Open Loyalist Convention (2046)

The Open Loyalist Convention of 2046 was the second Loyalist convention. It was held before the elections of the House of Consuls in Nicosia, in de department of Cyprus.

Prelude
Although Jonathan Montgomery had been Prime Minister of the Batavian Empire for five years, not all Loyalist Party members were happy. Many people thought that, despite his huge amount of seats (221), he hadn't been able to idealize all his pledges. Jonathan Montgomery knew that he would need to campaign hard to win the nomination again.

Candidates
There were three candidates nominated for the leadership of the Loyalist Party: Jonathan Montgomery, Sophie DeLors and Dimitri Petrov.

Jonathan Montgomery was nominated again, now that he had been Prime-Minister for five years he was seen as the true figure to represent the Loyalist views. Jonathan Montgomery only had the disadvantage of experience, because in his five years serving as Prime-Minister there were a lot of things he hadn't accomplished.

Sophie DeLors was seen as the major opponent of Jonathan Montgomery. DeLors had served in the State Assembly of Cevennes (2042-2044) and later as the Senator of Cevennes (2044). She resigned as Senator after six months to become the National Whip for the Coalition of Loyalists. During the one year she served as National Whip, she became very popular in southern Europe and Africa. With a huge number of delegates behind her, she decided to run for the leadership of the party.

The third candidate was former Senator Dimitri Petrov of Northern-Ural (2042-2044 and 2044-2046). He chose not to run for re-election in 2046 to serve the nation more than just from a department. He was a monarchist, but supported giving Russia back the departments of at least Central and Northern Ural, Nenetsia and Volgania. He wasn't very popular with the party, but campaigned a lot in the Russian departments to whip support for his candidacy.

Election
Jonathan Montgomery managed to win the election again, but lost a lot of his mandate to Sophie Delors. Almost every African department preferred Sophie Delors as leader, and he also lost the support of the delegates from Southwest Europe. Dimitri Petrov received a lot more delegates than expected, he managed to get support from all the 11 Russian departments and also the departments of Belarus and Poland. In spite of this he only managed to get 8,1% of the popular vote, falling short to the 30,7% of Sophie Delors and the 61,2% of Jonathan Montgomery. Jonathan Montgomery was thereby inaugurated for the second time as the leader of the Loyalist Party.

Aftermath
In the general elections of the House, the Loyalist Party managed to win the most seats again, but lost a margin of about 27 seats, still giving them a mandate of 194 seats, which was by far the most. However, Emperor Saviël-Citus I and Jonathan Montgomery started to have a conflict, almost immediately during the formation, as Jonathan Montgomery wanted a different coalition without the Christian Democrats and searched by the Social-Democratic Party. Jonathan Montgomery was despite this appointed Prime-Minister by Saviël-Citus I. Sophie DeLors was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Dimitri Petrov wasn't put on the party list for the election of Consul. Although the new term seemed to start smooth, Saviël and Jonathan Montgomery got more and more conflicts. The Emperor started to veto the laws made by Jonathan Montgomery in the Senate. Jonathan Montgomery openly condemned this, which lead to a large anger toward him from some of his own party members, who still gave their unconditional support to everything the Emperor did. Eventually Saviël dismissed him and his deputy took over. After two months however, Saviël decided to dissolve the House of Consuls, which lead to a new election.