2021 Vinalian General election
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All 185 seats in the House of the People (93 needed for majority). All 39 seats in the Senate of the Union (20 needed for majority). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Registered | 18,526,728 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 15,006,650 (81%  3.4%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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5 Senate, The 2021 Vinalian General election was held on Sunday, 12 August 2019, to elect the 16th Vinalian Parliament of the United Republic of Vinalia. All 183 seats in the House of the People were up for election, as well as the 39 seats in the Senate of the Union. The election was called, after the Parliament was dissolved by President Ersnt Rupold, on June 12th 2021, as per law which mandates parliamentary elections 2 years after the previous parliamentary election, which had been carried out the 12th of August 2019.
Pavlov was competing to be reelected for his second term as head of the Unionist Party, the major party in the ruling coalition, the Grand Union Coalition which had seen increased tensions and volatility between its two other members in the past few months prior to the dissolution of parliament, the Workers Party and the Conservative Party. The Workers Party the second largest party in Parliament has been hit by stagnant results in local elections and dissastifaction with the Conservative party, which has under Stepan Martynyuk moved further to the right, and increased its inflammatory rhetoric against the Workers party. The Conservative Party had seen great success in local elections and with wavering support for the Nationalist and Freedom parties, the Conservative party was set to make gains against those two parties.
The Unionist, Workers, and Conservative parties made gains during the elections cementing their positions. No senators from neither of the 3 major parties were elected, including previous incumbents. The gains made by the Unionist party established them as the largest party and ensured Omelyan Pavlov a second term as Minister-President of Vinalia. The Conservative party made its greatest gains since the government of Ulyana Hryhorivna, primarily from a swing in former Freedom and Nationalist voters. The Socialist Alternative for Vinalia and Indigenous party of Vinalia made minor gains but made little process in dissuading voters of the 3 major parties, instead gaining most of their support from Green and the Workers International voters.
Omelyan Pavlov was announced as the new Minister-President of Vinalia on the 14th of August following the establishment of a ruling coalition with the Workers party which granted Pavlov a ruling majority in both houses of parliament, and almost a 2/3rds majority in the house. Valeria Kunavin was elected as president of the Republic that same day, succeeding President Ersnt Rupold, Valeria was the first Independent President or Minister-President elected in the history of Vinalia.
Electoral process
Voters elect using the closed list Proportional representation method, each province/federal district is slotted at the minimum one seat, with seats being added in relation to the province/district with the smallest population (currently the province of Juyu Ruwach South with 134,600 people). The largest province by population and seats is that of Zamara with 43 seats followed by Vevetsia with 35 seats. For a party to seat a member in that province/district they must gain a necessary % of votes with parties in Juyu Ruwach South only requiring 51% of the vote to win a seat, while in Chervona for every 2.33% of the vote won a candidate is seated. Elections are held every two years, with seats being assigned every 10 years following a census (the Federal district of Vinalinsk had a census performed in 2017, adding three more seats into the district.)
Elections for the Senate are similar to House elections with the exception that all provinces/districts elect 3 members regardless of population, a 33% of the vote is required for a party to sit a member, although this is hard to achieve. As with the house, the party with the largest % of the vote gets seated, if the vote is split and the threshold can not be reached.
Need to rewrite all of this...
Background
Workers party leadership crisis
The Workers party under Vadym Stepanovych, had arrived from a bad 2019 election. Workers voters and party members were left unsatisfied by Vadym which was unable to inspire the Workers party, nor was able to resist increasing attacks by the Conservative party. Calls for the Workers Party to abandon a coalition with the Conservative party increased, but were met with resistance by Vadym which sought to move forward with a more moderate set of policies, something which angered the more left leaning wing of his party. Although un satisfaction with Vadym was wide inside the party, no candidate held sufficient support to launch a successful leadership challenge, plus the instability this might create for the party was deemed as too much of a risk, yet very public dissatisfaction with Vadym existed. On November 4th, after a business trip to Soravia Vadym was pictured by photographers along with guests inside a beach resort, with a woman who was later identified to be a campaign staffer, the pictures appeared in Vinalian Tabloid Morning News (Ранкові Hовини; Rankovi Novyny). After initial silence, Vadym who at the time was still in Soravia announced he would resign from parliament and the party, triggering a leadership crisis in the party.
The crisis resulted in the party setting elections for the 15th January to elect a party leader. Initially 3 major candidates were seen: The speaker of the Senate, Yaroslav Savych; leader of the Workers party in the House, Artur Vsevolodovych; and Minister of Education Alla Leontiyivna. Although at one moment 30 different individuals sought to be named as leader of the party, one such individual was Senator Alina Rybak which had been a vocal critic of Vadym. Alina was seen as the leader of the left wing of the party, but found little support among her peers, Alina announced in November 14th the establishment of a new party, the Socialist Alternative which sought to challenge the Workers Party. The Socialist Alternative immediately gained 5 House members, along with vast support in State, and Local members who switched party allegiance to the Socialist Alternative. Initially the Socialist Alternative was seen as a strong competitor to the Workers Party, and began pooling higher than Workers.
With the threat of a possible split vote by left-wing voters in the General election, the party sought a member more to the left which could steal away support from the Socialist Alternative, and the Unionist Party. One such frontrunner was Rayisa Bohdanivna, who had gathered a sizeable following in social media, and was well known in her rebuttals and attacks on the Conservative party, her criticism of both Vadym and Alina earned her support inside parliament and outside.
Parties
Opinion polls
Campaign
Legal Campaigning begun on the 12th of June 2021, when Parliament was dissolved by the president. Although legally parties and candidates cant enter into Television advertisement agreements before the dissolvement of parliament, numerous hold pre arranged deals, which are officially signed on the morning of the 13th, and enter into force the day after. Newspapers can print advertisements on the 12th with the intention of distribution the morning after.