2023 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election

> *For related races, see 2023 Chawosaurian elections*
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The **2023 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election** was held on Friday, August 4, 2023. Like the 2021 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election, there will be no electoral college. The election is to elect the Chawosaurian Leader of the Opposition, the incumbent, Sydney Lucas Webster, abruptly announced his retirement from Chawosaurian politics, therefore an election must be held to replace him. The winner takes office on January 1, 2024.

In a stunning upset and a significantly higher turnout than expected race, conservative leader of the Chawosaurian Revolutionary Party, Wendell Rawlings Burton, won this election with 93.5% of the popular vote, defeating his progressive opponent Johnathan Saint Nicholas Montgomery VII by a crushing margin and costing the Social Democratic Workers' Labour Party its opposition trifecta, where they had representation as the largest opposition party in parliament while holding on the office of Leader of the Opposition, by 2024 it will be a split opposition, where the largest opposition party in parliament will be the Social Democrats while conservatives will hold the office of Leader of the Opposition. Montgomery scored victories in New England and New York, which actually puts him in a good position to beat Burton in another election, where the two men are also competing to represent the Senate District of New York in Samantha A. Montgomery's place after she died, Montgomery ultimately won the special election there. Montgomery also did well in Northern Canada, Greenland, and the urban areas of Scandinavia, though they are all underperformances of moderate urbanites moved to Burton. Despite Montgomery's grimmer than expected loss, his approval rating and personal favorable are in the high 70s to the low 80s, meaning there were Chawosaurians who liked Montgomery but voted for Burton. Burton outperformed Shang Jong Parker in the 2019 Chawosaurian direct election. The far-right candidate Charles Muskie, who previously won the 2020 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election in a landslide, won 5 votes in this election.

In the campaign, Burton waged a successful and universally popular culture war against popular culture and modern technology, Burton complained that today's entertainment and music over-glorifies sex and drugs, and pointed out the "weirdness" of today's fashion than that of the 2000s and prior. Montgomery betted his popularity to win the election, and nobody tolerated the right-wing extremism of Charles Muskie that he racked up just literally five votes at the end of all of this. The election attracted an unexpected and unprecedented surge in voter registration that even the 2019 Chawosaurian elections could not attract, sparking deep concern for the Chawosaurian Left.

Burton easily defeats Montgomery and Muskie with 93% of the popular vote. Sweeping rural and suburban Chawosaurians who are unsure about the world and culture of the late 2010s to the entire 2020s. Burton attracted significantly more Chawosaurians to vote than Shang Jong Parker did when he blew up the 2019 election, and Montgomery slightly outperformed Ekewaka Mikala Kalawai'a.

Burton won Chawosaurians who are angry about what they see as a decrease in the moral quality of pop culture, the surging presence of AI and computer technology, a rise in political polarization, as well as Chawosaurian domestic and social issues such as an increasingly powerful Communist Party Supreme Leader of the Empire of Chawosauria and a strong Communist Party parliament, the Chawo-Uralic War, and perceived widespread pedophilia and Catholicism. The Social Democrats became unpopular amongst the 2020-2029 Chawosaurian Opposition for their bipartisanship with the Chawosaurian Communist Party and Shang Jong Parker in the early 2020s, and the Chawosaurian communist electorate also pushed back against the Chawosaurian Communist Party's bipartisanship with the Social Democrats as well, in the 2023 Chawosaurian Communist Party primaries. Montgomery conceded defeat, but Muskie claimed voter fraud.

Burton's strength comes entirely from Southern Chawosauria, the rural and suburban areas and urbanite moderate voters of Northern Chawosauria, Cold War Chawosaurians, and several alienated socialist remnants of the Cold War Coalition. Burton flipped landslide majorities of 2019 voters from Communist to conservative, exploiting their feeling of alienation from the Supreme Leader they had faith that year; Burton also won Chawosaurians who voted against the Imperial Constitution; and Chawosaurians who do not truly care for politics.

## Background

Sydney Lucas Webster won the 2021 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election in a landslide victory over Charles Walpole, who is also Webster's brother-in-law. As Leader of the Opposition, he worked across the aisle with the Chawosaurian Communist Party to pass the Social Democratic Workers' Labour Party's policy platform priorities into law such as family leave, civil rights, social programs such as Medicare, a living wage, price controls, and a windfall tax to fight inflation, and key healthcare reform. Webster established the Socialist Coalition to complicate a potential conservative parliament from being able to dismantle socialism and Websterianism, and he kept the coalition together in the midst of near-rifts over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the lack of progress in the Chawo-Uralic War, and the surging threat of Linghu Xiaoliang to the power and unity of the 2020-2024 Chawosaurian Government.

Webster's moves alienated the third way and capitalist factions of the Opposition, and there were demands to challenge him in another opposition leadership election. A new party, the Chawosaurian Revolutionary Party led by Wendell Rawlings Burton, was facing unity behind them by disaffected capitalists who are angry over Webster's pragmatist approach. But Webster becoming the first opposition leader since George Windsor in 2005 to bare witness his native party succeeding in an election at home, in Webster's case, the U.S. Democratic Party successfully dodging a universally forecasted Republican "red wave" in the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, has consolidated Webster's position in the opposition and making Webster's right-wing dissenters think twice before challenging him for his job.

But Webster's elderly mother, Eleanora McClellan Webster, died from a brain aneurysm on March 20, 2023 at 93, greatly devastating Webster so much that he decided he cannot continue his political career any longer. Webster's decision to retire forced another opposition leadership election to replace Webster.

## Candidates

Candidates
     **Wendell Rawlings Burton** | January 31, 1950
     **Charles Muskie** | January 31, 1960

## Campaign

The campaign was centered around the discipline of Wendell Rawlings Burton, Burton focused entirely on Chawosaurian issues and concerns, such as increasing weariness of pop culture and 2020s technology, raised the threat of technological unemployment caused by technological advancement, Burton complained that popular culture was over-glorifying sex and drugs, and the Chawosaurian public holds the similar sentiment.

## Results

Electoral results of the 2023 Chawosaurian Opposition Leadership Election
 Other
 Charles Muskie | Independent
 Total Vote

Wendell Rawlings Burton won the election in a landslide, blowing away Montgomery despite his own popularity and Burton's unpopularity for ideological reasons. Burton was able to convince Chawosaurians who typically vote communist or social democratic to vote for him due to increasing disgust with pop culture, fear of advancing technology, and other problems with the 21st century. Burton dominated Southern Chawosauria, the rural and suburban communities of Northern Chawosauria and gained respectable ground in urban communities in Northern Chawosauria.

## Aftermath

After the election was called for Burton, Johnathan Montgomery conceded defeat, while Charles Muskie claimed electoral fraud.

## See also

* 2020 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election
* 2021 Chawosaurian Opposition leadership election