| abstract
| - A snap federal general election was held in the Federation of Zardugal on Saturday March 7, 3344. All 750 seats to the 17th Congress of Zardugal were up for election, as was the Presidency and all five State governorships. According to the Constitution, a federal election was not required until December 12, 3344 and following the 3343 party conference season, Zardic political parties had been preparing for a December election. The political climate of Zardugal was radically transformed on November 7, 3343 however, when the Indralan launched a surprise military attack on Zadric military vessels at anchor. The surprise attack - which killed in excess of 1,000 Zardic military personnel and severely crippled the Federation's naval capacity - led to the incumbent Conservative Republican Party inviting the opposition New Democratic Party and Zardic Labour Party to form a government of national unity with them. As part of the formation of this government, the Conservatives had wanted to postpone elections until December 3346 but were unable to marshal the 488 votes needed in Congress to pass a constitutional amendment. As a result, after negotiations for the formation of a war cabinet with the opposition parties, Conservative Prime Minister Chirac reached an agreement with the Labour Party to go to the country in February 3344 if Labour would commit itself to keep the Conservatives in power at the head of the Federal Government for the duration of the war. Chirac was persuaded the CRP would fare better if it could go into an election before the war begin in earnest, and was concerned about the feasibility of holding a federal election in the middle of a large-scale conflict. This election was thus unique in that it was not expected to have a significant impact on the composition of the Federal Government. In order to preserve the unity of the incoming government, none of the major parties campaigned against each other aggressively. Going into the election, the Conservatives were defending a narrow congressional majority of 12 seats. The Labour Party had performed poorly at its first election in 3341 but had since enjoyed a surge in popular support, particularly as a consequence of the CRP's radical peacetime economic reforms. It was widely expected that both the CRP and the NDP, based on experience with the old Socialist Workers' Party and having dominated Zardic politics for the preceding two decades, would make significant losses to the Labour Party on election day. For the CRP and the NDP then, their realistic goals were to defend as many of their seats as possible from a Labour surge and minimise their losses so as to emerge as the largest party in a hung Congress, which would put them in a strong position for forming the next peacetime government. Labour was still widely anticipated to finish in third place, and Labour strategists themselves expected to win around 100 seats on polling day. In the event, the election resulted in the first hung Congress in 15 years. The Conservatives saw their overall majority obliterated as 71 of their deputies were defeated across the country; the New Democrats managed to gain a single seat from the CRP but saw 154 fall to the surging Labour Party. They finished with a disappointing 216 seats, though this was still 63 seats more than the party had held after their worst electoral peformance. Following the vote, Labour kept its pledge to support the agreed war cabinet, leading to the formation of a national unity government. Labour leader Denise Simpson briefly became Leader of the Opposition in a balanced coalition cabinet, though this was only until the ratification of the new cabinet. NDP leader Darren Nicholson was challenged for the leadership of his party by Shadow Interior Minister Cody Vanderheyden - after an inconclusive two-round leadership ballot, Nicholson resigned in favour of Vanderheyden. Conservative Prime Minister Chirac remained in office, though aware of the fact it would be difficult for him to retain power after the dissolution of the war cabinet without another election. At a State level, the results were somewhat different. The NDP experienced near total whipeout, losing two of the three states it held before the election. Labour and the Conservatives each gained one, giving the Conservatives a majority of state governorships.
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