Why is it that ...

[module]

...right of center parties are making greater gains from the economic crisis than left of center parties?

As somebody just theorised on BBC news, people trust right wing parties more with the economy.
So, people do not see this as a problem with it's basis in capitalism, rather they have a strong trust in capitalism itself and see the problem lying in poor management. It is true that conservative governments have a reputation for economic strength and stability.
Is the problem not that the 'far left' is seen simply as the ideas of the center left taken further? The 'political spectrum' is misleading and uselessly simplistic (except for the maintenence of the mainstream parties, of course). This is something I have thought about a few times before. How useful is it for socialists to identify as a 'far left' ideology? So, two questions, but.. yes.

[Dimitri]

I think that the most gains in the European elections were not made by the right wing, nor the social-democrats.
It was abstention that 'won' the European elections. The abstention rate, was over 50%, which means that most working class people did not bother to vote, hence the 'victory' of the right wing.

But then the question is. Why didn't workers bother to vote? It is clear that it is due to the opportunism and complete right wing turn of their traditional mass parties. The traditional parties of the working class were taken over by the right wing of the party (Third Way etc) in the previous historical epoch ( 1990-2008), due to various reasons. One of them is the "final victory of capitalism" , after the collapse of Communism, among other reasons. This has made those parties undistinguishable from the conservative parties.

So this taking over of the mass organizations, by the right wing and also the trade unions by the bureaucrats, makes the traditional mass organizations of the working class to be unable to give answers to the crisis or lead the working class in the struggle against unemployment etc.

This dissilutions the working class and leaves it indifferent to the elections and further dissilutions the backward layers of the working class and makes them vulnerable to nationalist and populist rhetoric.

But this situation will not remain the same for a long period of time. The working class, moving first through their unions in the fightback against unemployment, wage cuts etc. will swipe away the union bureaucracy and elect left-reformist, centrist or even marxist leadership. This will reflect itself in the traditional partis of the working class, which are organicaly linked to the unions. Signs of this are already apparent in Greece, where the leader of the social-democratic party (PASOK), started talking about "socialism or barbarism".

Another lesson from this abstention is that the working class will move first through their mass organizations. The tons of sectarian "vanguards" that exist in Europe, did not even manage to win 1% of the vote. It is clear that in times of  ferment the workers will move first through their unions as they have done until now and subsequently to their mass organizations, transforming them and making them a fertile place for marxists to work in and give a marxist solution and leadership.

[P.O.U.M]

As Dimitri said, the workers parties and social democrats offered no real alternative. Just pussy footing around the real problems facing Europe.

And it's not really a much of a win for the right either. The pro-free market parties increased by 23 out of 736 seats. That comes out to a 3.1% increase. It's the left parties that failed to take advantage of the crisis. Not the movement of the people switching to the right. As the huge abstention rate shows.

A good example is the BNP. The Northwest candidate got fewer votes this year than 5 years ago. Add on that he only got 8.0% of the vote out of a 31.7% turnout rate. Not many people voted for him. Just goes to show the political disenfranchisement of the people.

[Realzowi]

The election results of the European Parliament elections were very different in each country.
First of all, there was a lot abstention. That is not strange, because the EP is not very powerful.
The Social democrats were punished for their Third Way politics mostly. In the Netherlands the rightwing Party for the Freedom gained a lot votes. This is mostly because that party is the only party with a 'protest image'. The left-reformist SP tried to copy their anti-Europe stance, with no success. The latest months they have come out as a pro-Keynesian party that partially supported the bailouts. Where then is the difference with the social democrats?
The social democrats are in crisis. If there is a political shift to the right, it certainly won't be permanent. What is needed is a good leftwing alternative, a revolutionary marxist alternative. That is the most important.

[rjones2818]

As long as the major 'left' parties remain part of the neoliberal tendancy, the left won't see anything come of this economic crisis.  New Labour, much the same as the New Democrats in the US, have poisoned anything to the left of say Blair, Brown or Obama.  The choice, at this point, seems to be stay within the injured 'left' parties and try to rebuild a socialist perspective, or bolt to a new party (which may turn out to be just as inured as the party you're leaving -- see the anti-capitalist party in France, if I'm understanding the writings about them).