In a 3-2 ruling, the Huenyan Federal Court has ruled in favor of President Xiadani and the Unification Party and has declared that Huenya’s next Presidential elections will not be held until January 2026.
Huenya first held elections for its executive branch in January 2022, when the top executive position was then known as the Vice-Speaker. The winner of that election, Tiacihitli, was assassinated in August 2023. The current head of state and government, Xiadani, was appointed to the role of Vice-Speaker following Tiacihitli’s assassination. Initially, her appointment was meant to be a temporary one until Huenya held new elections scheduled for January 2025.
But in November 2023, the position of Vice-Speaker was abolished in favor of the current role of President. The Unification Party argued to the Federal Election Commission in March of 2024 that since the role of Vice-Speaker no longer existed, the date of the next election should be based on when the office of the Presidency came into being. The Election Commission upheld that argument, stating that Huenya’s next Presidential election would take place on January 1, 2026.
The commission’s decision was immediately challenged in court by a coalition of opposition parties, who argued that the office of President was simply a continuation of the Vice-Speaker role. After multiple rulings both in favor of and against the election change in lower courts, the matter finally landed before Huenya’s supreme court. “The powers of the role did not change. The scope of the role did not change. What changed was the title, and the elimination of the monarchy as a co-leader. Nothing else changed. It is ridiculous to say that the elections should be pushed back because of a title change when the role itself did not change,” Xochipin, the head lawyer representing the opposition coalition, argued before the court.
The legal team defending the Election Commission argued that the change to a Presidency was far more involved than a simple title change, and thus deserved to be considered an entirely new office. “The Presidency is both head of state and government, something the role of Vice-Speaker never was. The scope of the President’s powers, their responsibilities, and their expectations are far broader than that of the former Vice-Speakership. This is clearly a new position entirely, and as such, it should reset the electoral calendar,” Tlexictli, lead lawyer for the Huenyan Justice Department, argued.
Another point of contention in the case was the requirement under Huenyan law that elections for the Presidency and the Federal Legislature be held at the same time. By extending the date of the Presidential election, the Election Commission also extended the terms of the currently serving Huenyan legislators. Xochipin and his legal team argued that such an extension was not allowed for in Huenyan law. Tlexictli and the Justice Department’s legal team countered by pointing out that such an extension was not barred by Huenyan law, either. “This is a legal grey area, but one thing is clear: Huenyan law does state that the Election Commission has sole authority, subject to the oversight of the President and the Legislature, to manage elections and enforce election law at the Federal level,” Tlexictli told the court. The Justice Department’s legal team also argued that the extension of terms did not unfairly benefit the Unification Party, which holds the Presidency and the majority of seats in the Legislature. Xochipin’s team had claimed that the commission’s decision was meant to extend the time in power for Unification Party politicians to the detriment of other parties. Tlexictli, however, argued that since the terms for all legislators (not just Unification Party legislators) would be extended, that no such discrimination existed.
A bare majority of justices agreed with the Justice Department’s position. “Until and unless such time as the Legislature makes changes to the laws concerning the administration of elections, or the powers and limitations of the Election Commission, this is clearly a decision which is within the scope of the Commission’s authority,” Chief Justice Xolama said in writing the majority opinion. “The plaintiffs do have some merit to their arguments as to whether or not the role of the Presidency should be considered a continuation of the role of Vice-Speaker, or an entirely new position. That does not, unfortunately, change what the Election Commission’s scope or powers are. Only the Legislature can do that.”
The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Kaarel Sepp, argued that the decision of the Election Commission represented “a defacto assumption of power that should be reserved to the courts, the Legislature and the Huenyan Constitution.” Sepp wrote that “no serious democracy lets their election commission rearrange the date of their elections willy-nilly based on questionable arguments. Especially not when it clearly benefits the sitting leader, and the political party in the ascendancy.”
With the court’s decision, however, both President Xiadani and the current Federal Legislature will retain their seats for another year before facing the voters. This decision has not sat well with many legislators, even within the Unification Party itself. The Subcommittee on Elections in the Chamber of Deputies has pledged to immediately begin discussing future legislation to amend the Huenyan Constitution to more firmly nail down when and how elections are held. “We will also begin looking at ways to curtail the powers of the Election Commission and ensure that kind of overreach does not happen again,” Itzcali (UP-Citlapa) told DTNS.
President Xiadani praised the court’s decision, calling it “a decision that recognizes that the stability and progress achieved by my office and the Legislature could be endangered by premature elections when we still face security issues and an ongoing rebuilding process.” The President’s opponents have labeled the decision “a blatant power grab” and “a sign that the high court itself may need reform to free it from corruption.”
