2021 Tumbran federal election
The 2021 Tumbran federal election to elect all 650 members of the 47th Tumbran House of Representatives was held on 9 April 2021. The incumbent Labour government, led by Prime Minister Kenneth Everett, was seeking a second term. This election occurred after the 46th House of Representatives was dissolved on 1 February 2021; and the writs were issued on the same day by President Kelia Campbell. Unusually for a federal election, no state elections were held on the same day; the earliest one will be held in May, for the state of Thornton.
Background
The 2017 Tumbran federal election saw Kenneth Everett lead the Labour Party to a majority government, winning the election over Prime Minister Darren Hayes' Liberal Party. After the election, Hayes resigned as leader of the party, but stayed on as an MP. Geoffrey Osbourne was elected as Leader of the Opposition. Less than a year later however, due to flagging poll numbers, former Education Minister Anne Monteiro moved a leadership spill against Osbourne, which succeeded. Monteiro thus took over as Leader of the Opposition.
The Green Party also saw a change in leadership; Laurie Glover, the incumbent MP for Charbridge and female co-leader of the Green Party, decided to step down from the latter post in 2018. Anna Palmer, MP for Couno Grove Hill, was elected as her successor in the ensuing leadership election.
The Tumbran First Party, one of the two parties in the Conservative Alliance, decided to merge into the Conservative Party in August 2020; following the announcement, former party leader Lewis Bolton chose to retire as an MP. In the December 2020 Conservative Party Conference, Georgia Conservative Party leader Alan Spalko challenged federal leader Avery Mitchell for the party leadership and narrowly won. He will lead the Conservative Party into the 2021 election, and is running for election in Nottingham.
Electoral system
The 650 members of the 47th House of Representatives were elected in single-member constituencies utilising full-preference instant runoff voting, as had been the case since the 1906 federal election. Voting is compulsory in Tumbra. The election was administered by the Federal Electoral Commission of Tumbra.
Results
In a disastrous night for the Liberal Alliance, the coalition lost fifty seats, leading to the resignation of Leader of the Opposition Anne Monteiro. The National Party announced they would be re-evaluating their partnership with the Liberal Party; after a "thorough investigation", the Nationals announced they would not be leaving their coalition with the Liberal party, but would require "wide-ranging changes" to the coalition agreement with the Liberals. In the end, the election saw the demise of the Liberal Alliance branding; to simply be replaced with a broader Liberal-National coalition.
Kenneth Everett would lead Labour to their largest seat total in Parliament since the 1969 federal election, when Labour won 421 seats; it was also the largest seat total won by any party forming government since the 1984 federal election, when Andrew Rainer led the Liberal Party to 388 seats en route to his second term.