March 2022 Prime Minister special election
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| Registered | 72 legislators of the South Pacific | |||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | TBD | |||||||||||||||
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The March 2022 Prime Minister special election is an ongoing election held in the South Pacific from 7‒16 March 2022 to elect a new Prime Minister of the South Pacific after incumbent HumanSanity had resigned. The seat is currently only contested by incumbent Minister of Defence Moon.
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.
After being re-elected in the February 2022 Cabinet election with the intent of serving another full term to continue/finish started projects, HumanSanity announced their intent to resign to the Assembly on March 6th, 2022, becoming effective with the due election of a new Prime Minister.[1] They cited shifting real-life priorities as well as general exhaustion after being incredibly involved in NS politics for a continuous 2 and a half years. However, Election Commissioner Kris Kringle stated that a special election would not start before an actual vacancy ‒ not just an intent to vacate the position ‒ exists, and asked a Legal Question to the High Court of the South Pacific to obtain clarity for future reference on whether an intent as that of HS would suffice to call a special election.[1][2] In response, HS retracted their statement of intent and made their resignation effective immediately.
As the half-term line was still far away, a special election had to be called.
Electoral System
The office of the Prime Minister of the South Pacific 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.[3]
Candidates
So far, only Moon has accepted his nomination. Amerion, Roavin, and Witchcraft and Sorcery haven't responded to theirs yet.[3]
| Declared Candidates | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. | ||||
| Candidate | Political office(s) | Campaign | ||
|
Moon | Minister of Defence of the South Pacific (since February 2022) Other offices
Senior Staff in the Ministry of Media Officer in the South Pacific Special Forces Ambassador to 10000 Islands and the West Pacific |
No campaign | |
Campaigns
No campaigns have been published yet.[4]
Results
The results are scheduled to be announced on March 16th, 2022.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 HumanSanity (6 Mar '22): Resignation as Prime Minister. Retrieved 7 Mar '22.
- ↑ Kris Kringle (7 Mar '22): Effects of Resignations. High Court of the South Pacific. Retrieved 7 Mar '22.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 EC Kris Kringle (7 Mar '22): Declarations of Candidacy. Retrieved 7 Mar '22.
- ↑ March 2022 Prime Minister Special Election. TSP forums. Retrieved 7 Mar '22.