2019 Adammic general election

Adammic General Election 2019
VIII Legislature →
All 13 seats in the House of Citizens
Turnout	58.49% (▼ 21.06)
Prime Minister before election; Lord Juliano Saunders; Storm	Elected Prime Minister ; Lord Charles Michael; Liberal-Moderate

The 2019 General Election was the first general election to the House of Citizens of the Empire of Adammia. Emperor Adam I called the election on 29 August 2019, setting the polling dates for three days between 21 and 23 September. The Liberal-Moderate Party won the largest number of seats, finishing just one seat short of a majority;^[1] the party subsequently formed a coalition government with the Dank Party,^[2] whilst the former governing Storm Party finished a distant second.

The election took place amidst the Adammic data privacy scandal, which saw the Emperor placed under heavy scrutiny^[3], with Storm and the newly-rebranded Red Green Alliance (formerly Labour) calling for him to be put on trial if they won the election. The Emperor became unusually involved in the election by encouraging his family, the House of Hall, to vote for the monarchist Liberal-Moderates in large numbers. Local elections took place at the same time.

Background

The 2018 National Election was won by Lord Juliano Saunders of the Storm Party.^[4] He formed a coalition government with the Labour Party and the Dank Party.

Cross-party talks resulted in an agreement on constitutional reform which would introduce a bicameral legislature,^[5] with the lower House of Citizens elected by party-list proportional representation. This would replace the previous system of national elections, which directly elected the Prime Minister (historically by first-past-the-post, then by instant-runoff voting in 2018). A Great Reform Act 2019 was passed in March of that year^[6], and a referendum approved the changes in April 2019.^[7] The Sixth Amendment to the Supreme Directive came into effect on 1 July 2019.

On 28 July 2019, it was announced that Lady Anna Worthington had succeeded Saunders as president of the Storm Party in an internal leadership contest.^[8] It was understood that Saunders had stood down of his own accord, believing his work as Prime Minister to be done. Saunders remained as Storm's deputy leader and Director of Communications.

On 19 August 2019, it was announced that Sir Charles Michael had been elected as the new leader of the Liberal-Moderate Party.^[9] This was followed by the announcement on 5 September that Billy Thompson was to take over from Lord Maude as leader of the Labour Party;^[10] several days later, Thompson rebranded the party as the Red Green Alliance.^[11] Lady Ems Simpson, who had dissolved the Nuclear So-and-so Party in June, subsequently joined the RGA.

Campaign

A social media graphic used by the Liberal-Moderates to announce their manifesto.

The RGA rebrand coincided with Thompson calling for a climate emergency to be declared in Adammia, making climate change an early focus of the campaign. All of the major parties would ultimately include climate policies in their manifestos. The Lib-Mods proposed banning certain imports and launching a public information campaign, whilst Storm called for emissions targets and for the Emperor to publicly make a stand on the issue. The RGA went furthest by calling for vegetarian diets for all citizens.

The 2019 election campaign saw other parties attempting to emulate the Storm Party's previous success at building a co-ordinated campaign team. Emperor Adam recruited Amity Gilmour, former editor of the Daily Rag, to serve as Lib-Mod Deputy Leader, with her being elected as such on 12 September, and as the party's Director of Communications. The Emperor, Michael and Gilmour formed the Lib-Mod Executive Committee, and unlike the previous year they produced social media graphics which were on par with those of the Storm Party. Thompson, Maude and Simpson also formed an effective campaign team for the RGA.

On 15 September, Lady Worthington launched Storm's campaign by levelling a number of accusations against the Emperor, including leaking data via MicroWiki and making alliances with "corrupt" micronations. She stated that voting for the Lib-Mods was an endorsement of the Emperor, and from this point on the main focus of the election campaign became the Emperor's record as head of state.

As in 2018, substantial debate took place in the Empire's official Facebook group, with Worthington's initial post attacking the Emperor attracting 40 comments in response. The Emperor denied that he had leaked data, arguing that posts in the Facebook group were effectively public, and that he had not published any personal data submitted on a citizenship application form. Storm's other accusations, such as that the Treasury's stake in Adammic Investment Ltd. amounted to "gambling" government money, were rebuked by the Emperor, Lord Helliker and others. However, Lord Helliker admitted that the data privacy accusations were serious and that he was investigating the matter as Attorney General, which Storm politicians immediately seized upon, and the scandal subsequently became the defining topic of the campaign.

The stakes were raised on 18 September when Lady Worthington published an article in the Adammic Times which went into the data privacy scandal in more detail. Lord Helliker had previously, whilst expressing concern towards the accusations, publicly defended Adammia's constitutional monarchy and criticised Storm. However, on 19 September he published the Helliker Report, which concluded that the Emperor had likely violated the GDPR Compliance Act 2018, and simultaneously defected from the Lib-Mods to Storm. This occurred just minutes before the Lib-Mods were about to publish their manifesto, and the party scrambled to remove Helliker from its candidates list. An hour later, the Emperor issued a statement in which he conceded liability and resigned as Cabinet Secretary, the position in which he processed citizenship applications.

The Lib-Mod manifesto promised to reverse the Storm Party's merger of the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Citizenship and Information into the Ministry of Patriotism, to give funding to local governments, to give legal protections to transgender and non-binary citizens, to create the Adammia Games and to replace the Contributions Scheme with alternative sources of income. They spent the final days of the campaign heavily criticising the Storm Party's policy of declaring war on Wazakhstan.

In addition to "liberating" Wazakhstan, Storm's manifesto also pledged to review ties with "regressive" micronations such as Austenasia (in reference to Austenasia's marriage policies), to make frogs the national animal, and judicial reform. The RGA's 2019 manifesto was probably the most extreme in Adammic history, calling for the Emperor's assets to be seized and redistributed, as well as abolishing the military. They also promised to make Kubb the national sport. Thompson described Storm as "tyrants" whilst simulatenously condemning the Emperor as an "aristocrat capitalist", and Lord Maude attacked Storm's policy of war against Wazakhstan by drawing attention to his own record as Minister of Foreign Affairs in defusing tensions a year prior. In response, Storm tried to portray the RGA (and the Dank Party) as being willing to prop up the Lib-Mods, whilst Charles Michael tried to distance the Lib-Mods from the RGA by accusing them of wanting to "tear this nation apart".

After previously withdrawing from the 2018 election, Dank leader Hermione Peace stood and published a manifesto of mostly unserious policies, such as building a railway line to "penetrate Your Mum". They agreed with Storm's proposals to review ties with Austenasia and called for an "intervention of the Emperor so we can work to rebuild trust", but otherwise did not take much of a stand in the data privacy debate. Crucially, however, Peace disavowed her previous support for Storm due to their war policy, saying that she would instead work with either the Lib-Mods or the RGA in the event of a hung parliament. In private, both Peace and her close friend Lady Simpson of the RGA had come to believe that Storm had gone too far in its attacks against the Emperor.

During the election period, the Emperor travelled from Varwall to Imperial City to facilitate physical voting for citizens who did not have email. In Imperial City, he privately urged members of Greater Tytannia Local Council, entirely consisting of his family members in the House of Hall, to vote for the Lib-Mods, expressing fear towards a potential Storm war against Wazakhstan or a criminal trial against him in response to the data privacy scandal. The Lib-Mods ran an extensive get-out-the-vote operation, with Emperor Mother Jayne phoning relatives in Myway in the only known instance of phone canvassing in Adammic history. The Lib-Mod leadership also encouraged its supporters to put the relatively friendly Dank Party as a second preference.

Opinion polls

Pollster	Release	Sample	Storm	Liberal Moderate	Labour / RGA	Dank	Lead
Pollster	Release	Sample					Lead
Adammic Express^[12]	28 July 2019	16	44%	33%	17%	6%	11%
Lady Worthington becomes Storm leader (28 July)
Sir Charles Michael becomes Liberal-Moderate leader (19 August)
Billy Thompson becomes Labour leader (5 September)
Adammic Express^[13]	6 September 2019	15	44%	34%	20%	2%	10%

Results

Party		Preferences				Total score %	Candidates and scores
Party		#1	#2	#3	#4	Total score %	#1	#2	#3	#4	#5	#6	#7	#8	#9
	Liberal-Moderate Party	15	2	6	1	40.17%	Sir Charles Michael 18.23	Emperor Adam I 9.12	Lady Amity Gilmour 6.08	Lady Sophie Thornton 4.56	Sir Ned Hilton 3.65	Emperor Mother Jayne 3.04
	Storm Party	9	2	1	2	23.87%	Lady Anna Worthington 10.83	Lord Juliano Saunders 5.42	Colonel Sir Asher Bond 3.61	Lord Alex Helliker 2.71	Lord Callum Gurr 2.17	Alex SP 1.81	Bhavina Mistry 1.55	Lucy Griffiths 1.35	Alex Lloyd 1.20
	Red Green Alliance	4	6	4	1	18.88%	Billy Thompson 8.57	Lord Sam Maude 4.29	Lady Ems Simpson 2.86
	Dank Party	2	9	0	5	17.08%	Lady Hermione Peace 7.75

By territorial division

Division	Turnout	First preferences				Total score
Division	Turnout	Storm	Liberal Moderate	RGA	Dank	Storm	Liberal Moderate	RGA	Dank
Corellia	100.0%	3	0	0	0	3.00	0.58	0.83	0.75
Greater Tytannia	55.5%	0	5	0	0	0.00	5.00	0.00	0.00
Metchlia	100.0%	0	1	1	1	0.25	1.66	1.50	2.00
Serkatia	100.0%	1	1	0	0	1.00	1.33	0.50	0.75
Myway	100.0%	0	3	1	0	1.58	3.50	2.00	1.25
Xanada	100.0%	0	1	0	0	0.00	1.00	0.00	0.50
Non-territorial	41.9%	5	4	2	1	5.00	5.17	3.75	2.50

Analysis

The Liberal-Moderates succeeded in winning votes from the Emperor's family members in Greater Tytannia and Myway through its pro-monarchy position. By contrast, many of Storm's 2018 supporters did not vote, especially those from the former province of Alluria, and this is reflected in the lower overall turnout. Storm retained a sizable voting bloc in Corellia and amongst non-territorial citizens, but that they received as many first preferences as candidates implies that they were unpopular outside of their core membership. It can be argued that their hostility towards the Emperor and their pledge to wage war against Wazakhstan put off some otherwise populist-inclined voters.

The RGA lost traditional Labour voters in Greater Tytannia to the Lib-Mods following its rebrand, but benefitted from a large number of Storm second preferences. The Dank Party, meanwhile, received a large number of Lib-Mod second preferences. Before the election, it was suspected that Lady Simpson could lose out on a seat due to being #3 on the RGA list rather than #2 on the Dank list. In the end, she narrowly finished ahead of Lord Helliker for the final seat in the House. Lord Helliker would have won a seat had he remained in the #5 position on the Lib-Mod list, but ironically lost out by crossing the floor and taking the #4 position on the Storm list. The Dank Party had enough support to win a second seat if they had an extra candidate.

The unreliability of the Adammic Express's opinion polls was shown for the second election in a row, and they subsequently discontinued them.

Aftermath

The Liberal-Moderates finished one seat short of a majority and were widely expected to form the next government. The Emperor originally put himself forward to serve as the first Speaker. However, whilst returning from Greater Tytannia to Varwall, he met with Thompson at Sheffield train station to collect a Liberal Democrat banner for the upcoming University of Birmingham freshers' fair. There, the two discussed the possibility of a confidence-and-supply deal between the Lib-Mods and the RGA, and Thompson told the Emperor that the RGA, Storm and Dank parties had agreed to put forward Lord Maude as Speaker.^[14] The Emperor subsequently withdrew and Maude was elected unopposed. The Lib-Mods were reportedly happy to allow Maude to become Speaker as it would eliminate a potential unity candidate on the populist side of the House from challenging Michael for the office of prime minister. Lord Helliker at one point approached the Lib-Mods with the offer of a coalition with Storm, but the Lib-Mods immediately shut this down, believing that it was better to pit their opponents against each other, as it was not clear which of Worthington and Thompson would be Leader of the Opposition as they had the same number of seats. Lord Gurr stated that he had argued heavily against such a deal within the Storm Party.

The apparent willingness of the other parties to work together on electing a Speaker worried the Lib-Mod leadership. The Emperor met with Lady Peace at the Country Girl pub in Birmingham on 26 September and essentially offered the Dank Party whatever they wanted in exchange for a coalition. The two agreed a coalition government whereby the House would have the opportunity to scrutinise the Emperor, but no criminal trial would take place; an independent review of Adammia's foreign relations was also agreed. On 10 October, the House voted to make Charles Michael prime minister, and Peace became deputy PM. It would also come to light that Thompson had lied about the cross-party support for Maude as Speaker, as Peace was unaware of such a movement.

Lord Saunders would soon after the election approach Amity Gilmour to discuss defecting to the Lib-Mods in exchange for a Cabinet position, which the Emperor famously shared with gathered Adammic citizens at the Wellington pub in Birmingham. The Lib-Mods ultimately rejected the offer, as the composition of the Cabinet had already been agreed, and they believed that the defection of Saunders would trigger the collapse of Storm and make the RGA a rallying point for their opponents, which went against their "divide and conquer" strategy. On the first bill of the new parliament, the Government Ministries Act 2019, Lord Saunders moved an amendment which would retain the name of the Ministry of Patriotism. Surprisingly, Michael and Gilmour voiced their support for the amendment, but the Emperor disagreed and led a rebellion of his own party along with Lady Peace of the Dank Party and Lady Simpson of the RGA. Lady Simpson convinced the rest of the RGA MPs to also vote against the amendment and it was ultimately defeated, after which Lord Saunders resigned as an MP.^[15] Storm replaced him with Lord Gurr.

In December 2019 the Emperor issued a personal statement saying that he had been hurt by some of the allegations made against him. After this the anti-monarchy movement in Adammia became a lot less influential, with Lady Peace and Lady Simpson agreeing that Storm had gone too far. Michael's first term as prime minister would be defined by cross-party agreement on issues such as climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement and trans rights, as well as the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dank Party's coalition terms of scrutinising the Emperor over data privacy and reviewing foreign relations would never be realised. The Storm Party would ultimately never recover; Lord Saunders, believing that the party had become too extreme, left to form the Independent Party in September 2020 alongside Lord Helliker and Lord Maude.^[16] At the 2020 general election, the Lib-Mods would again win the most seats, but the Independent Party won the popular vote^[17] and formed a coalition with Storm and the RGA, with Saunders returning as prime minister.^[18]

References

[1] General election result: Liberal-Moderates are the largest party, Adammic Express

[2] Liberal-Moderates form coalition with Dank Party, Adammic Express

[3] Data scandal sees Helliker cross the floor and Emperor resign as Cabinet Secretary, Adammic Express

[4] Shock landslide Storm Party victory, Juliano Saunders to be prime minister, Adammic Express

[5] Cross-party consensus reached on constitutional reform, Adammic Express

[6] Great Reform Act passes, referendum on 27th of April, Adammic Express

[7] Sixth Amendment passes by massive majority, Adammic Express

[8] Lady Worthington elected Storm leader, Saunders to stand down as PM, Adammic Express

[9] Sir Charles Michael is the new Lib-Mod leader, Adammic Express

[10] Thompson takes over Labour as Alluria is dissolved, Adammic Express

[11] Labour rebrands to Red Green Alliance as election looms, Adammic Express

[12] Voting intention: STM 44% LMP 33% LAB 17% DNK 6%, Adammic Express

[13] Voting intention: STM 44% LMP 34% LAB 20% DNK 2%, Adammic Express

[14] Lord Maude tipped to be Speaker of the House, Adammic Express

[15] Saunders quits as MP following bizarre vote on department name, Adammic Express

[16] Saunders and Maude launch new Independent Party in seismic moment for election race, Adammic Express

[17] Lib-Mods largest party, but Independents lead popular vote amidst historic low turnout, Adammic Express

[18] Juliano is back! Indies form coalition with RGA and Storm, Adammic Express

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]