Svobodna Dnevnik

[Hadash]

Svobodna Dnevnik

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Controversial candidate wins first round of Mordvania's presidential election
By:  Polina Lamparska
Published: Marth, 1596


Agnieszka Szczepanska, who finished second, will face ultra-nationalist candidate Drnovsek in the second round.

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A controversial right-wing candidate, Lojze Drnovsek, has won the first round of Mordvania's presidential election.

He will face the centrist Centre Democratic Party candidate, Agnieszka Szczepanska, in the second round in two weeks after Drnovsek failed to win the 50% of votes needed to be elected president without need of a second round. With almost all the votes counded, Drnovsek had 28.8% and Szczepanska 26.6%.

Although only one polling agency predicted Drnovsek as the top candidate, as most opinion polls conducted before he election predicted that the result between Drnovsek and the center-right candidate Milivoj Plesko would be tied, the surprised came late at night when it was confirmed that Plesko was unable to make it to the second right, after he finished third behind the centrist candidate.

Milivoj Plesko, President of the Republican Council (head of government) since 1595, was the candidate of the Mordvanian Republican Party, the same party of the incumbent President Aljaz Martelj. Although Martelj remained relatively popular and campaigned actively for Plesko in the late week, the result came as a shock to the Mordvanian Republican Party, which hoped to at least easily secure a place in the second round, despite the Centre Democratic Party candidate was coming closer in late opinion polls.

The election night was long and tense, as Plesko obtained 24.4% of the vote, barely 100,000 votes behind Szczepanska with 99.1% of the vote counted. Despite reports that the Mordvanian Republican Party would demand a complete recount of the vote to the Republican Electoral Council, Plesko finally accepted his defeat at 01:27 am in a gloomy and sad press conference, taking full responsability for the result. It was the worst result for the Mordvanian Republican Party in a presidential election, as it is the first time that either a Mordvanian Republican Party candidate or a candidate endorsed for the party won't be in the second round since the proclamation of the Republic of Mordvania.

Plesko, 62, was considered the most experienced candidate, with more than thirty years of political experience. He was voyvode of Seznica from 1579 to 1591, the same year he was appointed Minister of Communications under Daliborka Anzlovar's government until 1594, when he served as Minister of Republican Affairs to replace Anzlovar as President of the Republican Council following the poor result of the Mordvanian Republican Party in the 1595 local election, in which was the most voted political party but falling behind 20% of the vote for first time in history. Plesko defeated Minister of Defense Srecko Plotimek and his former boss, Daliborka Anzlovar in the Mordvanian Republican Party primaries in a close final vote. It is true that his was campaign was not specially inspiring or emotive, but he was still the favourite in most opinion polls, which also predicted that Plesko woud easily defeat both Drnovsek and Szczepanska in the second round.

If the mood in the Mordvanian Republican Party headquarters was certainly grey and gloomy, a more festive atmosphere could be felt in Bamsek Hotel, in which candidate Lojze Drnovsek was watching the results, with the hotel surrounded by thousands of supporters. Drnovsek was the only one of the main candidates to have run before as presidential candidate, as he run in 1590 as a candidate of the far-right Mordvanian People's Front, when he obtained only 3.9% of the vote. Nobody could have predicted that he had serious obtion to become the next president of the Republic of Mordvania then, but in the last six years Drnovsek was able to build a political movement that is seriously threatening Mordvanian establishment. Only a year later, the Mordvanian People's Front was able to enter in the parliament, becoming the first far-right political party to enter in the national parliament in almost thirty years. It was a bittersweet experience for Drnovsek, who would found a new political party, named the Mordvanian Democratic Republican Party only two years later. The new organization would have a quickly success, becoming the third most voted political party in the 1594 national election, and coming close to be the most voted political party in the local election -although Drnovsek's party was able to have one mayor elected in one of Mordvania's twenty main cities.

Despite efforts of moderation and modernization, many still consider the Mordvanian Democratic Republican Party a far-right political party, as many of the party candidates and top advisors were members of the Mordvanian People's Front - which collapsed in different factions already months before the 1594 election. Drnovsek claims to have evolved intelectually and politically, and the Mordvanian Democratic Republican Party seems to distance itself from the radicalism and ethno-nationalism of the Mordvanian People's Front, claiming to defend the Mordvanian constitution and being influenced by Mordvanian republicanism. Officially, Drnovsek and his party define themselves as "national-conservatives" and reject to support any racist or anti-democratic tendencies. Still, the party has an openly anti-immigration platform, and Drnovsek has promised that his government will deport thousands of illegal immigrants as soon as they come to power, and that no non-citizen will be able to cast a vote in an election if he's elected president of the republic.

Before that, Drnovsek will have to defeat an unexpected rival, the candidate of the Centre Democratic Party, Agnieszka Szczepanska. The young Mordvanian lawyer -as she is only 38, aiming to become the youngest head of state since 1545, when Bozidar Strnad became Chairman of the Council of Defense that replaced the monarchy- will try to stop her nationalist rival to reach the presidency as a new step in her short but meteoric political career. She was elected to the national parliament in 1591, serving as Minister of Public Education from 1591-1594, when the Centre Democratic Party joined a coalition government with the Mordvanian Republican Party. She surprisingly defeated Edgar Puusepp in the contested Centre Democratic Party primaries -Puusepp, an ethnic Kaljuran, had already been the presidential candidate in 1590, and he was General Secretary of the Centre Democratic Party since 1593. The Centre Democratic Party was officially formed in 1588 -before that, it was a multi-ethnic coalition of liberal and regionalist parties, named Coalition of Constitutional Forces, until they form an united political party- and with only a limited experience in government, it will have now the chance to reach the presidency -and some say, save the republic- if Szczepanska is able to defeat Drnovsek in the second round.

In her tonight speech -about thirty minutes before Mordvanian Republican Party's Plisko conceded that they were not able to advance to the second round, the Centre Democratic Party did not seem concerned about his nationalist rival in the second round, asking Mordvanian voters to support her in the second right "to move toward the future, hope, and prosperity". Szczepanska's presidential political platform contained s tances from both the center-right and the center-left, but it is unclear if the Centre Democratic Party will advance new promises to attract voters from either the left-wing parties or the center-right Mordvanian Republican Party.

Drnovsek, who has declared to be surprised "as everybody else" when it was officially announced that the Mordvanian Republican Party was not able to advance to the second round, has already dismissed his centrist rival in the second round as "more of the same", as both Szczepanska and the Mordvanian Republican Party's served as ministers from 1591 and 1594. The nationalist candidate has declared that only his candidacy has "something new and authentic to offer" after both the Mordvanian Republican Party and the Centre Democratic Party were "blind and deaf" to the concerns and interests of most Mordvanians. Drnovsek declared that only his victory will be a "vote for change", after twelve years of "left-wing and liberal decadence, incompetence, and corruption", refering to both left-wing Zvezdana Serebryak and Mordvanian Republican Party's Aljaz Martelj's presidencies. "Vote for her", Drnovsek's campaign manager declared in reference to Szczepanska, "and our country will be destroyed under rising division and resentment, ending up toward a dysfunctional path like Saratov". Drnovsek has declared that only his presidency "will be able to make Mordvania safer".

They will not have easy, although some political scientists predict that the second round result could be closer than expected - despite Drnovsek is not likely to face much support between other political forces. Mordvanian Republican Party candidate Milivoj Plesko himself, although he did not officially endorsed the Centre Democratic Party candidate, called directly to defeat Drnovsek in the second round at the end of his speech. Nevertheless, the coming electoral campaign is expected to be tense and difficult to predict. The future of the Republic of Mordvania, and likely the region as well, will vary greatly, depending on who eventually wins.