Election '89: A PreviewJanuary 4488
Left: Union candidate Amandara Adwani.
Right: Alliance candidate Samarpreet Bedi.
Thikkonagama, Vanakalam - Election '89 promises to be a change election, regardless of the result. With incumbent Governor-General Tambethra Asharika not going for a fifth term due to advancing age, the election is clearly between two very different candidates. In Vascania, elections are now held every 5 years after a change in the constitution several years ago. The two main factions fighting it out are the leftist Union and conservative Alliance, which are made up of smaller, more diverse parties. There are 500 seats in the unitary parliament up for grabs, with 200 in the assemblies of Vanakalam and Kalkalistan. Thousands of local, municipal, state and regional officials will also be elected - with 334 million eligible voters. Voter turnout in Vascania tends to be between 65% and 80%.
Most interesting of the races is for the position of Governor-General. The leftist Union has selected Amandara Adwani of Kayal, Kalkalistan, to go up against the Alliance's candidate - Samarpreet Bedi of Ananti Pradesh, Kalkalistan. This will mark the first election in the history of the united Vascania that both major candidates will be from Kalkalistan, with the incumbent T. Asharika originating from Vanakalam. Adwani hopes to unite a coalition of young people, first-time voters, the urban working class and unmarried women to overcome the 35 million gap in party registration. Bedi seeks to hold onto the party's existing mix of religious Vascanians, ardent monarchists, the rural poor, farmers, suburban parents and the wealthy. Due to the massive size of Vascania, these necessary winning combinations are equally as fragile and complex. Adwani's coalition is smaller, but polls suggest she has been doing a better job of holding hers together than Bedi.
The current Governor-General is widely popular, and has been seen as a competent leader of the country and its economy. However, Bedi has made a number of disparaging comments about women, saying they have no place in leading businesses and condemned some women for having better-payed jobs than their husbands. He has refused to apologise, which has taken him from a 30% lead to a 5% one. As stated, suburban women and the many religious women of the Empire are very important to the Alliance keeping its long-standing streak in government. While Bedi has been hammering home conservative social positions, Adwani has been talking economics and policing. She proposes increasing taxes on big businesses, and increasing inheritance tax. She's also for criminal justice reform and for abolishing the death penalty. Whether Adwani can overcome a massive disadvantage in the electoral fundamentals is yet to be seen.