Elections of 1946
On the 31st of December 1946, everything was getting ready for election night.
The Republic so far had a stable government with strong Federalist's influences and Nationalists ideals for the early years while more Capitalistic in the later years. Iaraina Konovalova gained the title of Chancellor for 3 terms in a row for a total of 12 years of power. Important legislations were approved during her terms and overall her motion approval was 59.04% with 49 passed motions out of the 83 proposed. These do not count the flipped motions by veto rights. The hardest term so far was the second where only 16 motions out of 30 were approved with only the 53.33% approval rate, barely enough to avoid a non-confidence vote. This led the Chancellor to change her allegiance and grow apart from the Republican party and ideals and get more close to the Democrats and their powerful trade lobbies.
Konovalova’s view of the Republic resulted in exponential growth of the mining sector. Colonies were present on Luna (1.47m people), Mars (0.8m people), Callisto (0.91m people), and Titan (0.56m people). Luna and Mars had also regular flights in and out of the planet once a week. The mining outposts in Titan and Callisto had respectively 6 and 4 mines already active with Titan also having the first extraterrestrial military contingency. Automated mining colonies were also present on Puck and Venus, where 7 and 25 automated mines were providing 826 tons of TN minerals per year to Earth. The Civilian sector thrived as well with 4 Civilian Mining Colonies established on as many bodies. However, it wasn’t all roses and flowers.
Callisto was struggling for the majority of the latest term with riots and strikes. The treasury was heavily indebted causing production clogs. The mineral availability situation (scarce) wasn’t helping either.
Chancellor Konovalova decided then to campaign on the institution of a Federal Reserve. As said, the continuous economic crisis and shortage of cash, was a problem that affected her every term. While mostly caused by bad management from the government, Iaraina used the events as an excuse to spin the narrative of her bad spending into a more generalized system fault that needed to be rectified. Under the new legislation, the federal treasury would have been allowed to manage inflation, supervise the banking system, maintain the stability of the financial system, and provide banking services to other banks and credit institutions. The Treasury delegates would have been selected by the Chancellor but approved by the Senate at the start of every term to ensure trusted members would have been always in charge of the operations.
Besides the Konovalova, the other candidates were almost all new faces. Paolo Brocchi, the Republican candidate, was in fact already near to winning the primaries in his party before the Steiner was the preferred last-minute choice. With her out of the way, the disciplined Italian was the only one left to pick up the party and try to build a long-lasting legacy. His cautious approach drove all his strategies. First of all, he did not commit to any particular legislation, but he advocated that such important decisions were more a state affair and should have been treated as such. He then assured that the new majority would have discussed and approved the best legislation for the Republic if he would have been elected as Chancellor of the Republic. With so much uncertainty around, it seemed unlikely that many people would have committed to a preference for the Republican representatives, however, Paolo would have been extremely popular in the Senate, always thirsty for more power.
The true new face of the campaign was instead Hilde Schussler. Vizeadmiral of the Deutsche Marine, true German, and backed by the Trade Party along with other minor lobbies, the Schussler was the true contender for the Chancellorship. The Teutonic woman was known for her egomaniac personality and to promote only people recommended by a small circle of trust on a nepotistic based selection. She presented a piece of legislation to promote a series of consumer benefits to restart the economy which was clearly not her doing but mostly a compromise reached in exchange for being appointed as head of the party.
In this election, 352 Senators would have been elected to follow the classic iter of Electing a Chancellor and forming a government.
While results were still being confirmed, a rumour of some sections already been fully scrutinized started to circulate in many places. The possibility of the election being rigged somehow was increasing by the hour. Some sections had numbers which despite having only 5 allocated seats, 6 were due to be assigned as the number of valid votes were higher than the constituents of the region allowing extra seats to be recognized. All parties agreed immediately to reset the system and to start over the process while asking that police forces would have been also present in each voting station. Due to this requirement, the number of voting centres had to be cut by 1/3 causing massive delays and queues.
In the colonies, where no police forces were present, the only allowed station would have been the city hall.
Despite the chaos, results still managed to come in before midnight:
- FEDERALISTS 122 The Federalist Party were finally the leading party in the Senate
- PACIFISTS 37 after the latest positive term, the lack of ambition along with the inability to leave a mark, left the party with minimal popularity and appeal
- TRADE 64 Unexpected result for the trade. Many people believed that they were behind the attempted electoral fraud and decided to do not to vote while as many thought that a vote for the Trade was a vote for the Federalists so they decided instead to vote the Federalists direclty
- NATIONALISTS 110 The Nationalists managed to use the rigged election to their advantage by staging media campaigns outside the voting centres and leveraging the sense of patriotism and rigour lost by the other parties
- MILITARISTS 17 A similar result to the previous term. With no wars or threats on the horizon, it was very hard for the Militarists to campaign due to the lack of relevant topics
The new senators proceeded then to the election of the Chancellor. The first round of preferences saw Iaraina Konovalova gaining 42.86% of the preferences with Hilde Schussler and Paolo Brocchi ending up with respectively 31.14% and 26.00% of the preferences. For the first time, the preliminary results saw another candidate registering more than 30% of the preferences besides the Konovalova. As per the constitution, the 3rd candidate would have then been forced to drop his candidacy allowing for a final vote to be held between the first and the second. As usual, was the candidate of the Republicans to have been forced out from the run and while a speech from Brocchi was due and waited, he decided to do not to give any leaving the Republican ranks perplexed on what conduct to follow.
As a result, many Republicans decided to vote with their own conscience and the final result of 56.29% for the Chancellor against the 43.71% of her rival’s preferences was the lowest win she ever recorded. Despite that, Iaraina Konovalova was confirmed again as Chancellor of the Deutsche Republik for the fourth time. The Elected Chancellor proceeded then to analyze the coalition declaration of the senators. The possible Coalition numbers were as follows:
- FEDERALISTS 162
- REPUBLICANS 160
- TRADE PARTY 137
- DEMOCRATS 124
- WAR PARTY 133
MAJORITY 176 seatsDue to the poor performances the Pacifist Coalition submit a request to be not included in the current and future elections. A new coalition took over the vacancy then under the Federalist Coalition name. This changed drastically the composition of all the other coalitions due to the withdrawal of the support of many of the Federalist elected candidates to both Republicans and Democrats with also many other Senators joining the War Party ranks.
With the majority set on 176 seats, it was clear that no standard coalitions were able to form a stable government. The responsibility fell then on the Chancellor's shoulders. Of course, she wanted the Federalists to have been part of the government and the 122 seats would have contributed already by 34.86% out of the 50.01% required. The Konovalova started then canvassing all possible scenarios:
NATIONALISTS – TRADE 49.71%FEDERALISTS – TRADE 53.14%FEDERALISTS – NATIONALISTS 66.29%The streets were apparently only 2: either ally herself with the Nationalists and form a very powerful government similar to her second term or with the Trade and continue on the road laid on the latest term. As the latest experience with the Trade wasn’t bad and with a 66.67% motion approval rate that led to using only 1 veto through the whole term, Chancellor Konovalova started to negotiate immediately with Hilde Schussler. Assuming the Trade had all interests in dealing with them due to the impossibility of allying with the Nationalists, Iaraina started the meeting with all the plans on how to continue the good work done in the past and how the 2 parties would have been able to change the Republic for the greater good.
At the end of the speech, Vizeadmiral Schussler reminded the Chancellor that her role was to form a government within the Senate, not a government of her liking. Surprised by the answer, the Chancellor asked Schussler to explain herself better. It was only then that she admitted that while the plan of the Chancellor was appealing, there was still nothing in for the Trade Party. Here we were, the old bargaining political way of the Republic. Visibly disappointed, Iaraina started to walk towards the door when the Vizeadmiral suggested that a Republican government would have perhaps suited best a Republic.
A chill on the Chancellor’s spine rushed right up through her head: the Pacifists!
NATIONALISTS – TRADE – PACIFISTS 60.29%Without any intention of compromising her career by falling again on the Nationalists arms, she walked back to the chair and asked directly what would have taken for the Trade to form the government with the Federalists. The demands were many and harsh:
- To drop the Federal Reserve legislation in favour of the Consumer Benefits project
- To retire at the end of the term
- To accept that all her political power was drained and no Veto would have been possible during her last term
Cornered between the risk of losing her Chancellorship and legacy by the hand of Nationalists backstabbers and retiring after an anonymous term, it was easy to go for the latter. Once back in Senate, the Chancellor proceeded to declare the winning coalition as an alliance between the Federalists and the Trade. During her settlement speech, the Chancellor elected ratified immediately the Consumer Benefits legislation which the Senate would have discussed and approved within the first 100 days of the term thanks to her new agreement with the Vizeadmiral Schussler. She also announced her retirement at the end of the term. She thanked all the members of the Senate for the honour she had received by them that allowed her to serve the country for such a long time. To show her respect she would have not applied any veto to the motions during her last term, or at least that was the way she advertised the previous accords in a timid attempt to save the face.
Finally, the alliance was still in a good position to govern thanks to an opposition that would have then been composed by 166 seats against the 186 of the leading majority with just over 53% of the total seats and more than the required 50.01%.
This election had also seen a further increase in the number of people voting with the 30.58% of the population actually deciding to exercise their rights for an increase of 1.46% and a total of 483.15 million people over the total eligible population of 1,150.36 million.
