2022 Alslandic legislative election

2022 Alslandic legislative election

5 September 2022
All 201 seats in the Folkssenaat 101 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered	8,994,359
Turnout	75.73% (1.98 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Olari Lippmaa Liekele Ykema Kairi Sokk Party Left Alliance Liveable Alsland Radical Movement Last election 18.66%, 27 seats 18.66%, 24 seats – Seats won 42 41 32 Seat change 15 17 New Popular vote 1,537,577 1,241,865 972,091 Percentage 22.90% 18.49% 14.48% Swing 8.70pp 6.19pp New   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Elsert Wassenaar Hilda Schaaf Ermnbryht Vrihte Party Orange Party Humanist Sotirian Union Bloc/MDP Last election – 18.66%, 32 seats 18.66%, 51 seats Seats won 31 15 13 Seat change New 17 38 Popular vote 859,902 461,727 445,515 Percentage 12.81% 6.88% 6.63% Swing New 10.72pp 19.07pp   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Ottila Möller Alari Keskkula Sjearp Groeneveld Party Progressive Alliance Martish People's Party Greens Last election 18.66%, 35 seats 18.66%, 11 seats 18.66%, 10 seats Seats won 10 10 4 Seat change 25 1 6 Popular vote 365,750 317,113 188,712 Percentage 5.45% 4.72% 2.81% Swing 13.05pp 1.98pp 1.99pp
The distribution of seats between each constituency.
Government before election Möller cabinet NB-PA-HSU-G-AK Government after election TBD

Legislative elections were held in Alsland on 5 September 2022 to all 201 members of the Folkssenaat. The incumbent government was defeated in a historic landslide and lost 79 seats in the Senate, the victors of the election were the centrist and localist Liveable Alsland (LA), the populist Together for Alsland (TFA) and the nationalist Orange Party (ORP) who all announced coalition talks with each other shortly after the election.

The election took place in the immediate aftermath of the SYFA spying scandal which was blamed for the sitting government's defeat and the rise of anti-establishment parties. Initial media reactions noted the growth in support for the right-wing Orange Party and the increased fracturing of the centre-left into 3 separate and opposing parties. The previously dominant National Bloc suffered its worst defeat in history, losing 38 seats and was left with only 15 seats in the Senate, analysts claimed this was due to the ongoing trend of Percederation amongst the Euclean centre-right. The election also saw the socialist alliance of the Left Alliance suffer its second worst result in its history although it improved its result from 2018 by gaining 15 seats. Liveable Alsland were able to recover from their loss in 2018 and emerged as the largest single party for the first time although their candidate for Premier Liekele Ykema had announced he would not stand for the position at the election whilst serving as a member of the Euclean Parliament. The party instead opted for an informal agreement with Radical Movement which would see new legislative elections held alongside Presidential and Euclean elections in 2024.

The Humanist Sotirian Union (HSU) lost 16 seats and signalled its intention to lead a constructive opposition to any future government whilst the party underwent a recovery process. The Green - Alternative Choice (GAK) fell under the 4% threshold but was able to win seats after it formed a joint list with the minority Estmerish Alliance party which won a seat as a minority list, thus qualifying GAK for representation in the Folkssenaat. The threshold requirements triggered controversy after the anti-corruption Eenpalu Network fell below the threshold and failed to win seats but won more votes than the Greens who did win seats, as a result of this the electoral commission proposed abolishing the threshold or closing loopholes in the threshold law which allow parties who fall below the threshold to win seats.

After the election, the Radical Movement ruled out cooperation with any party that had been in the incumbent government and helped initiate coalition talks between Liveable Alsland and the Orange Party, the leaders of the other parties in this proposal met on 6 September to discuss whether this coalition was feasible. Another coalition between Liveable Alsland, Together and ASAY was also proposed and the leadership of Liveable Alsland sent the party a questionnaire to discuss shared policies and whether a common agenda could be worked out. The start of the Alslandic government-debt crisis derailed coalition talks and a hurried agreement between Liveable Alsland, Radical Movement, Orange, HSU and the Alliance was formed to deal with the crisis until new elections in 2024.

Background

The 2018 legislative election had resulted in the end of the Premiership of Liekele Ykema who had been Premier for 8 years prior to the election. The National Bloc, Humanist Sotirian Union, Progressive Alliance and Green - Alternative Choice all made gains at the expense of the previously governing Liveable Alsland and the opposition Alslandic Section of the Workers' International whilst the Kirenian People's Party kept their 11 seats. In the case of the Progressive Alliance it went from 10 seats prior to the election to 35 and became the largest party of the left in Alsland.

Following the election, President Rita Rebane asked Hepke Veltman from the National Bloc to form a coalition. The following negotiations were the longest in Alslandic history and took 4 months whilst Liekele Ykema remained as acting Premier. The negotiations involved all political parties and an agreement was reached between the National Bloc, Progressive Alliance, Humanist Sotirian Union and Green - Alternative Choice to form a coalition which would have a similar composition to the previous government of Liekele Ykema. Veltman became Premier on 27 December 2018 during a special inauguration ceremony and his government was sworn in later that day. During the negotiations Veltman was accused of tax evasion by multiple news sources, Veltman denied the allegations but was granted immunity from prosecution after being sworn in as Premier.

In 2020, Veltman announced his candidacy for the President of Alsland and Rebane announced her retirement from politics. The move was condemned by his coalition partners who argued he was abandoning a position he had been elected to, as such the Progressive Alliance, HSU and Greens all refused to back another National Bloc Premier and instead demanded Finance Minister Ottila Möller from the Progressive Alliance be sworn in as Premier if Veltman stood down, Veltman ultimately agreed to stand down during the campaign and won the Presidential election narrowly. Möller was sworn in as Premier on 25 April, the same day Veltman resigned as Premier and was sworn in as President by Rebane.

The Orange Party was founded on 16 July 2021 as a union of right-wing parties opposed to the government, the Party grew rapidly in support amongst dissatisfied National Bloc voters. On 26 January 2022, an opinion poll showed 58% of Alslanders disapproved of Möller's government which was the highest disapproval rating of her government, days later Möller called a vote of no confidence against her own government by resigning, the government won the vote of confidence and Möller was reappointed Premier. The vote of confidence caused a rift between the National Bloc and the other coalition parties after the Bloc's leader Ermnbryht Vrihte called for an early election and a new interim Premier.

After the SYFA spying scandal the government's approval rating dropped drastically, several days ahead of the election a poll conducted on behalf of Hjoed recorded only 9% of respondents saying they approved of the current government whilst 72% disapproved of the government. The Möller government resigned in the wake of the scandal.

Electoral system

All 201 Senators are members of 14 constituencies which represent each Province of Alsland. Senators are elected using the party-list proportional representation, using the Boeri method. A party or list must win 4% of the nationwide popular vote to be eligible to win seats and the seats would be divided by how many votes that list won in each constituency. Regionalist and parties representing specific communities are excluded from this rule and must only win enough votes to qualify for seats in the constituencies they are competing in, this includes parties who form alliances with minority parties. There are 3 single member constituencies which use the first past the post system to elect their candidates, Burnshire, Holsteen and Upper Swerdia are so called special constituencies and use this different voting system.

Anyone above the age of 18 and has Alslandic citizenship is automatically registered to vote in the election to be eligible to stand for the Folkssenaat a person must be at least 18 years old and have Alslandic citizenship. If a candidate has dual citizenship they are allowed to retain it since 2019, prior to this a candidate would have had to renounce their previous citizenship. Voting machines are used extensively in Alslandic elections and are the most common form of voting process, federal law requires polling stations provide paper copies to voters who request a physical copy.

Date

According to the constitution of Alsland, legislative elections must either take place on the first Monday of September 4 years after the last legislative election, or be held on the same day as a Presidential election. Days on which federal elections are held are designated as public holidays as of 2020 to encourage voter turnout. As per the 2017 elections law, this will be the last election to have a fixed date which allows for snap elections following 2022.

Political parties

See also: List of political parties in Alsland

Nine political parties were represented in the Folkssenaat upon the dissolution of the 26th Folkssenaat.

Name		Ideology	Position	Candidate	2018 result		Current seats
					Votes (%)	Seats
	Blok	Liberal conservatism	Centre-right	Ermnbryht Vrihte	25.7%	51 / 201	51 / 201
	PA	Progressivism	Centre-left	Ottila Möller	18.5%	35 / 201	33 / 201
	HSU	Sotirian humanism	Centre to centre-right	Hilda Schaaf	17.6%	32 / 201	31 / 201
	Links	Democratic socialism	Left-wing	Olari Lippmaa	14.2%	27 / 201	27 / 201
	LA	Liberalism	Centre	Liekele Ykema	12.3%	24 / 201	24 / 201
	KRP	Regionalism	Centre-left	Ahto Malk	6.7%	11 / 201	11 / 201
	ORP	Right-wing populism	Right-wing	Elsert Wassenaar	Did not exist		11 / 201
	GAK	Green politics	Centre-left	Sjearp Groeneveld	4.8%	10 / 201	6 / 201
	TFA	Green liberalism	Centre to centre-right	Kairi Sokk	Did not exist		6 / 201

Pre-dissolution composition

Party		Seats
	National Bloc	51
	Progressive Alliance	33
	Humanist Sotirian Union	31
	Links	27
	Liveable Alsland	24
	Kirenian People's Party	11
	Orange Party	11
	Green - Alternative Choice	6
	Together for Alsland	6
	Independent (Urjo Eenpalu)	1

Campaign

Debates

Alslandic legislative election debates, 2022
Date	Channel	Subject	Venue	P  Present   S  Surrogate   NI  Not invited   A  Absent invitee  INV Invited
				GAK	Links	KRP	PA	HSU	TFA	Blok	ORP	LA
31 July	ANS 1	Climate change debate	ANS Main Studios	P	P	P	P	P	NI	P	P	S
9 August	ANS 1	Accountability debate	ANS Main Studios	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
16 August	ANS 1	Federal debate	ANS Main Studios	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
20 August	ANS 1	Federal debate	ANS Main Studios	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
23 August	MRT 1	Martish debate	MRT Rahu studio	P	P	P	P	P	P	S	P	P
3 September	ANS 1	Federal debate	ANS Main Studios	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P

Opinion polls on Debates

Candidate viewed as "performing best" or "most convincing" in each debate

Debate	GAK	Links	KRP	PA	HSU	TFA	Blok	ORP	LA	Tie	None
31 July	9.8	12.5	14.1	5.8	7.8	–	4.5	6.9	9.7	4.8	24.1

Issues

There were several key campaign issues throughout the campaign. The most important issue of the campaign for voters was government accountability which was brought to the forefront by the SYFA spying scandal in mid-July which damaged the credibility of the incumbent government.

Constitutional reform also became a major campaign issue after the Alslandic Section of the Workers' International, Green - Alternative Choice, Liveable Alsland and the Progressive Alliance all agreed to hold a constitutional convention to radically reshape Alsland's government. Reasons for the constitutional convention ranged from giving the regions more of a say in politics, making Alslandic politics more proportional and to give voters a bigger say in government policy and to ensure key rights in Alsland such as LGBT rights, gender equality and other anti-discrimination policies were enshrined in the constitution.

Other major issues which became themes of the campaign were:

• Climate change
• Health
• Education
• The Euclean Community
• Immigration
• Security

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2022 Alslandic legislative election

The progression of voting intentions throughout the campaign period ahead of the 2022 Alslandic legislative election.

Result

Turnout at the election stood at 75% which was above the Euclean and national average for elections but down 2% from 2018 which was attributed to dissatisfaction with the choices presented. Political expert Solarian Kukk from the University of Yndyk said about the results were a shift from Alsland's traditional politics which favour stability over populist politics. He said: "Voters have selected new and inexperienced figures who now make up a large percentage of the Senate, there is a real risk that political turmoil and instability could follow in the upcoming years." Kukk also pointed out the apparent senselessness of the threshold rules when pointing out that the Eenpalu Network failed to win seats whilst the Greens, which won less votes than the Eenpalu Network, was able to win seats due to its joint list with a minority party.

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Left Alliance	1,241,865	18.63	41	+17
	Liveable Alsland	1,537,577	23.07	42	+15
	Together for Alsland	972,091	14.58	32	New
	Orange Party	859,902	12.90	31	New
	Humanist Sotirian Union	461,727	6.93	15	-16
	National Bloc	445,515	6.68	13	-38
	Progressive Alliance	365,750	5.49	10	-23
	Kirenian People's Party	317,113	4.76	10	-1
	Eenpalu Network	236,183	3.54	0	0
	Green - Alternative Choice	188,712	2.83	4	-2
	Minority Lists	39,558	0.59	3	0
	Other				–	–
Total		6,665,993	100.00	201	0
Valid votes		6,665,993	98.57
Invalid/blank votes		96,382	1.43
Total votes		6,762,375	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		8,994,359	75.18

See also

• 2022 national electoral calendar