NationStates Jolt Archive

Election Results in, Progressive Party Wins Narrow Minority
From the Atherlon Times

Kyle Bradshaw, Atherlon. With 642 of 675 ridings' results finalized, it appears Jaime Wolfe's Social Liberal Party has been defeated in what was touted by some as a test of faith in the party but not the man.

Bruno Hudson's Progressive Party appears to have taken the largest share of the votes. With 33 ridings left to finalize their vote tallies, the Progressives have taken a definite 254 seats in Parliament, and are still contenders in 26 more not-yet-finalized districts, bringing them to a possible 280 seats, with 338 needed to form a majority government. The Social Liberals have the next largest share of the results, with 212 confirmed seats and around 30 more still being contested.

The largest domestic news this election, of course, is related to a dramatic paradigm shift in Harakian politics. The Social Liberals have been considered the dominant force in the Harakian parliament since their formation as a merger of the Liberal Harakian and Social Democratic Parties two decades ago, which established the SLP as the dominant force on the left. They were opposed by Haraki's three main right-wing parties: the Nationalist Party, the Conservative Democrat Party, and the United Front of Haraki. This election was characterized by a merger of the Conservative Democrat and United Front into the Progressive Party of Haraki, a rightist coalition intended to rival the Social Democrats, which has apparently succeeded.

The Social Liberal Party has been rocked by scandals and international incidents since its victory in the last election. In the last election, the SLP dream ticket of Angela Shepherd and Roger Gains as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, respectively, managed to win a resounding 523-seat victory, a crippling majority that seemed to have marginalized the opposition parties for good.

However, that election was followed by Shepherd's military reunification campaigns and subsequent scandals, including the murder of Roger Gains and the revelation, by Jaime Wolfe, of Shepherd's hidden ultra-nationalist agenda. Shepherd was removed from power by a three-quarters confidence vote in the Social Liberal Party, something unheard of since the removal of Prime Minister Kemíl, six decades ago. That same session of parliament instated the formerly-retired Prime Minister Jaime Wolfe as the new Social Liberal Prime Minister. Shepherd was subsequently found dead of a suspected suicide, and a small portion of the SLP's members of parliament branched out into a splinter party, the Shepherd Party, under Shepherd's foreign minister Jonathan Friedman.

Since then, the Social Liberals have faced increasing pressure from internal and external threats. Externally, the nation was faced with tense foreign relations with many other democratic states resulting from a rivalry between the Sovereign League and the region of Gholgoth – of which Haraki is a part – as well as the New Alliance Treaty Organization, an alliance Haraki helped found years ago. This rivalry culminated in the Four Days War, in which Haraki played a nominal role on the side of Gholgoth and NATO. Wolfe faced some internal pressure from other parties which criticized his steadfast stance of 'siding with allies despite their political and civil rights abuses', as Douglas Finley, head of the Libertarian Party, declared. In addition, Wolfe came under increasing fire for government policies regarding exorbitantly high tax rates, which Wolfe refused to raise but also steadfastly resisted lowering.

Mr. Hudson, formerly of the Conservative Democrat Party, ran on a platform of incremental tax cuts and a thorough re-examining of Haraki's foreign policy, “not away from Gholgoth or NATO, but towards rational investigation of the benefits provided to Haraki by membership in such alliances, and the obvious image projected onto those of this nation by our association with those groups”.

In a rally yesterday evening, as many results were being finalized and the Progressive Party appeared to have established a lead of 40 delegates over the Social Liberals, Hudson spoke to a crowd of supporters. “This is a sign,” he said, “that the people of Haraki are tired of Social Liberal dominance, and that the errors of judgment which they have made over this past term cannot simply be forgiven and forgotten. This is a sign that the people of Haraki want genuine change, and a shift in policies that we can provide. I of course respect Mr Wolfe for all he has done for Haraki, but it cannot be denied that the people have spoken, and they have cried out for the Progressive Party.”

Mr Wolfe, originally a bodyguard for Prime Minister Chris Ryan several decades ago, turned to politics during the tenure of Prime Minister Curtis LeMay. He spent two terms in office before retiring, being replaced for one disastrous term by Conservative Democrat Bradley Albany, and then returned after Shepherd's actions following her election in the wake of Mr Albany's resounding electoral defeat. Mr Wolfe is regarded as a national hero in the eyes of many Harakians for his services to the nation over many years, and that popularity was considered to be one factor which allowed the Social Liberals to establish such dominance in the Ryan-LeMay-Wolfe years.

In stark contrast to Mr Wolfe's life of adventure before turning to the political arena, Mr Hudson was an attorney in the city of Kiros for many years before turning to politics. He quickly rose to the top of the Conservative Democrat Party, and following Mr Albany's resignation from office he was appointed the party chief at a convention in Atherlon. Although he lost the election against Ms Shepherd, he spent the time between that defeat and this victory establishing that it was the Social Liberals' dominance of the centre-left that allowed them such hegemony, and that only a similar merger on the right would give them a chance to secure an electoral victory. His rhetoric ultimately provided the rationale for the Conservative Democrat-United Front merger, which presented a centre-right coalition to match that provided by the Social Liberals.

Mr Hudson has already announced certain cabinet positions, appointing Jules Willard as the new Foreign Minister, Terry Fleming as the new Defence Minister and Elizabeth Meyers as the new Minister of the Interior. Colin Ramsey, of course, keeps his place as Hudson's Deputy Prime Minister.

Full election results follow. Confirmed seats are listed, with the most likely outcomes in the undecided ridings presented following.

Progressive Party of Haraki: 254 + 15 seats (269 total)
Social Liberal Party: 212 + 12 seats (224 total)
Centrist Party: 46 + 1 seats (47 total)
Nationalist Party: 35 + 3 seats (38 total)
Socialist Party: 34 + 2 seats (36 total)
Libertarian Party: 30 seats
Communist Party: 16 seats
Shepherd Party: 7 seats
Green Party: 4 seats
Independent: 3 seats
Borderland Party: 1 seat

675 total

PM Hudson Gives Inauguration Speech, Espouses Interventionism
From the Atherlon Times

Kyle Bradshaw, Atherlon. The traditional parliamentary shuffle happened once again this week as last week's election results were finalized and the various victorious and defeated members of parliament either assumed or were relieved of their seats. Mr. Bruno Hudson of the Progressive Party has won the election, with a total of 269 seats going to his party, and has been sworn in as Haraki's new prime minister.

Prime Minister Hudson gave his first inauguration speech yesterday to an estimated crowd of twenty thousand, from a stage erected in McBride Square, in central Atherlon. The inauguration speech is a tradition of incoming prime ministers that dates back over one hundred years. Typically, the speeches focus on the past election campaign, include the victor congratulating their opponents, - when this part is foregone, it is considered a sign of an extremely bitter campaign - and ultimately directing the focus of the nation from its past, the campaign, to its future under the new government.

Mr. Hudson began his speech in traditional fashion, addressing the months-long campaign, with no real surprises in store for any involved. Mr. Hudson congratulated his opponents, especially the outoging prime minister, whom he referred to as “the esteemed Mr. Wolfe”. Wrapping up the opening segment, Mr. Hudson stated that “with the end of this campaign, we can once again look forward to the future of Haraki, rather than dwell on the past or worry over the present. The future is what is important, and it is my aim as your new prime minister to bring us together into a great future.”

Mr. Hudson went on to detail his plan to incrementally decrease tax rates by 6% over the next year, through a process of a 0.5% cut in income tax across the board each month, with a planned research group to form after ten months and review the effectiveness of the tax cuts for a twelve-month review. Mr. Hudson did not detail which governmental services would suffer from these cuts, though analysts afterwards were skeptical of the effects, claiming that that 6% reduction would have to come from somewhere, and that a service at some point would have to take a cut to balance it out. Most analysts are predicting budget cuts to education, healthcare, public transportation, or commercial maintenance, or perhaps smaller cuts to more than one of these.

Mr. Hudson also announced a 1% reduction in Government Sales Tax, or GST, which currently stands at 6% on the price of all unsubsidized goods. Ecnomic analysts, however, were quick to point out that since most goods are at least in part subsidized by the government, this measure will primarily affect the wealthy, with more expensive products such as sports cars or houses with four or more bedrooms, tending to be those that are unsubsidized.

From there Mr. Hudson turned his focus to foreign affairs. One of the central tenets of his campaign had been Haraki's membership and devout loyalty to the regional alliance of Gholgoth, in which Haraki's mainland is found; and the New Alliance Treaty Organization, an alliance of which Haraki was a founding member years ago. Mr. Hudson's stance during the election was not one of withdrawal from the alliances, but rather one of objective analysis. He addressed this issue as he turned the focus of his speech to foreign affairs.

“As such,” Mr. Hudson said, “I have been in talks with spokespeople from the other major parties, and we are in the process of setting up a multi-party investigative research panel to present a cost-benefit analysis of Harakian membership in these alliances, and to present a case for what that membership should involve. I hope this is seen by our allies not as a show of bad faith, but merely as the right of any free nation to examine the circumstances it finds itself in.”

Following this, Mr. Hudson turned his attention to the fading presence of Haraki throughout the world: “Over this past campaign, and the months before it, – in fact, since the start of the Four Day War – Haraki has failed in our international affairs. As a strong, independent nation which enjoys and respects civil, political, and human rights, we have a duty to the world to represent ourselves with strength and force when necessary. We have a duty to present a stable presence which can act as a force for global good. We must no longer sit by while people die, nations destroy each other over petty squabbles, and innocent lives are destroyed for no reason. In short, I see before me the future of Haraki, and that future is one of humanitarian interventionism. It is our duty to the people of the world.”

Mr. Hudson's speech has been criticized by economic analysts for not undertaking a thorough economic investigation into the ramifications of his promised tax cuts. It has also been criticized by foreign policy experts for promising to the people something that Haraki may not be able to provide. Mr. Hudson's promise of Harakian interventions is one that has not gone over well with some, such as Defence Ministry analyst Elias Duran. “Our military is small,” Duran states. “There's no denying the fact that Hudson's speech played to the emotions of the people, but he provided little basis for his rhetoric. He didn't examine the underlying principles behind his promise of humanitarian interventionism, which by itself sounds like a buzzword. The Harakian army was very nearly overstretched several years ago to protect five cities in Danteri, with the navy watching long supply lines; and we weren't even an active participant in that war until the end, when to be fair we did prove our superiority.”

Duran continued, “if we are to really live up to Prime Minister Hudson's promises, we're going to need an increased defence budget, and more manpower in the military. Otherwise, we might be able to handle a few crises, but not what he's suggesting – or rather, implying, that Haraki has the capability to be the world's policeman. Quite simply, we don't.” Duran's reference to Danteri is, of course, referring to Haraki's role in establishing a civilian safe zone in the nation of Danteri during its crippling civil war, and the subsequent Twelve Hour War, which saw forces from Haraki and several other Gholgothan nations defeat the military of the nation of Dephire in just under twelve hours.

Mr. Hudson's speech, though, was popular with the people, and he saw his approval rating boosted by 3% overnight following it. What remains to be seen is just how he will act upon his promises here in the future.

The President of the Republic Of Colstream, Jack Walker congratulates Mr. Bruno Hudson of the Progressive Party on winning the Haraki election and wishes good luck during his term in office.