Manchurian legislative election, 2015

Elections for the Supreme National Assembly in Manchuria are scheduled to take place on the 22nd December 2015. They will be the fifth elections for the Assembly since the signing of the current Constitution of Manchuria in 1990. All 685 seats will be up for re-election, with 343 seats being needed for a majority.

Currently the Manchu Revolutionary National Congress dominates the Assembly holding a comfortable majority of 388 seats. The largest opposition party, the New Progressive Party, holds 155 seats. Assembly members are elected via with 195 seats being allocated to districts were representatives are elected through  whereas the other 490 members are elected using a  system with seats allocation being calculated using the.

Opinion polls have been inconclusive so far, with the MRNC being projected to either have a slim majority or result in getting a plurality of votes but not a simple majority. Opposition parties are expected to increase their share of the vote, especially the NPP.

Electoral process
The supreme legislature of Manchuria, the Supreme National Assembly, is made up of 685 elected representatives who are via a  system. There are 195 districts that are represented by a single Member of the Assembly who are elected using an with full preferential voting. Candidates from each party are listed on a ballot paper with voters ranking them based on preference. Candidates are eliminated until one remains with a majority of preferential votes.

The candidates running for the remaining 490 are elected through a system. Voters are presented with a of parties whom field a number of candidates. The parties are then assigned the number of seats representative to the percentage of the votes they received with calculations for seat allocation being based on the. Parties must have however at least 3% of the popular vote to enter the Assembly although independent candidates only need enough to gain a single seat.

Background
From 1946-90 Manchuria was governed as a single-party state under the Communist Party of Manchuria. Since the Orchid Revolution which began a transition to democracy the Manchu Revolutionary National Congress has ruled Manchuria both at a legislative and premierial level, having always achieved a legislative majority. Until the the main opposition party in Manchuria was the Communist Party which went under a period of reform during the 1990's. In 2008 former Manchurian Premier Du Changhao created the New Progressive Party which aimed to be a,  alternative to the MRNC and the CPM. Du, who had already built up a reputation as an accomplished, was able to successfully steer the NPP into becoming the largest opposition party in the Supreme National Assembly in 2010, displacing the CPM from that position overnight. In the Manchurian premierial election, 2014 the NPP's candidate Du Changhao attained 31.6% of the vote, ahead of Chang Shengzuo of the CPM but behind the MRNC's candidate Li Zhou.

Since 2010 Manchuria has had slow economic growth with wages falling by 10% in 2014. The Manchurian government has dealt with growing unemployment by further cutting down on wages and limiting the power of trade unions, meaning unemployment has stayed around the 5-6% mark. In 2014 Manchuria entered which caused the Manchu government to unveil a new round of  packages, cutting back on public services, privatising Manchu Airways and raising income taxes. The largest cuts were aimed at public welfare services alongside the health sector.

The MRNC has also been rocked by controversies since 2010. In 2012 the Minister of Energy Wang Kun was implicated in a major corruption scandal having diverted funds from the state owned Manchu Coal Federation to his family. Several high ranking MRNC were also discovered to have claimed millions in tax-payer money for themselves in a series of investigations, which culminated in the revelation that Premier Wen Feng had ordered public funds to be used to prop up his own businesses, resulting in Wen's resignation. This caused the MRNC's approval rating to fall to an all time low of 34% whilst the opposition NPP rose to 41%.

Wen's replacement Li Zhou improved the party's reputation by conducting an anti-corruption campaign within the party and the government, sacking 12 ministers in the Executive Yuan a day after taking office in a move nicknamed the "". Many contended this campaign was merely a of Li's opponents within government Nevertheless Li's anti-corruption campaign successfully restored some confidence in the MRNC, where in the 2014 Premerial election Li won with a plurality of the vote.

Since 2014 the MRNC have steadily declined in the polls whilst the NPP have fluctuated around the 25-30% mark. Meanwhile several smaller parties such as the CPM, National Liberal Party, Qinglonghui and United People's Party have retained steady approval ratings of 18%, 5%, 4% and 4% respectively.