Corpus – Almost half of the cabinet will be at risk of losing their seats at the next election, or risk not getting selected at all by their party, according to Professor of Political Geography at National University of Sanctaria, Corpus, Yvonne Paterson. Prof. Paterson, who has been doing canton-level analysis with her team since their announcement yesterday, says that list includes the Chancellor herself.
Hendry’s Sanctus Suburbs constituency has been joined with the much older and conservative Bishops Value constituency to form the new Sanctus 13th Canton – and some of her core demographic/electoral areas with old constituency have actually been moved to the Sanctus 12th Canton. The new Sanctus 13th Canton is comprised mostly of the old Bishops Vale constituency as well as the conservative Greenland South constituency – former Foreign Secretary and Sanctarian Conservative Party MP Yasminé Pontif represented the Bishops Vale constituency and is likely to push for selection again in this enlarged, more conservative canton.
But it’s not just Hendry who has an uphill battle – Paterson and her team suggest that Secretaries Hill, Parker, Winters, Kelly, Howard, and Bell also have uphill battles for re-election, with Hill and Parker now in the same canton as fellow cabinet members Rivera and Young respectively – both of the latter will be in far better positions of getting selected over the former at the canton level branches of the Democratic Left Party too.
It’s a similar story across the SCP frontbench, as well as the other parties – and Paterson forecast that the Christian Union Party could end up with as little at 5 or 6 seats, saying “the CUP has been impacted really heavily by these redrawings. Many of their MPs are now in cantons that we would call heavily SCP or NSP. It’ll be very difficult for them to siphon votes given their current polling”.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. “Kate Cruz [Leader of the SCP and Leader of the Opposition] for example looks to be in a strong position with the redistricting. Her constituency covers all her old areas, and new areas added are deep Conservative pockets in the otherwise liberal capital city”, Paterson explained. “It helps that the other 2 MPs whose cantons have been subsumed into this new Sanctus 14th Canton had already announced their retirement. She’ll have an easy selection, and a very likely win”.
Secretary Kathryn Stewart, whose old constituency now looks to be in the Galvium 10th Canton is in a similarly strong position. “Her constituency is largely unchanged, it was previously overpopulated and was due for a redistricting anyway. Areas added to the canton are strong liberal areas too, a lot of Democratic Left votes, so I think she’s home and hosed at the next election too. Barring anything crazy”, Peterson added.
Sources in the Government have said that the next election is “almost definitely” going to be on December 10th of this year. They expect a Government confirmation towards the mid-point of September.
GWEN COPLEY, Political Correspondent
