2010 (August) Libirachi National Congress Election

The **August 2010 Libirachi National Congress Election** was held on August 8, 2010 across the Libirachi Empire to elect congresspeople to the 23rd National Congress, following the abrupt dissolution of the 22nd Congress following the 2010 Libirachi Presidential Election. Elections were held in every province, with each local assembly nominating representatives to multi-member constituencies where the 2890 congresspeople were granted a term of 5 years.

Following 40 years as dictator, Libirachi president Jacob Zuma announced in March 2010 that presidential elections would be held for the first time since 1852 in order to renew his term in office amid a growing pro-democracy movement led by the Revolutionary party. Despite significant electoral meddling, Revolutionary party leader Nathan Jackson was elected as president of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi on April 16, 2010 and was inaugurated the following day after the armed forces ensured Zuma's removal from office. As the first act of his presidency, Jackson dissolved the Libirachi National Congress and ordered the holding of new elections across all levels of legislature across the country; at the same time, Jackson formed a new cabinet comprised of both Revolutionary and Revolutionary Socialist members, and established the Democratic Transitional Council to coordinate his efforts for democratic reform. As part of the reforms, the Revolutionary Socialist party was placed under *de-facto* control of the government, and many of its members switched loyalty to the Revolutionary party.

Between May 1, 2010 and August 1, 2010, every province held elections across each tier of local government, which each tier electing members to the level above themselves. On August 8, 2010, all of the fifteen sector congresses nominated approximately 200 representatives to multi-member constituencies to serve 5 year terms in the national level Libirachi National Congress. Out of the 2980 seats, 581 were reserved for military officials, giving them a significant position of influence within the legislature. Following the removal of the Revolutionary Socialist party from power in April 2010, the Libirachi Revolutionary Party successfully took control over many regional election bureaus with the backing of regional powerbrokers, allowing the party to gain dominance in elections for the next two decades.

In the aftermath of the election, the Revolutionary party gained all of the Socialist party's 2299 seats within the Libirachi National Congress, and subsequently became the biggest faction in the legislature. Following election registration changes, the Libirachi Progressive Party was permitted to re-form in April 2010 and subsequently moved to become the third largest party in the LNC, whilst the Zuma affiliated Worker's Association lost half of its seats during the election, whilst the Revolutionary Socialist party lost all of its representation in congress. With the Revolutionary party as the biggest party for the first time since 1950, senior party member Wang Yang was elected unopposed as chairman of the Libirachi National Congress.

During the twenty third National Congress, president Nathan Jackson's Revolutionary party passed several major bits of legislation and constitutional amendments as part of Jackson's flagship democratisation policy. Between 2010 and 2015, presidential term limits were imposed, as was the constitutional requirement for regular presidential elections. Despite the government's mandate for democratic reform, the Libirachi Imperial Army and its political wing was resistant to the moves and began to actively obstruct the government's democratisation policies during the summer of 2015. Tensions between the armed forces and the government, as well as internal divisions within the Revolutionary party, led to the planned 2015 presidential elections being cancelled after the Libirachi National Congress failed to pass the relevant legislation to allow such an election to occur. Amid the political tension, President Jackson began to tighten control over other political parties in an apparently contradictory bid to guarantee support for his electoral reforms; in January 2015, the Worker's Association reformed into the Kuomintang after passing a document renouncing the Zuma era branding of the party, whilst the Revolutionary Socialist party rebranded as simply the Socialist Party in 2014 to distance itself from the Zuma dictatorship.