Molly Vaughn – Political Correspondent
As the dust settles on Saturday’s historic Maximusian Presidential and legislative elections, the mood among Progressive supporters has been described as a bizarre combination of elation and frustration, considering Lestrange’s definitive victory and the Progressive Party’s significant loss of seats.
Collin Lestrange, a 64 year old former legislator and economist, won the election by a fairly healthy margin following a tightly-run campaign. Lestrange, a relatively obscure figure in federal level politics until this election cycle, seemingly emerged from the Progressive institutional woodwork, but impressed supporters with his eloquent oratory skills and prevailed during internal party debates, earning the nomination without considerable opposition. During his campaign, Mr. Lestrange spoke of loosening the nation’s federal purse strings in order to “invest in excellence and increase opportunity,” promising to bolster research and scholarship grants and tackle urban decay by contributing federal support to revitalization projects. On the international front, the Caporolla native voiced ardent support for increased collaboration with allies and a more vigilant attitude towards “threats to democracy” abroad (a reference to the increasingly bellicose Xiomeran state). Evidently, Lestrange’s message resonated with voters, who came out in droves to support the Progressive candidate. Lestrange ultimately won around 59% of the popular vote during the instant runoff, tabulated in the early hours of last Sunday, September 8. He was the first choice candidate for just under 7 million voters, a telling feat considering seven major candidates’ names appeared on the ballot (not including the null vote and write-ins).
Despite Lestrange’s victory, his party’s performance in the legislative election was abysmal, losing 13 districts, including several urban centers, primarily to the Green Party (Viridis), but also to one Conservative and one Christian Union candidate. Many pundits are floating the theory that it was exactly the same qualities that made Lestrange an appealing candidate that harmed overall Progressive performance. While Lestrange was promoted as a sensible, no frills candidate, making frequent appeals to the center and expressing a desire to work closely with center-right conservatives, in addition to politicians to the left of his party, this same big-tent approach to garnering supporters may have left some traditional progressives feeling that their issues would be better represented by the Greens or Labor. An appeal to the center may work well during a nationwide, instant runoff election, but certainly did not serve the Progressives in their legislative races. Others have argued that the loss of seats was an inevitability, and that the party only held their initial 79 seats as a vestige of historical Progressive hegemony over the left side of the political spectrum (as a result of reputational erosion of the Labor Party and the fact that the Green Party is only two decades old).
Regardless, the Progressives will now need to either cater to both the Labor and Greens for votes as they attempt to pass legislation, or strike up a bargain with Conservatives or other center right groups. Before the election, the Progressives needed only to gain the backing of either the Labor or Greens (or reach across the floor). Election data reveals that many Conservative and Christian Union supporters ranked the Progressives second, which would suggest that an alliance of the center may be a viable path forward for the Progressives, though they will have to confront seemingly irreconcilable ideological differences regarding welfare spending if they are to expect regular backing by Conservatives.
The Conservatives, for their part, also experienced a rough night, losing two seats to the paleoconservative Spirit of ‘37 and four seats to the far-right party, Libertas Universalis. Mirroring the experience of Progressives, Conservatives have been pilfered for seats by their more-politically niche traditional allies, leaving them with a tough choice to make going forward. If the Conservatives throw in with the likes of Libertas Universalis, they run the risk of alienating their more moderate base of supporters, and will likely spend the next four years attempting to block Progressive measures as the opposition, rather than working to promote their own legislation. On the other hand, the Conservatives cannot survive another gouging like Saturday’s performance, and throwing in with the Progressives and other centrists may lead to further loss of seats to more right-leaning parties.
In addition to tough questions, the election also provided a stay of execution for two parties, Labor and Spirit of ‘37, which were considered by many experts to be dead-in-the-water. Although Labor performed atrociously during the presidential election, fielding an uninspiring, monotone candidate who had difficulty connecting with the youth or inspiring much zeal in existing supporters during long, rambling speeches, they were successful in shoring up their traditional urban, unionized base. The Labor Party proved to be the only faction this year that walked away with exactly what they showed up with, neither losing nor gaining any seats. A shell of its former glory in the 1960s and ‘70s, Labor maintains only 15 seats, but will remain an important player in national politics considering the dispersal of seats from the two largest political parties this election cycle, and this may give them enough time to revitalize the party.
On the other side of the political spectrum, Spirit of ‘37 flipped two traditionally Conservative seats, bringing their total seat count to 11, the second smallest party with seats in the General Assembly. Despite admirable gains, this election is unlikely to change Spirit of ‘37’s position in the existing legislative political paradigm, as the party traditionally backs Conservatives on most measures. However, Spirit of ‘37, a cadet branch of the National Conservative party founded in the early 2000s, exists primarily to pull Conservatives towards deregulation and tax cuts through strategically backing or opposing Conservative measures, so the fact that Spirit of ‘37 now controls a greater share of votes may dissuade Conservatives from throwing in with Progressives.
Despite this, an alliance of Conservative and Progressives would constitute a majority in and of itself, requiring no other party to back this hypothetical center-coalition’s proposals.
For the Christian Union, Saturday’s election was apocalyptic. The party lost nine seats, 50% of their total seats. Apparently, recent attempts to rebrand the party as a centrist faction supporting addiction support and urban revitalization simply isolated the party from its more conservative, rural and suburban base without bringing in many new supporters. The Christian Union aggressively campaigned towards the youth vote, but, according to exit polls, consistently were ranked towards the bottom of the ballot by voters ages 18-30. On top of generally waning support, the Christian Union will now have to confront the identity crisis of their own creation if they are to survive much longer in national level politics.
Thus far, the election has been a tale of doom and gloom for the Conservatives, Christian Union, and Progressives, and middling performances for others, however, the election did yield two major winners, although neither party even approaches a plurality. The Greens (Viridis), the nation’s largest environmentalist party, gained twelve seats, chiefly scalping customarily Progressive urban districts, following a (this time successful) campaign of appeal to the youth vote. Viridis also generalized their platform by vowing to promote sustainable development across the nation, meaning increased funding for education and inter-metropolitan transit. With 29 seats, Viridis is now the third largest party in the General Assembly and has proven that it is highly effective at mobilizing urban voters. Unless a deal with the Conservatives is struck, the Progressives will almost have to win the support of the Greens in order to move forward with legislation. The growth of the Greens over the past eight years has been astounding, and they are likely to remain a major force in national politics for many election cycles to come.
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, Libertas Universalis also had a good night, gaining 10 seats and more than doubling their size in the General Assembly. Universalis performed exceedingly well in many rural and northern regions, successfully appealing to the narrative that droves of Maximusians have been left out in the cold by legislators, who appeal only to urban elite, and international interests. Libertas Universalis is no doubt an oddity in Maximusian politics, lacking any obvious allies and ardently supporting protectionism, a foreign policy supported by few on the right or left at this time. Despite this, the outcome of Saturday’s election has demonstrated that a non-negligible block of voters feel disaffected with the modern Maximusian political establishment, and that, whether justified or not, major parties cannot discredit these voices as some hypervocal minority. For his part, Libertas Universalis party leader in the General Assembly, Gerry Mortimer, has vowed to “set aside ideological differences and back any party, coalition, or initiative that will put the interests of the Maximusian people before that of transnational or globalist institutions.” It remains to be seen if Libertas Universalis lives up to this ideal, but they certainly now wield the kind of political power needed to make them a valuable ally in any prospective coalition.
Thus far, there is no consensus on exactly what this historic election will mean for the Maximusian Republic. Some argue that major losses for both the Conservatives and Progressives indicate the end of a harmful power duopoly and the opening of federal-level politics to niche political factions and ideologies, while others have expressed worry that major gains at opposite ends of the political spectrum mean an increasingly polarized and divided populace. One thing is for certain, however, public investment in the outcome of the federal level elections is at an all time high. Voters turned out in record numbers for Saturday’s election and more than 23 million ballots were cast for the Presidency, the most in Maximusian history.
The seat changes resulting from the 2024 Maximusian legislative elections will go into effect in December and Collin Lestrange will replace incumbent President Brown on January 1. He will be the 33rd individual to occupy the highest office in the nation.
