Shounn Virny hoped to bring the party back to life with his return to the leadership.
On a public statement, party leader Shounn Virny announced that all registered members of the National Artists’ Guild are exhorted to participate in a party vetha that will vote on the future of the organization. Though not all details have trascended yet, Virny said a merger with the Liberals will be among the options in the vetha, following talks with Noa Dargany.
Virny explained the move by saying there were clear signs that there was no longer a space in Sabioveronese politics for the Artists’ Guild. He cited the party’s loss in the Sato prefectural election on July 8th as an example of this; the Artist candidate, Orion Bennet (a former party leader and widely known nomenklatura) lost against newcomer Rosso Gomu, the Democratic Party’s candidate.
The party’s dissolution has long been anticipated given the downward trend in support for the Artists since its foundation in 2015. The pink party went from having a supermajority in Parliament and governing alone (with Virny as the longest-serving Prime Minister in Sabioveronese history) in 2015 to receiving less than 10% of the vote and getting barely two seats in Parliament in 2018. Today, polls show no indication in a reversal of the party’s downward slide.
Democratic MP and Isadoran University professor Soraya G. Hreti points to a fatal crisis of identity as the cause of the party’s irrelevance in contemporary politics. “Virny’s disastrous second term and the rise of the Democratic Party as a credible alternative in the nationalist left overrode the Guild,” she says. “There is also a noticeable polarization of interests and perspectives in an increasingly Valtirian-centric political climate, and the National Artists’ Guild has failed to bring pertinent positions to these new debates. Voters simply have no reason to vote for the Guild anymore.”
The Guild’s vetha will convene on Wednesday (18-07-2018), and party members will be able to choose whether the party should continue to exist in its present form, or should it dissolve (either entirely, or merge with the Liberals).
The SiV Phonograph 