied to the

Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany was excluded until the beginning of World War I (Burgfriedenspolitik). The SPD was even banned by the Anti-Socialist Laws in the end of the 19th century.

After

The

The Joint List and its component parties—Hadash, Balad, Ta'al, Ma'an, and (formerly) Ra'am—are under a de facto cordon sanitaire, primarily for not supporting Zionism. Following the 2021 Israeli legislative election, the conservative Ra'am, which had left the joint list and run on its own, entered into coalition with a number of predominantly Zionist parties to form the thirty-sixth government of Israel.

Between 1984 and 1988, there was a cordon sanitaire against the Kahanist party Kach. Famously, Likud prime minister Yitzhak Shamir walked out of the Knesset floor during Meir Kahane's speeches. The cordon ended in 1988 after the party was outlawed and disbanded, and cordons of various levels have been enforced on its successor parties, which were mostly limited to cooperation within the National Union and its successor coalitions until 2019, when then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu orchestrated Otzma Yehudit's involvement in an electoral coalition in hopes of securing a parliamentary majority of supporters.

Lithuania

In Lithuania,

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 (VVD) 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. Since the split of the Forum for Democracy in 2020, all major parties but PVV also refuse to cooperate with FvD.

The cordon sanitaire against the PVV ended after the 2023 Dutch general election, when the VVD offered external support to a prospective PVV government.^[5]

Norway

Starting in the 1970s, all parliamentary parties consistently refused to formally join into a governing coalition at state level with the right-wing

Ever since the conservative party Chega gained parliamentary representation in 2019, there have been several attempts to establish a "cordon sanitaire", with most parties refusing to assossiate with them.^[7]

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 the 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. The same parties also claimed that SDS was illegally financed by foreign donations via its media (mostly capital from Hungarian companies close to Viktor Orbán, 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.^[8]

After a governmental crisis in 2020 the social liberal Modern Centre Party and the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia formed a coalition with SDS.

Spain

In 2003, a majority of the Parliament of Catalonia consisting in the left-of-centre and pro-decentralisation PSC, ERC and ICV-EUiA parties reached a coalition agreement that included vetoing the right-of-centre, centralist People's Party in both subnational and national instances.^[9] This point of the agreement was later criticised by the resulting President of Catalonia Pasqual Maragall.^[10] The coalition agreement was reedited in 2006, but by 2010 the then PSC candidate José Montilla said his party wouldn't seek a new agreement with ERC.^[11]

Sweden

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

In October 2018, the Sweden Democrats went into a governing coalitions with the Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats for the first time in Staffanstorp Municipality, Sölvesborg Municipality, Herrljunga Municipality and Bromölla Municipality.^[12][13] In Bromölla, coalition felt apart in 2020, while new coalitions with the SD emerged in Svalöv Municipality (2019), Bjuv Municipality (2020) and Surahammar Municipality (2021).

However, in March 2019,

Pro-Kurdish parties like Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) are under a cordon sanitaire because of the accusation of cooperation with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party which is currently designated as a terrorist organisation by European Union,^[15] UK,^[16] USA,^[17] Turkey^[18] and other countries. Kurdish parties that have allegedly cooperated with terrorist organisations have also been banned by the Constitutional Court of Turkey several times in the past. This process of banning, led the Kurdish Movement to be more willing to solve problems in favour of democratisation of Turkey and regionalism, rather than separating the country.^[19]

During the 1990s Islamist parties of the Millî Görüş movement were excluded from government formation and were banned several times with the exception of the so called "Refahyol" (1996–1997). The cordon sanitaire was lifted when the more moderate Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 rose to power and the more radical heir Felicity Party joined the Nation Alliance in 2018.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the far-right

• Non-LDP and non-JCP Coalition
• Trasformismo

References