Election for Governor: Coverage, Daan Mathers, FPC

“Welcome, listeners, I am, as always, Daan Mathers and I’ll be with you for the next three hours on Fleet Wireless to help try and make some sense of the elections, the candidates and their manifestos.”

“Where better to start than with the results of our latest poll? Now this was conducted over the course of the past week. Each respondent was played, or given a printed copy of, each candidate’s manifesto presentation, the last of which, of course, was originally broadcast a little over two weeks ago. Of the two thousand asked, proportionately from each ship in the fleet, one thousand eight hundred were prepared to name their preferred candidate and it is their voting intentions I am now able to report.”

“Well, we’re denied either a sudden swing from the previous voting distribution or a landslide consistent with that distribution, because the order of voter preference is unchanged – though the proportions of the fleet supporting each candidate have shifted markedly.”

“Viktor Perseun still leads the pack with 27.3% of the votes. He’s followed by Farrawut Intendra and Eddard Stanton on 25.1% and 25.0% of the vote respectively, a difference so small as to be statistically meaningless – they can be considered neck and neck. In fourth place still, but with a far higher proportion of the vote than initially, is Sarah Lianova, with 22.5% of the vote. ”

“Now this swing for Lianova isn’t enough to win it for her, but it is a remarkable increase on just a few weeks ago. Her supporters, we’ve found, are not so attracted by her promise of stronger Unions or her left-wing policies, but rather her commitment to a referendum on the issue of Cylon incorporation into the fleet. Her three opponents all adopted pro-Cylon stances.”

“Stanton has moved up considerably in the polls since he entered the race. The policies in his manifesto are not tremendously distinct from those of Dr Perseun, leading some analysts to believe they are splitting the same vote. A lot of Stanton’s support comes from those who knew him from the early days of the Fleet Council, when he stood against Commander Darius for civilians’ rights, and from the military disaffected with the recent coup.”

“The swing towards Intendra seems based on her more right-wing ideology and the appeal of a more theocratic…”

<<Mathers’ voice tails off for a moment; we can hear, presumably from elsewhere in the studio, two voices speaking quickly and at once.”

“…just a moment, listeners, if you could just bear with…”

<<There’s another few moments of complete silence – the broadcast has been muted. Then Mathers’ voice returns.>>

“We’ve just had news… we’re awaiting final confirmation now… but we’ve just received word that the Intendra and Lianova campaigns are going to run under a joined ticket. Now, if this is true, and I have to stress this is just preliminary… we’d have to see how the two candidates balance the very disparate parts of their manifestos, particularly their attitudes to Cylons and to the left-right spectrum within the fleet. If they were able to do this without alienating their core voters, which is unlikely they would have 47.6% of the vote; even if they lost a third of their overall support to the compromise, this would still mean victory for the Intendra/Lianova ticket.”

<<There’s again a silence, briefer this time.>>

“I’m getting word that a spokesperson for the Intendra and Lianova campaigns is issuing a joint statement. Can we…? Are we going to…? Yes, I think we’re transferring the feed now, you should be able to hear…”

<<There is a very clumsy crossfade from Mathers’ broadcast to that of said spokesperson – the voice is not immediately recognised, so it’s not one of the potentates of the fleet.>>

“…can now confirm to the Electoral Commission that the campaigns for Governor run by the High Priestess Farrawut Intendra and Captain Sarah Lianova are now merging into one ticket that will preserve the priorities of both campaigns whilst assuring a strong leadership free of the fecklessness of the Fleet Council or the systems proposed by either remaining opponent.”

“The policies laid out in the manifestos will stand without alteration, except for three points.”

“First, the search for the Galactica. There will be a referendum, should a habitable planet be found, on whether to give up the chase and settle, or to continue searching for our lost sibling.”

“Second, the fleet’s democracy will be amended based on a compromise between the two proposed systems. We will retain the elected Governor role and Quorum, but in future, the short list of candidates for Governor will be subject to approval by the High Priestess, who will also take into consideration whether the decisions of the elected bodies run in complete opposition to the will of the Gods. The selection of High Priestess will be undertaken along traditional lines within Temple. The first High Priestess will be Farrawut Intendra; the first Governor will be Sarah Lianova.”

“Third, and most important, the role of Cylons in the fleet. Captain Lianova is dedicated to the idea that the people must be able to choose on this; and Farrawut Intendra is dedicated to the acceptance of the Cylons into the mainstay of the fleet. There will therefore be a referendum after the election. Those who cannot accept Cylons in the fleet will leave the fleet; those who can will stay with the Cylons. The ships will be apportioned out according to the number of survivors in each camp, with the Myriad accompanying the larger of the two groups.”

“Dr Perseun and Mr Stanton represent the old guard that got us into all the troubles we’re facing now; their systems, their policies, their priorities, simply don’t work. Together, faith and freedom will see us through to a better world.”

“I’ll now take some questions…”

<<There is another crossfade back to Daan Mathers, though he waits until the speaker is inaudible before continuing.>>

“Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Lianova and Intendra on the same ticket, with some radical proposed changes to their policies, running, I think, in complete contravention to the Temple vs State ideas proposed by Dr Perseun.”

“We’re going to try to gauge some reactions to this for you, but in the meantime and while we gather the news and developments still coming in, stay tuned for biographical details of each candidate in our executive summary broadcast, The People Behind The Podium….”