Controversies of the 2003 Tierradorian general election: Difference between revisions

== Arcergate ==

An investigation in November 2004 uncovered the use of vote-buying by Partéq Pepal and the Tierradorian Conservatives Union. As evidence of an alleged fraud surfaced and pointed towards the PRI buying votes by providing voting citizens with store credit cards of Tierradorian department store chain [[Arcer Court]]. Elections Terranóq confirmed in January 2005 that the TCU and PP spent $7.5 million in electronic cards throughout their entire campaign. Opposition parties (and both the TCU and PP amongst themselves) complained that this represented a form of illicit funding, but both parties claimed the contrary. They claimed that the electronic cards were actually intended for party personnel, but this method rose suspicions because some of the money was transacted through "several shadowy companies instead of being disbursed directly from party coffers." This also increased the suspicions that the TCU had received illegal donations from various domestic and international corporations (given that this move is prohibited under law).

The store credit cards typically had a balance of $250, and these forms of vote-buying were targeted towards lower-class citizens. This won close to 600,000 votes for the PP and 432,000 for the TCU. In ridings where the final results were determined by 1,000 votes or less for the PP/TCU, said scandal, on top of the robocalls, sparked massive outrage and voters, along with opposition politicians, called for the removal of Victoría Hombêri. This vote-buying scandal was dubbed Arcergate, due to the supposed involvement of Arcer Court in the scandal. Arcer Court denied any involvement and subsequently canceled their pre-paid cards program until 2009. Regardless, Arcer Court was involved in numerous lawsuits, by opposition parties and groups of voters affected by the scandals.

During the 2003 General Election, 74 out of the 101 provinces accepted absentee ballots from April 7 to April 12, 2003, to ensure that all registered voters would be equally represented, regardless of their ability to cast their votes in person. However, the remaining 27 provinces (23 determined by regional law), disallowed voters to request mail-in absentee ballots unless there was a valid condition for not being able to vote. While there were calls for the imperial government to step in and force the 27 provinces to comply with absentee voting laws, not much was done to mitigate the situation due to the provinces declaring a legal justification for the declining of absentee ballots. This caused close to 216,000 voters not being able to cast their ballot, due to unforeseen circumstances.

On April 12th, 2003, Victoría Hombêri won the 2003 General Election by a close popular vote, a 957,208-vote margin of victory over Aphía Monderí. When asked about the various controversies, Monderí stated she believed that there was “100% something strange going on”, and that Hombêri’s victory was not a truly genuine victory. Monderí called for Woqala [[Mokhar II]] to lead an investigation against Hombêri, however there was not enough evidence for the Woqala to begin said investigation. Following this, violent riots broke out in San Cristóbal, Lakawachee, and soon spread out to various cities in Southern Tierrador to protest against Hombêri and the PP. Similarly, much more peaceful protests broke out in Taisgol and Hugo to protest the alleged media bias by [[Tierrador Broadcasting System|TBS]] and [[Network3]] in favor of Hombêri and the PP. While said networks delegated the protests and riots as similar occurrences, protesters in Taisgol further reiterated that they had nothing to do with the Lakawachee riots, and that the Lakawachee riots were of different cultural significance. When Hombêri was sworn in on May 1, 2003, 1,500 students in Taisgol stood outside of the Presidential Palace to protest the inauguration, leading to 577 arrests made, which sparked international condemnation from various Cronan and Occidental nations, and leading to the creation of the [[Suneqeš 577 movement]] (lit. We are 577) to combat corruption in Tierrador and the world.

In response to the scandals, the Civil Guard and Elections Terranóq arrested nearly 60 people for corruption or conspiring for corruption. Along with this, Elections Terranóq, AVA, ATC, and many individual voters filed lawsuits against the PP, TCU, [[Arcer Court]], [[Orixtal Communications]], the [[Salgar]], [[Obiexa]], [[Tauekee]], and [[Youkafee]] Provinces, along with [[Auqali]], [[Aracadó]] and [[Polelu]] Regions for voter suppression, an ordeal which lasted until 2009, when PP, TCU, and Orixtal Communications were fined ₽156 million each as compensation for their involvements in the voter suppression scandal.