2025 Libirachi Presidential Election

The **2025 Libirachi Empire Presidential Election** was the third election for the office of President of the Libirachi Empire and was held on March 13, 2025 between President Damien Salamander of the Revolutionary party and Han Zheng of the Progressive party. Following the election, Empress Penny Fox re-appointed Damien Salamander as president, allowing him to form the Salamander II Cabinet.

Following the 2010 presidential election, the Libirachi Revolutionary Party assumed control over government under the leadership of President Nathan Jackson, who sought to reform the authoritarian and undemocratic nature of the Imperial Republic of Libirachi; however, many of his reforms angered the armed forces, who ultimately toppled Jackson in a coup d'état in September 2019 after the government attempted to take control of the armed forces command structure. After being installed as president by the armed forces, former education secretary Laura Fox conducted her own self coup in the autumn of 2019 by sidelining Imperial High Command and appointing herself as empress in November 2019. In March 2020, the new Fox Dynasty came into conflict with its historical rival Bovido Has, before descending into civil war in 2022 following the assassination of Fox. Upon the conclusion of the civil war in 2024, Laura Fox's daughter Penny crowned herself as empress and set about instituting major reforms to the Libirachi constitution; as part of the reforms, the power to elect the president was given to the Libirachi National Congress, who also gained significant powers of oversight and scrutiny over government as Penny Fox sought to create a façade of parliamentary democracy to hide the systematic abuses of her regime.

On March 8, 2025, a nationwide election was held to select members of the 28th National Congress, with the Revolutionary party remaining as the largest grouping in the legislative branch. Following the election of Li Zhanshu as the chairman of congress and the appointment of congressional whips on March 10th, the LNC began electoral proceedings on March 13th with the formal nominations of incumbent presidentDamien Salamander and Progressive party leader Han Zheng for the election, before moving to a ballot of representatives. With the support of the Revolutionary, Socialist, Kuomintang, armed forces, and COMPNOR factions of congress, Salamander was elected to a full presidential term with 2841 out of 2980 votes. Whilst the election was theoretically free, the Libirachi Revolutionary Party held 2100 seats in the LNC, meaning that it would be able to appoint a president without the backing of other parties, which themselves were controlled by the Revolutionary party.

With his election as president by congress, at 2:30pm on March 13, 2025, Damien Salamander travelled to the Forbidden City in Beijing to meet with Empress Penny Fox, who re-appointed him to the presidency. The initial cabinet of Salamander's new administration remained almost identical to that of the first Salamander administration, with Jacob Zuma Jr serving as foreign secretary on an interim basis after former president Xi Jimping declined to continue in cabinet. On April 10, 2025, a month after the formation of the cabinet, President Salamander embarked on a major reshuffle of government which saw several new ministers appointed, whilst others were appointed to new positions or demoted. On November 11, 2025, the Imperial Ministry of Propaganda was established as a division of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order, and at the behest of Empress Fox, Karyn Voor became invited to cabinet as the minister of propaganda.

During the second Salamander administration, the Libirachi government continued to experience a period of instability. In August 2026, a group of extreme conservative politicians and soldiers attempted a coup d'état to remove Empress Penny Fox after rumours of her bisexuality became public knowledge; following the attempted coup, President Salamander enacted a purge of the armed forces and government. In 2027, a global banking crisis caused significant economic damage across the world, whilst the Salamander administration used the effects of the crisis to sponsor coups in Russia and Uganda, the latter of which reformed to the corporate security state of Canto Haven as a Libirachi ally.