Galnet Update 04 JAN 3307 - Countdown to Alliance Election Begins

[SCiARA]

The Alliance has entered a period of political campaigning prior to the election of a new prime minister.

The appointment of a head of government takes place every six years, with the forthcoming vote scheduled for the 25th of February 3307.

Unlike the Federation, there are no political parties in the Alliance. The Assembly is comprised of councillors who each represent the ruling faction of a member system. Electoral votes will be cast by these individuals rather than the public, but councillors tend to abide by the majority views of their constituencies.

Edmund Mahon is the current prime minister, having been in office since 3301, and is campaigning for re-election. If successful, he will be the first to serve more than one term.

There are several rivals challenging Mahon, but the greatest support is for Councillor Nakato Kaine of Tionisla. She has become a rallying point for discontent among the Assembly, speaking out against the Alliance’s increasing dependence upon corporations and other superpowers.

At an emergency debate regarding the current wave of Thargoid attacks, Councillor Kaine stated:

“Can we be surprised that the Thargoid race is launching fresh assaults against us, when we brazenly invade their territories? Our obsession with meta-alloys has turned us into the aggressor! This is not the same Alliance that I pledged to serve. It’s time for a new direction.”

Countdown to Alliance Election Begins - Galnet - - Elite Dangerous

 

[Quantis Trap]

Hmm, I wonder where this idea came from? Will all the votes count? Will they all be legit?
If I was a councilor, I'd vote for whoever would ... finally BRING THE LORE!

 

[Starman 1966]

So a second Alliance power may be introduced into PP. That's good.

 

[Star Ferret]

So a second Alliance power may be introduced into PP. That's good.

There is nothing in there that implies anything about a 4th superpower being formed...

It is only stating that the current position of PM of the existing Alliance is about to come up for election.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'd never thought I'd live to see the day where Mahon is painted as the aggressor as well...

 

[Danieros]

There is nothing in there that implies anything about a 4th superpower being formed...

It is only stating that the current position of PM of the existing Alliance is about to come up for election.

Not a 4th superpower, a second alliance power.

Anyway, my guess is that if she wins elections she just replaces Mahon as the alliance power, instead of a second power appearing.

Or, Frontier completely ignores the PP implications and doesn't change/update anything (very likely since they haven't done anything PP-related update for so long).

 

[Rubbernuke]

FD have indicated no short term plans for Powerplay, so I'm not expecting anything from that angle. But just to say as well, even if Eddie loses Powerplay is about supporting a figure of power in the ED universe so nothing will change. He'd become something akin to Torval or Patty, a high ranking offical within the Alliance just not its PM.

 

[Gwyther]

Councillor Kaine stated:

“Can we be surprised that the Thargoid race is launching fresh assaults against us, when we brazenly invade their territories? Our obsession with meta-alloys has turned us into the aggressor! This is not the same Alliance that I pledged to serve. It’s time for a new direction.”

She gets my vote!

 

[Rubbernuke]

 

[smiths121]

Wee given the Alliance expansion in the bubble at the expense of ther other powers, I think they probably deserve 2 Powers.

Simon

 

[Spacerschoice-00]

So is this just story fluff? or can players influence this at all? Or even participate or even run for the position? ( @ PP not being short term, they may have ment that it is part of a longer term plan) have great new year.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So is this just story fluff? or can players influence this at all?

Well, the Galnet article says that votes are cast by the Assembly members for the various Alliance-controlled star systems, who are picked by the controlling faction of that star system.

So plausibly there's a route there to changing the results of the vote - although at this late stage, I think anything short of Tionisla or Gateway leaving the Alliance would be too little too late.

More likely there will be some story events (CGs, but not necessarily only that) which players can take part in between now and then, which may influence the results.



At the moment, I think Mahon has a pretty big advantage:

• Under his leadership the Alliance has quadrupled in size. Such growth hasn't been without its costs, but almost 800 of the Assembly members literally wouldn't be sitting there six years ago ... including Kaine.
• A lot of that growth has been in corporations, who Mahon has very good relations with ... and Kaine appears to be campaigning against. As just over half of the Assembly members represent corporate factions, that's going to be an uphill struggle for Kaine to overcome. Two years ago, when just over 40% of Alliance Assembly members were corporate, it would have been tough: Mahon has consolidated a lot since.
• At the moment, while Kaine is the most prominent challenger, it's quite possible that supporters of the unlikely candidates might switch to Mahon in preference to Kaine at the end.

But, on the other hand, the Alliance is under quite serious pressure at the moment:

• The Thargoid attacks in Witch Head and Coalsack are concerning - especially to the Assembly members from there.
• The rapid expansion has come at quite a cost to the economy, which is why they're out poking the Thargoids in the first place to try to boost it with meta-alloys
• Lakon is in quite serious trouble, and if that goes so does a lot of the Alliance's military backbone production.

Mahon's position could be weakened by any or all of those problems. But, is Kaine the right person to take advantage? At the moment it's not looking likely:

• Reducing dependence on corporations and the other superpowers may be attractive to the public, but probably not to the Assembly - even if Kaine could consolidate the votes of all non-corporate factions, Mahon would still win 547-522. There's no sign of any strategy to peel off some of those corporate votes.
• They don't have a particularly good answer to the Lakon question either - being dependent on a single corporation for key military hardware clearly is bad, especially if it ends up being a Federal corporation - but they need to set out an alternative quickly.
• Their recent anti-refugee statements together with this suggest a quite isolationist stance. It'll be interesting to see if there's much support for that in an Assembly which mostly wouldn't exist if the last six years had been isolationist.

So if Kaine is going to make a breakthrough, they need events in their favour soon.