1989 Saint-Baptiste presidential election
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 1989 Saint-Baptiste presidential election, nicknamed the Hotel Election (Principean: Élection de l'hôtel) was held in Saint-Baptiste on 3 January 1989. Organized after the death of President Claude-Antoine Bachelet in September 1988, the election was considered the last major attempt to quell growing unrest towards the regime, but is often credited as being the first major step towards democratization. The vote, held by 242 members of the National Republican People's Party in the ballroom of the Hôtel Royal in Port-Anne, was later called the "death knell of Bacheletism" by the daily La République, in part due to how the vote, meant to be a symbolic coronation of the former President's nephew, Édouard Bachelet, became a contested race.
Background
The 1947 constitution stated that Saint-Baptiste's president was to be elected by a popular vote for a term of six years, renewable once. Since 1948 with the passing of the Security Act however, a state of martial law extended the term of President Claude-Antoine Bachelet indefinitely, until his death on 4 September 1988. Martial Haillet, one of Bachelet's confidantes, was appointed Acting President by the Chamber of Deputies, and was tasked with organizing an election to select a new President. Later declassified documents confirm that Haillet was also tasked with finding a way to hold this election without rescinding the Security Act, bar opposition leaders from running, and secure the legitimacy of Édouard Bachelet as the next President. In response to this, the 1989 presidential election, slated for 3 January, was to take the form of a party leadership election, with only members of the pro-government National Republican People's Party able to cast a vote in the ballroom of the Hôtel Royal in Port-Anne. Protests broke out in the weeks preceding the vote, and the Hôtel Royal's façade was firebombed three days before the election.
Electoral method
The election was held by exhaustive ballot, with the winner needing a majority of the votes to be elected. If a candidate was unable to be elected on the first ballot, the candidate with the least votes would be eliminated and a new round of voting held. As Édouard Bachelet was the only official candidate on the ballot (alongside a "None of the Above" option), it was expected he would gain a clear majority on the first round, and organizers did not plan for a contested ballot.
Results
.jpg)
Bachelet topped the first ballot, announced at 6:00 PM, with only 110 votes, below the 122 needed to win. In a surprise upset, a large contingent of those assembled either voted "None of the Above" or wrote in the names of reformist businessman Pierre-Marie Blanchet and judge Hugo Desjardins, neither of who were in attendance. News of the contested ballot reached protestors outside the Hôtel Royal, and some protesters attempted to gain entry into the hotel lobby, to no avail. PPRN organizers later told voters to cast a second ballot by 10:00 PM, with Desjardins "eliminated". Blanchet himself was informed of the write-in campaign being held in his name, and he arrived at the Hôtel Royal at around 7:30 PM in order to negotiate with government hardliners. In a deal, Blanchet agreed to reign in his supporters and withdraw from the race in exchange for the PPRN starting negotiations with the democratic opposition, with Blanchet essentially becoming the face of the PPRN's reformist wing.
Despite this, the second ballot proved even worse for Bachelet, who lost votes to a growing section of Blanchet supporters who still voted for the suspended campaign. A third ballot, hastily called at around 11 at night, finally saw Bachelet gain 138 votes, 16 votes above what was needed for a majority. In his acceptance speech early the next morning, Bachelet accepted the close result of the vote, and stated that he "would begin a road to better understanding the state of Saint-Baptiste heading into the new decade, and repairing our country." He would later be formally sworn in as President that afternoon.
| Candidate | Party | First ballot | Second ballot | Third ballot | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | |||||
| Édouard Bachelet | National Republican People's Party | 110 | 45.45 | 107 | 44.21 | 138 | 57.02 | |||
| None of the Above | 81 | 33.47 | 75 | 30.99 | 104 | 42.98 | ||||
| Pierre-Marie Blanchet (write-in) | National Republican People's Party | 44 | 18.18 | 60 | 24.79 | Withdrew | ||||
| Hugo Desjardins (write-in) | National Republican People's Party | 7 | 2.89 | Eliminated | ||||||
| Total | 242 | 100 | 242 | 100 | 242 | 100 | ||||
Legacy
The "Hotel Election" publicly exposed the deteriorating legitimacy of the Bachelet regime in the late 1980s, and most Baptistois consider the vote a sham election that, through its failure to provide legitimacy to the incoming government of the younger Bachelet, as well as its limited electorate, paved the way for democratic reforms in the 1990s. The 1989 election was later considered legally void in March of 1990, and a new presidential election was held in May 1991, under the framework of a new constitution and involving the full electorate.
After the 1989 election, the term "Baptistois election" (Principean: Élection baptistois; Palian: Elección bautista; Tyrnican: Baptistenwahl) gained prominence in referring to initially sham elections, and more recently attached to elections with unexpected outcomes.
