CON elections, 2018

Parliamentary Elections
From 7th to 10th February 2018, elections to the CON Parliament were held in the Commonwealth of Official Nations.

It was the 2nd parliamentary election since the Commonwealth's creation and came following the 4th CON Summit and the arrival of new official nations to the Alliance. The candidates, sometimes referred to by the Hoflanian term Spitzenkandidaten ("top candidates"), were Steven Adams for the Democratic Movement Party, Jean Fabrice for the United Progress Party and Friedrich Bodenheimer for the Conservative Democratic Union Party.

This was also the first election since the new policies agreed on in the latest Summit were enacted. These policies saw the amount of seats in the Parliament brought from 100 seats to 320 seats, doubling the amount of seats per nation from 10 to 20. It was also the first election where a CON government and a CON opposition were formed, as well as Superational power.

Campaigns
WIP

Rosehout Sex Scandal
In January 2018, 2 weeks before the elections, Frank Rosehout of Citizens' Bloc party had an allegation of sexual assault filed against him by Gilles Moulard, a Monteregian member of the CZB. Mr. Rosehout pleaded guilty to the charges against him and wrote a public apology to Mr. Moulard explaining that he had been living in the closet for over 25 years and that he had chosen this moment to come out as a gay man. Moulard, disappointed with this apology left the party on February 2nd 2018 to join the far right-wing National Action party. Many people supported Moulard's decision and an online petition on change.org campaigning for Mr. Rosehout to resign received over 1.5 million signatures. According to opinion polls, CZB's vote share fell sharply, letting NAC's share rise dramatically. Leader of NAC Edward Yanga released a statement on the 4th of February stating: "National Action is not a movement against world values but a movement for upholding world values.  We strongly condem the actions of CMP Frank Rosehout and we lead a light in the battle against sexual harassament whether it's man or woman or man on man. Our party strives hard to make this world a better place and especially a safer place for mankind. We walmly welcome anybody who is going through the same issues as MCP Gilles Moulard and we will help them fight against the evil we are facing. That is, after all our job; to change things for the better. It is also up to the Commonwealth to make things better too. The parliament should be a place of respect, not a place of dehumanization and violence and it is up to CON to make this happen more than anyone. Thank you all!" Despite this, Rosehout was still leader of CZB by the time of the parliamentary election where he won 29 seats, a 17.61% decrease of the seats they had last election. This poor result combined with the ongoing Rosehout scandal led the party to hold a vote of no confidence which Rosehout lost. He resigned on April 2nd 2018 and was replaced by fellow Vandaysian MCP Valerie Makaay the following day.

Kuismagate
Leader of the Green Alliance party, Oona Kuisma, was reported to have eaten a chicken drumstick in an article published in The Commonwealth Herald on October 18, 2017. An image showed MCP Kuisma chewing the meat off a piece of chicken at her street barbecue, days after she had made a speech in Vancouver, Western Republic at the Vegan Congress, about how eating meat must be stopped and that the only way to save the planet is to convert to being vegan. After large mobs and protests surrounded Mrs. Kuisma's home, she had to receive 24/7 surveillance and a personal bodyguard. The money spent on her treatment as well as her hypocritical behaviour led her party, GRA, to fall rapidly in opinion polls and her act became custom to many the internet meme.

Government formation
Shortly after the elections, talks for the formation of the 1st CON government began. DCM was seen as the kingmaker as they were in the center of the political spectrum and had the mosts seats. DCM leader Steven Adams approached both the right and the left, opening the door to multiple possibilities.

It was first reported that a coalition between the CDU, DCM and UNL was in the making. However, Håkon Solberg announced that UNL would not take part in any negotiations due to them not being interested in the government. Before the UNL withdrew from the coalition talks, NAC had attempted to create a right-wing coalition with the CDU, CZB and the UNL. However, most of them refused to coalition with NAC due to their extreme positions.

By mid February, a center-left coalition backed was made by DCM, UDP, GRA and CZB with Steven Adams as leader. The government was inaugurated and it managed to pass multiple laws during March and February. However, after the impeachment of Frank Rosenhout and the subsequent death of Valerie Maakay (the CZB leaders), the CZB withdrew from the government coalition. This was caused by continuing disagreements between the CZB and the other members of the coalition.

In the end, WFR and FDC joined the government coalition to regain the majority. The final government coalition was then formed by DCM, UDP, GRA, WFR and FDC.

Presidential Elections
An indirect election was held in the Commonwealth from the 5th of April to the 7th of April to elect a parliament president for CON. Every MCP present in parliament voted for their choice of president between 5 candidates from DCM, UDP, CDU, UNL and GRA. Each candidate led a campaign joined by their running mate who would be elected vice-president. The favourite candidate to win according to exit polls as of April 5th is christian conservative Hugo Flores of the CDU who aims to attract voters from centre-left to far-right.

Campaigns
Every candidate led a six month long campaign to attempt to secure enough votes from the 320 MCP's as possible. The campaigns were aided by each candidate's running mate who would either campaign alongside the candidate or parallel to. Many of the campaigns were faced with scandal whist taking part in the parliamentary elections which took place less than 2 months prior such as Kuismagate, the Rosehout Sex Scandal, the Adams Money Laundering Scandal, etc. Despite 9 candidates originally showing interest in running for president, this was whittled down to just 5 due to financial issues and scandals.