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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 24 May 2008 |
Despite official attempts to relax the eastern bloc's grip on Eurovision in the voting, only two west European countries qualified from the first semi-final last night.
Last night's semi-final saw the introduction of a new voting system, prompted by severe criticism of the results last year, which saw no western European entrants advancing to the final from the semi.
So to counteract political and neighbourly voting, the semi-finalists this year were separated according to their traditional voting patterns. Baltic, former Yugoslav and Scandinavian countries have all been split, as well as neighbours Greece and Cyprus, and the UK and Ireland - hence why the UK is only allowed to vote in the second semi-final on Thursday.
So, did it work? Well, out of seven western European countries competing last night, only two have made it through - Norway and Greece - although, geographically at least, Greece is closest to its northeasterly neighbours. Better than last year, but it still falls far short of the eight eastern European countries out of the ten who did qualify.
To be fair, that might still be down to luck, the fact that there are more eastern European countries competing or even - gasp - on the quality of the songs, rather than evidence of a darker plot for eastern European Eurovision supremacy.
But cheeky Finnish rockers Terasbetoni wasted no time after their semi-final success in encouraging a return to preferential voting.
In last night's press conference following the semi-final, they called for Nordic nations to stick together and support each other. Now, boys, that's not really the spirit of the contest - or is it?
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