[Inside Government] Presidential Election Marks Executive Re-merge






Presidential Election Marks Executive Re-merge
The Start of a New Era

Written by Maowi



(July 26, Europeia) - A mere 33 days after electing McEntire their last first minister, Europeians cast their ballots to select the region's first president since the executive was split in February 2019. The race was a competitive one, with four candidates throughout most of the campaign period and ultimately a very narrow result; Sopo and Monkey closely defeated Lloenflys and his running mate Pichtonia, and McEntire with Malashaan, in the first and only round of voting.

Given the historic nature of this election there was plenty of anticipation approaching the standing period. This was also fed by early declarations of intent to stand, particularly by Lloenflys, who early in June stated that should the Executive Modernization Omnibus Act (2020) pass into law he would run, and later confirmed this. His prolonged concealment of the identity of his running mate, as well as Sopo in turn revealing his candidacy to The Arnhelm Review, further stoked interest and discussion about the race. Next to announce was Mr. Verteger, who told The Panda's Pen he would be running with Ervald, and finally, once standing had opened on July 15, the E-News Network revealed that McEntire would also feature in the election.

Platforms were all released shortly; notably, all vice-presidential candidates were revealed to be intended to serve as ministers without portfolio. Key points of contention included the future of the Region of the Week program, which Sopo and Mr. Verteger wished to scale down in frequency, and integration strategy, with the merits of passive resources versus Discord Buddy-style efforts, and of individual versus group integration, central to the discussion. These and other issues were also extensively covered in the vice presidential debate, held on July 18 over a Discord text channel, and in the presidential debate, which took place the following day on EBC Radio – albeit without Mr. Verteger, who withdrew his and Ervald's candidacy citing low polling and endorsed Sopo. Although there was no clear consensus on who emerged from the debate victorious, it seemed to give Sopo an edge over the others in polls conducted by The Arnhelm Review and the Europeian Research Institute for their vote tracking model, Chasing Gold V.

Vice Chancellor Drecq opened the election on Friday. Going into the vote, the Chasing Gold model gave Sopo a 49 percent chance of victory, and 36.36 percent of the vote share. Throughout much of the voting period, Lloenflys had the lead or was neck and neck with Sopo, while McEntire trailed behind. After a late spurt of votes, however, Sopo finally secured 35 of the 68 votes cast, to Lloenflys' 26 and McEntire's seven – the minimum he needed to avoid a run-off and take the win.

This will be Sopo's sixth term as president of Europeia. He has presented his cabinet nominations to the Senate and has indicated that an opening speech is forthcoming. He gave the following statement to the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation:

"This election was one of the best we've had. I'd like to thank my competitors for constantly challenging me, forcing me to be better, and for running the most thrilling race I've been a part of. Monkey and I are honored to have won this shot at the presidency, and we're looking forward to getting started."​

 
Superb coverage, Maowi!
 
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