2020-08-15 // 1346-gr-25 // 10.00pm
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: EXIT POLL PREDICTS LANDSLIDE WIN FOR NAKHAS TSIRUN
[justify]As the clock strikes ten, polling stations all across the country begin to close. The polling company Kalus Itsarus have completed their exit poll, and the results are:[/justify]
[justify]Save for any unforseen circumstances, these polls should be fairly accurate, i.e. to within one percent.[/justify]
[justify]“Others” include: Kairus Oterszan (Attention!) on 5%, Rai Xhelus (Independent) on 3% and Craig Vari’un (Meaningful Change) on 1%.[/justify]
[justify]There are a few things to note here - first and foremost is the sheer margin by which ReNDaF’s candidate, Rankarus Eszeran, fails to win on first preference votes. Even in the first round where the centre-right party traditionally dominates due to a split left vote, he is finding himself well behind the incumbent, Nakhas Tsirun, marking the first time in over twenty years that the ReNDaF nominee has started out behind. When asked for comment by an ASGTV reporter, party leader and prime minister Harun Lunsdzhura said he was “not particularly surprised” by the result, adding that “President Tsirun is well-known and well-liked, and Eszeran was always the outsider”.[/justify]
[justify]Once preferences have flowed through, the final round of counting is predicted to look something like this:[/justify]
[justify]A two-party vote share of nearly two thirds would be the highest for any candidate since Kelszrun Nu’adrei’s 73% in August 2003, following the infamous leadership spill and subsequent expulsion from ReNDaF by hardliner Keri Narusz, and would also represent a swing of +13%; only Lenud Dauras (in 1954) and Isztal Ra’ak (1985) have been able to increase their final round vote share between their first and second elections.[/justify]
[justify]The full table of results will be announced tomorrow morning, but traditionally the Minister for Elections, Kal Uszrei, announces the two candidates advancing to the final round around 3am. That said, it is likely to be a relatively uneventful night; Tsirun is almost guaranteed to emerge victorious and the only thing that appears uncertain at this time is exactly by how much.[/justify]
[hr]
2020-08-16 // 1346-gr-26 // 3.05am
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: RESULTS DELAYED AS MINISTER FOR ELECTIONS ORDERS FOURTH ROUND RECOUNT
[justify]In a surprise announcement, Minister for Elections Kal Uszrei announced a recount would be held for the fourth round of vote transfers (between the top three candidates, which were not specified but are understood to be Tsirun, Eszeran and Fvarus) under section 8 (d) of the updated Electoral Logistics Act (2011), which states that a recount is required if the bottom two candidates are less than fifty thousand votes apart, or approximately 0.5%. This will be particularly worrying for ReNDaF, who risk not even making it to the final two-party preferred round for the first time since Talun Lenas’s election in 1965. Both Eszeran and Lunsdzhura declined to comment on this possibility.[/justify]
[justify]Leaked information from a source close to Eszeran suggests that he may be behind the Solidarity candidate, Lóruszan Fvarus, by just shy of twenty thousand votes, less than 0.2%. The recount is expected to take around half an hour, but if the recount brings this gap to anywhere less than ten thousand votes, Section 8 (e) mandates a full recount - start from the first preferences and work through the counting process all over again.[/justify]
[hr]
2020-08-16 // 1346-gr-26 // 3.41am
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FULL RECOUNT ORDERED AS PRESIDENTIAL RACE NARROWS
[justify]The Minister for Elections Kal Uszrei has announced a full recount of the presidential election, indicating that the gap between ReNDaF’s Rankarus Eszeran and Solidarity’s Lóruszan Fvarus is less than 0.1% (ten thousand votes). No indication was made as to which candidate is in front. This announcement means counting stations all across Aduraszna will begin the process of counting from the top, starting with first preferences and working forward from there. The process is expected to take around four hours - less time than it took to count the first time around, since all the ballot papers are already where they need to be.[/justify]
[justify]Fvarus told ASGTV: “Aduraszna is changing, there’s no denying it. You can see it in the opinion polls, you can see it here. People don’t really appreciate just having to choose between a ReNDaF candidate and an AK/ER-endorsed candidate. There’s a real need for change, and we’re the party that’s actually going to deliver on it. And nothing proves that more than the fall of the Rennies this election. And sure, it could go either way. But whichever way it ends up, it’s been a fantastic night for Solidarity. If we don’t get through to the two-party preferred round, well, with all these recounts, we’ve certainly made the news. And if we do, we make history.”[/justify]
[justify]ASGTV would like to stress at this point that regardless of the outcome of the recount, Nakhas Tsirun’s re-election is a near certainty; as ReNDaF is a right-wing party and Solidarity a left-wing one, it is incredibly unlikely that upon elimination enough voter preferences would flow from one to the other to prevent a MEA victory.[/justify]
[hr]
2020-08-16 // 1346-gr-26 // 7.35am
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: ESZERAN KNOCKED OUT IN FOURTH ROUND, FINAL COUNT BEGINS BETWEEN TSIRUN AND FVARUS
[justify]In an unprecedented move, the Minister of Elections has announced the raw vote totals of fourth round of counting from the full recount ordered earlier today. This comes as the ReNDaF candidate, Rankarus Eszeran, fails to win enough votes to progress to the final two-party preferred count, by a very slim margin.[/justify]
Candidate
Party
Votes
Percent
Nakhas Tsirun
MEA
4 324 164
39.82%
Lóruszan Fvarus
Solidarity
3 270 551
30.12%
Rankarus Eszeran
ReNDaF
3 263 516
30.06%
[justify]As such, the final round of preferences will be between the two left-wing candidates, Nakhas Tsirun and Lóruszan Fvarus. The ReNDaF press office has refused to comment on this new development, and sources in the party say the mood is beginning to turn from sadness to anger, largely directed at party leader and prime minister Harun Lunsdzhura, who hand-picked Eszeran as a candidate. The post-mortem on how and why the party of government failed to make a competitive bid for the presidency is already beginning.[/justify]
[hr]
2020-08-16 // 1346-gr-26 // 10.15am
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: TSIRUN RE-ELECTED
[justify]The Minister of Elections has confirmed the widely-predicted result of the presidential election: that Nakhas Tsirun of the Movement for Ecological Action (and endorsed by AK/ER) has been re-elected for a second term. The 31-year-old climate activist from Faisluns won the final count against Solidarity’s Lóruszan Fvarus by 62% to 38%. [/justify]
[justify]In a short speech at the counting centre in Raszeran, Tsirun cited his victory as “a sign that we Aszar are taking the environment seriously,” and promised to work constructively with the Lunsdzhura Ministry to keep the nation on track to meet its pollution and sustainability targets.[/justify]
Candidate
Party
Votes
Percent
Nakhas Tsirun
MEA
5 376 387
62.07%
Lóruszan Fvarus
Solidarity
3 285 282
37.93%
Rankarus Eszeran
ReNDaF
Eliminated
Eliminated
[justify]ASGTV will bring you any and all further updates as soon as they come in.[/justify]
