Four years ago, the Darmeni electorate split its vote between the United Left and Movement for a New Darmen, resulting in Darmen's first coalition government of the Republican-era. The coalition has had its ups and downs and now the partners have separated and begun their campaigns against each other in the hopes of governing alone.
Electoral System
The current general elections will see the direct election of the nation's Members of Parliament and Municipal Councilors. Indirectly, the results will also decide the next President of the Republic, as the MP's and MC's will combine to form the Electoral College. Darmeni elections are unique in that voters receive a ballot from which they vote for their preferred party only. This means that voters are forced to choose the same party in both the Parliamentary and Municipal elections. To be eligible to vote, voters must hold Darmeni citizenship and be at least sixteen years of age.
The country is broken up into 72 municipalities, which double as electoral constituencies. Each municipality elects one Member of Parliament, plus an additional Member for every 50,000 residents. In constituencies with more than one member elected, seats are apportioned proportionately via the d'Hondt method. In single-member constituencies, the election of MP's is via first-past-the-post. Additionally, there are eight other single-member constituencies: the four "functional" constituencies of the Darmen Labour Alliance, Students Union, Chamber of Commerce and Ministry of Magic; as well as four seats representing overseas voters.
Municipal Councils are separated into three categories: Coastal, Interior and Metropolitan. There is a single Metropolitan Council, Scott City, the nation's capital and largest city. There are 44 Interior Councils and 27 Coastal Councils. Interior and Coastal Councils are identical with the exception that Coastal Councils incorporate Port Authorities.
Municipal Councilors are elected in three categories: Executive Councilors, Committee Councilors and Common Councilors. Every municipality elects three Executive Councilors. The Executive Councilors are they municipality's Mayor, Councilor for Public Safety and Municipal Attorney. Executive Councilors are elected en bloc via first-past-the-post. Municipalities elect either 18 or 21 (Coastal) Committee Councilors. Committee Councilors serve on the various sub-committees of the Municipal Councils, while also sitting and voting in the full council during plenary sessions. The committees are: the Ambulance & Hospital Trust, the Public Transportation Commission, the Public Works Commission, the Sanitation Commission, the School Board, the Welfare Commission and, in Coastal Councils, the Port Authority. Each committee has three members. The party finishing with the most votes wins two seats in each of the committees, while the party finishing second wins the remaining seat in each of the committees.
The number of seats on Municipal Councils is determined by population and the category of Council. For municipalities with less than 150,000 residents, the number of seats is 24. In non-Metropolitan Councils with greater than 150,000 population, there are seven seats for every 50,000 in population. The Metropolitan Council is limited to just three seats for every 50,000 in population, in order to limit Scott City's influence in the Electoral College. The difference between the total number of seats and the seats occupied by Executive and Committee Councilors are filled by Common Councilors. Common Councilors are elected proportionally via the d'Hondt method.
In the electoral college, MP's are entitled to five votes while MC's are entitled to two votes. An electors votes must be given to the same candidate, vote splitting is not permitted.
Parties and Candidates contesting the Election
See also: Political Parties in Darmen
There are a total of 26 parties contesting the 2045 election, ranging from the major parties who actually have a chance to form a majority and the minuscule parties who will be lucky just to get a handful of votes.
The three main parties are the center-right Republican Party, centrist Liberal Party and left-wing United Left. The Republican Party is the successor to the Movement for a New Darmen, which over the past eight years has been the governing party in Darmen. For the past four years, they've been joined by the United Left in a coalition, which depending on who you ask, has either worked really well or really horribly. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party is a newly formed party combining the National Civil Liberal Democratic Union, the Pan-Rushmori Party and the Liberal Conservative Party, which up until now, was part of the Movement for a New Darmen. Except for the Liberal Conservatives, the Liberals have always been outside of the government.
The three main parties each have their candidates for the position of President of the Republic. The incumbent, Tor Tong Lee of the Republican Party, has been President for the past eight years. He's relatively popular due to his past as a professional footballer, but his popularity as President is beginning to wane. Yoram Nash, of the United Left, is considered to be a tad incompetent, but he's remained the leader of his party due to a lack of viable alternatives. The newly appointed leader of the Liberals, Joshua Rademacher, was once a member of Lee's cabinet as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but after having a falling out with his superior, Rademacher has become one of his most outspoken critics.
Three other parties are in the space between being a major party and a minor party. They are the Fascist & Ultranationalist Union, the Progressive Greens and the Royalist Party. While their Presidential candidates are unlikely to win and they're unlikely to win many seats in Parliament, they'll nonetheless play an important part in the electoral process.
The Issues
Unemployment
Unemployment is by far the most prominent issue of the election. Some progress has been made; four years ago, the unemployment rate was 37.14%. Today, that number has fallen to 30.78%. But patience is beginning to disappear as those who don't have full employment grow tired of living on government assistance. The unemployment welfare system has been placed under an incredible amount of pressure and grown to a size that it is beginning to take its toll on the government's budget.
The Republican Party believes that the answer actually lies in reducing the minimum wage. Currently, the national minimum wage is $9.68, but the cost of living as measured by the Department of Labor is only $8.30. According to the Republicans, that gap of $1.58 means that many workers are being over payed, and that a reduction in the minimum wage would lead to employers being able to expand their businesses and employ more people.
The United Left believes that a reduction of the minimum wage would be a grave mistake and instead is pushing for an expansion of the public works projects currently underway throughout the country. The Liberal Party believes that neither a reduction in the minimum wage or an expansion of public works projects will affect unemployment much. Their solution lies in the Common Rushmori Community, but more on that later.
Tax Reform and Bureaucracy Streamlining
With the reunification of Darmen having taken place just eight years ago, nation building has been a continuous process throughout that time. As with any nation building process, the implementation of a tax system and establishment of bureaucratic mechanism can be incredibly difficult and subject to becoming convoluted. Darmen has not been immune to that and has found itself entangled with an unnecessarily complex tax and bureaucratic system. While all three parties agree that the tax system needs reform they disagree about how exactly it should be done and only the Liberals and Republicans believe that the bureaucratic system needs to be updated.
For the Republicans, tax reform is simple. The number of tax brackets for individuals needs to be reduced, and the tax rates themselves should be changed slightly to be more rounded. Currently, several tax brackets have rates that extend to five or six decimal places which can cause miscalculations when taxes are prepared by the taxpayers themselves rather than a professional. With regards to the bureaucracy, the Republicans are looking to eliminate various agencies which they believe to be duplicates of other agencies.
For the Liberals, their proposed tax reforms are almost entirely focused on the corporate and capital gains taxes, but are otherwise similar to the Republicans plans. The Liberals also want to eliminate all tariffs imposed on goods imported into Darmen. The Liberals want to reduce the civil service to about two-thirds its current size, but also hope to achieve significant changes to the local government system.
The United Left's plan for tax reform hinges on two aspects: increasing the minimum amount of income needed before taxes are proposed, and a rise in the tax rates for wealthy individuals and multinational corporations. Unlike the Liberals and Republicans, the United Left has no plans to trim the civil service, intending instead to expand it to increase employment.
The Common Rushmori Community
Since its formation, the question of whether Darmen should join the Common Rushmori Community has been at the forefront of political debate. In the present election however, it has become one of the most prominent topics of the campaign, helped by the fact that is the singular reason for the merger that created the Liberal Party.
The Liberal Party views Darmeni membership in the Common Rushmori Community as a sort of "cure-all" for all of Darmen's problems. They claim that Darmeni membership in the CRC will secure Darmen's national security, boost trade and increase foreign investment, therefore greatly reducing Darmen's unemployment.
Meanwhile, the Republicans and United Left are almost evenly split on the issue. While they acknowledge that membership in the CRC would have some benefits, the believe there are also some serious drawbacks. For instance, they point out that the CRC's freedom of movement would lead to a large number of unemployed Darmeni's simply leaving Darmen for other more prosperous Rushmori nations, particularly Eura. They also believe that Darmen would lose a significant portion of its sovereignty to the institutions of the CRC, particularly its Parliament.
