The election resulted in the Federal Humanist Party securing a majority in the Federal Assembly of 34 seats. The Federal Humanist Party made a net gain of 48 seats and won 56.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage for any party since the creation of the Federation in 1675AN.
The election took place across all ten Regions, each with its own number of seats based on population, under proportional representation.
At the end of the 1693 general election, the death of Marcel de la Croix and the pronounced disruption this caused on the process of forming a government led to the Federal Humanist Party,Cambio Democrático, and the Digger's Society forming a Government of National Unity. Soon after the assassination of de la Croix and just several hours before the deadline to form a government passed, Augustus Strong, leader of the Federal Humanist Party and formateur, announced that agreement on a unity government had been reached. The deal would involve the two largest parties sharing power, with Strong and Santiago Etienne of Cambio Democrático taking turns being President and Vice-President of the Government. Both would exchange roles every AN year, with Strong beginning the rotation.
In the lead up to the general election, negotiations between the Solidarity Party and the Progressive Party led to the founding of a new party, the Social Democratic & Liberal Alliance (SD&LA). The negotiations were slow and acrimonious at first, but the advance in the polls of the Federal Humanist Party and its successes in Operation Paramount and other policy matters prompted both parties to come to an agreement to form a broad big tent coalition of the left in order to be able to compete.
Dates of the election
The deadline for final candidate nominations was set for 11.III.1698AN with political campaigning to last until the first polling day in 13.XV.1698AN. The election was conducted over a period of three days, from 13.XV.1698AN to 15.XV.1698AN. Results were counted and published by the National Elections Commission on 16.XV.1698AN. The three day period of the election was allowed in order to ensure that remote rural and insular areas could have some time to send their results, as well as to allow postal ballots to arrive to their destinations. This was the first election where New Alexandrians were allowed to vote by mail by going to their local polling station, confirming their identity, and picking up a ballot.
Eligibility to vote
Individuals eligible to vote had to be registered to vote by midnight on 10.XV.1698AN, three days before the first day of polling. This was to allow the National Elections Commission system to electronically confirm the updates to the voter's rolls, confirmed with local and tax records for correct addresses and identities.
To be eligible to vote, individuals were required to be aged 18 or over, be a national of the Federation, and have been a resident in the Region they planned to vote in for at least six months prior to registration.
Elections in Nouvelle Alexandrie are conducted region by region through proportional representation. Voters then choose from the parties on the ballot or have the option to vote for a slate of independent candidates. Seats are apportioned to each region using the Sainte-Laguë method, a highest quotient method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation. In Nouvelle Alexandrie, the thresholds for a party to get seats in a region is set to 2%. This election would be the last election where seats would be apportioned in accordance to the census conducted in 1693AN, just before the 1693 general election.
In 1697AN, the National Elections Commission announced that, due to inactivity of its leaders and party membership, Cambio Democrático was losing official recognition as a political party, leading to the dissolution of its parliamentary caucus organization. This led to a national political realignment and changes to the composition of the 1st Cortes Federales. In the 1693 general election, Cambio Democrático had secured 162 seats and served as the second largest political party in the Cortes Federales. After its dissolution, the Cambio Democrático delegation started to either join another political party or remain independent. Four Deputies defected to the Federal Humanist Party, 65 Deputies defected to the Solidarity Party, with 16 Deputies remaining unaligned. The 61 remaining Deputies decided to create their own political party, intended as a successor to Cambio Democrático, called the Progressive Party.
Leading up to the 1698AN general election, however, a movement called "Unite the Left" came into being when it became clear that neither of the two parties, the Solidarity Party and the Progressive Party, were independently capable of defeating the rising Federal Humanist Party. The objective of the movement was to merge the two parties into a single party (or, if this was not possible, to find a power-sharing arrangement between the two parties). Leaders and party members of both parties negotiated for several weeks and announced their merger and joint candidacy lists two days before candidacies closed for the 1698 general election with the formation of the Social Democratic & Liberal Alliance with Robert Beaujolais serving as its first leader.
Candidates
Most candidates are representatives of a political party, which must be registered with the National Elections Commmission and maintain regular activity and participation in politics. Those who do not belong to one must use the label "Independent" or none.
In the 1698AN election 2,948 candidates stood: 472 of them being independents, the rest representing one of four national political parties.
