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NORSEX VOTES 2015[/bgcolor][/border][border=white,6,solid][bgcolor=white]
> Prime Minister Martin Dobson resigns as leader of Socialist Party...............................................[/bgcolor][/border]
Norsex ditches the Coalition
by Derrick Sprague, Rose Anne Tackett, Paul Ericson, and Therese Hindley
updated 30 Oct 2015 2347NST
Supporters of the Conservative Party celebrate at the party headquarters in Northampton as results come in
NORTHAMPTON - Norsexian voters voted out the Coalition government and replaced it a majority Conservative government. With a 90% voter turnout, the Conservative Party won 263 seats, four seats shy of a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. Conservative leader Timothy Bridenbaugh (C-St Kyles) will most likely become the next Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norsex.
The elections were called early after the Socialist - Liberal - Green coalition government disintegrated. The government of Prime Minister Martin Dobson (S-Blames) was forced to resign after the Liberals refused to back an unpopular increase in the value-added tax and the introduction of the "carbon tax". Dobson and Green Party leader Nicholas Sinclair (G-Northampton) accused Liberal leader and Deputy Prime Minister Cassandra Horton (L-Northampton) of reneging on the coalition agreement and common policy adopted in 2012. Horton's Liberals joined the opposition Conservatives in voting down the government budget that included the tax increases, and thus with the lack of supply, the government fell.
Vote Share
The Conservatives won 44% of the vote, with the Socialists winning 35%, Liberals 17%, and the Greens 5%. All of the vote shares of the coalition parties suffered a hit, but the Liberals' and the Greens' vote share collapsed more than that of the Socialists'. This may suggest that the so-called 'social-engineering' policies by the Liberals and Greens are more unpopular than the tax increases by the Socialists.
Parliamentary Structure
The Conservatives were able to secure a majority in the Parliament despite their underwhelming vote share. This is because of the quirky nature of the Parliament of Norsex. Each of the country's 201 hundreds send one member elected via the first-past-the-post system. Thus, the hundred of Ryemarsh (pop. 3,022) and the hundred of Lorsham (pop. 1,013,521) both send one member each. Given that much of the sparsely populated countryside leans right, the Conservatives routinely win majorities in the Hundred Seats.
The other half of the Parliament is elected via proportional representation. 200 seats are apportioned to the 25 rapes of Norsex depending on population, ranging from 1 (Rape of Taw) to 39 (Rape of Midsaxon). In each rape, the seats are then allocated to the parties depending on the number of votes their list obtained, using the
d'Hondt method of proportional representation. While arguably more proportional than the Hundred Seats, the Rapal Seats also favour larger parties, especially in smaller constituencies.
Each voter has two votes: a vote for the representative of their hundred, and a vote for their party-list in their rape. Usually, the two votes correlate with each other.
Seat Analysis
Of the 201 hundreds sending a member, the Conservatives won in 173 of these races. The Conservatives won in 88 out of 100 hundreds in East Norsex and 85 out of the 100 hundreds in West Norsex. Northampton was retained by the Liberals. Normally Conservative cities, such as Staines-upon-Blames, Spillchester, Cloppenborough, and Tilbury-on-Saxony, returned to the party. Castle towns such as Cottingley, Colby, Crichester, Westbourne, Stainforth, Irksdale, Levensey, and Braventry also voted for the right again.
Of the rapal seats, the result was more proportional. The Conservatives took 90 seats, the Socialists 69, the Liberals 33, and the Greens 8 - mirroring almost exactly the popular vote. As seen in the map, the devout southeast and the conservative north were big blue seas. The Conservatives won all of the seats in Beult, Hoyt, Taw, and Uppsaxon. Mr. Bridenbaugh holds an Uppsaxon hundred seat. The Conservatives, previously shut out of the populous Saxon and Blames valleys - now had regained their inroads into the vote-rich areas. Indeed, the Conservatives edged out the Socialists in the Rape of Midsaxon, thanks to handsome majorities in Cloppenborough, Tilbury-on-Saxony, the Brock Valley, and the southern valleys. The marginal southwest also tilted right, including the former Socialist stronghold of Redhills.
Seat Analysis
Rapal Seats
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Hundred Seats
Reactions
Conservative Leader and presumptive Prime Minister Timothy Bridenbaugh thanked Norsex voters from the town hall of St Kyles. "I would like to thank the people of Norsex for placing their trust in us. This is a vote for change. With your help, we are going to turn these hopes to reality." Mr. Bridenbaugh stayed in St Kyles throughout the night after the election, as is customary for candidates running in hundred seats.
One of the first to publicize the Conservative win was Findlay MacSorley (C-Scottesbrooke), Mr. Bridenbaugh's close associate, who posted
a message on Fluttr that went wild in the cyberspace.
With the Conservative win, the leaders of the Coalition parties resigned one after the other. At an early-morning press conference today, Prime Minister Dobson announced his intention to resign as leader of the Socialist Party. Hours before, Ms. Horton announced her resignation as head of the Liberal Party. Things were much worse for the Greens - one of their co-leaders Dianne Rickman lost her seat in Irkshire, although she may return to Parliament if the candidate at the top of their Irkshire list resigns to make way for her. The other Green Party co-chair, Mr. Sinclair, also announced his resignation as leader of the Greens.
Analysis
The unpopularity of the Coalition's policies and the fractious infighting that had characterized the Norsex government during the past two years led voters to punish the Coalition. This led to the ascendancy of the Conservatives, now reinvigorated and renewed under the leadership of Bridenbaugh.
"You can essentially argue that the Conservatives are Norsex's natural governing party, given the Norsexian leanings and the structure of the Parliament," said political science Prof. Andrew Skillingstead of the University of Northampton. "It's just probably Norsex returning to normal after the Coalition interlude. The electorate was shocked and dismayed by the scandals that plagued the Conservatives four years ago, which led them to lose the 2012 election - that is unprecedented, given that they governed Norsex for more than a century. Now that the Conservatives had fresh faces on and cleaned itself up, it has now become palatable and appealing again to the electorate. Adding to that, the Coalition's track record was not that good, and some of their policies were quite hated by the public, to put it simply."
Government Formation
King Cedric II has invited Mr. Bridenbaugh to the Royal Palace to give him the go-signal to attempt to form a government. The proposed government is expected to be unveiled next week, and to be confirmed when Parliament reconvenes on November 9.
