1999 Chawosaurian legislative elections

> *For related races, see 1999 Chawosaurian elections*
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The results of the **Chawosaurian Legislative Elections of 1999** were published on December 31, 1999. These elections were held in the middle of the Second Congo War to directly elect all 600 members of the Imperial Assembly of the Chawopolis Palace for the 20th Chawopolis Palace. 301 seats were required for a party to win a majority, 360 required for a supermajority. This is the last election held in the 20th century and the 2nd millennium. This is also the very last election in Chawosaurian history that was held prior to the September 11 Attacks and the start of the War on Terror. This is the first election since the 1975 Chawosaurian legislative elections voter turnout dropped from the previous election despite the fact voter participation for this election was bigger than in 1975. In this election, 725,043,209 Chawosaurians voted while in 1975, 130,058,643 Chawosaurians voted that year. The last pre-term election in which the Prime Minister's party gained seats and the first since 1979 that has happened, this election and the election that followed are strange by Chawosaurian historical standards because one Prime Minister won two landslide victories and gained seats in all two consecutive victories, a polarizing opposite from Prime Minister Jonathan Davgon Bismarck X who is the only Prime Minister to lose seats in two elections held under him back in the Great Depression. From the previous election in 1995 to the upcoming election in 2005, the 1999 election is the second of all three that the Communist Party gained seats. Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII was the first MacAlasdair since Jonathan Déaglán MacAlasdair in 1925 to compete in a Chawosaurian election. For a MacAlasdair, Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII secured an election result that his distant cousin and grandfather-in-law, Jonathan Déaglán MacAlasdair, who died recently at this point, could not achieve in any of the elections that he competed in.

Without incident, the Communist Party, led by the incoming Prime Minister Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII, was reelected in a landslide to secure their 12th term in control of the Imperial Assembly of the Chawopolis Palace, increasing its supermajority there from 418-182 to a wider 461-139 composition. The Communist Party won in a net gain of 43 seats from the previous election, this success of the Communist Party is attributed to a strong Chawosaurian economy blessed with high wages, extremely rare unemployment, a wide open market, and extremely low taxes and prices; the universal happiness amongst Chawosaurians; and the widespread popularity of the outgoing Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker, this popularity was able to stand strong from the 1995 elections to the 1999 elections. In the popular vote, the Communist Party won a landslide majority of the popular vote with 83% to the Social Democrats' 17% of the popular vote. The Communist Party increased their share by 20.4% from the previous election, while the Social Democrats' 1995 share plummeted. After the election, the 20th Chawopolis Palace was seated a day after the election, and the session officially began on Governing Day on February 1, 2000. In the Social Democratic side, there were renewed calls for resignation against George Windsor who led the party, and new calls on either Chester Lucas Webster, Thomas Webster, Sydney Lucas Webster, or Juneau Lucas Webster to replace Windsor, but they all declined to replace Windsor. Windsor was allowed to stay on despite this election and his age. The Social Democratic performance was so disappointing that their raw vote share deflated for the first time after enjoying an inflation of their raw vote throughout their entire electoral history.

At the beginning to the end of the campaign season, this was a very friendly political environment for the Communist Party: Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker was universally popular all across Chawosauria and as a Communist from China, Parker was widely linked favorably to the Hong Kong Handover in 1997 when the United Kingdom allowed the People's Republic of China complete sovereignty over Hong Kong for the first time since the Second Opium War. Chawosaurians then rallied around Timothy Max Roosevelt and Shang Jong Parker at the start of the Second Congo War and the Parker administration's handling of the Second Congo War was a success, marked by the successful transportation of food and clothing aid to Chawosaurian citizens who were ordered to hide in their bunkers during the onset of the war. The Communist Party gained seats because of the popularity of Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker, Jonathan MacAlasdair was considered close enough of a second term for Parker because they share the same party. Parker was replaced because of a kidney infection. Other issues such as the world economy and the world in general was widely seen as peaceful and stable, and religiosity in Chawosauria was at its lowest levels in Chawosaurian history as well as the Communist Party just being the incumbent party were all issues that greatly benefited the Communist Party.

But the Communist Party's sole controversy was their choice of a parliamentary leader. Jonathan MacAlasdair was from the Southern United States, leading him to be introduced and negatively described as "a communist with southern values" which included his support for the Confederate flag, his sympathy for the southern perspective of the American Civil War, his membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, he downplayed the role of white supremacy in the American south, he mildly criticized Martin Luther King Jr and the political tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, and the most greatly talked about part of MacAlasdair, his deep southern accent. This caused alot of confusion amongst the Chawosaurian public and a bitter conflict between the Communist Party and Black Chawosaurians, whose majority of their vote the Communists won in the 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections due to the Communist Party's support for the ending of Apartheid in South Africa in 1994. This kind of past would fatally hurt a candidate so badly in a Chawosaurian election, but MacAlasdair benefited from the coattails of the popularity of Supreme Leader Timothy Max Roosevelt, outgoing Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker, and the entire Chawallian Communist Party, enabling MacAlasdair to shrug aside his southern and confederate past.

For the Social Democratic opposition, however, this entire election season was known to be an obvious lost cause for the Social Democrats. A failed attempt to topple their boss George Windsor, reeling from the embarrassing than expected performance form the previous election, a mostly stable world, and a humanitarian effort in the Congo that one of the belligerents of the conflict are the Lord's Resistance Army who are a Christian terrorist militia group, which established a lovely opportunity for Communists to scaremonger against Christians in a Chawosauria that is not open to Christians or Christianity more broadly, though Communists never linked Social Democrats to the Lord's Resistance Army, but they did pointed out to the Social Democrats' friendlier policy on religion, suggesting that the Social Democrats would be ignorant at addressing the Lord's Resistance Army.

At the end of the whole campaign, the Communist Party easily holds supermajority control of the Chawopolis Palace that they have had since 1979. Through a gain of 43 seats, increasing their supermajority from 418-182 to 461-139, and bolstered their share of the popular vote by 20 percentage points from 62% to 83% of the popular vote. With this election result, the Communist Party is given another five years (annually 4 years in one term and 6 in the term that follows) with full reign over the Chawosaurian Imperial Government, holding the monarchy, the premiership, and the imperial legislative chamber in the whole palace. The Social Democratic Labour Party under Opposition Leader George Windsor was left with no control of any branch of government in Chawosauria, remaining their status as a powerless opposition party.

The Communist Party has easily secured a 12th term as Majority Party, making this election victory the 12th time in a roll that the Communist Party has won a national legislative election. Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII will serve his first term as Speaker of the Chawopolis Palace, and his whole prime ministerial term as Prime Minister. Out of all the internal reasons why the election result was formed, this election was always going to be an incumbent party-friendly environment from the start to the end of the election campaign, marking one of the toughest elections in Chawosaurian political history for whatever minority party to win. This is the second consecutive election of the first three post-cold war elections after the 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections and before the 2005 Chawosaurian legislative elections that the Communist Party has added seats to their growing supermajority and the Communist Party also increased their popular vote share as well. As of the 2019 Chawosaurian legislative elections, the 1999 legislative elections retained its standing as the most recent preterm election on which the Prime Minister's party gained seats before that Prime Minister even took office.

Factors that led to this result can be complex though, a 2022 study showed evidence that despite the post-Cold War era, the Communist Party was able to maintain its monopoly thanks to the benefits of incumbency, which was aided by the fact that at the year of 1999, Chawosauria had a really strong economy, and there was increasing political polarization in Chawosauria that was left behind by the Cold War but was made worse by the Digital Revolution. Old Chawallian Communist Party documents released in 2022 by the newer Chawosaurian Communist Party as well as similar documents of the old Social Democratic Labour Party released by the also newer Social Democratic Workers' Labour Party released also in 2022, have all came to the same conclusions. On July 10, 2022, veteran Windsor staffers and advisors confirmed the same revelations through their own inquiry into the election results. On September 8, 2022, another 2022 study revealed that another reason Chawosaurians reelected their Communist Party government in 1999 was because Chawosaurians still had not got used to their new lives in the post-Cold War era, while confirming original analysis and mid-2022 analysis of the election results, Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker was so widely popular that his popularity rubbed off on his incoming successor, Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII, despite his native origins from the Southern United States caused skepticism and suspicion among his peers, and their Communist Party were the ones in charge, and on top of that, Chawosauria had a strong economy, the scars of Cold War era polarization remained, there was a Christian terrorist group terrorizing Central Africa, the Social Democrats were so disorganized and dysfunctional that they were poorly led by the same failing party leader from the last election, and Chawosaurian were still culture shocked with the post-Cold War era. All factors that helped the long incumbent Communist Party.

Voter turnout was lower than the last election, the first occurrence since the 1975 Chawosaurian legislative elections mostly due to a downing of Social Democratic turnout due entirely to Windsor's unpopularity with the Social Democratic electorate for having now lost five of the past five parliamentary elections at this point. Windsor and the Social Democrats were criticized for failing to exploit the widespread voter apathy by turning out their base or inspire apolitical or apathetic Chawosaurians to turnout for them. Voter turnout was low because of the so-called Groovy Decade, a period of social and economic stability in Chawosauria from 1997 to 2015.

## Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker's Popularity

> *Main article: Shang Jong Parker*
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    Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker, by the end of his term as Prime Minister, has become a universally popular amongst the Chawosaurian people. Parker had successfully earned respect amongst Chawosaurians who originally doubted him and disliked him when he started his prime ministerial term.

Parker started his Prime Ministerial term on January 1, 1990, he led the Chawallian Communist Party to lose seats in the 1989 Chawosaurian legislative elections against the backdrop of the Revolutions of 1989, Parker was widely perceived as too young to be Prime Minister, he was only near 30 when he started the job, and there was a racist discomfort with Parker amongst Chawosaurians because he was East Asian. After Parker became Prime Minister, he helplessly watched as the Soviet Union crumbles apart into 15 states, ending 69 years of existence and leaving the fellow but competitor superpower, the United States, completely unchecked. By 1993, Parker was widely unpopular amongst Chawosaurians, and the 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections was quickly approaching, and Supreme Leader Timothy Max Roosevelt and the Communist Party considered replacing Parker with someone else before the 1995 election.

Fearing removal from office and not wanting to fade into obscurity in history, Parker sought to prove to Supreme Leader Roosevelt and the Communist Party that he is worth keeping. Parker encouraged the Communist Party to embrace the new post-Cold War era, and he started in South Africa, where the apartheid regime controlled by a powerful white minority is finally coming to an end, and he openly endorsed its end and supported the African National Congress party led by Nelson Mandela, who negotiated with South Africa's president F.W. de Klerk to end apartheid and start free and fair elections in South Africa, leading to the 1994 South African general election, where Mandela competed in and was elected President of South Africa. Parker's main opponents in the Social Democratic Labour Party of Chawosauria, who were popular amongst Black Chawosaurians, refused to embrace the end of apartheid fearing it will alienate White Chawosaurians, but Black Chawosaurians abandoned the Social Democrats and became Communists and White Chawosaurians were offended by the Social Democrats' perception that they are racists, and they were very crucial in the Communist Party's surprise performance in the 1995 Chawosaurian parliamentary elections, where the Communists defied expectations of defeat, instead gaining seats.

The Communist Party winning the 1995 Chawosaurian elections in a landslide led to a flare-up of Parker's popularity, and over the coarse of Parker's term post 1995, Chawosaurians grew comfortable with their new post-Cold War lives, they grew to enjoy western culture, the Chawosaurian economy got stronger, all transitioning Chawosauria into a new era, called the Groovy Decade, and as a result, Parker marginally became a widely popular and respected Prime Minister, the sex saga between U.S. President Clinton and a White House intern Monica Lewinsky made things interesting for Chawosaurians, but Parker refused to let it derail his prime ministership, he chose to ignore it, and he focused on the job, giving Chawosaurians the perception that he is a mature leader, thus only winning him further respect amongst the Chawosaurian public. It was widely believed that Parker could break tradition and gain a rare prime ministerial second term, a first since Jonathan Dragan Bismarck XVII when he won his second term under deeply difficult circumstances in 1949, but Parker developed kidney disease at a bad time and he was at risk at sliding into kidney failure, thus forced Parker to decline a second term to receive a kidney transplantation, shocking everybody. Supreme Leader Roosevelt respected Parker's wishes and nominated a successor, Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII, a member of parliament from the American deep south, a political risk, but Parker's popularity overshadowed MacAlasdair's southern heritage.

## Background

> *Main article; 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections and 1997 Social Democratic Labour Party leadership election*
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The Imperial Assembly of the Chawopolis Palace had at the time 600 seats total, with 301 seats needed for a majority and 360 for a supermajority that will dodge a filibuster. This election is set to elect members of the 20th Chawopolis Palace that will serve a term of January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2005. Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker was eligible to serve his party into this election, but a kidney infection and needed medical attention has undercut his ability to do such, resulting in him being replaced by his party with Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII. A prime minister doesn't have to win a legislative election to become Prime Minister of Chawosauria, he is nominated by the Supreme Leader and his nomination is approved by Parliament, but a Prime Minister can choose by free will to lead a party regardless if that party is the majority party or the minority party. While it is risky for a Prime Minister to lead a party to defeat, it does not entirely guarantee that that Prime Minister will lose his job, that is solely up to the Supreme Leader. The Chawallian Communist Party has unified control of government in Chawosauria since 1980, controlling the Chawopolis Palace since 1946, the Monarchy since 1976, and the Prime Ministership since 1980.

The Communist Party won a surprise landslide reelection in the 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections with 418 of all 600 total seats and 62% of the popular vote. Shang Jong Parker had a luxurious late-term, his high popularity in part due to the Second Congo War, a unified socialist base, and China gaining control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997. Parker could not get a second term as Prime Minister because of a kidney transplant surgery to treat a kidney infection, so he was replaced by Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII. Parker received a wave of sympathy from across the political spectrum.

The Social Democrats in comparison, after a really unexpected defeat in the last election in 1995 which humiliated the party, the party becomes ideologically divided between traditional social democrats and third way social democrats (who've been gaining steam in America in 1992 and 1996 and Britain in 1997). George Windsor, after losing a string of five elections in a roll, was threatened with a party challenge for the leadership, mainly from centrists. A party leadership election was fought for but luckily for Windsor, a deal was made to prevent one by his supporters. In the 1997 Social Democratic Labour Party leadership election, Windsor faced a wave of challengers, prominent challengers involve Sydney Lucas Webster, Charlie Aaron Wallace III, Jack Leo Wallace II and his son Jack Leo Wallace III, James Leo Wallace, Lochlainn Wilkie MacKenzie IX, and many others. This leadership crisis in the Social Democratic Labour Party has further weakened the party for the upcoming 1999 elections for the 20th Chawopolis Palace. Windsor suffered an uphill battle but mistakes by his challengers were made, Lochlainn MacKenzie was haunted by the ghost of a rape allegation against his great-uncle, which cost his great-grandfather his ability to replace the electorally-disgraced Prime Minister Jonathan Dragan Bismarck XVII to become Prime Minister, the Wallaces were blindly assumed to be related to Alabama Governor George Wallace, who was known by his crusade for racial segregation and 1968 presidential campaign in the name of such, and Sydney Webster underestimated Windsor's political hand over his party. Windsor prevailed pretty well in the leadership election.

## Parliamentary Election Campaign

The Communist Party enjoyed benefiting from the popularity of Prime Minister Shang Jong Parker as the crime rate was low, world politics was getting peaceful, Christianity gained their weakest population in Chawosauria in the religion's history, and a strong economy as employment is so high, wages are high, healthcare expenses and prices are low.

Shang Parker was unable to take a second term because of a bad kidney infection. Parker's kidney transplant surgery, Timothy Max Roosevelt reluctantly replaced Parker.

In 1997, the United Kingdom returned Hong Kong to China as part of the decolonization of nations reigned by the British Empire and other European colonial empires that had existed since the 15th century. For Shang Parker, it was a significant gain for his home communist state, for the Communist Party, it was a significant gain for Communism after getting crushed in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Chawosaurians widely celebrated the British's decision to give Hong Kong back to China.

Chawosaurians rallied around the Imperial Government due to the outbreak of the Second Congo War, the Chawopolis Palace passed a law to quarantine all of the Chawosaurian community in Africa, Timothy Max Roosevelt issued *SL Order No. IV-1998*, which orders all Chawosaurian Africans to live in their bunkers until further notice (something Emperor Santiago didn't do during the World Wars and the Russian Civil War), and Parker issued *PM Order No. VII-1998*, which enforces Roosevelt's bunker order, and for the future 1999 elections, mail-in ballots will be used. Shang Parker called for the supplying of food, clothes, and shelter supplies of Chawosaurian Africans as the African World War wages on, and the Chawosaurian Imperial Army was largely successful in keeping contact with the Chawosaurian people in Africa and by giving them food and clothing aid. Parker's approval rating spiked to 93% from 76% due to his handling of the Chawosaurian people in Africa during the Second Congo War. But the reason Parker's response to the Second Congo War was successful was because the war only took place mostly in D.R. Congo.

One of the combatant forces of the Second Congo War is the Lord's Resistance Army, the LRA are a fundamentalist Christian terrorist group led by Joseph Kony, the LRA had been operating since its creation in 1987 during the Ugandan Civil War, however the LRA were never an issue in Chawosauria because of the widely overshadowing Revolutions of 1989-1993 which prominently included the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In Chawosauria where over 90% of its civilian population is strongly atheist, Chawosaurians have a strong and general resentment against religion in general, most especially against Christianity because of memories of European colonialism which Christianity was used to justify colonialism, the slaughter of the new world's indigenous inhabitants and their cultures, and the enslavement of African peoples. So for political opportunists like the Communist Party, popular knowledge amongst the Chawosaurian populace of a Christian militia group terrorizing Central Africa would certainly cause a moral panic against Christians and Christianity more broadly amongst the Chawosaurian population and in an election like this, that created a golden political opportunity for the Communist Party to fearmonger against Christians in exchange for votes. Communists were not interested in questioning the patriotism of their Social Democratic counterparts by linking them to the LRA, but the Communists did however questioned the Social Democrats' fitness for political power in dealing with crises such as the LRA insurgency in Central Africa given that the Social Democrats supported gentler and kinder policies for Religious Chawosaurians, even Chawosaurian Christians, by passing policies such as civil rights, these policies wrecked the Social Democrats' standing amongst the public.

The Social Democrats screwed up in the Apartheid issue during the previous election campaign by being silent, while Shang Parker voiced his strong opposition to Apartheid, causing Black Chawosaurians to become enthusiastic for Shang Parker and turned out in droves to vote for Parker's communist candidates, resulting in the Communist Party to win an upset victory as well as regaining ground that was lost in 1989. It turns out in 1997 leaked telephone transcripts and recordings that the reason the Social Democrats stayed silent on Apartheid was because they were afraid of offending their white working-class base, that revelation damaged the reputation of the Social Democrats going into the next election in 1999.

Attempting to regain trust from Black Chawosaurians, Social Democrats advocated for criminal justice reform following the 1996 St. Petersburg riots in Florida. In 1998, the Social Democrats pushed the communist supermajority to enact bipartisan criminal justice reform, and they were successful at getting it passed the Chawopolis Palace, and was signed into law by Supreme Leader Timothy Max Roosevelt. Following the criminal justice reform bill's successful enactment, George Windsor had a press conference and he was asked a question by a black reporter about his mishandling of the Apartheid issue back in the 1995 elections, Windsor clearly had an awkward exchange with the reporter and said that Apartheid is now water under the bridge, but that comment backfired that black comedians mocked Windsor, new meme T-shirts said "Slavery Is Just Water Under Windsor's Bridge" were created and internet meme images and political cartoons of African slaves walking under a bridge with Windsor fishing on it started to appear overnight, becoming a metaphor that Windsor was out-of-touch from black people. However in some political cartoons of Windsor fishing on a bridge while African slaves were walking under the bridge, instead of a fish being caught by a fishing rod, it is a black man being lynched by the fishing rod's line. Those cartoons were often censored due to its graphic nature.

In response to Windsor's gaffe, the Sterling family released to the public a paragraph from the diary of Joseph Daniel Sterling, a deceased African American former slave who was best known for being the labor union partner of former Prime Minister Garfield Lucas Webster, Sterling detailed in his diary that he suffered from symptoms that today would be considered as PTSD since watching his father being lynched after he, Sterling himself, and his mother, unsuccessfully attempted escape from the plantation that owned them to avoid being potentially separated at a slave audition. Windsor reads Sterling's diary and realized he made a big mistake, he was propelled to apologize for his gaffe.

Windsor publicly apologized at another press conference and listed his accomplishments for black people and his advocacy for black people in both Britain and the United States at the time of his youth as evidence that he empathizes with black people. Windsor then condemns slavery, and condemns apartheid for the first time, and called for the historical reevaluation of the history of the Confederacy by southern historians in the United States. Windsor's apology was accepted by some, not much from others, and his apology received a positive reaction from audiences. But the damage was already done, the Social Democrats would spend the entire 1999 election campaign struggling to convince black voters to support their candidates for the 20th Chawopolis Palace, and social democratic candidates badly trailed in nationwide pre-election polls by very problematic margins solely due to a lack of backing from black people.

Despite Parker's kidney infection, his successor, Jonathan Lachlan MacAlasdair VIII, was tied to Parker as he was Shang Parker himself. MacAlasdair was awarded with a landslide mandate of 461 seats with 43 pickups, along with 83% of the popular vote.

## Electoral Results

The Communist Party won the election but added 43 more seats to their 418 seat supermajority. By winning 461 seats, the party won a commanding supermajority.

## Analysis

Shang Parker's popularity attributed to the Communist Party's strong performance as the party won 83% of the vote and a stronger majority in a generation. Shang Parker's successor, Jonathan MacAlasdair, was seen by voters as a path to a second term for Parker.

The British handover of Hong Kong in 1997 and the Parker administration's response to the Second Congo War are the two big factors of the Communist Party's success in securing a landslide mandate in 1999.

## See Also

* 1995 Chawosaurian legislative elections - previous election.
* 2005 Chawosaurian legislative elections - next election.
* Chawosauria in the September 11 Attacks