Valruzia

[Aethan]

The government launches the presidential election process following the death of Urszula Pawlik

The President died at her home at the age of 80

February 5712

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"The President of Valruzia, Urszula Pawlik, passed away at 3:41 a.m. today, February 21, 5712, as a result of cardiac arrest. We ask for respect for her family during this difficult time." This was the statement released this morning, which many citizens of Valruzia woke up to. Urszula Pawlik, elected in the year 5687 and with her term extended by referendum in the year 5702, has been the only conservative political figure to date to reach the highest echelons of power in Valruzia, and became an icon of the new conservatism, thanks to her easygoing, approachable style and the good relations she managed to cultivate with Kalistan and its current empress, among other things.

After the news broke, the Sejm of Valruzia observed a minute of silence in honor of the late president, and the government ordered flags to be flown at half-mast at all official institutions for three days, in addition to announcing a state funeral in the coming days.

Upon the President's death, Anna Piechowska, Marshal of the Sejm and member of the Social Democratic-Agrarian Party, became interim president until new elections are held, which must take place within a maximum period of six months after going through all the different electoral levels as stipulated by the current system.

After the minute of silence, the Sejm proceeded to elect a new Marshal of the Sejm to replace the interim president, a position that has now fallen to another SPR deputy, Kaja Kosub, thanks to the government agreement between the KPW, SW, and SPR and amid criticism from Forward Valruzia, who has demanded that one of its deputies assume the presidency "in accordance with the ideology of the late president." Chancellor Judyta Kram has criticized Forward Valruzia for "their lack of moral character" for even raising this possibility, pointing out that President Pawlik "never wanted to be associated with a single political party", and considered it "a stain on her memory" to try to link her to Forward Valruzia "simply because of a series of ideological positions that the president may have held", to applause from her party. Now, the government is setting in motion the complex mechanism for electing the next president:

Under the provisions of the Head of State Reform Act (5686), the President of Valruzia has to be elected through a multi-level indirect-direct process structured in five consecutive stages:

1. Neighbourhood Assemblies – Citizens gather in local assemblies (osiedlowe zgromadzenia) to nominate and elect a neighbourhood candidate.
2. Municipal Elections – All neighbourhood candidates within a municipality compete in a citywide vote, in which citizens select their preferred municipal candidate.
3. District Elections – The elected municipal candidates proceed to the district level (powiat), where citizens vote again to determine the district winners.
4. Regional Selection – The district winners within each Voivodeship compete in a regional vote. If no candidate obtains more than 50% of valid votes, a runoff is held between the top two contenders to decide the official Voivodeship candidate.
5. National Election – The five Voivodeship candidates advance to the national stage, where the President of Valruzia is chosen by popular vote. As in the regional stage, if no candidate secures an outright majority, a second round between the two leading candidates is held one month later.

As the law establishes too, the candidates must fulfill a series of requirements, including to be – exclusively – a citizen of Valruzia, to be at least 30 years of age, to be no more than 80 years old, to have resided in national soil for at least 20 years, to speak fluent Valruzian and Luthorian and to be politically independent during the whole nomination and Presidency.

From the candidates that constested the first – and to date, only – Presidential elections under this system, none of them is below the age of 60, and all of them have ruled out running again for the position, especially since the system makes it extremely complicated to be nominated twice.