CCP Wins Election
Sir William Buttersworth's Centrist Conservative Party has won the August 2009 Ostentia general election. Polls had been indicating this since early in the counting phase, yet there was still speculation as to whether former Prime Minister Kay “DynamoJax” Jackson would go on to receive a second term. Earlier today Jackson conceded defeat at a press conference in the AAPA HQ, wishing Buttersworth luck, following the decision by Liberal Democrat leader Carl Miller to allocate his Electoral Votes to the CCP. Buttersworth himself accepted this at a later press conference, laying out his vision for the Ostentian future and jubilation at being selected as leader of the Ostentian people. The election was marred somewhat by allegations of voter fraud, however these were later shown to have no bearing on the overall election result. AAPA will take its place as Opposition Party when Parliament opens later this week. However, not all Parliamentary seats are yet declared, and there is indication from at least one major polling organisation that AAPA may be the largest party in Parliament, despite being in opposition. These results mark an interesting distinction from polling results collected last week, which essentially painted the Prime Ministerial contest as between Inevitable's Boo Party and AAPA, the Boo Party now being relegated to third place.

Note that there are no PEC opinion polls for this week due to the election

Second Man Taken into Custody over Valaxia Poison Murders
A second man is now being questioned by police over a series of murders through morphine poisoning across Valaxia. Six people have been killed in the spree which has lasted since April, gripping Valaxia with fear. More information in our Friday edition.

Speaker Takes Leave
Speaker of the Ostentian House of Commons Pokémaniac John has taken a leave of absence this week, the election over he is taking a holiday in Thorby with his family. Former Prime Minister (and Vox Valaxia editor) Cieran Douglass has been chosen as his replacement for the week in which he is absent. His duties will for the most part simply comprise post-election clean-up, setting up Parliament for the coming term. However, a gaff has already been made when Douglass mistakenly announced allocated CCP Electoral Votes as 50, rather than 40. Otherwise, nothing untoward is expected to happen during his brief tenure as Speaker.

The Week in Politics™
Arguably the biggest issue in politics this week is the general election. The CCP's victory is seen as unusual, given that most polling organisations had just a week ago put it in third place behind the Boo and AAPA parties. Still, we've already covered this issue in our main story. Also of note though is the absence both of the THAMP party (believed to have been absorbed mostly by the CCP) and the Progressive Party, as leader Lewis Miller has essentially disappeared. In politics, a piece of legislation detailing abortion issues from several terms ago was found to have never become law and was thus added to the statute book, and Carl Miller attempted to declare war on Assym. In terms of laws passed, a government contingency motion was successfully passed through Parliament, and Ostentia and Exilia negotiated a pact of mutual aid. The biggest news, however, has been the declaration of war upon Ostentia by “menace to the North” Assym, as covered in last Friday's Vox. Then-Prime Minister DynamoJax urged a state of calm readiness. This is understood to have been the “sinister” things going on prior to release...