September 3022 Wiltshire general election

The **September 3022 Wiltshire general election** was held on 23 September 3022 to elect the 28th Wiltshire National Assembly and, by extension, the next government of Wiltshire. This election was the first to be held under the new majoritarian preferential voting system, in which voters were asked to rank candidates in their electorate in order of preference. This election saw the abolition of the party list, and the end of proportional representation in Wiltshire. Additionally, this election was widely considered to be a "pseudo-referendum" on a number of key issues, including Wiltshire's membership of the Doggerland Covalence Mechanism and the partition of Lorikeet. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day.

The election was won by the Stability Party of Wiltshire, which secured an outright majority of six seats (53 overall). Despite this, Stability's vote share actually dropped by 7.8%. The leader of the Stability Party, Mario Giordano, was subsequently appointed Prime Minister. Giordano had replaced former Prime Minister Mitchell Crawley as leader of the Stability Party, and represented a shift in policy direction for the party. Giordano, a progressive, ran on a policy of ending austerity, introducing a corporate-backed social safety-net, and free trade.

The Wiltshire Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Catherine Morgan, saw a small increase in its vote share to 32.8%, but lost 5 seats in total, ending up with just 32. This was Morgan's second attempt at securing an electoral mandate herself and her second defeat. Morgan resigned as Leader of the Labour Party after the election, representing her retirement from national politics. In the election, the incumbent governing coalition, led by Morgan's Labour Party, held a non-compete agreement. This massively benefited Grunen-31, who increased their share to 13.5%, winning nine seats. Kaitiaki Ropu fared less well than G-31, losing two of their six seats and half of their vote share. The drop in Kaitiaki Ropu's popularity was a further step along their gradual decline, starting with Leo Jakarta's defeat in the 3022 mayoral election. Overall, the governing coalition fell to 47 seats, compared to Stability's 53.

While the previous election delivered Mitchell Crawley's Stability government a second term in office, this was as a result of a formal coalition with Kaitiaki Ropu. Together, the Stability-Kaitiaki Ropu coalition governed for a majority of the parliamentary term. However, upon Mitchell Crawley's resignation as Stability Leader and Amber Ezekiel's election as Kaitiaki Ropu leader, tensions started to build within the coalition. Ezekiel, a social democrat, was far less entertained by Mario Giordano's brand of corporatism than her predecessor, Leo Jakarta. In August 3022, when Giordano's Great Reform Act proposed the division of Lorikeet, Ezekiel ended the coalition and pulled support from the government.

After G-31 refused to support Stability for the remainder of the term, and Ezekiel turning to Labour for support, Mitchell Crawley was forced to resign as Prime Minister one month earlier than anticipated. Morgan formed a "traffic-light" coalition consisting of Labour, Kaitiaki Ropu, and Grunen-31, returning as Prime Minister. Her second government was, however, extremely limited in what they could do as one-week after it came to power, the National Assembly was dissolved for a general election.

Despite a general feeling of desired change in the country, the Stability Party was able to win on a platform of eliminating debt, free trade through the DCM, and not raising taxes.