1852 Presidential Elections (A Federation of Equals)

The primary season before the 1852 election was really a non-event. Though all the major parties held nominating conventions, most either opted to stand under another party in a coalition or not field a candidate at all. In the end, only 3 candidates appeared on the ballot in all 9 states.

By far the biggest reason for the blandness of the primaries was that the eyes of the political nation were almost all looking south as riots in Lombardia spilled over into an armed coup. A row that had developed within the Italian Independent Party (of which almost 90% of the citizens of Venezia and Lombardia were members in 1851) over leadership caused a split in the party, with the Venetian wing leaving the party in favour of the Conservatives. All over Lombardia, the traditional contempt of their water-loving neighbour fermented such that within just 3 days, the every population centre in the state had devolved into near anarchy. Out of the chaos emerged a reactionary and extremely ambitious militia commander by the name of Luigi Albinoni. He, through his powerful oratory, turned the Lombards’ anger against the Federation as a whole and used it to set up a military dictatorship within the state, with himself as its ‘acting’ Chairman.



The Federal reaction was swift and effective. The Skala Italian Army was formed and discharged to recapture the state, fittingly, to be led by Skala’s son Johan. Within a month, and after victories outside both Bergamo and Milan, Albinoni was captured by Federal forces with most of his government having committed suicide in the final days of the regime. Secession was unilaterally declared to be illegal under the constitution by the Supreme Court the day after Albinoni’s removal from office.

He was escorted to Vienna by armed guard to face trial. Though it was largely a formality for him, the accusations of Treason were levelled against all of Lombardia’s remaining representatives both at a Federal and State level. In total, 32 men sat in the dock alongside Albinoni as the proceedings got underway. The trial lasted just 4 days, with all those in Vienna at the time being cleared (ie the Federal Councillors and Deputies) while all those who remained in Lombardia were sentenced to death. Albinoni’s final words were reported to have been, “We must take care our words don’t condemn us to the fires, for the lies put against me surely merit hell alone. In death, my country and I shall be vindicated.”

Prophetically, Albinoni’s demonic warning turned out to come true in a more temporal setting. The court case that had condemned him to death quickly gave birth to a number of side-cases, as terms like slander and libel were tossed around as if everyone had been transported one and a half centuries into the future and plonked in a room in London where a judge would listen to them all talk for several months before publishing a lengthy report that everyone would proceed to make a fuss about and then largely ignore. Indeed, the number of court cases filed during November and December 1852 would not be surpassed in Vienna (for the same time period) until 1987. That said, most of them ended in abject failure to come to any meaningful conclusion. What the court cases did do, however, was agitate the people of Vienna sufficiently that with just two weeks to go until the election, the President was forced to enforce a curfew on the city (though electorally it was thought by all at the time that it would make no difference because the conservatives held a solid majority in the state regardless).



Meanwhile, the consequences of the Krakovian war were still being ironed out. Krakow herself had been officially affected into the Federation the previous month, but by the election it still wasn’t clear whether the city would become a state in her own right or part of Galicia or if some other solution would be favoured. Equally, the situation in Ostprussen was rapidly deteriorating. The rejection of her bid for statehood left the territory in a state of limbo that created a power vacuum into which gang leaders and militia commanders ably stepped. Prussia, seeking the return of her ancestral lands, demanded a conference with the Federation where a compromise could be sought.

The Result
The presidential election of 1852 unfolded in stark contrast to the preceding primaries; no more could Danubian politics be called bland and predictable. In fact, not one single electoral forecast, be it through the rudimentary from of polling available at the time, party membership charts or complex extrapolation from existing social data, was able to predict either the eventual winner or the manner in which he took victory. Indeed, the coalition that formed between a flagging liberal party and a conservative candidate who looked increasingly sure of sealing the top office with little trouble left both the political left and right in a state of near shock, especially given their chosen candidate was neither actually standing for President at the time nor a member of the larger party. In doing so, Vice-President Ion Horsa Codrinaru had pulled off the greatest political coup of his age. His only remaining opponent, the Radical Union’s candidate, Petr Šik, recognised the coalition for the work of political genius it was, effectively pulling out of the race by announcing he would resign as the Union’s leader after the results were officially announced. The race for President was thus over in all but name, with Codrinaru securing the backing of all states other than the two northern radical strongholds.



The one place that the election’s result did cause controversy was Hungary. Every Hungarian political party had either endorsed de Nyitra or was part of his coalition; it was the most solidly blue state there was. Many though, in particular the reactionary elements of the state, saw de Nyitra’s subordination as selling out to the Liberals. In Budapest, where tempers flared highest, the same signs that had precluded the Vienna riots began to emerge; random abductions, arson attacks and terrorist incidents slowing built through the winter following the election.