2040 Morranian National Assembly Election

The **2040 Morranian National Assembly Election** was held on Wednesday January 4, 2040 and was held to elect the 6th National Assembly of Morra, marking the fifth occasion that all 300 seats in the legislature had been up for election. Elections were held at the same time as the 2040 Morranian Presidential Election, being the first election since the 2035 general election to do so. Turnout was 91%, with 29,738,422 ballots being cast in the election.

After the 2036-37 Morranian political crisis and two snap elections, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) was returned to power under the leadership of Frank Wassenberg after having been briefly forced from power over the winter of 2036. Despite this, internal disagreements over the government's role in the spread of the highly infectious Derigo disease culminated in a momentous debate in the National Assembly in July 2037; in the aftermath, Vice President Eris Assecla was removed from office, the Worker's Political Alliance (APA) withdrew from its founding agreement with the VVD, and Speaker Frank Wassenberg was forced to resign his positions. In his place, former business secretary Peter Koonz took the leadership of the VVD and formed a new coalition government by inviting DENK and the Liberal Party (LPM) to join with the VVD and New Party (NP); despite not having a legislative majority, the coalition relied upon the support of rebel members of the APA to reliably pass legislation. In February 2039, President Sunil Bakshi was assassinated, sparking a wave of protest against the government and the retaliatory use of force against protestors. During Kairos Hemlock's brief presidency, Speaker Koonz actively blocked Hemlock's attempts to appoint a vice president and attempted to consolidate his own power, ultimately culminating in the impeachment of President Hemlock and Koonz's appointment as acting president in August 2039; in early September 2039, Koonz dissolved the National Assembly. Speaker Koonz's power grab only further alienated vast swathes of the population, with moderates within the VVD defecting to join Hemlock in forming the Democratic Party of the People to act as an opposition to the VVD administration, and the LPM withdrawing from government in protest.

In order to be eligible to receive seats in the National Assembly, political parties and independent candidates were required to register with the central government by November 11, 2039. In order to be elected to the National Assembly, political parties and independent candidates must be registered with the civil service. Following the election, political parties will be given a percentage of seats in the chamber, rounded to the nearest whole number, proportional to the percentage of overall valid votes cast for the party. After the results are known, independent candidates are placed onto a *de-facto* party list in ranking of total votes cast, and the remaining vacant seats are allocated to independent candidates in the order of highest to lowest vote share until all seats in the National Assembly are taken.

Prior to and during the election campaign, acting president Peter Koonz sought to clamp down against the independence of the Morranian Electoral Commission in order to attempt to rig the election in the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy's favour; in October 2039, the VVD controlled Bestrafer security services seized control of the commission's Amsterdam headquarters under the pretext of a criminal investigation, but were forced to withdraw after the armed forces and supreme court condemned the move. In response Koonz announced the introduction of sanctions against several senior military and business officials as a thread, but the move inadvertently had the effect of prompting the sanctioned individuals to lend their support to the Democratic Party of the People. As acting president Koonz continued to lash out against democratic protestors and prominent donors, independent opinion polls showed the governing VVD falling behind both the DPV and the Party of the Labourers (PvdA), whilst opposition parties began to enter into negotiations to form a new governing coalition in the event that they gained a majority in the National Assembly. On polling day there were numerous reports of the Bestrafer obstructing and intimidating voters, in one case even occupying and closing a voting centre; in response, the armed forces and police engaged in skirmishes with Bestrafer forces and secured the centres for free public usage.

On January 8, 2040, the results of the National Assembly election were made public by the Morranian Electoral Commission at a heavily guarded ceremony, with the PvdA receiving 73 seats, the DPV receiving 60, the VVD receiving 56, the PPM receiving 32, the APA receiving 26, DENK receiving 26, the LPM receiving 10, the NP receiving 7, and independent candidates gaining 8 seats. On January 10, 2040, newly elected members of the National Assembly of Morra were formally sworn into office by acting vice president Lammert van Raan after Peter Koonz refused to take part in the ceremony. Later the same day, Speaker Koonz returned to preside over the session, but actively obstructed the formal certification of presidential election results by the National Assembly in a last bid to try to prevent his rival Kairos Hemlock of the DPV from taking office. In response, the PvdA, DPV, PPM, and LPM jointly sponsored a bid to hold an early speakership election, which passed easily on January 11, 2040, resulting in PvdA leader Wilhelm De Croo forming a ministry of his own; as speaker, De Croo also briefly became acting president. With De Croo as speaker, the National Assembly formally elected Kairos Hemlock as president and Fachnan Opus as vice president, and the pair took office on January 20, 2040. Many former members of the VVD-led regime were targeted by lustration and purges under the Hemlock president, with Peter Koonz, Lammert van Raan, Didier Reynders, Attje Kuiken, Frank Wassenberg, and Peter Illich all being the target of criminal prosecutions for their roles in maintaining a dictatorial regime in Morra.