MOBILISING THE MINORITY VOTE
Voter turnout could be key.
Radboud University’s Azabar noted that turnout was often lower among ethnic minorities than for the general population in EU elections, but the Gaza war may be a motivation this time.
Foreign policy issues have a track record of impacting the ethnic minority vote. In 2016, Germany’s Social Democrats lost some 100,000 Turkish voters after recognising the Armenian genocide of the First World War, said Teyfik Özcan, chairman of DAVA, a new party targeting Turkish diaspora voters.
Özcan, a former SPD member, said his party offered the option of a protest vote that didn’t exist until now.
“Germans have the opportunity to say, ‘Okay, I’m voting for the (far-right) AfD in protest.’ Muslims cannot do that,” he told Reuters.
A December survey by the Institute of Political Science at the University of Duisberg-Essen showed that one in three German Muslims did not feel represented by any party.
A new sense of political representation resonates for French voters too. LFI has named as a candidate French-Palestinian lawyer Rima Hassan, who is present at protests, active on social media and is petitioning the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel.
Chama Tahiri Ivorra, a 34-year old French-Moroccan chef, said she had never voted in a European election but would this time.
“Voting for Rima is an act of resistance,” she said. “I don’t know all the points on LFI’s programme but what she and their other members say about Palestine is just.”
