Ravneby — The Alliance of Social Democrats has come up one seat short of winning the 2022 Valkyrian general election, needing a single seat to form a majority government. A three-party bloc between the Socialist Party, Labour Party, and Populist Left, the Alliance has mathematically eliminated the New Conservative Coalition's ability to form a government, ending Stella Kaufman's chances of serving as prime minister into the next term.

Winning 311 seats in the Storting, the Alliance needs at least one member of parliament to support the government or two members to abstain from confidence votes. According to the election results, the next Storting will have a left-wing majority comprised of the Alliance, The Greens, and the Communist Party, and the Alliance could look to the Pirate Party, which has won 29 seats in the election, for confidence and supply, leaving the left-wing bloc with several options.

However, the right-wing Coalition led by Kaufman has no path to the majority, even if all unaligned parties, except for the Communist Party, having won six seats, decide to provide confidence and supply to the right-wing bloc. For the Coalition to return to government, the Alliance must fail to form a government, giving the Coalition a chance to win another election if the Storting dissolves. Given the Alliance's favourable history with The Greens and their other options, the chances of dissolution are slim.

Results


Projected composition of the 4th Valkyrian Parliament (by party)
Clockwise from 6 o'clock: Communist Party (dark red), Socialist Party (medium red), Labour Party (light red), Populist Left (pink), Pirate Party (black), The Greens (green), Liberal Party (yellow), Fjernøy Interests (turquoise), Centrist Democratic Party (orange), Conservative Party (medium blue), The New Right (dark blue), The Northern Party (light blue)

Fuelled by a 72-seat surge by the Socialist Party, the Alliance may look to Socialist leader Steve Bennett as the next prime minister, overshadowing Labour leader Avianna Aldridge, whose party lost seven seats in the election. The Alliance's other gains came from the Populist Left, which won 12 more seats than their performance in the 2019 election, taking back seats from The New Right. If Bennett becomes prime minister, he will be the first socialist in Valkyrian history, including the mainland and Fjernøy's history, to become the head of government.

Before a crowd of supporters in Ravneby, Bennett assured them that the Alliance would form the next government, saying that the bloc will negotiate with the Pirate Party and The Greens instead of just one. If both parties joined the Alliance, the bloc would have a 53-seat majority, but if the two parties only agree to abstain in confidence votes, the Alliance would form a minority government. Regardless, the Alliance needs only one party to join the bloc or abstain in confidence votes.

Unlike the 2017 election, the Alliance will not need the Liberal Party's support. The earlier Alliance existed on unsteady ground, trying to balance the interests of both liberals and socialists. This time, the Alliance can form a left-wing government unimpeded by the liberals. Neither the Labour Party nor Populist Left seem interested in cutting ties with the Socialist Party since they cannot mathematically form a government without the socialists.

The social democrats' interest in maintaining the alliance with the socialists is compounded by apparent umbrage at the Liberal Party's abandonment of the Alliance and their targeting of Labour and Populist Left politicians during the 2019 election. While Margaret Harrison is no longer the leader of the Labour Party, the party still remains loyal to the former prime minister, who had been a repeated target of disdain among liberals who saw her as being too far to the left.

Socialist leader Steve Bennett at the 2022 Socialist Party Conference

However, the larger issue, at least in the eyes of Alliance leadership, is bringing an end to the Kalkara War, which has been waging for nearly three years. For years, Socialist leader Bennett opposed the war. Initially ostracized for his opposition, the prolonged conflict and growing evidence of war crimes turned public opinion in Bennett's favour, especially after the death of his daughter, Lucilla, in April 2021.

"It's vindication," Katrín Sævarsdóttir, a professor in political science at the University of Ravneby told the KTN, "Bennett was called many things, a conspiracist, a laughingstock, a traitor. Now, he's close to becoming the first socialist head of government in the history of our nation." Katrín went on to say that the New Conservative Coalition might never recover from this election, "They built a house of cards, and it all came crashing down."

To put the Coalition's loss in context, the bloc won 335 seats in a 617-seat Storting in 2019, but they only won 232 seats in a 624-seat Storting in 2022. Three years after winning the 2019 election, they lost 103 seats, and with a Storting that is now seven seats larger than before due to levelling seats, adding to the Coalition's defeat in the 2022 election.

Additionally, the Coalition has seen its ranks splinter as Jake Marshall-aligned members split from The New Right to form the Northern Party, a regionalist party with deep ties to Valrissi fundamentalism, which has been accused of cult-like activities in the northern region of continental Valkyria. Despite the split, the Coalition kept these members within the bloc, but the decision to do so appears to have contributed to their defeat.

Since 2015, Valrissi fundamentalism has become a growing religious movement in the northern parts of continental Valkyria, and the movement has been accused of forced conversions and disappearances of non-Valrissi and secular residents in the region. Spurred on by the Populist Left, the most popular left-wing party in the continental north, the Alliance made it an election promise to investigate Valrissi fundamentalist activities.

Exit polling conducted by the KTN shows that 62 per cent of Valkyrian voters disapprove of Marshall, 67 per cent believe that Valrissi fundamentalism is a cult, and 64 per cent believe that the movement's activities in the north should be investigated.

Adding salt to the Coalition's wounds, the voters also decided on several referendums that swung hard in the left's favour, voting to pass constitutional amendments that codify and strengthen abortion, euthanasia, and labour rights. However, a citizens' referendum also entrenched the very promise that Bennett campaigned on the most. 71 per cent of voters called upon the government to revoke the war directive on Hystaiga in a nonbinding referendum.

The prime minister gave a short speech that did not acknowledge a leftist victory but otherwise showed the head of government accepting defeat and promising a quick vote on whether to end the Kalkara War. Centrist Democratic leader Bradley Murphy also conceded defeat and said that his party will vote in favour of ending the conflict, giving the left more votes than they need to fulfil their promise of ending the war.