News/20091118
edit NAL TODAY— 18.NOV.2009— Ouisconsin election may signal trouble for Whigs; CLs still searching for coalition partner
ST. FRANCIS, OUISCONSIN - One day after falling just short of winning a majority of seats in the Ouisconsin Council, the Covenant Loyalist Party is still searching for a junior partner in its expected coalition government. But while the search continues, one thing is clear: the election highlights just how weak the once-dominant Whigs have become as the often-tumultuous Gore era enters its final year.
For the last two years, the provincial Council, like the NAL Parliament itself, has been led by a CL-Whig coalition. But coalition governments are a new phenomenon in Ouisconsin: it's been more than a century since the last one. For all that time, the Whigs and Progressive-Conservatives took turns running the province, and more often than not, Ouisconsin belonged to the Whigs. Now, they are a distant third in the Council, just a little stronger than the delegation from the upstart Three Fires Party. If events in Ouisconsin are a harbinger of what will happen in next year's general election, then Gore's party has an enormous amount of damage control to do.
With the Whigs close to political poison in Ouisconsin right now, it seems unlikely that the CLs will choose to continue their coalition with them, but back-room discussions are still going on to decide who their new partner will be. St. Francis insiders are speculating that they'll pick a minor party that they can more easily control: both the Ecotopics and the Three Fires won enough seats to create a majority, should they join with the CLs. But Progressive Conservative leader and retired Council Speaker Warren Hutch says, "No one in Ouisconsin knows much about coalition governments, but I do know this: a good partner has to know how to compromise, and has to know how to govern. Ecotopics and Three Fires have never done much of either."
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The Ouisconsian Legislative Election at a Glance
The Ouisconsin Council has one house of 146 seats. Of those seats, 80 are elected from single-seat ridings in local elections. The remaining 66 are allotted to the parties so that the proportion of Councillors from each party matches the proportion of votes cast province-wide.
Covenant Loyalists: 33 ridings, 31 party list seats: 64 total (44%)
Progressive Conservatives: 22 ridings, 10 party list seats: 32 total (22%)
Whigs: 15 ridings, 5 party list seats, 20 total (14%)
Three Fires: 6 ridings, 9 party list seats, 15 total (10%)
Ecotopics: 5 ridings, 7 party list seats, 12 total (8%)
Democratic Socialists: 0 ridings, 2 party list seats, 2 total (1%)
Adullamite Republicans: 0 ridings, 1 party list seat, 1 total (1%)
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