Istalia

[XanderOne]

Elections 5627: The Patriotic Front keeps Majority but the Istalian Falange leaves the Government

The new electoral system influenced greatly the establishment of a stable political landscape and now negotiations will likely involve the Hosian Democratic Union which anyways demands important reforms

18 November 5627

The last weekend it was general election day in Istalia with istalian entitled voters called to the polls in this unusual cold spring of 5627 to elect the next National Congress with the new electoral system. The elections just concluded represent a further consolidation of the national political landscape, marking a further step in the definition of institutional and political balances of the country. A key aspect of this electoral round was the broad expansion of the electoral basin, which reached 46% of the adult population, with a turnout of 82% among those entitled to vote (73 milions of citizens circa).
It was also the first consultation held with the new instant-runoff voting system, approved after a long parliamentary debate. The adoption of this system was strongly contested by the Falange Istaliana, the Party of New Communists, originally also by the Hosian Democratic Union, and by several extraparlamentary forces, among which Sovereign Istalia, which labelled the agreement between FPI and PSD on the new electoral law as the "unholly alliance". The criticisms, now very hard under electoral campaign, have now intensified in the aftermath of a vote called too close to the elections, says the opposition to the new law, with many complaining about how the system favour the major forces at the expense of representation.

Analysing the vote, in fact, the Patriotic Front, dominant party, benefited from the majority system and strong support in the military constituencies, while the Democratic Socialist Party remains the main opposition force, obtaining both more seats than their percentage of the popular vote, the PSD to a lesser extent than the FPI.
The Hosian Democratic Union get a good result but was penalized by the competition in the run-off elections obtaining a higher percentage of the vote than the seats won. The smaller parties too (FI, IS, PNC) obtained fewer seats than the votes actually received, didn't even enjoying strong strongholds or strategic support in the second round preferences. Istalian Falange and Sovereign Istalia suffered from the electoral system, although the former kept his support among the military. The Party of New Communist, despite having a greatly reduced electoral base after the recent internal turmoils, and despite having lost the traditional stronghold of Burìa, managed to maintain parliamentary representation, paradoxically gaining more seats than Sovereign Istalia thanks to the military vote, which saw the FPI, FI and PSD favored, and UOD and PNC gaing the rest, the latter supported by the once most loyal members of the Socialist Republic's military. IS, instead, didn't even achieved to gain support among the Armed Forces, thus PNC overtaking IS in the National Congress.

This was the composition of the vote casted:

Civil constituencies (356 seats)

Patriotic Front of Istalia: 128 (34,6%)
Democratic Socialist Party: 85 (26,0%)
Hosian Democratic Union: 62 (16,5%)
Istalian Falange: 43 (12,3%)
Party of the New Communists: 20 (5,4%)
Sovereign Istalia: 18 (5,0%)
Others: - (0.2%)

Military constituencies (119 seats)

Patriotic Front of Istalia: 73 59%)
Democratic Socialist Party: 36 (32%)
Istalian Falange: 6 (5%)
Party of the New Communists: 3 (3%)
Hosian Democratic Union: 1 (1%)

The official results on the distribution of te seats were released yesterday by the National Electoral Committee of the Minister of Interior and National Affairs, showing the composition of the next National Congress as below:

Patriotic Front of Istalia (FPI): 201 seats
Socialist Democratic Party (PSD): 121 seats
Hosian Democratic Union (UOD): 63 seats
Istalian Falange (FI): 49 seats
Party of New Communists (PNC): 23 seats
Sovereign Istalia (IS): 18 seats

The Patriotic Front, that before the elections merged with the Veterans Party, confirmed thus its relative majority, although it has suffered a slight drop, but now it no longer has an absolute majority without the support of the Istalian Falange. The rift between the two parties, culminating with FI leaving the Government, has deepened during the electoral campaign, favoring the opposition.

The ones that gained ground were the Democratic Socialist Party (PSD), which increased its result by two percentage points, and above all the Hosian Democratic Union (UOD), which jumped to third place, followed by Istalian Falange and then the new entry Sovereign Istalia, which with a populist platform, left-wing on economics but conservative on social issues such as immigration, ended close to the PNC into the civil constituencies, although being eventually penalized by the allocation of the military seats.

The big loser of this election is the Party of New Communists which, after the name change and internal tensions, suffered a collapse, stopping at 5% and, as already said, gaining a larger advanced over Sovereign Istalia only thanks to the military constituencies. The leadership has in fact expelled numerous popular members, accusing them of reactionary positions on the immigration issue, denuncing their transformism seeking just personal gains within the framework of the new majoritarian voting system, and for supporting the new rules of electoral emancipation, considered an anti-democratic limitation of the right of vote. Among the expelled members, now merged into the PSD, the most prominent ones actually exploited their personal political grip on Burìa to snatch to the PNC the city, where the communists had established a solid electoral base since the end of the Patriotic War.
The party, in fact, continues to support its progressive and inclusive vision about immigration issues, believing that only a broader cultural integration can heal the ethnic fracture of the country, but this alienated a lot of their electors of Burìa, concerned by the high numbers of refugee camps in the province and close to the city.

About the vote turnout, as already said, these elections have seen an unprecedented shift, with the number of eligible voters doubling to 46% of the adult population. The surge is due to the fact that a large percentage of the new adults, and not only, in the past five years have completed a period of service in the Armed Forces or Civil Service programs, which last three years and are the main paths to voting rights.

With the official and definitive results released, the Patriotic Front, with the Istalian Falange out of the picture, will now have to look for new allies to form a stable government. Attention has shifted to the Hosian Democratic Union, which could enter a governing coalition but not without conditions: the party will bring to the negotiating table the demand for a restructuring and expansion of welfare, a progressive reform of the income tax, and new policies to protect workers. On this last point there has been a heated competition between UOD and PSD, the former supporting policies that promote cooperation between different social categories, the latter pushing instead for a greater centrality of the role of unions, especially within large industrial realities, with greater participation of workers in determining the strategies of companies.

The next few weeks will be decisive for the formation of the new government. The consultations of the Regent, Grand Prince of the Crown Alessandro, will begin next week and will define the future political structure of the country.