(10 May 2015)  By all accounts, Thursday’s UK election was one of the most dramatic in years as David Cameron’s Conservatives scored a surprising victory over a humiliated Labour Party.  The Conservatives shocked pollsters by winning an outright majority of seats and therefore they did not require a coalition as in the previous parliament.   Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP was the other big winner on Thursday as her pro-independence party took 56 out of a possible 59 seats in Scotland.  Despite last year’s defeat of the Scottish referendum, this huge win will likely put the independence issue back on the table.  

The big losers on the night were Labour’s Ed Miliband who resigned immediately after the disastrous results were announced.  Nick Clegg and Liberal Democrats were reduced to a rump of just eight seats and he also resigned after the election.   Finally, UKIP’s Nigel Farage kept his promise and resigned after he failed to win his own seat. 

Cameron’s win was certainly in line with my interpretation of the planets of the party leaders.  Last week, I was quite confident in predicting that Cameron and the Conservatives would win the election.  His chart was looking strong using a variety of indicators — the Sun dasha, the Jupiter transit to the 11th house, the Venus transit to the 10th, as well as a few different progressions.  But I was a bit unclear just how he would win, however, since the horoscope of his then coalition partner Nick Clegg of the LDP didn’t look very good.  Now we know why — the LDP party lost most of its seats and popular support as he was forced to resign. I had wondered if Clegg’s weak planets might somehow translate into a lower seat total but still big enough for the LDP to keep Cameron in power.  But as it turned out, Cameron’s win was so big that no additional seats were needed.  While Cameron’s win was quite predictable using astrology, it was unclear just how big the win would be.  This is one of the limitations of doing political predictions in multi-party Parliamentary systems where not all wins are created equal.  By contrast, the US two-party system produces unequivocal results that better lend themselves to clear predictions. 

Nicola Sturgeon’s success was also not surprising given her powerful Jupiter-Mars dasha as well as the transit of Jupiter through her 10th house.  I thought the nodal transit of (Rahu) to her difficult 6/12 house axis might cause some problems.  Perhaps the weakness of Labour and the strength of the Conservatives meant that her ultimate goal of a governing coalition with Labour could not occur.  But the size of the SNP sweep certainly took  a lot of the sting out of that failed scenario. 

Miliband’s chart was as bad as forecast.  There was very little chance he could win with his weak Mercury-Moon dasha.  He also suffered a nodal transit to the 6/12 axis.

From my perspective, the biggest puzzle of the election was Nigel Farage and UKIP.  I thought we would have been more successful given his fairly good Rahu-Jupiter dasha and the Jupiter transit to his Sun.   While the UKIP only won one seat, they did raise their vote total from 3% in 2010 to more than 12%.  That was positive result for Farage to be sure and reflected the UKIP growth in popularity over the past several years.  However, his failure to win his own seat meant that he had to resign the party leadership so I missed the mark there.  In hindsight, the Saturn opposition transit to his 10th lord Venus (=status) was likely one reason why he suffered this setback.  But the story of Farage and UKIP may not yet have been written, since many commentators expect him to stand again for re-election as party leader in their next convention in September.  Unlike Clegg and Miliband, Farage’s election night resignation may only be temporary.   I hope to revisit this intriguing question of Farage’s political future in the coming weeks.

David Cameron’s swearing-in chart may provide more information about the nature and direction of his new administration.  I would think the swearing-in horoscope could help us better understand the risks of Scottish secession during the next five years.

Weekly Financial Update

Stocks were mixed last week as US and European markets mostly rose while Asian markets including India moved lower.  I had been fairly cautious about last week given the range of planetary influences in play.  In last week’s stock market forecast, I thought we might have seen more selling in the second half of the week but stocks were generally weaker from Tuesday until Thursday in most markets. 

This week looks similarly iffy as Saturn is again prominent as Mars opposes it on Friday.  The aspect brings together the two most malefic planets in astrology and hence should be seen as a warning.   Gains are still possible but they are more likely to be erased by any sudden sell-offs.  Mars enters tropical Gemini on Tuesday so that is an added burden on collective sentiment this week.