Valruzia

[Aethan]

5725 Valruzian elections: Aleksandra Kos elected Chancellor–President as left loses ground for the first time ever

Sovereign Valruzia retains absolute majority as poker of women reflect on the results

January 5725

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It's official: Aleksandra Kos will replace Gawel Sandów at the helm of the Valruzian Republic. The leader of Sovereign Valruzia, who succesfully ran to become the candidate of the Valusian voivodeship – Valruzia's most populated region – has won in the first round with 50.3% of the vote share, defying the odds that placed her well below the threshold for direct election and in a tight run-off with second-placed candidate Urban Cisło, who has ended up winning over 29% of the vote, way below Mrs. Kos. Therefore, Sandów's pupil will become the second Chancellor–President of Valruzia. And she will do so ruling with the party she commands, as Sovereign Valruzia has kept its absolute majority in the Sejm – albeit losing 2 seats – after winning 49.8% of the vote share.

In fact, the most remarkable event of the electoral night is not that Sovereign Valruzia lost its majority of vote share (coming from 50.9% from the 5720 elections to 49.8% tonight) but that, for the first time since Valruzia's transition to democracy, all Valruzian parties positioned on the left of the political spectrum (which include as of now the Communist Party of Valruzia, the People's Front of Kampania and Sovereign Valruzia) have lost both vote share and seats in the national assembly of the nation.

Despite still account for around 2/3 of the total counted votes and the right only increasing their vote share by merely 2 points, many political analysts speculate that what has avoided a bigger catastrophe in the Valruzian left – and especially in the Communist Party of Valruzia – has been the high turnout of 83.6%, 7 points higher than the past elections. Without this last-minute mobilization, attributed mostly to last days of campaign of the KPW after the party failed to reach an agreement with the People's Front of Kampania, some political experts agree that the debacle could have been "much worse". 

The numbers do not lie. To have a glimpse of how much importance the turnout has had, we can take a look at Sovereign Valruzia results: from the looks of it, the party has lost both vote share (–1.1%) and seats (2). However, in the 5720 elections the party got around 50 million votes. In this election, Sovereign Valruzia has been chosen by more than 57 million citizens. A 7 million netto increase in number of votes. And that's the same amount of votes that has received the second placed, center-right Forward Valruzia: more than 5 million votes, up to 29 million. Their highest ever number of votes. And still, their vote share is only their fifth highest, as a result of the huge mobilization. And that's why the KPW has been also saved. While their total counting of votes have only improved by around 100,000, it has been enough to keep them afloat. If its supporters would have decided to stay home instead of hearing the last-minute call, we could have probably seen it as the smallest party in the Sejm, perhaps even below the far-right of Valruzian Alliance. And that, for a party that once commanded more than 50% of the vote share, would have definitely been a nail in their political coffin.

For now, Aleksandra Kos can breathe calmly. She has the majority to form a single-party government, a party she's the leader of, unlike her predecessor in the post, and she has five more years to apply her political program. But for the left as a whole, and Sovereign Valruzia wants to be included in that label more and more every time, they better pray tonight's result is only a once-in-a-lifetime situation, and not the general trend. Because if not, it means the Valruzian right is rising.

And that's what they were thinking in the headquarters of Forward Valruzia in Nowogard. Despite their candidate coming second in the Presidential round and their party falling to the same place once again, the high increase in voter numbers tell them that "something is changing" and that citizens "are waking up" according to a senior official. In fact, in her political speech after the results were announced, Forward Valruzia's leader Janina Dubinska said that the party now had "a clear route to follow" and that she has "the map to sail these seas". "We are at the start of something big. Earthquakes usually start with small temblors, but once the big one comes, things change", she said. Meanwhile, KPW's Kaja Orlikowska, a figure that became known for her criticism on the "coup d'etat" in Xsampa and her support for the "Democratic Opposition" of the Dovanian country, acknowledged the bad results, but assured that she would stay in the post because a good leader "does not abandon its partners when things turn ugly".

In fact, there was another highlight of tonight's elections: for the first time ever in modern democratic Valruzia, all five parties that gained – or better said, kept – seats in the Sejm were led by women, a fact that also made international headlines. And for the first time too, the Valruzian Sejm will feature more female deputies than males, with a proportion of 53-47%.