Election 4772: Upamash Re-ElectedElection results. Above, popular vote share; below, number of seats.Vascania has voted, and it appears Durga Upamash will be continuing on as Prime Minister for the next four years. Her left-wing Democratic Socialist Party (Rajutti: Lokatantrik Samajavadi Samu) was able to maintain a clear advantage over all others, though their popular vote has fallen slightly. They will not be renewing their outright majority, but they will be able to govern with the support of the minor parties - who will likely want to see the regional list threshold fall to allow them more chance of winning a seat in each region. The result is an endorsement for Upamash's left-wing populism and developmentalist policies.
The result was disappointing for Upamash's two main rivals - the centre-right-to-right-wing National Action Party (Vasakani Rashtri Karavai) and the centre-to-centre-left New Progressive Alliance (Nai Pragati Gathabandhan). The VRK was looking to build upon its base in the north and south-west, but only succeeded in narrowly winning the north overall. The NPG was hoping to regain its footing in the east and centre, but only made minor gains in those areas and ultimately fell back in the north. Both parties have new leaders who were unable to stand up to the charismatic Prime Minister Upamash.
Prem Joshi's List rebranded to the 'People's Nationalist List' (Rajutti: Lokapri Rashtravadi Suchi), and was able to win a plurality of votes and seats in Kalam Nadu. This was mostly due to a strong showing in Sangora and the surrounding area, a deeply socially conservative part of the Empire. The LRS mostly stalled in the rest of the country, winning a handful of list seats but struggling to win in the constituencies. Prem Joshi remains the party's leader, but has struggled from ill health and was thus mostly unable to join the campaign as an active participant. He did, however, create much uproar at the debates by calling Upamash a 'trollop'.
The smaller parties did not make much inroads in this election. The Communitarians, bereft of decisive leadership, lost list seats throughout the nation and failed to take most of their top constituency targets in Hamal Pradesh and Sanashtra. The Agrarians made not large fuss, though they will be supporting Upamash' government in exchange for new farmers' subsidies and a lowering of the threshold required to get seats on the regional list - currently at 5%; they would prefer 2.5%. The various regional parties had little success, and will mostly fall in line with the Upamash machine.
As a large and diverse country, the Vascanian Empire can be subdivided into four geographic and cultural regions. This allows for our elections team here at Vascania News to further dissect the election results:
North: Kalam Nadu, Tannaraga & AvidanganaVote shares in Kalam Nadu, Tannaraga & Avidangana.The north has been narrowly won by the Actionists, who have historically been completely dominant in the region. The conservatives of the region are split, however, between the VRK and the upstart LRS. The LRS is often underestimated in polling precisely because they are so controversial - and frankly, want to be associated with them openly outside of the Sangora area. In the north, the LRS nearly won and in fact was the plurality popular vote winner in Kalam Nadu due to the Sangora factor. A significant 8.6% increase in their popular vote delivered them around a dozen new seats, including one or two gained from the NPG.
The NPG, for their part, took a few steps back in this region. Many in the area voted for Subhas Luitail because they saw him as a bringer of jobs, but now that Upamash has exceeded his knack for naval construction many in the region are voting based on other issues. It is surprising, considering the new naval construction jobs, that Upamash's party still managed to fall back in this region. Most likely, many of their voters in the north of Kalam Nadu and in western Tannaraga were influenced by the energetic Prem Joshi campaign, powered by very enthusiastic volunteers, even though the man himself was rarely there due to his health issues.
East: Rajuttistan, Hamal Pradesh & Zaqrandi PradeshVote shares in Rajuttistan, Hamal Pradesh & Zaqrandi Pradesh.The east was somewhat of a disappointment for the LSS and is likely where their majority was lost. The area went for Upamash's outfit more heavily than anyone had expected in the last election, and much of the pacifist student vote has been disillusioned by Upamash's grand naval build-up. Perhaps this is what explains the much more significant popular vote drop in the region as opposed to the others, though some have pointed to lower turnout in certain parts of southern, coastal Rajuttistan as another factor in the drop. LSS remains the largest party in the region, however.
The VRK and NPG understand that the road to a parliamentary plurality is paved with eastern stones. Kamalata is rich in constituency seats that they were simply unable to pick off. Despite their best efforts, nobody was able to approach Upamash in Zaqrandi Pradesh - an working class state to its core. Rajuttistan and Hamal Pradesh gifted the right and the centre with some decent list representation, with a few faces who had lost their parliamentary seats before returning to the parliament via the list boost. The VRK and NPG must do better here in future though - to be in with a chance of forming government.
South-West: Khond, Rajavant & ParistanVote shares in Khond, Rajavant & Paristan.The south-west was a prime target for the VRK, who have experienced a surprising degree of support in the rural areas of Khond and Rajavant. It wasdisappointing, therefore, when the region had very little in the way of swing towards the right, perhaps because the VRK overperformed last time around.The area gave a small uplift to the NPG and the Agrarians, mostly due to voters on Rajavant's southern coast feeling ignored by the naval build-up thathas primarily benefited dockyards like Dolostipe in the far-north. Cities like Vakavant on the southern coast do, indeed, have much in common with the very upper-middle-class demographics of areas like Kayal Island.
Paristan is a different story, as it is less rural and more urban than the two states either side of it. It went for the LSS by a strong margin and deliveredfew list seats for the rest of the parties. Khond's increasing VRK tendency makes sense on paper, due to its socially conservative rural voters, but the statepreviously was less willing to vote for people like Harijen F and Hasika Asuri due to the perception that they were northern-centric. Some of these southernconservative also voted for Prem Joshi's people, though not any more than they did last time.
Centre: Utsal, Bhaporistan, Surasa & SanashtraVote shares in Utsal, Bhaporistan, Surasa & Sanashtra.The central states are the most important to Upamash, because they are reliably hers and the fundamental building blocks of her large advantage over her political rivals. States like Bhaporistan and Utsal are fundamentally socialist areas, full of plenty of pro-military working class people - this area evenvoted socialist back in the dark days of the Bhaporistan unrest, when they were toxic in the rest of the nation. The region provided barely any good newsfor the VRK and NPG, even if they managed to increase their popular vote totals to a slightly less embarrassing figure. The LSS won two-third of the votehere, which demonstrates their dominance in the area.
The Communitarians were hoping that standing still in the centre could be the start of their fight-back. They did fall back here, and fell to fourth place behind the VRK and NPG. In a three-way national battle, the smaller parties simply failed to get a look-in in this area. There are still plenty of supporters of the Communitarians in Sanashtra, but they will need to beat the VRK among conservatives in the states of Surasa and Utsal to get more seats in thearea. The case in Bhaporistan for any non-LSS party remains mostly hopeless, and nobody on the hard left dares challenge her at the moment.
In Summary:What is so powerful about Upamash's position, and what her predecessor Subhas Luitail never truly understood, is that the Vascanian people want development as a way to empower themselves relative to their neighbours - not as a way to build bridges. Anti-foreigner sentiment runs high, and Ahmadism is increasingly taboo. Upamash has successfully built a grand coalition of social conservatives, moderates and progressives. Luitail was always insistent on having a highly internationalist, liberal foreign and social policy - something that philosophically contradicted the way Vascanian think of themselves, even though they might agree with many of the NPG's actual policies.
The VRK, Community and Prem Joshi are unable to offer a serious, popular vision of Vascania that differs from the current direction. Social conservatism is dominant throughout the country, but those voters do not feel threatened by the left-wing in the way they used to. They know Upamash is not fighting that battle, even if they do suspect she harbours more socially tolerant views than she lets on. As Vascania continues to grow on the international stage, a more traditional and isolationist kind of politics may re-emerge. Right now, however, there is simply no path to government that doesn't appeal to that typical, working class voter who wants to see Vascania stand above its neighbours - not away from them or even next to them.