Vryland presidential election, 2009

The Vryland presidential election of 2009 will be held Saturday 14 March 2009 and will be the 58th consecutive quadrennial presidential election in Vryland. The election shall be the first election in 48 years that neither an incumbant president nor vice president ran. (Presidents are barred from seeking a third term by the Constitution of Vryland).

The 2009 presidential election will coincide with Senate and House of Representatives elections to elect the members for the 58th Parliament. Each state of Vryland shall elect one half of their 8 Senators (4 from each state, 36 in total) with each of the two territories electing all of their Senators (3 from both the Federal Capital Territory and Walvis Bay Territory; making 6 in total). All 157 members of the House of Representatives are up for election.

The election will also encompass gubernatorial elections in seven states as well as many state legislature elections. The Federal Capital Territory and Walvis Bay Territory shall elect their Chief Ministers.

Background
In 2005, President Andries Maartens narrolwy won re-election, defeating the Liberal nominee Senator Stijn Voorhees of Natal. Maartens won the Electoral College vote 119 - 116, the narrowest Electoral College victory in Vryland history. Maartens also narrowly lost the popular vote with 48.9% to Voorhees' 49.1%, only the third time a president has done so. The Conservatives comfortably held their control of Congress with gains made at the 2005 elections.

Maartens' approval ratings had been steadily declining from their high point of 81% achieved in late 2005, and his approval ratings were only 52% after his re-election. Maartens was re-elected with a reduced Electoral College margin than in 2001. Maartens' approval rating dropped more quickly after the federal response to Cyclone Klaus hitting Natal in 2006.

By December 2008, Maartens' approval ratings were below 40%.

Conservative Party nomination

 * Main articles: Conservative Party presidential primaries, 2009 and 2009 Conservative Party National Conference

Before the primaries
In the first quarter of 2008, the top four Conservative fund raisers were Abel Miele, Karl Rossouw, Freddie Alkema and Gerhard Booten. After the Conservative presidential debate in 2008, conservative heavyweights Miele and Rossouw were considered the "front-runners" with most sources stating Alkema had a "good chance".

Primaries
Primary season for the Conservatives opened on 11 October 2008. Despite spending almost double his rival and taking the most delegates in East Rand, Miele placed a distant second to Rossouw in the Free State, allowing Rossouw to take an early lead. A week later on 18 October, in the crucial Southland primaries, Miele won the most delegates from his home state but still trailed Rossouw. Alkema had little money left after Southland and borrowed 4 million rand to his own campaign to keep it going. Booten was at this point considered unlikely to win, but he continued his campaigning.

Alkema took the majority of delegates from his native Bosveld, with Rossouw and Miele both taking the exact same number of delegates, allowing Rossouw to keep his narrow lead over Miele. Booten did not poll well in Bosveld and failed to take a single delegate from the Highland primary held on the same day. Miele again took the majority of delegates in the Highland primary, which narrowed the gap beteen he and Rossouw's delegate count to just 8 pledged delegates.

On 22 November 2008, the Federal Capital Territy Primary took place. Only Rossouw and Miele polled enough votes to be aportioned delegates, with Miele taking 12 of the 20 delegates. This further narrowed Rossouw's marginal lead in pledged delegates. After failing to poll a single delegate for a second primary in a row, Booten announced he was withdrawing from the Conservative nomation campaign and backed Abel Miele for the nomination.

Rossouw opened his lead again in late November, taking a slim majority of delegates in Northern Cape. This was followed by the small Walvis Bay Territory primary. This was Alkema's second victory over the heavyweights Rossouw and Miele. Two weeks later, Miele took the majority of delegates in Western Cape leading to a strange event, whereby both "front-runners" had the same number of pledged delegates, with each sitting on 338. This upped the hype around "Super Saturday".

Super Saturday
With Booten having dropped out the race for the Conservative nomination, Alkema was left as the only major challenger to Karl Rossouw and Abel Miele. Before Super Saturday, it was still possible for Alkema to win the most delegates, however, he would need to poll 60%+ in both Natal and Transvaal, the two largest primary states each with over 200 delegates to be won. Rossouw had previously stated his optimism at taking the most delegates from his home state of Transvaal.

Super Saturday took place on 25 January 2009. The two most populous states of Natal and Transvaal (the so-called "decider states") were both holding primaries. Natal's results gave Miele the lead in delegate counts for the first time since the primary season opened, but the lead was a marginal one.

After confusion and a mis-count, the Transvaal primary moved for a re-count at 2pm on 26 January. On 27 January the results from the Transvaal primary placed Karl Rossouw in the lead with 103 of the state's 224 delegates. Miele came a distant second with 71 of the 224 delegates. Of the total 1,302 delegates, Rossouw now has 524, Miele 498 and Alkema 259. This means that no candidate has enough delegates to secure an outright win.

Liberal Party nomination

 * Main articles: Liberal Party presidential primaries, 2009 and 2009 Liberal Party National Convention

Before the primaries
The status of "front-runner" and the candidate assigned it was dependent on the news agency reporting. However, by the start of 2008, the general consensus was that three candidates were leading in terms of fundraising and debate performances. The three generally agreed front-runners were Hendrik Vertegen, Stefaan de Clerck, and Pieter Abels. During this time, amongst the Liberal Party candidates, Hendrik Verstegen was leading in all nationwide opinion polls.

The two front-runners, Hendrik Verstegen and Stefaan de Clerk, raised over 15 million Rand (AU$26.9 million) between September and December of 2007, meanwhile Pieter Abels only raised a 10th of that (2 million Rand) in the same time frame. De Clerck set the record for the largest single day fundraising event on 9 February 2008, he raised just over 19 million Rand (AU$34 million).

Primaries
The Liberal party presidential primaries opened on 4 October 2008. The Liberal party's "winner takes all" primaries are intensely fought as winning in the states with the largest delegate count can guarantee a candidate the nomination. With that in mind, Verstegen's campaigners were hardly seen in Highland. Many believed this was a sign of Verstegen expecting to "inherit" the nomination he had been actively seeking for the last three presidential elections. De Clerck's "every state counts" approach threw him ahead of Verstegen in opinion polls and he went on to win the rural Highland. There was then a sea-change in the Verstegen camp and campaigners stepped-up their efforts.

The Liberal Party divides up the state of Transvaal into three areas which vote seperately. Verstegen comfortably won the East Transvaal primary of 25 October. The 1 November East Rand primary threw up a surprise when Pieter Abels took victory there. At this stage, Verstegen was in the lead on delegates.

First "Super Saturday"
15 November 2008 marked the first so-called "Super Saturday" of the primary season, with 114 of the 435 Liberal Party National Convention delegates being decided. De Clerck comfortably won the 34 Bosveld delegates and won his native Northern Cape's primary by a landslide. Hendrik Verstegen won the Southland primary, taking the 69 delegates and placing him well ahead of de Clerck in delegate numbers.

Two weeks later, de Clerck won the Free State primary and won the Walvis Bay Territory's primary two weeks after that on 13 December 2008. This boosted his delegate numbers to 95 in total, still some way behind Verstegen's 104 pledged delegates. The Walvis Bay Territory's primary was the last of 2008 for the Liberal Party.

Second "Super Saturday"
Four primaries took place on the second "Super Saturday" of the Liberal parimary season which took place on 10 January 2009. A total of 122 delegates would be decided and an outright win was possible for both Verstegen and de Clerck. Third place candidate for the Liberal party nomination, Pieter Abels, dropped out of the race and endorsed Verstegen, committing his 14 delegates to Verstegen in the rare event of a close vote. Verstegen's campaign began to suffer from shortages of funds, whilst de Clerck was raising 7 rand for every 3 Verstegen raised. Eventually Verstegen borrowed his own campaign fund some 4 million Rand.

The first of the primaries to be declared was the Federal Capital Territory, which was won by de Clerck. Central Transvaal's 10 delegates were won by Verstegen. An hour later Verstegen won North Transvaal's 54 delegates, confirming exit poll results. Shorty before 11pm on 10 January, Western Cape declared de Clerck the victor in its primaries. This was an upset because exit polls predicted a Verstegen win. If he had won Western Cape, Verstegen would have secured the nomination.

Natal primary
The Natal Liberal party primary was originally set to take place on 17 January 2009, however, due to tropical storms battering Natal's eastern coast the primary was postponed for a week. This gave the candidates extra time to campaign. This time was considered crucial to de Clerck who, until this time, had been widely expected to lose Natal to the more metropolitian Verstegen. Many media outlets considered Natal Verstegen's for the taking.

Natal has 100 delegates and so would decide the winner of the Liberal primary. Verstegen had a total of 168 out of 435 delegates, with de Clerck on 153. After a second recount, victory was announced for de Clerck. His delegate count then surpassed the 218 absolute majority required to take an outright win in the Liberal party presidential primaries.

Party conventions and conferences

 * 14 - 16 January 2009: 2009 Right Party National Convention held in Kimberley, Northern Cape.
 * 22 - 24 January 2009: 2009 Left-Green Alliance Federal Conference held in Durban, Natal.
 * 3 - 4 February 2009: 2009 Liberal Party National Convention held in Bloemfontein, FCD.
 * 9 - 11 February 2009: 2009 Conservative Party National Conference held in Port Elizabeth, Southland.