1920 Gelenian General Election

The 1920 Gelenian General Elections were held in Gelenia on 11 Endwinter, 1920 for all 435 seas of the House of Commons. The elections were organized by the Gelenian Federal Elections Office, who had approved a total of eight political parties for the elections. Federal elections to elect the parliament determine the make up of the House, and in effect determines who will hold the Prime Minister's office, and what kind of coalition will form their government. The previous elections in 1917 saw a centre-right coalition of the Unionist Party and Centre Party come to power, which faced several challenges, including the 1917 Economic Crisis, rising tensions in Korasha and Asania, and social unrest in Gelenia itself through protests over the government's failed response to the economic crisis.

The campaign saw the Unionist Party fall to their lowest polling average in the post war era as public discontent over the coalition's fiscal and welfare policies caused anger towards Prime Minister McCormick. The new Liberal Party leader Eva Stewart was able to attract discontented voters to her party with promises of welfare and unemployment reform, as well as promises to aid small and medium sized businesses. Her coalition partners, the Greens and Labour Party, ran on platforms which promised government investment in green energy, as well as negotiations with unions throughout Gelenia. One contentious issue on the left was the issue of nuclear energy, which the Greens stood against, while the Liberals and Labour Parties supported.

On election day, polls opened at 7:00 in the morning, and by midafternoon it was clear that there was going to be a high voter turnout, with many people interviewed by the national broadcaster PBC claiming that they were voting "against the government". By the evening, the exit polls released at 22:00 showed that the Liberals were on track to win an overwhelming majority with 188 seats, one of the highest results for any party in Gelenian history. McCormick came out at 22:15 before results were officially announced and declared he would step down as party leader and Prime Minister following the disastrous results, paving the way for Eva Stewart to claim the Prime Minister's office after moth long coalition negotiations the following month.

Background
The 1917 Gelenian elections had returned a large majority for the Unionist Party, who had been led by Lewis McCormick, a former civics professor at the University of Rowe and a member of the party's fiscal conservative wing. As such, he was in office when the 1917 Economic Crisis hit the continent, and his diverse coalition became paralyzed as varying opinions in cabinet could not agree on a response.

The Centre Party, who controlled the Office of Social Welfare and Services, demanded an immediate government aid package for low income people, and a raise in the highest rate of income tax. McCormick's Unionist Party refused to support such measures, and his finance minister, Oswyn Minnings, gave a speech on the floor of the Commons denouncing spending increases, claiming national debt was the larger issue. This caused uproar from McCormick's coalition partners in the Centre Party, as well as in the opposition Liberal Party, with Opposition Leader Eva Stewart grilling government ministers multiple times on their cabinet's course of action to address the rising unemployment figures.

Soon protests emerged on the streets of Wellington, Endsbury, Hamilton, and Umbridge, with protestors demanding social welfare expansion, and small business owners demanding government support. Meanwhile, the Unionists were sinking in the polls, while approval ratings of Lewis McCormick personally reached record lows of 16% by mid 1918. In response to this, pressure from the Centre Party forced McCormick to begin negotiations on a bailout package for small businesses, however this ran into roadblocks right away, as the Centre Party called for a bailout package limited to small businesses, accompanied by welfare and unemployment expansion, while the Unionists wanted to limit the scope of the welfare benefits, and provide a bailout for all "vital industries". This negotiation was at a stalemate for 3 weeks, and in such time confidence in the government began to dwindle. Finally, on 18 Embertide, 1918, the Centre Party leader Jeremy Sutcliffe announced his party's withdrawal from the governing coalition, and in light of the opinion polls that put the Centre Party low, he resigned his chairmanship of the party, with the leadership contest the following month electing Edith Crutchfield, former Education Secretary, as the new leader.

McCormick promised that his government would not fall, and immediately entered negotiations with the Alternative Party, who agreed to form a government on the condition that welfare benefits remain the same - which was ultimately agreed to. A massive protest "Unite for Change" took to the streets of the capital, and millions flooded the Wellington Commons in front of the House of Commons, claiming the government was letting welfare and poor people die off for the benefit of wealthy corporations. Opposition leader Eva Stewart invited protest leaders into her office and discussed their demands, promising a Liberal government would deliver on their demands. Meanwhile the Centre Party called for a vote of no confidence in the government in Highsummer of 1919 in order to force a snap election.

Alternative Party chairman Jason Moore accused Crutchfield and the Centre Party of supporting instability in the government to force through their "massive bankrupting bailouts of the lower classes" on a series of television interviews, and by the end of them, his approval ratings were lower than McCormick's at only 3.8%. Meanwhile, McCormick announced that his government could not come to a conclusion on the bailout package for small businesses, and instead a compromise package would be pushed through which allowed all businesses, including multinationals, to take out low interest loans from the government. This sparked outrage from the public, and his government's little remaining support collapsed, with the media questioning if his government could survive until the elections.

Campaign
The 1920 election campaign began when President Henry Mullins announced that he was scheduling the election for 11 Endwinter. Parties would have three months through autumn of 1919 to convince the public. Eva Stewart opened with a massive campaign rally in Rowe, the home state of McCormick, where she decried the Unionists for their lack of aid to the poor and to small businesses. Her campaign focused on a spending package which would limit the low interest loan scheme to medium sized businesses, while small businesses would receive grants from the government. Additionally, she planned a furlough scheme for the next year to allow businesses to keep their employees on payroll. Further, her government promised action on the environment, social justice, and women's rights. When asked in a PBC Interview in Emberrule of 1919 who her preferred coalition partners would be, she claimed she was open to any coalition, but would prefer a coalition between her Liberal Party and the Greens, or the Labour Party, who she claimed would work for the benefit of the working class. Though when pressured, she said that she would only consider a grand coalition between the Liberals and Unionists if McCormick resigned as head of the party, or if he agreed in full with her manifesto.

Meanwhile, the Unionists launched their campaign a week after the Liberals, calling on the people to elect a government who would reduce the national debt, curb crime, and