1979 Vestean Parliament election

The 1979 Vestean Union elections were parliamentary elections held between 7 June to 10 June across all 5 (at that time) member-states of the Vestean Union. They were the first elections to be held in the Vestean Union allowing all member-state citizens to elect 400 members of Vestean Parliament and the first international election in history. A total 400 seats were up for election in the Vestean Parliament representing 190 million citizens of the Vestean Union. The seats were distributed between 29 individual political parties grouped together into 8 alliances.

The top candidates for the election of president were Dick Knob representing the SDAV alliance, Michael Fabian representing the VDP alliance, Kurt Eisenhauer representing the CCU alliance and Jan van Katoren representing the LAV alliance. On the 11 June, Dick Knob was announced presumptive president as the leader of the alliance with the most counted votes sweeping 27% of the seats in the Vestean Parliament. After weeks of negotiations between the alliances a coalition was formed lead by Knob and included the SDAV, CCU and LADA alliances.

Seats have been allocated to countries proportionally to their population but members were sat according to political groups, or alliances within the Vestean Union.

Backgronud
The Vestean Commission formally established the Vestean Parliament in the 1979 treaty which specified using accepted voting systems. The treaty specified how the seat apportionment shall be determined as well as the five-year term for MVPs. It laid the foundation to the political system where national parties form alliances within the Union Parliament.

Seat Apportionment
In agreement with the Vestean Commission, seats were distributed 50/50 whereas one half of the seats were divided equally between all member-states giving each one 40 persistent MVPs and the other half were divided proportionally to the population.

Ripuaria
The 1978 Ripuarian Chamber of Deputies election saw the emergence of the far-right anti-communist Rechtspartei (The Right Party) where they won 5 seats in the chamber. This marked a big change in Ripuaria where the socialist-communist coalition has been vote out of the government and the right-Christian coalition winning the election. The Chrëschtlech Union (Christian Union) saw a political shift rightwards although it retained its liberal Christian values. This shift has caused many Ripuarian voters to favour the Christian party. Many of the Center-Right voters preferred voting Chrëschtlech Union in the Vestean election following a successful and well-funded campaign by the party. On the contrary lack of campaigning on the socialist and communist side meant that only ideological voters choose to vote for these parties. The pre-election polls showed favour over the Kommunistische Partei (Communist Party) between them and the Rechtspartei which cause an official boycott of the Vestean Union election by far-right members. Despite the boycott, Rechtspartei still participated in the elections and didn't see as much success as they did in the chamber elections.

The final results in the Ripuarian elections for the Vestean Union Parliament saw more than half of the voters choosing The Chrëschtlech Union.

Nordal
With the announcement of pan-Vestean elections by the Vestean Commission in early 1979, political parties in Nordal geared for a unique election that would establish Nordal's very first MVPs and set a precedent for future VU elections in the country. From the start, the election was marred in controversy regarding the recently establish Independent Social Party, a breakaway group from the Social Labour Party. The Electoral Commission of Nordal originally refused to grant the Independent Social Party a licence to contest the election due to their ties with the banned Communist Party of Rewland and Welwyn. This lead to public outrage and demonstrations took place in multiple mining towns in northern Rewland. Eventually, a month before the election was due to take place the Electoral Commission granted the party a licence after a direct order from the Upper Council forced them to - much to the dismay of the Conservative Union and Social Labour parties.

The election saw the first-ever electoral pact in Nordal's history between Alliance and the newly established Nordalan Green Party allowing for Alliance to focus on defeating the Conservative Union Party and a heavily split Social Labour Party in the north of the country. This would be the last time Alliance finished in the top two in a nationwide election.

Also unique to this election was the electoral system the government implemented. At the suggestion of the joint-parliamentary electoral committee - the government implemented a pseudo-proportional voting system that would award Nordalan MVPs more fairly than in Nordalan General Elections. The electoral system established is today known as the Winston Brier System, named after Winston Brier MP, chairman of the joint-parliamentary electoral committee. It allowed the 34 shires of Nordal to each send two MVPs to the VUP with the rest of Nordals VUP seats being assigned along proportional party lists allowing smaller parties like the Greens and People's Party to elect their very first politicians. In total, 30 seats were proportionally decided with the remaining 68 being assigned to the shires.

Polls were accurate in the fact that they predicted a CUP landslide however they severely underestimated the performance by Alliance with most polls placing them third or even fourth behind the Independent Social Party. In reality, the Social Labour Party and the Independent Social Party split the leftwing vote allowing both the Conservative Unionists and Alliance to sweep traditionally socialist areas in the north and in Welwyn. This was most profound in Astlyshire in Corbourne where Alliance won the shire with just 33% of the vote.

Election
In June, the 400 Members of Vestean Parliament(MVPs) were elected by universal suffrage. At the time there were no rules over system of election used nationally. This has caused many member states to apply their national ban on communist parties over to the Vestean Union election, a notably exception being Ripuaria which is the only member-state that has elected a communist party.

Ripuaria has voted its MVPs based on constituent voting where each electoral constituent elected one MVP.

Nordal voted in its MVPs using a hybrid FPTP-proportional system now called the Winston Brier System. The 34 shires of Nordal each sent 2 MVPs with the largest party in each shire obtaining both. The remaining 30 seats were then each assigned proportionally based on the nationwide vote.

Summary
a. Minor Alliances