Tropica

[Blake]

5657 General Election

*Sunrise Network logo appears on the broadcast*

Voice over: “Welcome to the Sunrise Network Election Night Coverage.”

Anthony: Good evening, thank you for joining us for our special election night coverage. My name is Anthony Clarke, and I will be your host for this evening. I am joined by my cohosts John Baker, Kalā Kalili, Zack Spears, and my lovely wife, Natalie Clarke. Emma Baker is standing by our magic board to help us analyze the data as it comes in and make the calls about which party is likely to form a majority. I am going to hand it over to John so he can go over how we got here.

John: Thank you, Anthony. This election the polls have been all over the place. It is clear that the country is unhappy with the long-standing National Party majority. Which has been in power at this point for over ten years. However, after losing the last election the Labour Party elected Gerald Fenn, who was a minor minister in the very popular William Tama Governments. He is one of the last remaining members of parliament from that time. The problem is that he is over seventy years old and to a lot of traditional labour voters is just not an inspiring forward-thinking candidate they were hoping for. While for most of the time in the pre-campaign period they have held a small polling lead. However, the Labour Party really tried to lean into being a return to the Tama Governments. The National Party focused on the recession that ended the Tama governments and left so many people out of work. This coupled with the rise of a new political party on the left, the Alliance Party and the traditional Center Party, Act! Have left polls pretty unclear about which party would be leading the next government.

Labour Party Leader: Gerald Fenn


National Party Leader: Henry Shelton


Act! Leader: Andy Spence


Tropican First Party Leader: Wesley Tyson


Alliance Party Leader: Mālie Keahi

Natalie: That’s right John. Going into tonight the National Party has held a nice polling lead of about two percent. Well within the margin of error, but it has been a pretty consistent lead since the leaders debate about two weeks. Which opinion polls were pretty clear that Gerald Fenn was the clear loser of. However, the fact that the national party is not running away with this election despite everything clearly speaks to how much this country is ready for change away from the National Party and the government of Henry Shelton. The National Party’s near decade of austerity has led to the quality of public services to being the worst in decades. The National healthcare service has months long waitlists, class sizes are over thirty students. Struggling families are being pushed off of welfare in order for taxes on the wealthiest to be cut. Even areas that have been their historic strengths in public perception like the military and veterans have seen massive cuts. However, the one thing that this government has always had going for it is stability. Despite being a coalition government the National Party and the Centrist Party, Act! Have managed another five years of governance without a reshuffle or the threat of an early election.

Zach: Yeah that is the important thing not to forget in this discussion is that it is almost impossible that any party is going to reach an outright majority. So, we are going to see a continuation of the coalition government. Which has usually meant that the moderate social liberal party, Act! Will still remain in government. Their leader Andy Spence has continued their general campaign of being humanity in a National government and the reason in a Labour Government. They are pushing for expanding the free trade agreement and helping Tropican businesses spread their wings overseas. Making a point that Tropican companies are having an impossible time competing on the world stage and that is making it harder for them to compete and succeed at home.

I know we are all excited to talk about the Alliance Party, however, we should cover the elephant in the room first. The Tropican First Party. The far right isolationist party is led by Wesley Tyson. They are promising even more strict austerity, securing election integrity, and making it harder for migrants and refugees from entering into Tropican. I’d be remiss if I did not mention that by preserving election integrity what they really mean is making it harder for non-Luthorian Tropicans to vote. Since they first ran in parliamentary elections ten years ago they have been denounced by the Labour Party as being racist extremist and both parties have pledged never to work with the other. The Tropican First Party is polling at its highest ever, and according to Emma, the odds that the National Party will be able to put together a coalition without them is extremely low. The Tropican First Party has made it clear that they would need major concessions in order to enter into government with the National party.

Kalā: That brings us to our final major contender of this election, the Alliance Party. This is the first federal election that they are competing in. After the Green Party merged with Labour there has not been another voice on the left except the ethnic Tropican parties. The problem there is that those parties struggled to find broader appeal outside of their demographic. So as Labour has proven to be more and more ineffective there have been calls for a new party on the left. One that could successfully challenge the National Party. Which is how the Alliance Party was born. They were founded by a number of school teachers and other public service workers who left those professions due to the National Party’s budget cuts. They have had a few surprise elections including taking a safe labour seat in a by-election. However, they have performed such as where they placed fourth in the New Kosmos mayoral election. They tend to do strong when Labour’s candidates are considered weaker. They are also very popular with those under the age of thirty and when youth turnout is very high they have been able to pull off their upsets. It is unclear how well they are going to do tonight as they have been the most inconsistent party when it comes to polling, ranging from single digits to high twenties depending on the pollster. Their candidate for Prime Minister is Mālie Keahi who is the only Tropican up for the position this cycle.



Anthony: With polls closing we are expecting the results of the exit poll shortly. Let’s go around the table and make predictions, just who will be the largest party and who is in second. I’ve got the National Party with Labour a close second.

John: National Party largest with Labour a clear second.

Zach: I agree with you John, however, I’d go further. National Party first with the Alliance Party a clear second.

Anthony: Wow.

Natalie: National Party with Labour a distant second. It is going to be a very bad night for Labour. They are going to really need to ask themselves who they are and how they need to change if they are ever going to win an election again.

Emma: National Party winning with Labour a close second. I think it is going to be incredibly close and it could take a few days to sort out all the rounds from the multi member districts.

Kalā: I’ll go against the grain and say virtual tie between Labour and the National party.

Anthony: There you go, our panel has at best the Labour Party and National Party tied. Not shaping up to be Labour’s night. I believe we have the exit poll ready. Let’s take a look.

John: Wow.

*Graphic under the screen: National Party to be largest party.*

Kalā: I would not want to be Gerald Fenn, tonight.

Emma: Now we should clarify these are just first preference votes in the constituencies so it could shape up to be a bit different than this. But it is fairly safe to say that the National Party will be the largest party even with that large swing against them. You are not wrong though. This is probably a terrible night for Labour. Not only are you out of power again but you’re only barely the largest leftwing party.

Anthony: Reactions on social media have been pretty tense with many Labour MPs blaming the Alliance Party for forcing labour to compete with them instead of being able to focus on an anti-national party message.

Natalie: I mean when you run a bad campaign you can find someone to blame but they probably should be focused on looking internally. The exit poll’s other questions show that Gerald Fenn had the highest unfavorables of any party leader.

Zach: I believe that we are getting some results, now this is mostly from the rural constituencies that only need to elect five members. But so far with about one hundred seats called. The National Party has won forty seats. Labour is performing better than the poll suggests at about thirty. With Alliance down at fifteen.

Emma: Yes, however, I’d caution against making the assumption that the night is going to turn out better for labour. The rural seats not only largely favor the National Party, but they are also much more Luthorian than the urban districts which is where we are expecting Alliance to do the best. The old Labour homelands. The interesting part is that in traditional suburban areas Labour is over performing. This is where the National Party really lost voters and could be a worrying sign for the future for them.

John: I’m being told that the Tropican First Party is seeing a surprising number of second place rankings from National Party voters. Could be a sign that their voters are much more comfortable with the idea of them being a member of the coalition than in previous elections.

Anthony: I believe we have a bit of breaking news. Labour’s Gerald Fenn has placed second in first preference votes in his constituency of New Kosmos Central. Losing out to Charlotte O’Hare of the Alliance Party. He still has crossed the threshold to be elected in parliament but still it is shocking as he has always done very well there.

Kalā: I do not believe you can get much clearer than that on where the problem for Labour is. They set themselves up for this. The Alliance Party has been able to take advantage of an electorate that wants change but did not see it from Labour.

Zach: This is not to take anything away from the Alliance Party as they’ve done very well, but I wonder if they did benefit from largely not having a history that could be attacked or pointed to as their opponents. The National Party was focused on the last Labour Government and its mismanagement in their campaign, and it seems to have worked at least enough. Whereas there’s little to say that the Alliance Party would be bad for Tropica because they just have not done anything.

Anthony: Maybe, but I do not think anyone would have predicted that they would have done this well. We should be getting the final numbers back. Yes. National Party 138, Labour 111, Alliance Party 78, Act! 42, Tropican First 31.

Emma: In theory that means that the National Party is not guaranteed to be the next government. But I don’t know that either three party coalitions are going to be very stable. How would Act! And Tropican First works in a coalition, and if Labour leads a government how do you manage that Act! Isn’t going to want to abandon austerity which is the main pitch of both Labour and Alliance.

John: I’m not sure but in his victory speech Henry Shelton promised National Party supporters that they would lead the next government while Gerald Fenn has stated he will explore every option to denying the Nationals a government. Coalition negotiations are likely going to be taking place for a few weeks. They have until the end of the recess in January to have reached a deal or there will be another round of elections.

Anthony: It is quite the exciting time in Tropican politics. We will be providing coverage and updates regarding negotiations. Take care and enjoy tomorrow’s Sunrise!