2024 Dissauian General Election

The 2024 Dissauian General Election is an upcoming election that will be held on the 16th of August 2024 will be the 69th election 31st fixed-term election in Dissau. The election is expected to turnover a massive left-wing majority and completely destroy the fractured right-wing parties.
Campaigning leading up to the election has been very vocal compared to some of the previous Dissauian elections due to the fact that this election is highly anticipated to throw National Moderate out of government and welcome Labor back into government after 13 years. Labor has proposed some very progressive policies and even some pretty left-wing policies as well as a new powerful leader to the party, Sean T. Buchanan.
== Background ==
National Moderate defeated Labor in the 2011 Dissauian General Election, winning 127 out of 287 seats compared to Labor's 61 seats. Labor accepted defeat and leader of National Moderate, Elijah Eben, who went on to form a majority coalition government with the Free Liberal Party. National Moderate was forced to call an election in 2012 due to the fixed-term election system but increased their vote share and seat share again, claiming an even better victory than before.
National Moderate held up a powerful and somewhat supported government throughout the 2010s, winning many elections and managing to keep the economy intact during this time. Prime Minister, Elijah Eben, was replaced by Nathaniel Nottingham in 2013 but he only lasted a year until Evelyn Weckers took over the position of Prime Minister in 2014. Weckers controlled the National Moderate government for most of its time, introducing Christian Conservative into the coalition in 2016 and cutting off Free Liberal after the results of the 2020 election and in the hope that this would please the more right-wing wing of the party. Weckers ended up becoming unpopular in the late 2010s and cemented this in passing some controversial acts and poor handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020/2021 that led to him resigning in May 2021 and leaving the position to Anna Stuarts. Stuarts was a key figure in the more right-wing wing of National Moderate and was supported during the leadership election due to the fact that National Moderate members wanted a more right-wing Prime Minister after many years of conceding to moderates. Stuarts supported and pushed for many acts that were very unpopular and soon lost all credibility outside of her party.
Sean T. Buchanan became the leader of Labor in 2023 after a leadership election was triggered when ex-leader, Bill Marche, resigned as leader after nearly a decade as party leader. Buchanan was elected with a large majority easily in the 1st round of voting of the leadership election to the surprise of many, showing off his powerful charisma and strong leadership style. Buchanan managed to unite both the moderate wing and the more left-wing wing of the party in the leadership election by placing himself right in between that position. The party hadn't experienced such a left-wing Labor leader since Astryd Rigby, even if she was responsible for moderating the party. When Buchanan was elected as Labor leader, polls put Labor only around 5 to 7 points ahead of National Moderate but by January 2024, the party was nearly 20 points ahead of National Moderate. Buchanan has been praised for uniting Labor and sending a very explicit message to National Moderate the entirety of the right.
Many issues have presented themselves in the wake of the 2024 Election that have led to massive campaigning efforts across the spectrum. A new party called the Progress Party garnered a massive amount of attention in such a quick timeframe and is set to replace Christian Conservative as biggest right-wing party except from National Moderate. Progress represents a slightly more right-wing side of Christian Conservative that doesn't depend on Christian morals or ideals and instead secular ideals. Many political commentators have warned that Progress' populist attitude and sometimes extremist policies will give Progress a lot of power in the coming years along with the rise of European right-wing populist parties, hinting to Progress taking over National Moderate as the main opposition party.
== Electoral System ==
Dissau currently has uses the Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) to elect Members of Parliament. 187 seats elected to Parliament are elected via 11-member constituencies with 187 seats up for grabs in total. The other 100 seats are elected via single-member First Past the Post seats and together the two systems add up to 287 seats in total.
MMP is similar to the system used by Germany and Scotland and was implemented in the late 1980s by Astryd Rigby's Labor government for the 1988 Dissauian General Election and so on so forth. The system gained popularity in the 1960s and furthered popularity in 1970s, reaching its highest demand in the 1980s, leading to Labor prime minister, Astryd Rigby, to implement the system. The system remained the most popular electoral system in the country until recently with polling concluding that a more fully proportional system is more popular than MMP.
== Campaigning & Issues ==
=== Party Campaigns ===
=== Issues ===
==== Electoral System ====
The Greens have promised to, according to their 2024 manifesto, replace the mixed system of First Past the Post and Proportional Representation with a fully representative system and increase the number of seats by up to 50. Socialist Left has offered a very similar proposal but wants to change the way candidates are elected and increase the number of seats by only 10 or 20. Labor has expressed that the current system, implemented by Prime Minister, Astryd Rigby in the late 80s, is perfect and that the system delivers a semi-proportional results mixed in with a more majority inclined traditional system. Free Liberal has expressed reviewing the current system and replacing it with something more progressive but hasn't explicitly expressed a viewpoint on the issue. National Moderate and Christian Conservative have expressed keeping the current system and Progress has promised something similar to what Free Liberal promised.
Voters are currently becoming more and more inclined to support a fully proportional system according to Dissauian Polls that asked 5,637 people to picked a preferred electoral system for the 2024 General Election. 12% of respondents picked First Past the Post, 34% voted to keep the current system, 45% voted to go fully proportional, and 9% opted for another system.
==== Marijuana & Drug Decriminalisation ====
The Labor Party, under the leadership of Sean T. Buchanan, has expressed support over legalising marijuana in the Kingdom of Dissau. Dissauian governments, particularly National Moderate governments, has been known for being very anti-drugs but Sean Buchanan has stated his intention to legalise the use of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes, citing that marijuana was one of the least lethal drugs out there and much less lethal than alcohol. Buchanan has, however, expressed that he wants to make the purchasing of marijuana very safe and balanced between restrictive and free, believing that marijuana should only be allowed to be sold to 18 year olds. Buchanan has also considered decriminalising certain unspecific drugs in the near future as well.
National Moderate leader, Anna Stuarts, has expressed her immense opposition to Buchanan's decriminalisation of marijuana and has labelled Buchanan as an "illegal drug user." The statement she made in Parliament was later retracted by herself but she was dismissed for the rest of the session in Parliament. Stuarts believes that legalising marijuana would have negative effects on the IQ of people, their ability to focus, and their overall wellbeing.
Other parties have chipped in on Buchanan's historic statements about drugs with the Greens stating that they fully support that policy and Socialist Left stating that they were "willing to compromise" on the issue, indicating a possibility of support for the policy. Free Liberal claimed that the legalisation is "preferable" but "too dangerous" to actually implement. Both Christian Conservative and Progress expressed that the idea would be disastrous and have even proposed crackdowns on current drug legality.
==== Education ====
Under the 8th National Moderate Government, educational acts and educational handling by the government was largely scrutinized and mocked for their handling of education. One of the first major educational acts of the government was the Children of Growth Act 2015 that granted a large sum of money to students with exceptional test scores to fund their education later on in life. This act was scrutinized for favouring well-performing students and not prioritising funding the education system in its entirety. The most controversial education act passed by the government, however, was the Education Act 2021 that allowed teachers to search a student's belongings, removed the grades of E and F by replacing them with an N grade (No Pass), increased the percentage required for a pass from 40% to 50%, and increased the percentage level required to get certain grades. The act was almost universally hated by the media, parents, students, and the wider public for its tough measures on students and unrewarding outcomes.
Sean Buchanan has since promised to completely reverse the act and give people who received a grade between 40-50% a pass after the act is passed. Buchanan considered the act "ungodly," "immature," and "unjust," shaming the prime minister at the time, Evelyn Weckers, for supporting and pushing for the passing of the act. The Greens, Socialist Left, and Free Liberal have all expressed reversing or almost reversing the act whereas Christian Conservative and Progress have offered to revamp the act if elected.
==== Social Issues ====
Socialist Left and the Greens have expressed concerns over the amount of shootings that happened in the 2010s and have both expressed concerns over the future of continuing to allow public use of firearms in the country. National Moderate fought back against the claims that shootings were causing more shootings by announcing that, if elected again, they would give people more power in buying guns and make it easier buy guns for self-defence despite passing an act in 2017 that made it more restrictive.
Labor has promised to allow abortions up to the 25th week up pregnancy, up from 20 weeks, and that they will introduce new programs on educating people on abortions and contraception. The Greens have also backed up increasing the time to get abortions up to the 25th week but Socialist Left has only promised to reverse the Abortion Act 2021 that decreased the time in which a person could get an abortion from 22 to 20 weeks. National Moderate has expressed that the current abortion system is adequate whereas Christian Conservative has promised to "review" the power to get an abortion.
Labor wants to majorly address discrimination in the country by proposing a discrimination act to be passed in the first term if elected. The act would completely revamp the system on dealing with discrimination that would concern restructuring discrimination and equality in the education system, introduce new hate speech laws, uphold the rights of minorities, and promote equality among races, sexes, genders, sexualities, etc. Sean Buchanan also wants to propose a separate second act that would deal with sexual assault, assault, and physical violence acts and proposals to combat that.
A deal between Labor, the Greens, and Socialist Left was signed back in 2023 that promised that if anyone of the three parties enter government after the next election, then they would propose a major anti-corruption act that would aim to massively change the government in Dissau to make it corruption proof. National Moderate expressed concerns over such an act, claiming that it would only further problems, increase corruption, and make it difficult to amend the constitution.
==== Terrorism & Immigration ====
==== Economy, Taxes, & Trade Unions ====
Labor wants to massively increase the minimum wage and majorly increase the annual change rate for the minimum wage. The rest of the major parties have promised to increase the minimum wage but Labor has proposed the biggest increase by far compared to the other parties. Labor promised to bring down the country's inflation rate of 4.6% in 2023 to 2.5% in 2024 and keep inflation under 3% in the first term of government. Labor has also promised to grow the country's GDP by at least 1% each year in their first term. Labor's economic proposals have been labelled as "extreme" and "over-reaching" by many but has brought about a lot of promise from voters who hadn't heard such big promises since the National Moderate's campaign for the 2020 General Election.
National Moderate believes that the growth of the economy is the most important economic issue to focus on in the next four years, promising to grow the economy at the same rate as Labor, 1% each year until the next election. National Moderate stressed that growing the economy would ensure that the government could keep inflation rates low and then focus on increasing spending in public services and cutting taxes, accusing Labor of offering a deal that is too unrealistic and eye catching.
==== Health & Environment ====
Labor wants to introduce a bill that would set veterinary caps on buying veterinary products for pets in order to quell massive prices for veterinary products. Labor has promised to increase the budget of the country's national health service by around 10% in the first term, cutting the waiting period down by one third in their first term, further publicise the National Health Service, and increase wages of nurses by 6% each year in their first term. Labor's plans for the National Health Service were labelled as "bold" by many political commentators and put into question the possibility that there were pulling numbers out of thin air.
==== Local Government ====
Many in the country have called for a reorganisation of the country's local government system by introducing more powers to local governments. A Labor-Green-Socialist Left leaflet was created in June 2024 that explained their ideas for a restructured local council system called the "Council Reformation Idea." The leaflet explained that new councils may be made if either party enters government, each council will now have 3 to 5 parish councils that will attend to even more local needs with very small powers, and the powers of councils will be reviewed in the hope that they will receive further powers.
==== Foreign Policy ====
Labor has promised to create a massive new economic and political union called the Shean Union that Labor leader, Sean T. Buchanan, would like to see be created. He hopes that the union would encompass all the countries in the Shean Isles including Dissau, Antanos, Sheaman, Shea, Tedesu, and Ostrinia. The union would be economically beneficial to each nation, ending most tariffs between the countries and promoting the sharing of wealth between the nations. The union, according to Buchanan, would also hold elections every four years to elect Members of the Union Parliament or MUPs who would vote in union based decisions and laws regarding all of the islands. The union has been criticised by Progress, Christian Conservative, and National Moderate with some restraint from Free Liberal as well.
== Opinion Polling ==
== Results ==
== Aftermath ==