July 2022 Minister of Culture special election

July 2022 Minister of Culture special election

30 July ‒ 08 August 2022
Registered	66 legislators of the South Pacific
Turnout	TBD
Candidate The Lile Ulie Islands Party Progressive Assembly vote Majority Percentage Majority
Minister before election Rosaferri Elected Minister TBD

The July 2022 Minister of Culture special election was a special election held in the South Pacific since 30 July 2022 to elect a new Minister of Culture after incumbent Rosaferri has left without a trace. A recently unprecedented five candidates put their names forward, namely Rosaferri's predecessor Murelia, The Lile Ulie Islands, Sandaoguo, Comfed, and ProfessorHenn. The election has concluded with The Lile Ulie Islands winning the vote.

Background

Cabinet positions usually are elected concurrently every four months. However, should an incumbent resign and more than half of the term remain, a special election for the post must be held.

Rosaferri, the incumbent, was only shortly before elected in the June 2022 Cabinet election. On 18 July, she left the South Pacific's Discord server without notice and moved her nation (Eggraria) to Balder. Attempts by Prime Minister Jay Coop remained unsuccessful, so a proposal to relieve Rosaferri of her duties was introduced to the Assembly on late 19 July. It was motioned and seconded on 22 July, and passed with a resounding 96.9% majority on 30 July.

As the half-term line was still far away, a special election had to be called.

Electoral System

The office of the Minister of Culture is a Cabinet office, all of which are to be elected using Instant-Runoff voting. A voter ranks as many of the standing candidates as they wish in descending order of preference; the worst-performing candidates are eliminated from the tally one after the other and the votes for them re-distributed according to the voters' preferences until a candidate has attained an absolute majority of votes. Should the option to Re-Open Nominations win, the election reverts to the candidacy declarations phase.

Candidacy declarations would last for four days, running concurrently with the campaigning period, which however would last for another two days. Thereafter, the Assembly would vote for three days.

Campaign

Candidacy declarations opened on 30 July, with campaigning set to conclude on 3 August.

Candidates

While only one nomination (Moon) was made (and left unanswered), five candidates, a number unprecedented in recent races, declared their candidacy themselves, namely Comfed, Murelia, ProfessorHenn, Sandaoguo, and The Lile Ulie Islands.

Declared Candidates
Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. Struck candidates were disqualified from the race.
Candidate			Political office(s)	Campaign
		Comfed	Legislator of the South Pacific (since April 2022)	I will Destroy the Ministry of Culture
		Murelia	Legislator of the South Pacific (since July 2021) Other offices Senior Staff in the Ministry of Culture Ambassador to Spiritus and the East Pacific	For Construction of Culture
		ProfessorHenn	Legislator of the South Pacific (since July 2022)	Keep Things Running
		Sandaoguo	Council on Regional Security Member (since December 2016) Other offices Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs	No campaign
		The Lile Ulie Islands	Legislator of the South Pacific (since May 2022) Other offices Ambassador to Lazarus	The Lile Ulie Islands for Minister of Culture

Sandaoguo

Sandaoguo has not posted a campaign yet.

Results

The results are scheduled to be announced on 8 August 2022.