Word: blocs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That appeal worked just well enough to boost Bush to a respectable majority, although Dukakis did better than expected among Democrats who had voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. According to the NBC-Wall Street Journal Election Day poll, Bush captured just 41% of that critical bloc. Voters who decided late, many of them Reagan Democrats, broke in favor of Dukakis. Outside the South, this group is heavily Roman Catholic. One of the few Democratic consolations this week was that Dukakis had eked out a narrow majority (52% vs. 48%) among Catholics, who were once a pillar of the party...
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres sat expressionless in his hotel suite in Tel Aviv on election night as an aide handed him the first predictions. The figures showed Peres' left-of-center Labor Party virtually deadlocked with the right-wing Likud bloc. The small parties of right and left were racking up votes and gaining the balance of power. Peres slumped in his chair. If the trend held, his dream of an international peace conference and territorial compromise with the Palestinians in the occupied territories was doomed -- and his own political future uncertain...
...Hebrew University professor Ehud Sprinzak: "Most of the results have nothing to do with peace and security problems, but with a new sort of configuration inside Israel. The people are going back to God." Said Avraham Burg, a new Labor Deputy: "The results reflect a protest against the major blocs. The religious element is crystallizing into a third bloc, which will determine who will run Israel...
That third bloc could materialize because Israel's cumbersome proportional- representation system allocates disproportionate political power to small parties -- a mere 1% of the popular vote, roughly 20,000 ballots, can yield a Knesset seat. Once again the system prevented the country from electing a strong, united government. As Gad Ya'acobi, a Laborite and Minister of Economics and Planning, noted, "We have institutionalized the tyranny of the minority." To put together a slim majority, Shamir will have to accommodate not only the four religious parties but also three extreme-right secular factions whose platforms all advocate annexing the occupied...
...will win the soccer championship this season?" Answer: "The team with the fewest players in jail." But to most Hungarians, there is nothing very funny about the soccer bribery scheme that by last week had developed into one of the biggest sports scandals ever to touch the East bloc...