2035 Derek election

The 2035 Derek election was held on Thursday, 18 July 2035 to elect 220 members of the House of Commons. The Labour-Christian Democrat grand coalition which had governed the country for a year before the Christian Democrats withdrew and forced an early election, was defeated in a historic landslide. The Alliance Party, which was formed from a merger of the Socialist Party, Green Party, and Progressive Party just 2 months before the election, won a majority government.

Date of the election
The election was called on 1 June 2035, with political campaigning for six weeks until election day on 18 July. On the day of the election, voting stations across the country were open from 8 am, and closed at 8 pm.

Contesting political parties and candidates
Most candidates are representatives of a political party, which must be registered with the Electoral Commission's Register of Political Parties. Candidates who do not belong to a registered party can use an "independent" label, or no label at all. Historically, no independent candidates have ever been elected.

Major parties that contested this election are shown in the table below with their results at the 2034 election, ordered by the number of seats they won.

Debates
Five debates were held ahead of the 2035 election. All debates were aired on all major television networks and were broadcast on radio by a number of stations. To qualify for the multi-party debates, parties had to be above 5% in an average of recent national opinion polls.

Town halls (8-12 June)
A series of town halls with each of the party leaders was held before the main debates over the nights of 8-12 June. Each lasted from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and were held with undecided voters asking the candidates questions one-on-one.

First debate (16 June)
The first debate ahead of the 2035 election was held on 16 June. The debate started at 6:00 p.m. and finished at 7:00 p.m. Opinion polling following the debate showed that it was won by Eric Shaw of the Alliance Party by a large margin.

Second debate (1 July)
The second debate ahead of the 2035 election was held on 1 July. The debates started at 6:30 p.m. and finished at 7:30 p.m. Opinion polling following the debate showed that it was once again won by Alliance leader Eric Shaw.

One-on-one debate (7 July)
A one-on-one debate between Alliance leader Eric Shaw and Derek Party leader Derek Ball was held on 7 July. The debate started at 5:00 p.m. and finished at 7:00 p.m. It was the first ever one-on-one debate to not feature either the Labour Party or the Christian Democrats. Opinion polling following the debate showed that it was won by Alliance leader Eric Shaw but Derek Party leader Derek Ball had a much stronger showing than expected.

Third debate (10 July)
The third debate ahead of the 2035 election was held on 10 July. The debate started at 5:30 p.m. and finished at 7:00 p.m. Opinion polling following the debate showed that it was once again won by Eric Shaw. The Liberals outperformed Labour for the first time in this campaign.

Fourth debate (16 July)
The fourth debate ahead of the 2034 election was held on 27 March. The debate started at 1:00 p.m. and finished at 2:30 p.m. Opinion polling following the debate showed that it was won by Eric Shaw but it was his weakest performance of the campaign with Labour and the Liberals performing well at the expense of Alliance and the Derek Party.

Opinion polling
Opinions polls were conducted monthly during the term and every 3 days during the election campaign.

Timeline

 * 3 May 2034: Election sees incumbent Labour-Liberal government lose majority. Socialists see huge surge in support, especially in Ables region.
 * 12 May 2034: Labour and the Christian Democrats announce agreement to form grand coalition after all other negotiations fail to secure majority.
 * June 2034: 19 Labour MPs defect to form Progressive Party.
 * 8 Februrary 2035: Christian Democrat leader Margaret Day faces leadership spill motion over grand coalition but wins ballot 50-7.
 * 1 March 2035: Labour leader Olivia Allen announces they won't contest next election as leader but does not announce timetable for leadership election.
 * 25 March 2035: Labour leader Olivia Allen confirms leadership ballot will take place on 30 March.
 * 30 March 2035: Labour Party leadership election sees Paul Rees elected leader unopposed.
 * 23 April 2035: Christian Democrat leader Margaret Day wins leadership spill over Peter Berejiklian by 38 votes to 19. Strong result for Berejiklian prompts series of resignations from cabinet by conservative members of party. Christopher Owen requests Day call a second ballot and announces his intention to run.
 * 24 April 2035: Cooper Morgan announces he will contest a second ballot as centrist candidate if Day chose not to contest. This announcement prompts many calls for Margaret Day to step down and allow a more popular centrist to contest a second ballot.
 * 26 April 2035: Christian Democrat leader Margaret Day announces her resignation as leader and announces a leadership ballot will take place that evening. The leadership election sees conservative Christopher Owen emerge victorious over centrist Cooper Morgan and fellow conservative Peter Berejiklian.
 * 27 April 2035: New Christian Democrat leader Christopher Owen announces withdrawal of Christian Democrats from the grand coalition, collapsing the government and making early election likely.
 * 1 May 2035: Membership votes in the Socialist Party, Green Party and Progressive Party see majority in favour of merger. The Alliance Party is formed.
 * 29 May 2035: Alliance Party leadership election results in Eric Shaw winning the leadership of the new party.
 * 1 June 2035: Prime Minister Paul Rees calls election for 18 July 2035 after failing to secure an alternative majority in Parliament after withdrawal of Christian Democrats from coalition.
 * 8-12 June 2035: Town hall debates held.
 * 16 June 2035: First debate held. Alliance Party leader Eric Shaw wins by large margin.
 * 1 July 2035: Second debate held. Alliance Party leader Eric Shaw wins by smaller margin with Derek Party leader Derek Ball improving his performance.
 * 7 July 2035: One-on-one debate between Alliance party leader Eric Shaw and Derek Party leader Derek Ball held. Shaw wins but with much stronger Ball performance than expected.
 * 10 July 2035: Third debate held. Alliance Party once again wins, Liberal leader Lily Hughes has strong performance.
 * 16 July 2035: Fourth and final debate of the campaign held. Eric Shaw sees weakest performance yet but still wins. Weak performance by Derek Party and Christian Democrats offset by strong performance by Labour and Liberals.
 * 18 July 2035: Election sees new Alliance Party form majority government. Eric Shaw becomes Prime Minister after historic defeats for Labour and the Christian Democrats.

Aftermath
The Alliance formed a majority government after the election, a rare occurrence in Derek elections after the introduction of D'Hondt. This historic win was off the back of large disapproval of the Labour-Christian Democrat grand coalition and huge instability in the establishment parties over the short-lived term. Eric Shaw was incredibly popular and was able to swing anti-establishment sentiment to his side which his main opponent Derek Ball was unable to do.

The Derek Party was led by Derek Ball, his fifth election as leader, and formed the Official Opposition following the election. Despite reaching second place, the party saw little movement in its vote share.

Labour faced its worst electoral defeat in recent history and lost nearly half its vote share, dropping to 14% and just 37 seats. The main beneficiary of the drop was the newly formed Alliance Party which ran a strong left-wing campaign which attacked Labour for its grand coalition with the Christian Democrats. Paul Rees announced his resignation as leader the day after the election.

The Liberals, once again led by Lily Hughes, saw a small boost in its vote share and expanded its caucus from 1 to 8. The party's gains were mostly from disillusioned centrist supporters of the Christian Democrats which switched after the downfall of former leader Margaret Day. The party had gained centre-left supporters from Labour during the term but lost most of them to the Alliance during the campaign.

The Christian Democrats suffered their worst defeat in history. The party received just 10% of the popular vote and won only a single seat. Christopher Owen announced his resignation as leader on election night to a virtually empty election night party. Many predictions of the future of the party were made following the result, with many predicting a merger with the Derek Party, a rebrand or a complete dissolution.