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The mirage of social democracy’s ‘resurgence’
A number of recent European election results show not a return to the centre, but a gathering of an increasing number of fragments out of which to construct governments, writes KEVIN OVENDEN

THE Norwegian and German general elections last September — the Portuguese last month.

Each, especially the last with the surprise majority for the centre-left prime minister Antonio Costa, has been taken as evidence of a revival of the European social democratic parties after nearly three decades of apparently inexorable decline.

Norway and Germany have social democratic-led governments replacing previous coalitions dominated by the centre right.

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