Pacitalian parliamentary elections, 2017

Pacitalian parliamentary elections, 2017

27th November 2017
All 715 seats in the Constazione (Majority: 358) All 96 seats in the Senato (Majority: 49)
Registered	333,819,142
Turnout	326,040,375 (97.6%) a 306,803,993 cast in person 19,236,382 postal/special ballots
Votes counted	100% as of 4th December 2017 AOTC+0300
First party Second party Third party   Leader Maurizio Conte Damián Moya Tomás de la Marques Party Federation of Progressive Democrats Democratic Nationalist Party Pacitalian Social Congress Leader since 19th June 2017 1st May 2016 4th September 2013 Leader's seat Provencia-06 Pungaria-15 Capitale-32 Last election 338 151 45 Seats won 195 167 161 Seat change 143 16 116 Party list vote 79,227,811 71,402,842 72,707,004 Percentage 24.3% 21.9% 22.3%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Gabrielo Brunate Vincenzo Promarche Adriun Váll i Bernám Party Pacitalian Green Party Christian Democratic Party Empordian League Leader since 30th June 2017 19th January 2008 15th December 2010 Leader's seat Franconia-02 Trasteveria-10 Baix-Empordà-05 Last election 105 34 37 Seats won 86 42 30 Seat change 19 8 7 Party list vote 46,623,774 25,757,190 10,759,332 Percentage 14.3% 7.9% 3.3%
Prime Minister before election Maurizio Conte Federation of Progressive Democrats Prime Minister Damián Moya Democratic Nationalist Party

a Voting is compulsory in Pacitalia and non-voters are fined. Turnout is usually above 95% as a result of this law.

Parliamentary elections were held in the Pacitalian Republic on Monday 27th November 2017. Officially, this was the 117th national general election, where Pacitalian voters elected the 715 members of the Constazione Repubblicana, Pacitalia's lower house, and 96 Senators to its upper house.

The order of election, which dissolved the previous parliament, was issued by Archonate Vittoria Agradossa on Monday 30th October 2017, officially starting the campaign period — although campaigning by parties and their leaders had already unofficially begun prior to the order. The centre-right Federation of Progressive Democrats (FPD), having held power alone or through a coalition agreement for 27 of the previous 29 years, were attempting to win for the third consecutive election — either a plurality or an outright majority of seats in both houses. The incumbent Prime Minister, Maurizio Conte, who had assumed the party's leadership only a few months prior, hoped to earn his first victory as leader.

While the FPD did manage to win a plurality of seats in the Constazione, they suffered the loss of almost half their parliamentary assembly and were reduced to the second party in the Senato. The left-wing Democratic Nationalist Party (DNP), buoyed by its victory in the summer's archonal election, finished with the second-largest tally of seats in the Constazione and became the largest assembly in the Senato. The Pacitalian Social Congress (PSC), the largest centre-left, and oldest, political party in the country, finished as the third-largest assembly in both houses. It marked a major turnaround for the PSC, which had almost folded following a major ethics scandal in 2011.

The Pacitalian Green Party, which had governed as the lead party in a coalition from 2009 to 2011, continued its decline, despite bringing back former Prime Minister and party leader Gabrielo Brunate. The party finished with fewer votes and reduced seat share in both houses compared to the 2014 election. The Christian Democrats appeared to capitalize on the FPD's lower support, gaining a handful of seats and votes to increase their presence in the national parliament. The remaining vote was split among regional and more radical fringe parties.

Conte was initially the formateur, a Pacitalian term denoting the leader of talks aimed at forming a government or a power-sharing agreement. He subsequently stepped aside on 12th December 2017 after it became clear he would not be able to form a coalition government or command the confidence of a majority of the Constazione. Agradossa then named DNP leader Damián Moya the new formateur.

The DNP signed a memorandum of understanding with the PSC, the Empordian Socialist Party, Libertad Marquería Juntos, and the Radical Anticapitalists, on 30th December 2017, with the document providing a basic framework from which to negotiate more formally on the final composition of the agreement. Two weeks later, on 13th January 2018, following weeks of negotiations, Moya announced a formal agreement between the DNP and PSC, with confidence and supply from the other three parties to form a de facto parliamentary majority. Following the election, and until 22nd January 2018, Conte's government continued to serve in an interim capacity.

Background

Parliamentary elections in Pacitalia are triennial and held on the last Monday of November unless circumstances require them to be re-scheduled. Pacitalians also elect their regional governments triennially, though in the year following the parliamentary vote. Archonates, by comparison, are elected to six-year terms.

Pacitalians elect 715 members of the Constazione using the mixed-member form of proportional representation (MMP). There are 445 Members of the Republican Parliament (MRPs) elected through a party list, with the remaining 270 coming from single-member districts. Senators, by contrast, are elected using instant-runoff voting (IRV).

Previous election and outcomes

The previous parliamentary elections were held in November 2014. The DNP had led in opinion polls as early as June 2013, and, subsequently, for much of the campaign, led by charismatic philanthropist and businessman Cristián Piñera. However, the FPD, and to a lesser extent, the Greens, benefited from a late surge at the DNP's expense, as voters began to express uncertainty over the DNP's readiness to lead a government. Although they had participated in the Brunate coalition government three years prior, the party itself was less than a decade old in 2014.

The DNP also endured attacks from the right regarding their close ties to powerful labour unions. Coupled with a strong campaign by then-FPD leader Archetenia Nera, which helped turn her party's fortunes around, by election night, the FPD were returned to power for a second term with a strong plurality of seats. The FPD subsequently entered into a coalition agreement with the regional Empordian League (Lliga Empordán), a centrist party focused on achieving greater autonomy for Empordia.

Shortly after the election concluded, Piñera died suddenly from a heart attack, plunging the DNP into months of uncertainty and an unanticipated leadership contest. Longtime former leader Jávier Grandinetti returned to serve as party chief in the interim until the party elected Moya, a lawyer and first-term MRP, in May 2016.

DNP leader Damián Moya speaks at an election rally in the last week of the campaign

The Greens had elected long-time MRP Massimo Semarche to succeed Brunate following the 2011 election. Semarche was unable to prevent further erosion of the Green assembly at the 2014 election, with the party further reduced to 105 MRPs and 13 Senators. He resigned after just one election campaign; the party, despite its attempts to gin up enthusiasm for a leadership race, failed to generate the interest it was hoping for. Not a single candidate entered the race for several months, causing the party significant embarrassment. Brunate eventually offered to return to the post and was acclaimed as leader in the fall of 2015.

The period between the 2014 and 2017 elections also saw the rise of extremist parties on both the left and right. Following the 2014 election, several far-right parties with ties to Catholic or neofascist organizations registered with Elections Pacitalia. The previous right-wing populist party", Family First/Nationalist Conservatives, was legally an alliance of the two named parts. It deregistered on 9th February 2015.

In its place, parties such as the Franciscan Front, the Law and Order Alliance for Justice, and Vanguardia della Repubblica (Defence of the Republic) each reported at least 10,000 registered members by the end of 2016, leading to concerns among mainstream politicians and the general public about the possible consequences extremist voices might have on national politics. Defence of the Republic's leader, Primo Demasso, had amassed a large social media following, with over a million Chirp followers.

Meanwhile, on the left, the Pacitalian Ecological Movement and the Radical Anticapitalists found equal footing, and earned heavy media exposure with their calls to de-industrialize and end capitalism, respectively. The Radical Anticapitalists drew interest from younger voters fed up with cost of living increases and drawn by the lack of "politics as usual". The party hinted at a violent uprising to achieve their aims, drawing a stern rebuke from Prime Minister Nera. In response to the growing polarization in Pacitalian politics, a small number of ex-FPD and PSC members formed Consensus, which they called a post-partisan "un-party" attempting to bring together multiple voices in the interest of good governance in Timiocato.

Major issues

Affordability

The single most significant issue of the campaign revolved around housing affordability and cost of living, especially in Pacitalia's major cities. The cost of living in Pacitalian urban centres has historically been above the global average, with the Pacitalian capital, Timiocato, consistently ranked one of the most expensive places to live in the world. However, consensus is that in recent years it has begun to spiral out of control.

Between 2012 and 2017, the average monthly rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Timiocato increased from Đ 657 ($1,910 NSD) to an average of Đ 930 ($2,697), representing an increase of 41 percent in just five years. Rental and other housing costs currently represent upwards of two-thirds of income in Timiocato and other major centres, a number that has been labelled unsustainable by several leading economists and academics.

Studies conducted over the last five years also have shown property prices ascending out of the reach of the vast majority of urban Pacitalians who don't already own, with many unable to even save for a deposit because of the high cost of living. It is projected that, by 2020, residents of Pacitalia's five largest metropolitan areas will need to earn at least Đ 127,000 ($368,300) a year to service housing debt, property taxes, and other costs. The revelations resulted in a campaign by housing activists in Timiocato, who demonstrated several times on the grounds of the Prado, Pacitalia's parliament, during the campaign. Activists pointed out that the projected "living salary" of Đ 127,000 was higher than the Prime Minister's own yearly income, in the hope that it would highlight the need for immediate action.

Politicians faced intense criticism for approving a glut of luxury condo developments catering to foreign buyers, such as Timiocato's Bosco Verticale, which was completed in 2015. The development's average unit price was over Đ 2.2 million ($6.38 million), leading many housing advocates to question why affordable housing wasn't being built instead.

Laws protect existing tenants from rent hikes beyond the rate of inflation, but landlords and property owners have relied on a loophole allowing them to evict tenants under the guise of completing property improvements to force tenants to return to a building at higher rents. It is estimated 8,360 residential buildings in Timiocato were the subject of "renovictions" between 2007 and 2017. The DNP and PSC both campaigned very strongly in favour of tightening rules and increasing protections for renters.

The DNP went a step further, with Moya promising to implement a national rental housing strategy, a mandated national maximum rent of Đ 12,50 ($36.25) per square metre per month, frozen at this level for five years, as well as a five-year freeze on any rents currently below that level. He also pledged an immediate ban on foreign ownership of non-vacation properties and said his government would force existing foreign owners to sell any affected properties at "whatever value the market decides is fair, as the FPD keeps telling you is the right way forward". Conte attacked Moya, saying this would plunge the housing market into decline and lower property values, with Moya responding by saying "that's the point". Moya also promised to download zoning powers to municipalities – powers that, with the exception of Timiocato and Nortopalazzo, had heretofore rested with the national government – to give them the power to increase density.

Meanwhile, the FPD was criticized for essentially defending the status quo, with no housing or affordability policy ideas present in its election platform. Timiocato mayor Domenico de Fiore, the party's unsuccessful 2016 archonal candidate, had managed to push a motion through Municipal Council, scrapping rent controls and drastically limiting the powers of the city's Municipal Housing Authority. De Fiore argued the city needed more "pricing transparency" and that the market was "better at deciding fair value than government would ever be". FPD MRPs were on the record saying, among other things, that they didn't see high housing costs as an urgent problem, that, as de Fiore had argued, the market should be allowed to determine what was fair with regards to purchasing or renting a home, or, that the government had no plans to formally intervene in the housing market.

Prominent FPD MRPs denied that allowing foreign ownership of residential property in urban areas was contributing to the problem, lashing out at critics as "racist". Several leading political experts have said this position was ultimately what cost the FPD the election, considering Conte was personally popular and still enjoying a "honeymoon period" just five months after ascending to the FPD leadership and the premiership.

Dourozone and Foringanan Union

The positions of all parties regarding economic and monetary union in Foringana remained unchanged from the summer's archonal election.

The FPD came out strongly in favour of further integration with Barenberg, Drakia, Medovicia and Scandonia. Successive FPD governments shepherded extensive integration efforts on an official basis. The Nera government's major accomplishment on integration was the the Fiume Timiocato–Northwest Gateway Initiative, an ongoing project whereby the Pacitalian and Drakian governments have jointly invested billions of doura into transportation infrastructure connecting the two countries.

Economic integration was a major issue of the 2017 campaign. The Fiume Timiocato-Northwest Gateway Initiative has led to land border crossings between Pacitalia (top) and Drakia (bottom) being relaxed or, in many cases, decommissioned.

The initiative also funded improvements to electronic border security and the Crossborder Biometric Identification Program, while at the same time relaxing physical land, air and sea border controls between Pacitalia and Drakia. The omnibus project, which started in 2011, is widely seen as a success and a model for future integration efforts. The initiative is believed to contribute an additional Đ 160 billion ($464 billion) in inflation-adjusted doura to the Pacitalian economy each year when compared to the years prior to border integration.

The national government has long pursued a Dourozone in the hopes of cementing a Pacitalian sphere of influence where the country could continue to exert significant soft power and economic influence both regionally and globally. Naturally, opponents of the Dourozone concept cited a loss of economic and policy sovereignty as a major reason why the Dourozone should be abandoned.

The Dourozone and Foringanan Union have been criticized by voices on the left and the right, providing a rare point of agreement between the left-wing DNP and the right-wing Christian Democrats, who also oppose integration because they fear a loss of sovereignty for Pacitalia. The PSC campaigned on slowing down and reviewing further integration, as did the Greens, with the caveat that future integration must put environmental and social concerns before economic interests. Regional parties like the Empordian League and the Empordian Socialist Party generally favoured some forms of continental integration, with the rationale that it might engineer greater autonomy and power for places like Empordia and Marquería, and that traditional nation-states would give way to a supranational governance framework.

Carmine Bello and far-right extremism

Main articles: Pacitalian archonal election, 2016 and Pacitalian archonal election, 2017

The country was still arguably reeling from the entry into – and exit from – Pacitalian politics of controversial industrialist Carmine Bello. Bello, a shipping magnate who served as the founder, chief executive officer and principal shareholder of merchant carrier Comanav, had contested both the failed 2016 archonal election and the subsequent re-run in summer 2017. Over that time, remaining in the public eye, he had used his influence to effectively usurp Vincenzo Promarche's leadership of the Christian Democrats and become the party's de facto leader and chief spokesperson. Bello had long been known as an abrasive and polarizing figure, a staunchly Catholic and deeply socially conservative person who had long complained Pacitalia had begun a slow descent into hedonism, immorality and "Godlessness". He also was strongly critical of successive Pacitalian governments that he said had enabled the country to plunge into a deep recession.

Bello had implied an eventual entry into politics for many years but had not declared candidacy for any office in Pacitalia until deciding to run for Archonate in 2016. Bello's candidacy is widely seen, for better or worse, as having upended the political establishment in Pacitalia, putting an end to years of dominance by parties like the FPD and PSC. His campaign platform in the 2016 election attempted to capitalize on the effects of the recession – it was, unsurprisingly, pro-Catholic and socially conservative, playing to themes of economic nationalism, right-wing populism, racism and xenophobia, and appealed largely to blue-collar voters who felt ignored and abandoned by the establishment. He made a series of controversial and offensive remarks about women, people of colour, LGBTQ people, prominent Pacitalians, and foreign leaders during the campaign, which galvanized both support for – and opposition to – his campaign.

Former archonal candidate Carmine Bello has had a lasting impact on Pacitalian politics, inciting violence and political extremism.

Running in third place in opinion polls as close as three days before the first-round vote in 2016, and despite widespread condemnation of his platform and views, he shocked the world by making the second round of the election over the FPD's candidate, Timiocato mayor Domenico de Fiore, and faced the PSC's Franco Russo in the runoff. Bello then appeared to have won the runoff by a very slim margin and become Pacitalia's next head of state.

However, after a recount narrowed the margin between the two candidates to just 754 votes out of a total of 249 million, Pacitalia's National Superior Court voted to annul the election and order it to be re-run within 12 months. The Court based its decision on irregularities in vote counting, and the unexplained disappearance of thousands of postal ballots, both of which would have likely affected the final result. Initially despondent over the results, according to sources, Bello re-emerged, and, outraged, encouraged his supporters to protest and flood social media, claiming a conspiracy to steal the election from him.

Russo opted not to run a second time and was later appointed Governor of the Republican Central Bank in February 2017. Bello was immediately acclaimed as the Christian Democrats' candidate, leveraged a headstart in campaigning, and dominated media coverage, to retain a lead in opinion polls throughout the first half of 2017. He led by even bigger margins as the re-run election officially commenced.

Widely expected to make the runoff again, and then win by enough of a margin to avoid a recount, Bello unexpectedly crashed out in the first round, with most of his softer supporters changing their minds at the last minute and voting for FPD candidate Archetenia Nera, propelling her into the runoff instead. Yet again provoked and enraged, his hardline supporters once again claimed a widespread effort to prevent Bello from winning the archonacy. Bello exited national politics, claiming the system was rigged, and began urging his supporters to turn to violence to achieve their aims. Hundreds of his supporters engaged in violent, deadly riots in Nortopalazzo on the morning of the runoff vote, killing 11 and injuring hundreds. Shortly afterward, Bello fled the country and continued to incite his supporters from an undisclosed location.

Despite (or perhaps because of) Bello's flight from prosecution, the 2017 election campaign evolved into a debate on how to manage potential fallout from political extremism and violence, and even how to deal with Bello himself. As the campaign came to a close, parties differed on how to – or whether to – bring Bello to justice, how to punish riot participants, and how to deal with an increase in physical assaults, harassment, threats, cyberbullying, and vandalism by Bello supporters against innocent individuals.

Authorities would eventually narrow in on Bello's location over the next year. However, wishing to avoid the humiliation of a public arrest, Bello committed suicide on a yacht, on which he was the sole occupant. His body and the unmoored yacht were discovered by the Guardia Costiera off the eastern coast of Pacitalia in early September 2018.

Results

Elected to the Constazione Repubblicana, 2017
Party	Votes		Party list seats	Electorate seats	Total seats
Federation of Progressive Democrats Maurizio Conte	79,227,811	24.3%	108 / 445	87 / 270	195 / 715
Pacitalian Social Congress Tomás de la Marques	72,707,004	22.3%	99 / 445	62 / 270	161 / 715
Democratic Nationalist Party Damián Moya	71,402,842	21.9%	97 / 445	70 / 270	167 / 715
Pacitalian Green Party Gabrielo Brunate	46,623,774	14.3%	64 / 445	22 / 270	86 / 715
Christian Democrats Vincenzo Promarche	25,757,190	7.9%	35 / 445	7 / 270	42 / 715
Lliga d'Empordán Adriun Váll i Bernám	10,759,332	3.3%	15 / 445	15 / 270	30 / 715
Partit dels Socialistes d'Empordà Pere Capderoig	8,477,050	2.6%	12 / 445	7 / 270	19 / 715
Libertad Marquería Juntos Inés Salvador Blanco	4,238,525	1.3%	6 / 445	0 / 270	6 / 715
Radical Anticapitalists No official leader	2,536,594	0.8%	4 / 445	0 / 270	4 / 715
Defence of the Republic Primo Demasso	2,282,283	0.7%	3 / 445	0 / 270	3 / 715
Consensus Fiorenzo Basso	1,630,202	0.5%	2 / 445	0 / 270	2 / 715

Election aftermath

Composition of Pacitalia's lower house, the Constazione, following the 2017 election.

Composition of Pacitalia's upper house, the Senato, following the 2017 election.

FPD attempt to retain power

By convention, when no party wins a majority of seats, the previous governing party is permitted by the Archonate to try to form a new coalition government. The Archonate names the party leader the formateur and advises them to seek the confidence of parliament, either through a formal coalition with a majority of seats, an informal confidence and supply agreement with other parties, or a combination of both. If that person is unable to achieve agreement, or the Archonate is not convinced the agreement is stable enough to last the full three-year term, they resign or are dismissed, and the Archonate turns to another party leader to have them attempt the same.

Though it was immediately clear that it would be almost impossible for Conte and the Federation of Progressive Democrats to find the required partners to retain power after election results were finalized, Conte nevertheless insisted he would try. The previous arrangement between the FPD and the Empordian League had lasted through two parliaments and six years – following the 2014 elections, the parties together held a comfortable majority, a combined 375 of 715 seats in the Constazione and 53 of 96 seats in the Senato.

Following the 2017 election, the parties were reduced to a combined 225 seats in the Constazione and just 33 in the Senato. Conte would have needed to broker, at the very least, a four-party agreement including the Empordian League, the Pacitalian Green Party and the Christian Democrats, but that would have left the potential coalition on very shaky ground, short of outright control of the Constazione by over 40 seats.

Polling showed the majority of Pacitalians against such an arrangement, and Brunate later said he would never participate in an agreement involving the socially conservative Christian Democrats, rendering the possibility moot. Subsequently, talks between the FPD and Greens fell apart after just three days, with Brunate announcing the developments on his Chirp page.. Conte was also rumoured to have courted PSC leader Tomás de la Marques in efforts to build a "red-green-blue" grand coalition, but this never materialized.

All together, Conte attempted for almost two weeks to form a new government, but was ultimately unsuccessful. In a phone call on 11th December, Archonate Vittoria Agradossa, rather than dismissing Conte, gave him the opportunity to tender his resignation, and, in a letter to the Archonate the next day, he obliged. Conte's resignation made his tenure as Prime Minister one of the shortest in Pacitalian history, at just seven months and one day, and made him the first Prime Minister since Daniele Cicerone in 1985 to assume a governing party's leadership mid-term, then lead the party to defeat in the next election.

Left-wing parties negotiate

Agradossa, a member of the Democratic Nationalist Party, named her party's leader, Damián Moya, the new formateur on 13th December. The move caused minor controversy, as many in the Pacitalian Social Congress believed their leader, Tomás de la Marques, should have been given the next opportunity to try to form a government. Former deputy prime minister Diego Zuna, one of the PSC's elder statespeople, Chirped that Agradossa's naming of Moya was "favouritism".

The PSC had earned the second-highest total of votes in the election, approximately 1.3 million more than the DNP. Agradossa's office subsequently released a statement explaining the rationale for asking Moya, and not de la Marques, to try first, acknowledging the PSC's higher vote total, but pointing to the DNP's larger total of seats in both houses and its closer ideological alignment with crucial smaller parties, which she believed would increase the chances of a stable agreement. In the statement – and, reportedly, privately to both Moya and de la Marques – she encouraged the formation of a "grand coalition of equals" between the two parties, and advised them to put the country before political differences.

The FPD, now in opposition, found itself in controversy as negotiations between left-wing parties began. Senior MRPs Yusuf Osman and Pino Bernardin were sharply criticized for appearing on television and implying the FPD would resort to disruptive and obstructionist tactics to hamper a left-wing government, regardless of what legislation might come to the floor. Osman, appearing on PBC News 24, was unrepentant, saying "Pacitalians did not elect a socialist government", and that doing everything possible to stop one from taking power was "what Pacitalians wanted".

Conte, as leader, was also slammed for not reprimanding them or reining them in, and allowing the comments to stand unchallenged. Critics called the comments petty, with many on the left saying Osman and Bernardin's position was, in fact, the position of their party, and that the FPD, unhappy over the election results and unwilling to accept defeat, planned to bully its way back into power. The remarks also earned a surprising rebuke from outside the country, with Sarzonian first lady Gloria Haffner saying disrespecting the will of voters was beneath Pacitalian democracy.

FPD leader Maurizio Conte speaks to the media on election night, 27th November 2017.

Defections to DNP

On 30th December 2017, the same day the DNP had signed a memorandum of understanding with potential coalition partners, the Pacitalian Broadcasting Corporation broke news that ten Green Party MRPs had agreed to defect to the DNP. The defections increased the DNP's assembly in the Constazione to 177 members, decreasing the Green caucus from 86 to 76 before the new parliament had even been seated.

It was not immediately clear why the defections had taken place, how involved DNP leader Damián Moya was in getting the MRPs to cross the floor, or whether the defections had been planned in advance. Former Agustinate Demetrios Andreadis, and the party's 2016 archonal candidate and newly-elected MRP, Maribel Merevaldi, were among the defectors.

Merevaldi later confirmed her rumoured frustration over the lack of organization and support given to her archonal campaign, criticized the disarray in the party, and said there were many more people in the Green parliamentary assembly besides those who had decided to switch parties that were "concern[ed] that progressive voices won't be heard in a party led by" Gabrielo Brunate. Andreadis, who had been one of Brunate's most loyal lieutenants while in government, was equally condemnatory. He blasted the former prime minister for running a "vapid" campaign, a "sideshow of retail politics" focused on "charm and good looks", and said the party had lost its way. Both later clarified they felt the problems in the Green Party regarding its values and policies were systemic and not just the fault of Brunate, though they agreed the party would need a stronger leader to remain relevant.

The news was seen as incredibly damaging to Brunate's leadership, even after he had reportedly been begged to retake the leadership by the Green Party's Executive Council due to a lack of interest from others. Brunate initially declined comment but later sent out a series of Chirps slamming the defectors, and adding that "the vast majority of Green members are happy with my leadership, confident in my leadership, and believe in my leadership. Millions of voters endorsed our policies in November and expect me to represent their voices and those policies. I will never please 100% of people and don't intend to".

Many political observers had expected the DNP to include the Greens in talks after Moya had been named formateur. The DNP did not do so. It has been frequently reported that Moya has an intense personal dislike of Brunate, for many of the same reasons that drove the MRPs to defect from the Greens to the DNP after the election. Moya also reportedly does not consider the Green Party to be progressive, believing them to be ideologically closer to the FPD than to the left, a sentiment shared by many of the rank-and-file in the DNP.

Timiocato terrorist attacks, 2018

Main article: Timiocato terrorist attacks, 2018