When the year of sixty-six came rolling along the election campaigns were already in full swing. President Mitre, unconstested by members of his own party, was running for a second term. As his contender emerged the conservative member of parliament José Joaquín Peréz from Santiago.
The party convention that elected the little known Peréz to run on the federalist ticket was a remarkable one. Tensions between several lobbies among the federalists broadened and widened over the candidature and the future course of the party. Already before the final vote was held some delegates left the convention under protest. When Peréz was elected with only 42.3% of all votes as the candidate for the office of prime minister a turmoil broke out. Delegates where involved in fistfights with each other and many fled the assemblyhall. In the end the convention had to be dissoluted by the police of Buenos Aires.
Peréz was anounced the official candidate of the Partido Federalista by leaders of the party in several conservative newspapers.
This party convention frankly showed the inner disruption of the Partido Federalista in public. A disruption that had gained more and more force among the last legislative period. Now it became obvious, that the conservatives where not of one mindset but more likely an amalgamation of different interests. The major conflicts among the Federalists where centered on 1) Which role should clerics have in local politics, 2) different interests of the Crofters (Farmers) and the squires (big farmers and/or great land owners) as well as the non agricultural rural populace (eg. Miners), 3) should the interests of the growing group of factory workers be incorporated into the conservative agenda of the Partido Federalista. Especially among the more moderate conservatives the latter point was seen as decisive to break the dominance of the liberals, while it was harshly opposed by the 'right wing' conservatives.
Thus José Peréz tried to run for presidency with a minimalist programm with the intention to not repel any of the conservative groups.
Mitre's popularity as a war hero was still unbroken and even bolstered by his successfull policies of his first term assured him unopposed support among the liberals in all of Platinea. While the reforms of the military and the successes of his administration in the area of foreign affairs raised his support among traditional conservative voters.
The American Civil War brought to this point unseen masses of immigrants to Platinea, almost eight million immigrants during the last four years. Increasing the population to 20 million. The immigrants weren't a homogenous mass but they were a huge voter group with a mostly liberal mindset, that was nearly unreachable for the Federalists.
A Factor that should play a huge role in the upcoming election.
When the election day came around it became clear, that the Partido Federalista was more disrupted than ever. And that Perez' campaign was not able to cover any of the rifts among the conservative lobbies. But he was able to gather some mutual support for the conservative cause in the former chilean provinces from Copiapo in the north to Magdalena in the south.
The liberals carried over 78% of the popular vote, but won only 71% of the seats in congress, due to the rural electoral districts.[1]
Still their best election result since the first congress elections in 1850.
When King Juan I. opened the new session of parliament and inaugurated Mitre for his second term in July, the conservative delegates were so at odds with each other that they even didn't magage to form a unified parliamentary group. Instead several conservative parliamentary groups emerged in the aftermath of the election.
[1] By the constitution of 1849 it was declared, that for every 10,000 eligible voters[2] one delegate had to be elected into congress. But this guideline could only be fullfilled in the more dense populated areas. In the vast hinterlands electoral districts contained only a few hundred eligible voters while encompassing thousands of square miles.
In the scarcely populated state of Chaco every congressman was elected by a mere 1000 voters, while in the large cities like Buenos Aires every delegate represented the full amount of 10,000 voters.
[2] By 'eligible voters' are those citizens meant who where allowed to vote. Which means that only males of twentyone years of age and older are counted. Women and children are not counted. Thus a delegate represents rather 40,000 citizens.
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As anyone can see by looking at the map, there is some serious immigration going on in Patagonia. And while immigration as a whole is very good it seems very unlikely that all those immigrants will be going to the rather unfertile lands in the south. Roughly a million people is living on Tierra del Fuego, which makes the island eight times as densely populated as it is today in our timeline.
Therefore, with your discretion, I will be 'transferring' POPs to the La Plata region.
Yay this is the 50th official update! Unwrap the celebration emoticons. What? What do you mean by 'there is no celebration emoticon'? Darn them!