2022 Quarii federal election

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2022 Quarii federal election

All 781 seats in the General Assembly 391 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	13,888,203
First party Second party Third party   Candidate Hawqa Kuri Añkii Lux̂a Awkan Ñivar Party Last election 21.63%, 169 Seats 21.43%, 167 Seats 24.19%, 189 Seats Seats won 172 164 151 Seat change 3 3 38 Popular vote 3,051,902 2,913,286 2,685,598 Percentage 21.97% 20.98% 19.34% Swing 0.24pp 0.45pp 4.85%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Candidate Ilx̂iin Kilqwa Zhiñia Akorii Ikaora Lwiin Party Last election 9.34%, 73 Seats 5.59%, 44 Seats 7.21%, 56 Seats Seats won 91 57 54 Seat change 18 13 2 Popular vote 1,625,813 1,024,396 955,092 Percentage 11.71% 7.38% 6.88% Swing 2.37pp 1.79pp 0.33pp
Government before election First Kuri Ministry Government after election Second Kuri Ministry

The 2022 Quarii federal election was held on February 16th, 2022 to elect the membership of the Quarii federal parliament, the General Assembly of the People's Charter (GAPC). All 781 seats were up for election, meaning a political party or coalition of parties needed to reach at least 391 seats in order to hold a majority and thereby the confidence of the General Assembly. Elections in Quariin take place in the framework of a multiparty parliamentary democracy, and the country uses a closed party list proportional system in which voters cast ballots for political parties rather than individual politicians. It is rare for single parties to attain majorities, with coalition governments being the norm.

In Quariin, due in large part to historic religious sectarianism that played significant parts in previous political revolutions, in addition to the traditional left-right axis, politics in Quariin cleaves between three major religious groups: Akronists, atheists or otherwise religiously unaffiliated, and Kozamists. Species relations also play a factor in Quarii politics; the country has a Cava majority but significant populations of humans and orcs.

In the previous election, held in 2016, the Party for Conservative Democracy (PCD) attained the most seats, with 189. However, PCD was unable to form a majority, and instead the government was formed with the Popular Charter Revolution Alliance (PCRA)—a democratic socialist party considered to be leaning secularist—as the leading coalition partner, having the second-most seats (169) in the General Assembly. PCRA Leader Hawqa Kuri became Lead-Draughtsman of the People's Charter, equivalent to a Prime Minister or Premier in other parliamentary democracies, the first nonbinary person ever to hold the office. Kuri's PCRA entered into a coalition with the centre-left National Chartist Movement (NCM), the Akronist theo-socialist Party for Life and Liberation (PLL), and the Chartist Federation Party (CFP), a multi-religious left-wing bloc.

In the 2022 election, Kuri's PCRA gained three seats and became the largest party in the General Assembly, with PCD collapsing—seeing a loss of 38 seats. PLL, a former coalition partner, saw a gain of 13 seats, while CFP gained 6 and NCM lost 3 sets. Of the other major parties, the Anti-Partisan Coalition (APC), a centrist party, saw a gain of 18 seats, and the Quarii National Democratic Party (QNDP), a national conservative party, lost 2. The PCRA, NCM, and CFP remained as coalition partners in the new government, but the PLL was replaced with the Kozam Renewal Party (KRP), a Kozamist party described as having "radical populist rhetoric", who attained 29 seats in the General Assembly.

Issues

Background

The election—which otherwise was a relatively unremarkable, regularly scheduled election called because Quarii law caps the length of governments at 6 years—was significantly affected by events that occurred at the very end of the campaign period, when Axdel announced that it was withdrawing from the Puntalian Compromise Treaty that had ended hostilities in the 2020 Puntalian Crisis. In that crisis, Rodenia under Supreme Archon Kirk Santon invaded the Republic of Puntalia with the permission of a Puntalian government that had been imposed by a coup. The resulting conflict pitted the UCA and allies against Rodenia, backed by Packilvania with Morst support. The Puntalian Compromise Treaty was seen as unfavourable to the UCA side and was generally politically unpopular among UCA member-states and their allies. However, despite not having been in the UCA, it was Axdel who, in early February 2022, announced that it was pulling out of the treaty, ceasing to recognize Rodenian Puntalia, and calling for Rodenia to withdraw from Puntalia and remove Santon as head of state. This was something of a shock to the global community as this was a move that had not been foreseen on the horizon. Observers indicated it was likely that the Axdelian steel market—for which Rodenia and Puntalia had been major customers—had taken too strong of a hit for the Axdelian government to continue to ignore.

Quariin, a country that traces its origin to colonists from Axdel in the 16th century during fall of the Kormistazic Empire, has - with some exception - maintained a largely positive relationship with Axdel. Great Morstaybishlia is viewed as much more controversial, due to its support of the coup and resulting military government that ended the First Quarii Republic in 1788. Brief Quarii involvement in the Auroran Imperial War on the side of Noroist Axdel also caused Quariin to owe significant reparations to Morstaybishlia, a factor which served to reinvigorate anti-Morst settlement in some portions of Quarii society, especially among Kozam followers. As a result of these historical relationships, the announcement of Axdel's actions regarding Puntalia in 2022 were popular among broad sections of the Quarii political spectrum, and once the news became public, it quickly dominated the campaign.

Campaign

Lead-Draughtsman Kuri, as well as Secretary of the General Assembly Ñalin Awx̂a (also of the PCRA) both quickly declared public support for Axdel, with Kuri saying in remarks to the press, "we stand in solidarity against the fascist menace and the fools who believe they can be appeased. The so-called compromise treaty was a farce that was never deserving of anything but contempt, and Quariin is proud to stand with Axdel as they make the correct choice today." Awx̂a added that "anything other than the total nullification of fascism in southern Arcturia is a failure, and I can confirm that broad support exists in the legislature for Axdel’s actions and for a positive Quariin response to events."

The KRP also took advantage of the situation with Axdel to make an impact in the campaign. Party leader Koralin Aux̂in, in remarks in Porto Idola—a coastal city whose population leans Kozam—was highly outspoken in both support for Axdel and opposition to Great Morstaybishlia and others in the international community who had sided against Axdel, particularly Packilvania.

“	Citizens, Comrades, Members of this nation who can still see the scars of the Morstaybishlian-backed Juntas, ask yourself as to why the MBE will not lift a finger to stop Pax from bringing us to the brink of another Great War. Ask yourself why the Prime Minister [of Morstaybishlia] cares not for the Puntalian people, and instead brought ships in support of Rodenia in 2020. Ask why Rodenia exists, and at every layer you will find out why we still speak of the Staynish as if they were a plague.	„
—Koralin Aux̂in, 13 Feb. 2022

RAOP and left-wing conspiracies

During the early stages of the campaign, controversy sparked over comments made by Kouriina Taura, Head of the Revolutionary Anti-Opiate Platform (RAOP), a radical secularist and far-left pressure group with ties to Quariin's Secularist Left parties. In an interview on November 9th, Taura called the upcoming election "Lux̂a's Cabinet Reshuffle" and suggested the common man "only had the choice of if they want to protest the next oligarchy of the clerical elite or watch them take over faster." While the RAOP had generally been supportive of the PCRA when they were in Opposition, the 2016 election and subsequent allowance of the PLL in Government saw relations between the two sour, with Taura and several RAOP Trade Union leaders accusing Kuri of defecting to the neoliberal-aligned "faux-left".

Further leftist conspiracies were propagated on several 5san political discussion boards, with a variety of conspiratorial posts appearing throughout late 2021 and early 2022, ranging wildly from Kuri having been blackmailed by Matron Vana Dandreal to a theorized cult desiring to create a unified Faith of Kozam and Akronism and enforce it as a state religion under the political leaders of the Akronist-Kozam Unified Front of Resistance (A-KU), which - according to some users - destabilized the Quarii Socialist Republic with this idea in mind.

While such conspiracies were generally written off by most mainstream parties, with Añkii Lux̂a of the NCM remarking upon it as a "frivolous muddying of clear water", Socialist Orthodoxy received some success, accredited to the conspiracy's effectiveness in utilising voter dissolution, with the party gaining 6 additional seats against the pattern of slow decline seen previously, with Taura taking a seat in the General Assembly.

Results

Party		Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	Popular Charter Revolutionary Alliance	3,051,902	22.74	+0.24	172	+3
	New Chartist Movement	2,444,107	18.21	-0.45	164	-3
	Party for Conservative Democracy	2,685,598	20.01	-4.85	151	-38
	Anti-Partisan Coalition	1,625,813	12.12	+2.37	91	+18
	Party for Life and Liberation	1,024,396	7.63	+1.79	57	+13
	Quarii National Democratic Party	955,092	7.12	-0.33	54	-2
	Kozam Renewal Party	511,698	3.81	+0.27	29	+2
	Chartist Federation Party	494,932	3.69	+0.71	28	+6
	Socialist Orthodoxy	336,932	2.51	+0.69	19	+6
	Alliance of Popular Struggle	244,614	1.82	-0.51	14	-4
	The Quariin Solution	43,940	0.33	-0.02	2	-1
Total		13,419,024	100.00	–	781	±0
Valid votes		13,419,024	98.79
Invalid/blank votes		164,165	1.21
Total votes		13,583,189	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		18,253,422	74.41

GAPC seats PCRA    22.02% NCM    21.00% PCD    19.33% APC    11.65% PLL    7.30% QNDP    6.91% KRP    3.71% CFP    3.59% SO    2.43% APS    1.79% TQS    0.26%

Popular vote PCRA    21.97% NCM    20.98% PCD    19.34% APC    11.71% PLL    7.38% QNDP    6.88% KRP    3.68% CFP    3.56% SO    2.43% APS    1.76% TQS    0.32%

Government Formation

After the results of the vote became clear, Lead-Draughtsman Kuri reached out to KRP to replace PLL in the governing coalition. With 29 seats, KRP was just over half the size of PLL's membership, which had significantly expanded compared to 2016. Kuri's decision to go with KRP over PLL was seen by some Akronists as a snub, though not necessarily a surprise, given PCRA's traditional leaning toward secularism rather than toward Theo-Socialism. Electoral observers ascribed the switch in large part to KRP capturing a significant portion of public attention in the final days of the campaign period as well as to Koralin Aux̂in's charismatic ability. Notably, despite the Akronist party's electoral gains, the general Akronist commitment to pacifism represented a potential breaking point if the military situation regarding Axdel and Rodenia reached the level of requiring Quariin logistic or military support, whereas KRP could be reliably depended on to fervently endorse any effort to support the Axdelian position. Political observers noted this as indicative of the PCRA's foreign policy intentions for the Second Kuri Ministry, with the KRP's hard-line opposition to Great Morstaybishlia making such a choice for a governing coalition "sending a clear message to Sani Bursil", according to a preliminary report from the New Kenuqii Institute for Politics and International Relations.

While the formal coalition consists of only four parties, it is likely that the coalition will see support from Socialist Orthodoxy (SO), the secular-oriented Communist party in Quariin. Though as a left-wing party, SO has always shared several planks on the party platform with PCRA, Kuri's previous cooperation with Akronists made collaboration between the two parties largely impossible after the 2016 election. With the Akronists now outside government, SO is much more likely to support government initiatives. That said, SO has chosen for the time being to avoid a formalized coalition or a documented confidence-and-supply agreement and instead keep cooperation restricted to informal back-channels. This is partly due to pressure from the more radically anti-religious faction within the SO, affiliated with the RAOP, which criticized the New Government for 'Swapping one Theist in the Cabinet for Another', on account of the KRP's Kozam Democratic position.