2021 Great Morstaybishlia General Election: Difference between revisions

'''The 2021 Great Morstaybishlia general election''' was held on Thursday, 1 April 2021, two years after the [[2019 Great Morstaybishlia General Election|previous general election in 2019]]. It was triggered following the Labour Party loosing their working majority.<ref>[[MBC]], 9th March 2021. ''Barvata calls an Emergency General Election after Anti-Terrorism amendment fails''. https://forum.theeastpacific.com/mbc-t3205-s120.html#p243439</ref>

The [[Jusdelvic Unionist Party]] (JUP) won 15 of their 33 seats, facing losses to all three major parties, all of which seats won from metropolitan Morstaybishlian parties for the first time. The election saw a trend where minor parties saw decline, besides both the [[Marislian Independence Party|MARIP]], which gained the most seats of any independence party in any general election in Morstaybishlian history; and [[Jūs Herekore]] which gained one seat in the Western Outliers Provinces. Due to MARIP being abstentionist and winning 89 seats, the working majority was significantly less than working majorities of the past, allowing Progress to govern without a coalition. This polarisation of seats to the bigger parties has been put down to several crises that has hit the MBE since early 2020, including the [[2020 Puntalian Crisis]], [[July 2020 Kaltar attacks|July]] and [[August 2020 Kaltar police attack|August]] [[Kaltar]] terrorist attacks, the [[2020 Aegis independence crisis]] and the [[2021 Joralesian attacks]]. For the MARIP leader, [[Romilda von Anzitter]], her party's landslide victory in the Marislian region led to calls for an independence referendum, to which the Progress Party had expressed its opposition before and during the election. Although nationalist MPs outnumbered union oriented ones for the first time in history, the unionist popular vote remained higher (60.5 percent). The Speaker of the House of Representatives Baron Munchiro was re-elected on Monday 5 April 2021.

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|[[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

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|[[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

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|[[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

|Karagow, [[Damezkador]]

| bgcolor="0087DC" |

|[[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

| bgcolor="FAA61A" |

|[[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

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|[[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

|Conservatives|| 270.88

|Democrats|| 164.78

|Labour|| 143.59

Since 1991 both the Labour and Conservative parties have been the two biggest political parties, and have supplied every Prime Minister since then. The Labour Party had governed since the [[2019 Great Morstaybishlia General Election|2019 general election]]. In 2020 the Labour government established Black Alert over Dalmaghar and the Marislian region, and in March 2021 over Joralesia, the latter two were ill-received in their respective areas. Following the [[2020 Aegis independence crisis]] where 5 Labour MPs requested the government respect the Aegis Area Agreement 1977, which Prime Minister Franklin Barvata denied due to it being invalid. They were removed from the Whip following rebelling against legislation and the absolute majority was reduced to 904. When Barvata attempted to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act 2020 following the [[2021 Joralesian riots]], it was received poorly, including from members of his own party. After two failed amendments and one failed early general election, a second passed under legislation that bypassed the Fixed-term Parliamentary Act 1999 by only requiring a normal majority.

During the lifespan of the 2019 parliament, only 12 MPs left their party, mainly due to dispute with the leadership. 5 MPs left the Labour Party and formed the Aegis Recognition Party. 4 MPs left the Conservative Party and formed the Reform for Marislia Party. 3 MPs left the Unionists and became independents following an affair scandal with their chairperson MP Kassie Conbrie.

The Conservatives and Labour both insisted they were on course for outright majorities, and the Democrats insisted they would be in a far better position than they were in the 2019 general election. The Democrats said that they would not support Franklin Barvata as the next Prime Minister but could come to an 'arrangement' with Conservative leader Benjamin Wardola in the case of a hung parliament.

The Unionists said they would seek out a formal coalition with the Conservatives if they won. Jūs Herekore spoke about a possible [[Wikipedia:Confidence and supply|confidence and supply]] arrangement with Labour if they supposed a Western Outliers Provinces independence referendum. The abstentionist MARIP refused to take seats in parliament and thus refused to answer their stance in a hung parliament.

The Greens initially supported the Labour Party, but withdrew their support following Labour's stance on Joralesia in March 2021. Conservative leader Benjamin Wardola said that he would not persue a coalition with other parties because he was 'intending to win'. Barvata and the Labour Party made no official comments, but the First Secretary [[Riannar Karmer]] said he 'can't see a situation where we would need to form a coalition'.

Under the [[Wikipedia:First past the post voting|first-past-the-post]] electoral system, voter turn-out (especially in marginal seats) has a crucial impact on the final election outcome, so major political parties disproportionately focus on opinion poll trends and these constituencies. In the early stages of the campaign, there was considerable discussion of tactical voting (generally in the context of support or opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Act amendment) and whether parties would stand in all seats or not. The possibility for a third proposed amendment that would pass should Labour win a working majority was very controversial. The Conservatives and Democratic Party came to an electoral pact against Labour in over four hundred seats. The Conservatives and Unionists made a pact against Labour where they would not overlap in their seats.

A number of tactical voting websites were set up in an attempt to help voters choose the candidate in their constituency who would be best placed to beat the Labour one. The websites did not always give the same advice, which was widely exposed by mainstream media.

The use of social media advertising is seen as particularly useful to political parties as they can target people by gender, age, and location. The Democrats had the favour of the news and is reported to have the most interactions, going above both Labour and the Conservatives, though Labour managed to receive the most support from younger people.

[[MBC]] aired a head-to-head election debate between [[Franklin Barvata]] and [[Benjamin Wardola]] on 27 March, hosted by Zoetta Ball. On 28 March STV aired a debate featuring representatives from Labour, the Conservatives, the Democrats, Liberals and Greens. JNS aired a debate with the competing Jusdelvic parties on 26th and 30th March, but [[Arran Samsey]] cancelled his interview on the same day due to a change of schedule.

| bgcolor="b22222" |

| [[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

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| [[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

| bgcolor="FAA61A" |

| [[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 210)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 0)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 100)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 280)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 168)'''

| bgcolor="b22222" |

| [[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

| bgcolor="0087DC" |

| [[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

| bgcolor="FAA61A" |

| [[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 76)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Hung<br> Parliament'''<br> <small>(Labour 25 seats short)</small>

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. -6)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 146)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 10)'''

| bgcolor="b22222" |

| [[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

| bgcolor="0087DC" |

| [[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

| bgcolor="FAA61A" |

| [[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 162)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 16)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. 236)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. -9)'''

| bgcolor="b22222" |

| [[MBE Labour|Labour Party]]

| bgcolor="0087DC" |

| [[MBE Conservatives|Conservative Party]]

| bgcolor="FAA61A" |

| [[MBE Democrats|Democratic Party]]

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Labour<br> (maj. -68)'''

| style="text-align:center;"| '''Hung<br> Parliament'''<br> <small>(Labour 35 seats short)</small>

Results for all constituencies were reported by the morning after the election. The Labour Party remained the largest single party in terms of seats and votes but lost the absolute majority it had previously held. Due to extraordinary circumstances, the election did not result in a [[Wikipedia:Hung parliament|hung parliament]] as the seats lost by Labour were balanced by MARIP gaining seats, and therefore held onto a working majority.

308 seats that had changed parties at the 2019 election changed parties again in 2021. 49 of these seats returned the candidate from the party that had held the seat in 2012. A third party took 99 of these seats: 83 were MARIP gains from from Labour and Conservative in Marislia.

In Staynes, Kaltar and South Staynes both Labour and the Conservatives made a net loss of seats, the first time that had happened to both parties since the 1956 general election. The Democrats made net gains in all three countries. Marislia saw the biggest gain of any independence party since the 1960s. Lucia Malim and Aria Stemp were the only two of eleven Green MPs who retained their seats. The Liberals lost a total of 13 seats, and majorities in its remaining seats were greatly reduced. High profile losses include the seat of former Secretary of State for Defence [[Nickolas Frost]], who was the longest Defence Secretary ever from 2010 to 2019; former Democratic Party leader Jess Ghentley-Moss. The former Democratic leader Paddy Lukamortz had his constituency majority greatly reduced to 0.4 percent.

In Jusdelva, the Unionists lost 18 seats, their worse election since they entered parliament in 2019. This was mainly due to tactical voting in Jusdelva. Labour and the Democrats made the most significant gains there and was the only one of four countries where Labour and the Conservatives made net gains. Jūs Herekore made a net gain of one seat and won the vote of nearly 70,000 people. Since MARIP won 89 seats, they confirmed it would continue its abstentionist policy, leaving no Marislian nationalist representation in the House of Representatives.

Reform MBE failed to win any seats despite its vote share increasing. They came second in three constituencies in Sani Bursil, contesting against only Labour candidates.

The result was noted for decreased vote shares for Labour (down 2.1 percentage points) and the Conservatives (down 1 percentage point). The Democrats had a large increase of vote shares (up 3.8 percentage points) and themselves accounting for a 22.9% share of the vote. The top three parties held a combined 85.1% share of the vote, up from 84.8% in 2019. The result suggested this indicated a return of three-party politics caused by tactical voting. Over two hundred thousand more people registered and voted compared to 2019, with a higher turnout among younger voters. The swing to the Democrats were high in those seats with large numbers of young people, and the party did the best at appealing the working-class.

Between 22% and 28% of voters said they were trying to prevent a victory by the party they liked least, i.e. voting tactically. Recommendation by tactical voting websites had some benefit for Democrat candidates.

The new Parliament reportedly had the highest number of openly LGBT MPs in the world, with 137 Labour MPs, 104 Conservative MPs, 61 Democrat MPs and 3 Unionist MPs. For the first time the majority of elected Democrat and MARIP MPs were female.