I just made another China election map from
this TL.
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Provincial politics in Sichuan, the fourth-largest province of China, has been fractious since democratization to say the least. It is perhaps best to start with the 'fourth-largest province of China' part- until 1997, Sichuan was
the largest province, mostly thanks to its inclusion of the city of Chongqing, the biggest city in China. However, separatist sentiment was very strong in the city, and in 1996 a referendum for residents of the city council area saw them vote to split off from Sichuan province. The Progressive-led government suffered an immediate backlash, and in the 1998 provincial election it was kicked out in a landslide, with the Kuomintang holding power ever since.
Despite this, it has not been plain sailing for the Kuomintang governments of the province, especially since the Great Recession took effect. In the modern day, Sichuan's political trends are very deeply divided between the populous north east, which is predominantly pro-Kuomintang due to resentment of Chongqing and concerns about the economic consequences of the province losing its largest city being handled fairly well in the eyes of most of its residents, and the less populous west and south, which are heavily Progressive for a variety of reasons, most notably the Tibetian and Yi voters in these regions favouring their handling of race relations over the Kuomintang's and the general economic disparity compared to the pork-barrel spending conducted in the northeast by successive Kuomintang provincial goverments. The city of Chengdu, the capital and most populous in the province since Chongqing was separated from it, has fluctuated more, originally being heavily Progressive before going strongly for the Kuomintang and now appearing to be more of a swing area.
Despite their poor standing going into the 2018 election, having lost significant ground to the Kuomintang, the Progressives were hopeful of a victory due to the unpopularity both of President Wang and of Premier Li Jia, widely perceived as corrupt and instrumental in the pork-barrel spending problem faced by the province. It was also seen by some as an indicator of whether the Progressive surge under Jian Jielang would last, given that the Progressive surge of the late 2000s had been dented by their narrow defeat here in 2010 despite the poorly recieved response of the Li government to the 2008 earthquake (though most blamed that defeat on the controversial nature of their presidential candidate Bo Xilai, who ironically won the province in the presidential election later the same year). Despite the FPTP districts being unlikely to see too many gains for the Progressives, using, as they do, the same boundaries as Sichuan's 54 seats in the National Congress, the PR districts (and their strong position in the polls for said districts) provided them with hope, as a victory in these districts and some concessions to the Economic Liberals might be enough for the Progressives to form another government for the first time in 20 years, especially with Li's unpopularity.
However, in May, three months before the provincial election, the Kuomintang in the legislature voted to depose Li as leader, replacing her with Li Jinbin, an unknown from the suburbs of Chengdu; Li's emergence unexpectedly caused the Kuomintang to surge in the polls, as he promised to alleviate the pork barrel spending issue while attacking Progressive leader Tashi Dawa for being 'the Chongqing candidate', despite Dawa being half-Tibetan and from Garzê in the west of Sichuan.
The surge did not last until August, however, and by that time the two parties were neck-and-neck, with Dawa galvanizing enormous support from non-Han voters and capitalizing on concerns about Li being 'loose-lipped' after he made a poorly worded remark about Dawa being a 'racialist candidate' because of his Tibetan ancestry. Despite a very well-received speech given by Dawa the day before the election in which he challenged Li to 'stop playing the Chongqing card on a man from the other side of Sichuan', the Progressives lost just enough votes to minor parties for the Kuomintang to be able to form another government, remaining the largest party with 74 of the 149 seats, 14 more than the Progressives and a comfortable majority when allied with the 9 Economic Liberals.
The honeymoon for Li ended almost immediately after the election, though. He has continued to make ill-advised and contentious comments on Tibetans, indulge in heavy pork-barrel spending for the northeast, and antagonize Mayor of Chongqing Bo Xilai, with critics even arguing he has deepened the already strong partisan divide of the province. Progressives and their allies have taken to nicknaming him 'Loose-Lips Li' after Dawa's famous comment from the 2018 campaign, while Kuomintang supporters mock them by satirizing the Progressives' slogan for provincial elections and their record for near-misses with the joke slogan 'Yěxǔ zhè cì tāmen huì ài shàng tā' ('maybe next time they'll fall for it').
Whether Sichuan will 'fall for it' in 2022 is, of course, anyone's guess.