Chapter 2: An Unlikely Winner
Across Equestria, millions of ponies had heard this story. At 325 parties across the country, the crowds had gone silent as ponies listened to their party's leader. The static induced by the radio broadcast added a small piece of atmosphere to each celebration. Perhaps no more so than to the party taking place in Ponyville. In the latest census Ponyville had finally become large enough to merit its own riding. In previous elections it had shared its riding with the new settlement of Appleloosa and ancient Cloudsdale. A new riding simply named "Ponyville" had been carved out of the electoral map for this election. Appleloosa had been added to the now Dodge Junction-Appleloosa riding and Cloudsdale had been stuck with Canterlot-South to form Cloudsdale-Canterlot-South. The campaign there between a Pegasus and a Unicorn had made national news due to the rumors of racial slurs and profiling being used by both candidates.
In the center of Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner had been rented out for the night by the Equestrian Party for the official Ponyville celebration. Being a new, unproven riding, with a even more unproven candidate, the campaign had been given limited funds, but being a smaller town it leveled out and they had been able to book the biggest venue available to them. Inside the bakery a radio in the middle of the head table had become the centre of attention. The crackling of the radio bounced of the exposed wooden beams and display cases. Here the ponies gathered to celebrate the victory of the Ponyville candidate Mareius Quill. Mareius was a young, brown Earth Pony with a golden mane. 4 months ago nopony knew his name, tonight about three more than that knew it. And yet seemingly half the town had turned out to celebrate his victory.
Party policy stated that no other candidate could begin their individual
victory speeches until Tholomeux has finished his. This also allowed time for the results to reach the local parties and prevent the "minor" taboo of giving a victory speech when you had in fact lost.
Over the crackling radio Tholomeux finished his speech as the Ponyville mailmare quietly entered through the door with the standard white envelope in her mail bag. Being such a small, and unproven riding Mareius had received almost no funding from the central party and had been forced to act as his own campaign manager, not to mention secretary, treasurer and just about every position under Celestia's sun. Mareius was huddled in the corner waiting for the speech to be over. Seeing the mailmare enter, he quietly trotted over to meet her and get his results. He took the letter which was addressed to himself and turned it over in his hoofs as the mailmare flew over to the food table laden with muffins and other sweets. Holding the white envelope between his hooves he carefully opened it. The letter was sterile in a way that only a government agency produce. Black block text on crisp white paper with a golden seal on the bottom right, signed by the Chief of Elections on the bottom left. Mareius quietly read the letter to himself.
"OFFICIAL VOTING RESULTS: PONYVILLE
MAREIUS QUILL - EQUESTRIAN PARTY 56%
FILTHY RICH - INDEPENDENT 25%
APPLE BUMPKIN - APPLE PARTY 15%
RAINBOW DASH - RAINBOW DASH PARTY 1%
SPOILED BALLOTS 3%
-----------------------------------------------------------------
100%
BY DECREE OF THE CHIEF OF ELECTIONS, MAREIUS QUILL IS HEREBY ELECTED AS THE SOLE REPRESENTATIVE FOR PONYVILLE IN THE PARLIAMENT OF EQUESTRIA."
"There it is" Mareius mumbled under his breath.
He was happy with result, but part of him wondered just how in Celestia he had ended up here. Mareius had quite literally stumbled into the nomination. There had been an entire campaign for the nomination. But on the night of the nomination meeting there had been mass confusion amongst the candidates. Mareius, who was attending his first party meeting in three years, was able to run from the floor and due to immense hatred between the other nominees he had somehow managed to win exactly 51% of the votes in the first round of voting. He hadn't really done it for any reason, if anypony on the campaign trail had bothered to ask why he was running he would have said "Because, I was bored in the right place at the right town."
For the entire campaign Mareius had received just over two-thousand bits to spend. This was one of the lowest amounts given to any riding. With 2,000 bits Mareius spent 200 in the first week, 400 the second week, 400 the third week and spent the remaining 1,000 bits on a full page add in the Ponyville Gazette that had run on election day.
Mareius was simply not a good speaker. He had no grand ideas, no overarching message, no coordinated marketing campaign, and a grand total of zero campaign staff. This was the complete opposite of his main opponent, Stinking Rich, owner of Rich's Barnyard Bargains. Stinking had everything a candidate could want, a knack for public speaking, name recognition, friends in high places and most importantly a huge bank account to fund his new found passion for politics. Stinking had chosen to run as a independent, mostly because it was said he couldn't stomach the idea of having to play by someone else's rules. By every single metric he should have been the favorite to win. But thanks to the Ponyville Gazette he didn't.
To most ponies in Ponyville, what was written in the pages of that paper were as good as the words of Celestia herself. Gabby Gums, the elusive gossip columnist for the Gazette had what Mareius could only imagine was a personal vendetta against the entire Rich family. Every weekday and Sunday for 4 weeks the pages of the paper would spout a new claim against either Stinking or his family. Stinking's daughter seemed to be target of the majority of the claims. Despite the seeming maliciousness of targeting a schoolfilly, it hurt Stinking. Every day when he faced the reporters he would not be asked for his tax plan was or what his plan was to fix Town Hall. he would instead be asked "Is it true your daughter has an entire closet filled with bunny costumes?" or "Is it true you purposely undercut your competition to monopolize the Ponyville marketplace?" Each minute he had to spend answering these questions was a minute not spent campaigning. And when he did get a chance to campaign, people just ignored him and kept asking the same questions about his family. Eventually it got to the point where Stinking called for a investigation. The investigation, funded entirely by Stinking, found no ties between Gums and Quill. The only evidence that turned up was a mysterious set of red and blue capes with gold lining. Whomever she was, Mareius knew he owed Gabby Gums a huge debt as she had single hoofedly won the election for him. All he had had to do was keep his hoofs clean and not say something exceedingly stupid. And besides, he figured that almost all of his votes would be won by Tholomeux and the central campaign.
Lost in his thoughts, Mareius had missed the second half of Tholomeux's speech. His consciousness returned to the present just as Tholomeux finished his speech with his trademark phrase "Never let anyone say you didn't try your hardest!"
With this the crowd again erupted and the first strains of the National Anthem began to play loud and clear against to noise. This was Mareius' cue to make his way to the front of the room and get ready to address his supporters. As the rousing number came to a end Mareius was near the front of the room, this was the easy part. The pink haired Earth Pony who had seemingly appointed herself MC for the night addressed the audience:
"Here he is! The man of the hour! The guest of honour! The Pony! Our Pony! Put your hooves together for the first EVER Ponyville MPP..." The pink pony quickly paused and glanced down at her notes "Mareius Quill!"
Light applause spattered the crowded room. If Marius had had any doubts that most of them had simply looked for whoever was from the Equestrian Party to mark their ballot, they were now safely in bed six-feet under. He walked up to the improvised podium which was little more than a re-purposed bakery counter complete with cakes and cookies lining the inner shelves. Mareius didn't plan on saying much but had still prepared a few notes.
"Good evening everypony!" he said with the tiniest hint of sarcasm. "I don't really know what to say so I'll keep this short. First, I'd like to thank each of you for your votes and your supp-" he was abruptly cut off by somepony near the back with a blue and pink mane shouting "I didn't vote for you. I voted for Tholomeux."
With the mention of the Prime Ministers name the crowd erupted with enough force to rattle the glass on the front of the numerous display cases around the store. "Figures," sighed Mareius as he tossed most of his stack of notes into the nearby waste bin.
"With myself and the rest of the Equestrian Party I feel that we will be able to bring real change to Equestria". Again a voice from the back called out. It seemed to be coming from the same pony the first heckling had come from but this voice was completely different from that one:
"Change! We don't want change. If we did we wouldn't have elected Tholomeux four times in a row!" Every head in the room nodded in agreement.
Mareius skipped to his last card without sympathy for the minimal effort he had put into preparing them.
"So good night everypony. I look forward to serving each and every one of you starting at nine o'clock tomorrow morning!" with this he stepped away from the crude podium and headed for the door.
As he walked through the room to the door ponies were considerate enough to give him plenty of room but in the entire walk across the room he didn't hear his name mentioned once in the snippets of conversations he picked up. "Could have gone worse." Mareius told himself has he headed for his apartment.
Tomorrow would bring a whole new set of tasks. He would need a office, a secretary, he'd have to start looking for a place to stay in Canterlot when Parliament was in session. As he flopped into bed he didn't even know where he was going to get the money to pay for the train ticket to Canterlot. The great "Pork Purge" six years ago had removed the subsidy on train tickets for MPPs along with a list a mile long of privileges the Tholomeux government had deemed "excessive". He had a feeling that a visit to the bank might be in the cards for tomorrow. That was another thing he realized as he reached for the light. To him it was no longer the Tholomeux Government, it was his government. With an exhausted laugh Mareius collapsed into his pillow and mumbled "Me! The government! Ha!"