Bijani House of Representatives election, 1965

The Bijani House of Representatives election of 1965 was held on Sunday, March 7, 1965, to elect the 173 members of the 5th Bijani House of Representatives.  The incumbent Bijani National Party government, which had ruled on its own from 1949 to 1961, and as a minority government from 1961 to 1965, sought a fifth term in office against collection of parties including the centre-left Social Democratic Party and the Alliance of Dutch Voters, and the centre-right Liberal Democratic Party, the Country Party and the Christian Democratic Party.  Other parties that contested the election only in certain counties were the New Bijan Party, the Communist Party, the Pensioners Party, the New Hospitals Party, the Students Party and Bijani Future.

This was the first election to take place following the amendments to the House of Representatives (Elections) Act, which increased the size of the House from 150 to 173 members.  The 23 new leveling seats were a mechanism to ensure the overall composition of parties in the House better reflected each party's share of the national vote.  Prior to 1965, Bijan's constituency-based proportional system often yielded unexpected and counterintuitive results, such as a party experiencing a decrease in overall support nationwide, yet ganing additional seats.  The system of leveling seats was implemented to counter the irregularities in county voting patterns.

Bijani election law requires that the apportionment of seats in the House to the counties be recalculated every eight years, or after every second ordinary election.  Based on changing demographics since the 1957 apportionment, the following seats were transferred between counties:

• Sunrise County went from 5 seats to 4.
• River Valley County went from 5 seats to 4.
• High Tide County went from 6 seats to 5.
• Milikaf County went from 6 seats to 7.
• Silver County went from 6 seats to 7.
• Crownland County went from 7 seats to 8.

The result further loosened the grip of the Bijani National Party on national politics.  With 78 seats, the BNP was nine seats short of a majority in the House.  The BNP initially looked to form a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party, but its underwhelming performance in the election led to the KDP winning only 10 seats, which was too fragile a majority for the BNP to accept.  The BNP also rejected an alliance with the Liberal Democratic Party out of fears that the LDP would seek a disproportionate amount of influence over the new government.  Finally, the BNP and the Country Party agreed to form a coalition, with a working majority of 96 seats in the House.  In exchange, the parliamentary leader of the Country Party would become the Deputy Chief Minister, and ministerial appointments would be divided between the BNP and the Country Party according to their respective numbers in the House.

Results

Bijani House of Representatives election, 1965: Summary
Party		Votes	%	±	Seats			±
					County	Leveling	Total
	Bijani National Party	1,816,970	42.9	3.1	71	7	78	4
	Social Democratic Party	645,089	15.2	0.7	25	3	28	5
	Liberal Democratic Party of Bijan	548,334	12.9	1.1	23	1	24	4
	Country Party	422,976	10.0	0.3	16	2	18	3
	Christian Democratic Party	229,236	5.4	0.4	4	6	10	2
	Alliance of Dutch Voters	185,633	4.4	1.4	4	4	8	2
	New Bijan Party	86,702	2.0	1.4	2	0	2	0
	Bijani Future	71,344	1.7	1.7	2	0	2	2
	Pensioners Party	65,437	1.5	0.0	0	0	0	0
	Communist Party of Bijan	60,629	1.4	0.3	1	0	1	1
	Students Party	53,237	1.3	1.3	1	0	1	1
	New Hospitals Party	50,722	1.2	1.2	1	0	1	1
Valid Votes		4,236,309	93.2	1.4	150	23	173	23
Invalid Votes		310,858	6.8	1.4
Total Votes		4,547,167	100.0	0.0
Electors/Turnout		5,581,162	81.5	0.6

Allocation of leveling seats

The 23 leveling seats were allocated in the following order:

№	Party		County
1		Social Democratic Party	Olvek County
2		Bijani National Party	Stolen Stree County
3		Bijani National Party	Alar County
4		Christian Democratic Party	Calendar County
5		Liberal Democratic Party	Hadar City and County
6		Christian Democratic Party	Crownland County
7		Christian Democratic Party	Straven County
8		Christian Democratic Party	Silver County
9		Christian Democratic Party	Milikaf County
10		Bijani National Party	Southport County
11		Country Party	Raban County
12		Bijani National Party	Kijuri County
13		Bijani National Party	Ikaf County
14		Bijani National Party	White Wolf County
15		Bijani National Party	High Tide County
16		Social Democratic Party	Barkal County
17		Christian Democratic Party	Rockport County
18		Country Party	Kalkal County
19		Social Democratic Party	Copper County
20		Alliance of Dutch Voters	Carbon County
21		Alliance of Dutch Voters	Estuary County
22		Alliance of Dutch Voters	Sunrise County
23		Alliance of Dutch Voters	River Valley County