Aloria

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Prime Minister Pengelly survives leadership spill
9 May 5634


Above: The PM was all smiles after party members backed her

Endelyn Pengelly, the Prime Minister of Aloria, has survived a crunch leadership vote after a third of her caucus submitted letters to the party's board in a bid to oust her. A ballot of the Llafur party's nearly 54,000 members resulted in Pengelly winning 26,435 (70.4%) votes to the no confidence motion's 11,106 (29.6%). Around 17,000 party members did not cast a ballot, resulting a turnout of 68%.

The Prime Minister described her victory as 'resounding' and said it put any speculation on her position 'to bed'. The majority of her fellow Llafur MPs backed the PM and cheered as she exited Llafur's Senedd party room victorious. 

The crushing blow to the anti-Pengelly campaign was when Finance Minister Max Tschirren refused to back the party coup, despite widespread anticipation that he would be next in line for the top job. Without his support, the move to oust the PM was fronted purely by backbenchers - particularly those from rural regions who fear they could be under threat from the upstart right-wing populist party Nyni, founded by their former colleague Hedyn Tresidder. The overwhelmingly urban membership of Llafur was apparently not convinced by the arguments for ditching the PM so close to an election - nor by Nevyn Kissack, the leader of the rebel group who could have taken over the party if Pengelly had been defeated. Kissack's low profile and lack of previous cabinet experience made him a largely unknown quantity, which ultimately was to his detriment in the eyes of most party members.

The result has been taken as a reprieve for Endelyn Pengelly's embattled premiership. Facing a rural revolt within her own party and rising discontent in her coalition partners' caucus room, the PM is going into an election later this year with a net negative approval rating of around -20%. Both the left-wing progressive Green Party and rural populist Nyni are polling over 10% for the first time while Pengelly's allies in the centre-right PDR are flailing in their eastern, Dundorfian-speaking heartlands.

Pengelly is likely to remain Prime Minister after the elections, as the PDR and the other major centre-right party (the Centre Party) are unlikely to have a majority between them. Neither would be in a position to refuse an offer to join Llafur in government, while both have rejected the idea of working with Nyni or the Alorian Green Party. The Greens, for their part, have said they would rather see Pengelly step down but would not vote against her if it would otherwise lead to a government involving Nyni.

Alôr Ar-Lein is a Cymerian-language news website based in Llyn, Aloria.