15th January 5454
Nationwide presidental and parliamentary elections were held yesterday in Kimlien, seeing unprecedented shifts as the dominance of the Democratic, Socialist and Union Party came to be challenged by rise of populist and "extremist" parties on the scene. The elections saw a surprisingly high turnout of 89.5%, prompting political analysts to interpret the results and high turnout as voters protesting the mainstream political parties which they percieved to disenfranchise them. Various political parties contested with divided results. The winner of the race was the right-wing populist National Party, which campaigned on the so-called "culture war" calling for socially conservative policies and describing the progressivism of the other political parties as "wokeness", also calling for liberal economic policies and a more assertive diplomatic stance. The second-largest party came to be the left-wing populist People's Movement (formerly Popular Front), which sought to attract voters through identity politics calling for socially more progressive policies and also calling for socioeconomic equality and protections for organized labor. The social liberal Democratic Party came to be the third in the race, the social-democratic Socialist Party fourth, the liberal conservative Union Party fifth, the centrist Centre Alliance sixth, and the monarchist Royalist Party last, representing a diversification of the political landscape. The presidental race came to be won by the Democratic Party candidate Diệu Trần who capitalized on the support of other establishment parties to win.
The results published were:
Legislative
Popular vote
24.8% National Party
23.9% People's Movement
16.6% Democratic Party
14.4% Socialist Party
12.9% Union Party
5.7% Centre Alliance
3.7% Royalist Party
Seats
112 National Party
108 People's Movement
70 Democratic Party
65 Socialist Party
54 Union Party
25 Centre Alliance
16 Royalist Party
Presidental
First round
35.5% Lành Đỗ (National Party)
33.1% Diệu Trần (Democratic Party, endorsed by Socialist Party and Union Party)
31.4% Hiếu Vũ (People's Movement)
Second round
59.8% Diệu Trần (Democratic Party, endorsed by Socialist Party and Union Party)
40.2% Hiếu Vũ (National Party)
The parliamentary diagram (parties listed according to their ranks, starting from National Party and ending with Royalist Party):
As the results create uncertainity and panic and the regional and local elections are upcoming in a few months, it remains to see if the political landscape sees protracted turmoil or is able to stabilize again after a relatively short period of time.