2491 Empherias general election

The 2491 Empherias general election was held on 2 September 2499, to elect 600 members to the Empherian House of Parliament. It resulted in the incumbent Socialist Party receiving a plurality, short 3 seats for a majority. Overall, the Socialists saw little changes while the electorate swung around 50 seats from favouring the Nationalists, to favouring the Liberals. The Socialists and Greens agreed to a supply and demand coalition. This was the fourth consecutive victory for the Socialists, but the worst showing of incumbent Prime Minister Lucy King.

The results of the 2495 election left the Socialists, who held 298 seats, in a tight coalition with the Greens, holding 4 seats. This caused a lot of problems as even small party rebellions could result in the failure of controversial legislature. The government therefore faced a lot of strain and failed to pass many of it's own laws through the Parliament. For example, a government proposal to increase the highest income bracket from 53% to 56% in 2493, was shot down when 6 socialist MPs rebelled, and all independents abstained. (294 ayes to 303 noes). Therefore, like how the 2491 and 2495 elections were held after just four years, Lucy King called for a general election just 3 years and 11 months after the 2495 election.

Lucy King was returned as Prime Minister, with the Socialists having 296 seats. No party won a majority of seats causing the incumbent to form a minority government. Early night results mistakenly believed that a Liberal-Nationalist coalition government could take place (with a forecast 303 seats combined) but this became less clear throughout the night. The Liberals returned 264 seats, with 52 more seats than they had won at the previous provisional election. The Nationalists returned just 25 seats, having lost nearly double that number of seats, 48, during their terrible election night. Smaller fringe parties like the Conservatives, Centrists (DECP) and Greens (GESLP) returned six, four, and two seats respectively.

The election was mostly seen as a continuation of the status quo with the incumbent party having the tiniest change in seats, alongside with no major changes in the fringe party support. The largest swing was the huge switch of support from the Nationalists (under newly elected leader Pippin Pierre) to the Liberals (who continued under the leadership of William Turner). Political experts believe this is due to William Turner's better preparedness for an election (having been in power for less than a year at the previous election); having a longer time to settle in with voters; and being marred less by the impact of his predecessor, Jack Bastion.

Following the election, Lucy King announced that this would be her last term serving as Prime Minister, hoping to hold leadership elections early in the new millennium. William Turner conceded defeat but announced that his vast gains at the election were just pulling the party one step closer to winning and that he would remain in the position of leader and fight in the next provisional election. The constitution situates that the next election is to be held 5 years after the previous at maximum (3 September 2504) but many political experts believe that an early election may be called in 2503 following the tradition of the last four elections to be held after only four years. Pippin Pierre, who had only been Nationalist party leader since 25 February 2497, announced his resignation due to the terrible defeat of his party. He is to stay in power until a leadership election takes place in March 2500.

Background
Lucy King had held the position of Prime Minister for the entirety of the previous term and held a very stable role in the cabinet, the parliament and the public's view. The economy was riding at a growth which led to some fears of stagnation, and the Liberals had been presenting viable alternative to economic policy from the opposition. Still, the Prime Minister Questions' weren't as hard hitting as the Liberals would like.

The term had a surprising lack of defections with several MPs choosing to switch parties. There was also less drama from minority parties such as the Conservatives, Centrists or Greens. Major upsets from parliament include one Ankrank MP being suspended for a month on two occasions in April 2496 and June 2497 for poor language in the Parliament during debate. Despite this, he kept his seat in parliament.

Overall, prior to the 2499 election, it seemed like the Liberals were seeing a large increase in their popularity although notably this change in support was more from the Nationalists to the Liberals. The mass exodus away during the 2491 election during Jack Bastion was hard to recover but as Nationalist MP numbers returned to regular numbers, it was inevitable that the charismatic Turner would gain popularity and trust. The Centrist leader Oskar Nikolei managed to embarrass the Nationalist leader Pippin Pierre during a debate on social conditions for immigrants in a 2498 session.

Between the 2495 election and the next election, two parties elected new leaders. The Nationalists replaced Kasper Simons with Pippin Pierre following numerous election losses and his resignation and wish to leave the public eye. Pierre was seemingly qualified, having been the Nationalist's potential Chancellor of the Exchequer for some years before the selection. It is to note that there was no public leadership election for this. The Greens also replaced their leader Emelia Reynolds with Georgia White who seemed to have a lot more personality although she was slightly more arrogant to her detriment in leadership debates. Pierre also appeared arrogant in many TV interviews and failed to introduce new policies to win back fleeing Liberal voters.

For policies, the Socialists promised a continuation of the status quo and relative stability, and promise of slight education reform to remove barriers set by the High Kingdoms constitution. The Socialists also promised to confront the immigration system with a proper and needed reform, and tackle environmental issues as promised by their coalition with the Greens. The Greens too promised environmental issues through debate and work in coalitions. The Greens wanted to approach environmental more globally by promising to meet leaders of major nations such as Ceironia and Fazar to discuss the setting of targets to eliminate major carbon footprints and move to more renewable energy. The Liberals promised a move away from stagnant economic growth into an age of prosperity fuelled by a more free market economy through reduced regulations on major industries. He proposed the privatisation of major firms to create competition to lower prices and increase innovation. He also promised the investment of other major HKA industries such as the tech industry to bring Empherias up to par with Ahitereira on the number of factories outputting technology products. The Conservatives' main policy for the election was a great and satisfying conclusion to immigration reform going for a hard line approach to let only educated peoples in, particularly those from major Alaxian nations such as Azyeri, Ginsukyo, Ceironia and Hvede. They also promised to aid any possible coalition partners in reform to the prison and education systems to increase grade boundaries for universities and make final year exams harder. The Centrists juggled a lot of approaches to a mild extent. They agreed with the push for environmentalism but kept it within Empherias and with minimal investment into renewable energy. They wanted to increase GDP growth but didn't want to invest or privatise quickly to avoid disruption of the economy such as through high unemployment or high inflation.

There were no major scandals during the term that impacted any party in the long term.

The decrease in the popularity of the immigration issue negatively affected the Conservative campaign, and many immigrant voters moved away from the right-wing in general fearing a Liberal-Conservative coalition that could inadvertently make immigration harder. Many leftist newspapers accused the right of wanting to reform the prison system to disproportionally affect skaven and dwarven people, which drastically decreased Conservative support amongst them. Some Ankrankists accused the Conservatives of attempted genocide and said that any Liberal coalition with the Conservatives in the event of a hung parliament would be a political suicide note.

Overview
Regional votes

Shifts in demographics

Late polling data

Scandals during the campaign