Luthori

[Ligbruderkrieg]

The people have spoken and they have chosen not to renew their confidence to Prime Minister Parkford’s Conservatives, instead throwing their hat with Mrs. Martha Tapihana’s National Labour Party. Following a hard-fought campaign on both sides, and an impressive campaign from some third-party politicians, aiming at taking some of the media’s attention off the two largest parties. 

For some months now, Luthorian and international media have broadcasted on the “inevitability” of a Labour victory in the event of the organisation of election, this sentiment being caused by the National Labour Party consistently polling first place in polls from 5726 onwards. 

Recently, an opinion poll released days before the election showed that Labour was on track to secure a “moderate” victory, akin to securing an outright majority in the Imperial Diet and securing a decent margin between the threshold and their majority. This projection showed Labour winning between 264 and 281 seats in the Diet, while the Tories were expected to fall at 136 to 149 seats.

These expectations were fulfilled tonight, as the exit poll at 10 p.m. Fort William Time (GMT-9) broadcasted on all major television networks projected a Labour majority government. The first projections showed the Conservatives losing an average of 140 seats, coming down from their majority of 286 seats to 148 seats, losing their majority and status as the largest party in the Diet in the same occasion. Meanwhile their rivals in the National Labour Party were projected to secure 275 seats, an increase of approximately 143 seats. 

Immediately after the first exit poll, the Labour side erupted with celebrations, although Mrs. Tapihana, the future Luthorian Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen. Official party statements addressed this by stating the Leader of the Opposition was “waiting until definitive results could be drawn” before making her victory speech.

After three hours, official results were pre-emptively released by the Imperial Electoral Committee, the results were as follows: National Labour: 264 seats; Conservative: 139 seats; Hosian People’s: 27 seats; Liberal: 22 seats; Left: 13 seats; Green: 8 seats; Independents: 4 seats. In terms of popular vote, the NLP won 37.8% of the national popular vote, the Tories won 30.6%, the Hosian People’s Party 11.4%, the Liberal Party won 10.3%, the Left Party secured 5.7% and the Greens 4.2%.



What was notable in this election cycle apart from the impressive, yet noticeable underperformance of the National Labour Party was the fact that the Hosian People’s Party (HPP), Luthori’s hard right political formation overtook the Liberal Party as the third largest political force in the country. Indeed, following the terrorist attacks in Fort William, using the wave of discontent among right-wing voters with the Conservative government’s inability to deal with the crisis and using the rise of the Labour Party as an electoral strategy to win those voters by waving the anti-communist sentiment, high among those voters as a way to tie them to the HPP.

Furthermore, the rise of the Left Party, at the expense of the Green Party, overtaking its place as the traditional “second” left-wing political formation, just behind the National Labour Party was credited with left-wing electors who didn’t wish to “uphold the bipartisan system of the Tory and Labour parties” voting for the Left Party to contain the “threat” of the HPP upon Luthorian democracy. The disappointing performance of the Greens encouraged some form of self-reflection in regards of this night, both co-leaders Jenna Pershay and Joshua Tambell announced their resignation and the organisation of an emergency leadership election.

The Greens’ result of 8 seats represents their worst-ever showing in a general election to this date.

For his part, the Prime Minister offered his concession speech late in the night, holding his press conference at 12:33 am, after having secured re-election in his long-held seat of Heckers. He congratulated Mrs. Tapihana on an “hard-fought campaign” and wished her the best in the future, he also congratulated his campaign staff for having “sticked with him to the very end”, even if he recognised that their campaign wasn’t enough to convince the Luthorian voters to re-elect them for a second term in government. His speech was widely praised across the political spectrum as being “solemn”, “honest” and breaking from his usual campaign rhetoric to adopt a more conciliant tone, something that has been remarked to have been lacking in this campaign.

The first female prime minister, Martha Tapihana is expected to address the crowd of impatient Labour Party supporters shortly.