EBC Liveblog: Presidential Election May 2025

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Pax Europeiana, folks!

It's time for a liveblog, this time for the presidential election where we have two very strong contenders. On one hand we have Vice President Sincluda, and Vice Delegate PhDre, on the other we have Minister of Foreign Affairs Ervald, and Grand Admiral Kuramia.

These four are all experienced politicians with heavy resumes, although judging by the recent polling, the first being the Sentinel's article by Comfed, and the second being the executive end of term polling by UV. The former gave a slight edge to Ervald, while the latter heavily favored him. This comes with the caveat that it was conducted before the debate, and the latter only had 18 respondents. We are only 15 minutes into the election and currently Ervald is in the lead with 16-2. Although it is too early to draw any conclusions from this, it might be indicative that Ervald does in fact have a lead, as the polling suggested.

With us to start off the live commentary is Senator @amalteia
Amalteia, Ervald seems to have already surpassed the support he received in the polling (16 vs 14), and while we've got a long night ahead of us, how do you interpret this? Additionally, what were your thoughts on the debate? Did it influence your opinion much, if at all?

 

[amalteia]

why hello, thank you for having me here, Mr. Skygreen. *taps mic*

yes, indeed, it looks like Ervald, even since your post, has managed to gather a shocking 18 endorsements compared to Sincluda’s 3. It’s really quite something to witness live. and I think what we’re seeing here is the fruit of early and consistent work. Both candidates, to be clear, did a fantastic job - Sincluda brought charm, wit, a very professional and solid base of ideas - but I got the impression that Ervald came in with more time and importantly, this led to more momentum. By launching talks and campaigning earlier, I think Ervald gave off a more organised, relaxed, and secure impression, and that likely played into how voters felt about the stability and readiness of his bid to the Presidency!


now, about that debate. While I personally think Sincluda may have had an edge in terms of performance, I also think that most people had already made up their minds by then. Essentially, the debate didn’t really shift the ground under anyone’s feet. For me, while I did take it into account, I’ve always valued platforms more than debates. Debates can be a bit of a theatre, they can get tense or awkward, and honestly are not very reflective of the president’s day-to-day responsibilities. That said, they are high-pressure situations, and I appreciate how both candidates held themselves through it. Since Presidents are likely to encounter those during their tenure, it's really impressive to see how they both handled the heat and the spotlights!!!


while it might look like the polls have already decided who the victor is gonna be, you never know! I'll be sitting here enjoying the show tonight

 

[SkyGreen]

Thank you so much for your input amalteia!

Indeed, it seems that Ervald's 4 day headstart has given him some advantages. Because he posted his thread as soon as standing opened, his and Kura's platform has 47 replies and 813 views, compared to the 10 replies and 293 views of sin/dre

Now I invite our two other senate members, @upc and @Gem to comment.

For both of you, given that you've been europeians for longer, how did you perceive this debate? Was it impactful? Was it relevant? How does it compare to other debates?

UPC, you've asked the question in the Stankoneia platform, mentioning how Ervald seems to "want it more". As a fellow record breaking president, how much of a factor is wanting it?

Gem, how do you comment the Stankoneia platform? GK seems to have not said much publicly about the election, but do you think that this is a detriment to Sincluda, given that he was her Vice President?

 

[upc]

For both of you, given that you've been europeians for longer, how did you perceive this debate? Was it impactful? Was it relevant? How does it compare to other debates?

I think that compared to the last couple of debates we've had, this one was quieter, but I think that is mostly a result of the personalities involved (or not involved). Vor and I have developed reputations for pretty aggressive debate performances, and Sin and Ervald, while they weren't afraid to engage in a back and forth, didn't do so as loudly. While that made the debate less "exciting" maybe, I don't really see that as a bad thing. I think the debate increased my confidence in both candidates, so it was impactful in that sense, but I am not sure how much it swayed voters one way or the other.

UPC, you've asked the question in the Stankoneia platform, mentioning how Ervald seems to "want it more". As a fellow record breaking president, how much of a factor is wanting it?

How do you do, fellow record breaking president?

I will be slightly pedantic and say that there is a difference between actually wanting it more and seeming to. I am not going to speculate on the former because frankly I think both candidates are extremely capable, ambitious, and deserving of the position. As Sin pointed out, he's been in Cabinet for 500+ days straight now, and you have to want it to do that. But I do think that Ervald has done a great job of keeping himself in the public eye -- he has made general comments about wanting to serve in the high executive again, he has been a remarkably visible MoFA, and as I mentioned in my question, seems to have been more proactive in getting his campaign moving. That public perception matters a lot, and I think we're seeing that as the results come in.

 

[Gem]

For both of you, given that you've been europeians for longer, how did you perceive this debate? Was it impactful? Was it relevant? How does it compare to other debates?

Gem, how do you comment the Stankoneia platform? GK seems to have not said much publicly about the election, but do you think that this is a detriment to Sincluda, given that he was her Vice President?

I'll be honest: I think the delay in Sincluda and PhDre's platform has been a huge hinderance to their campaign. Ervald and Kuramia got a lot of views and engagement on their platform and ideas early in the campaign, but it seems like interest in the election dropped off severely later on, leaving the Sin/Dre platform with about a third of the views and about a quarter of the comments of the Erv/Kura platform as of writing.

I also think that dropoff in attention is relevant to the debate. Sincluda had a strong showing there that might have been impactful... had there been anyone there to see it. If Sincluda and PhDre had gotten their platform out earlier, and gotten the debate scheduled sooner while there was a little more buzz around the election, it's possible more people would have taken notice.

As for GK, I really don't think she's had much of an impact on this election. Now, being a popular incumbent, if she'd openly campaigned for Sincluda during this election cycle, that would have been a big boon to the Sin/Dre campaign, but I don't think her not having taken a strong public stance has hurt Sincluda per se. It certainly hasn't helped either, though, in an election where it's seeming more and more like help was needed.

 

[SkyGreen]

Thank you both for your wise insights!

Now we go to jorts connossieur @HEM
HEM, you've got some experience with democracy in Europeia, given that you've created it. You're also known for live-tweeting the debates

How do you think the impact of debates over the years changed, and what do you have to say about this particular one? Feel free to comment on other aspects as you see fit.

Sidenote: As I am going to sleep, I will be passing the baton to @Gem with regards to running the liveblog
This has been your EBC correspondent SkyGreen. The tally currently is 27-7 with Ervald in a strong lead.

 

[Gem]

Time for an update on the state of the race!

2 hours and 30 minutes into the election, and Ervald and Kuramia currently lead Sincluda and PhDre by 30 votes to 7 votes. As we can see on the election tracker, Ervald actually pulled ahead by 11 votes immediately in the first five minutes of the race and has continued to steadily increase his lead since. There are still over 21 hours left before the polls close, and potentially another 30 votes left to come in, but Ervald has opened up a truly commanding lead, and even this early in the race, it would require a stunning turnaround for Sincluda to win.

 

[Gem]

Time for another update!

6 hours and 30 minutes into the race, with 48 votes in, Ervald has retained a commanding 38-10 vote lead over the Sincluda and PhDre ticket. To see the percentage of the vote over time, Euro538eia is introducing the voteshare chart!!

As you can see, after an initial massive surge in voteshare at the beginning of the race, the Ervald/Kuramia ticket lost a little bit of ground, settling in at a consistent split of around 80% for Erv/Kura and 20% for Sin/Dre. Looking at turnout from other recent elections, it's difficult to imagine getting much more than 20 more votes in this race, much less the minimum 29 votes Sincluda would need to walk away from this race as President. The more time that goes by, the more certain it seems that Ervald is going to be our next President and Kuramia our next Vice President.

 

[Gem]

ALERT!

10 hours into the race, Euro538eia officially projects ERVALD and KURAMIA will be the next President and Vice-President of Europeia

With 54 votes in, and Ervald leading Sincluda by 32 votes (43-11), the number of votes Sincluda would now need to win the presidency, when added to the number of votes already cast, exceeds the total number of votes in any President or First Minister election since January 12^th, 2018.

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After building up a strong lead in the first minutes of the race, the Ervald and Kuramia ticket settled in at a consistent 80% voteshare around the 2 hour mark, all the while votes continued to come in.

@HEM we've seen lopsided races before, including in May 2024, where the upc/GK ticket outperformed the Sincluda/Gem ticket by 67% voteshare to 25% voteshare. However, that race included President upc, an extraordinarily popular incumbent coming into re-election with sky-high support. Given that this race lacked such a figure, what would you, a person who's seen more elections in this region than almost anyone, attribute Ervald and Kuramia's drastic overperformance to?

 

[HEM]

Hey all, sorry for the delay. SkyGreen left me waiting in the green room for so long I turned to the bottle and passed out for nearly 11 hours.

I think there's a few things here:

Ervald has been planning this run for a long time. He's had this "shadow campaign" going where he has asked people for advice and support on how to jumpstart his career and he's made a very strong show of climbing the rungs. Sincluda has been working hard in government for over 500 days — which should be lauded — but it was less evident that he had a passionate answer for "why me, why now?" His platform got posted late, questions got answered relatively slowly, and it seemed like the fire wasn't quite in the belly.

The other thing I will say, however, is that the debate could've been another moment for Sincluda that circumstances I guess robbed him of. I thought Sincluda won the debate, but he wasn't able to capitalize on it.

Debates can often be expansive, wall-to-wall events where people watch and then expand the convo to Discord chat and media coverage. That didn't really happen this time. I could certainly see a world where the debate was the start of a turnaround for Sincluda, but the stars just didn't align.

Finally, it's been over a year of only incumbent Presidents or Vice Presidents being the ones to ascend to the Goldenblock. I think Sincluda was always going to have some vibes against him in that sense. Ervald is no outsider, really, but he does feel a little more fresh and coupled with his drive and passion plus no opportunity for Sincluda to strike back, that's how things fell.