Congress Party dominates after first democratic elections'
Abo Airo, the President of the Congress Party, secured a large mandate to become Ostland's first post-apartheid Minister-President
Zibon - As Ostlanders went to the polls to elect their first post-apartheid government, everyone expected a victory for the Septembrist Crownland Congress (SCC) and its leader, the high-profile face of reconciliation, Abo Airo. They were not disappointed: the final result, announced today in Zibon, shows the Congress winning a dominant majority of over 60% of the seats in Parliament, supported by what appears to be a large part of the Crownland's Hulstrian population and a block vote from the newly-enfranchised Kunihito. Observers noted the elections were quiet and without incidents, and appeared to be entirely fair.
Meanwhile, Congress candidate Rudolph Pieterspalz, a minor relative of the Hulstrian aristocratic Von Donnelshoffen zu Pieterspalz family, was elected on the first ballot as the first Governor-General to represent Emperor Morihito in Ostland. He promised to "be a worthy Governor-General in the best Septembrist traditions - a unifying force sitting above normal party politics that can help the heavy work of bringing this nation together."
The Congress ran a tight campaign which brooked no antics. Earlier in the campaign, Abo personally caused the nomination of a candidate who had sung the anti-Dundorfian protest song "Shoot the Junker" at a campaign event for Kunihito to be withdrawn, saying "there is no room in the new Ostland-Touryou for that sort of thing." International analysts predict more trouble for Abo's incoming government of this variety, as the large degree of support among Kunihito might pressure some Congress parliamentarians to advocate measures against the Dundorfian population. In his victory speech, the new Minister-President dispelled all such worries: "We know our future can only be achieved together. We shall work for an Ostland where all have a stake in the state, as we have done in the Constitutional Convention. We cannot simply replace one form of exclusion with another. And we will not."