Unassuming Politicians: Why Voters Prefer Substance Over Style

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The popularity of French President Emmanuel Macron has been declining for a long time and at the end of October it reached an all-time low.

Almost a year and a half after his landslide election victory, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is “favored” by just 15% of Britons.

And only a fifth of Germans want the next candidacy of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Public opinion polls and election results speak clearly: Mainstream politics of the center is in crisis. Support for moderate leaders in countries across Europe is falling and they are being replaced by representatives of radical and populist parties.

According to analyst Paweł Zerka from the think tank European Council on Foreign Relations, a trend that we have been observing for a long time has taken a turn after the re-election of Donald Trump as a politician who personifies a departure from moderation.

“By coming back to power and showing his strength, he made it clear that his election was not a mistake. It encouraged people all over the world to consider people like him electable,” he explains in an interview with Seznam Zpravy.

As one of the most recent proofs of the ongoing crisis of the centre, the Brussels website Politico points to the triumph of Andrej Babiš (ANO) in the October elections at the expense of Petr Fiala (ODS), who, alongside Macron, Starmer and Merz, appears at the bottom of the list of political leaders in terms of public support.

According to American political scientist Sheri Berman, who works at Columbia University, the reason for the declining support for centrist parties can be linked to a general feeling of insecurity in society and dissatisfaction with the economic situation.

“In recent decades, voters have lost confidence that the mainstream established center-right and center-left parties can deal with the challenges facing society. In many cases, they even got the impression that they are not even interested in dealing with it,” he explains in an interview with Seznam Zzpravy.

People’s feeling that the politicians in power are not interested in their problems has opened the door to the success of far-right and populist parties. And he contributed to the fact that representatives of the younger generation, who often feel that they have been forgotten, have recently begun to join them in large numbers.

For example, Macron, who gained a respected position on the international stage through diplomatic actions, according to many, finally broke his neck precisely because he did not find enough empathy for the everyday problems of ordinary French people.

Therefore, according to foreign observers, he failed to fulfill one of his key promises when he took office – to prevent the expansion of the extreme right, which is represented in France by the National Association party with politician Marine Le Pen. On the contrary, he himself contributed to the fact that the extreme right ceased to be taboo for many voters.

“Before, some people voted for the extremes and said it was a protest vote. Today, many French people think that it is no longer just a protest, but a real alternative – and Macron may be responsible for that,” Stewart Chau, head of the Verian Group, an opinion polling agency, told The Guardian.

It apparently hurt British Prime Minister Starmer that even after almost a year and a half at the head of the country, he remains distant from the British. “The mystery of Keir Starmer – Who is he? What does he stand for? – we may already be in the last third of the novel, but we still don’t know what it’s really about,” British political scientist John Curtice told CNN, describing the prime minister’s weakness.

Centrist leaders often try to respond to declining support at the expense of radical and populist parties by donning their coattails and adopting their rhetoric.

Starmer, who in the past has opposed the demonization of migrants, surprised with sharper statements on the subject of migration in the spring. But he, like other moderate leaders, does not pay much for such tactics.

“No matter how tough he talks, it will never be enough for those who want zero immigration, total assimilation and deportations. But with a tougher tone, he can antagonize a lot of progressive voters,” British political scientist Tim Bale responded to Seznam Zpravy some time ago.

Although the situation at the moment does not sound too good for moderate center-left and center-right politicians, according to analyst Zerka, there is a chance that it will turn in their favor.

“The golden days of mainstream politics in recent decades are long gone. But that doesn’t mean centrists are inevitably on the wane. Mainstream parties, the boring ones, can profit from the era of Trump, Le Pen, (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orbán and Babiš,” he thinks.

“For many voters, politics in the age of Trump may have become too much of a spectacle, with irresponsible and too radical actions. Suddenly, many people may begin to value a certain kind of boring normality and a responsible approach to politics,” he estimates.

According to him, the current context can be an opportunity for a radical center. This was symbolized in his first presidential election by Emmanuel Macron, who presented himself as someone who firmly stands behind centrist values, but is not a defender of the old order.

Today we can see it, for example, in the chairman of the Dutch party Democrats 66, Rob Jetten, who won the recent Dutch elections, defeating the far-right Geert Wilders.

According to Zerka, “Trump’s spectacle” also offers opportunities to boring mainstream politicians, including the already mentioned Friedrich Merz and Keir Starmer, as well as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

In addition to offering “normalcy”, the key to their eventual success will be how they deal with hot topics such as migration and patriotism, which radical parties have effectively taken up in recent years.

“They have to recapture lost political territory and reappropriate the concepts that the extreme right has monopolized,” he summarizes.