Saridan

[Rogue]

Sonskaap - In a suprising election win, the Progressive-Social Democratic combination has won a plurality of seats in the Tasselstaat Provincial Assembly last night, defeating the SNP. While the SNP was largely favoured to win in almost every poll the new P-SD combination managed to pull a strong ground game, winning in certain electoral districts where they were expected to lose before. The previous Progressive government was relatively unpopular, prompting many to believe the polls at first. But just 4 months before the election the Tasselstaat Progressives announced that they would enter the provincial elections in a electoral combination with the social democrats. Additionally current Premier Hansie Loots announced he would not lead this new combination, instead popular social democratic lawmaker Hein Adams would lead this combined ticket. 

Within the next few months they ran a near perfect campaign, travelling throughout the province and concluding the campaign with one of the largest political rallies seen in the province in years. At least 30.000 supporters gathered in Sonskaap and cheered Adams and his team, hearing them speak passionately about new and fresh ideas. The SNP ran a relatively dull campaign, trying to prevent taking harsh positions on a variety of issues in order to remain appealling to a majority. This strategy made the party nearly invisible in the campaign, with Adams and his P-SD combination gaining all the attention. 

When the final votes were counted, the P-SD celebrated as the party won 36% of the vote, resulting in 38 seats in the 100 seat provincial assembly. The SNP came second, capturing around 19 seats with the smaller Federals capturing 13 and other minor parties capturing the rest. In order to form a majority, Adams has contacted the Federals in order to form a coalition government of progressives, social democrats and liberals. In his victory speech, premier-elect Adams called his win "a victory for all that want a social and just Tasselstaat". he has already announced that his first focus as premier will be the strengthening of Tasselstaat's business climate, investments into the healthcare sphere and the introduction of provincial policies regarding family leave and the introduction of a minimum wage. Federal SNP leader Andries Pienaar has refused to comment on the results, with no one from the SNP available for a comment. 

The succes of the combination is helping efforts for the progressives and social democrats to run a joint list in next years federal elections, with Progressive leader Elizabeth Lombard calling it "a sign of the times" and pushing her socdem colleagues to make a formal agreement soon.