2015 Urcean political realignment

The 2015 Urcean political realignment was a series of events that lead to the 2015 elections in Urcea becoming a realigning election, dissolving the two-party duopoly that had existed in Urcea since the end of the Red Interregnum. The more than a century old Commonwealth Union was destroyed, dissolving into the rival Union for National Solidarity and Social Labor Party. The realignment had the practical effect of dividing the mainstream Urcean left from the primary big tent party, the Commonwealth Union, allowing the emergence of a distinctly Wittonian Socialist party - the Solidarity Party in 2025.

Background

The Commonwealth Union was formed out of a coalition of non-partisan reform-minded politicians aligned with Gréagóir FitzRex elected to the Concilium Daoni in 1895. These politicians, in line with their patron, promoted policies of nationalization, modernization, and rational reforms to the state administration while proposing policies aimed at addressing social ills using public funds. The Party remained legal by defecting to the legitimists just prior to the restoration, and in 1905 they won a majority in the Concilium Daoni. The party's moderate reform-minded attitude placed them in the center of Urcean political life, opposed on the right by the National Pact and to the left by a myriad of small parties during the Great War period, which gradually came to join the Union as it existed as a big tent party. Gradually, the non-ideological nature of the party began to be replaced by organicists, leading to significant inter-party disputes by the end of the 20th century. Michael Witte became party leader and inaugurated the era of Wittonian Socialism, further alienating the hard left.

Outcome

As a result of the realignment, the coalition that made the Commonwealth Union a viable political party were no longer possible, and the two large segments of the party - the left-wing faction and the centrist faction - broke apart. Under the leadership of Ronan Cornelius Marcán, the left-wing faction of the National Social Union departed the party by October 2035, joining the Democratic Labor Party for the purposes of that year's election. The left-wing faction would later coalesce into the Social Labor Party along with the original membership of the Democratic Labor Party and the Republican Party following the Casanam Conference.