Equestrian Politics
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Triple Crown Party and Corona Party
Party to Uphold Hippocracy
Everfree Party
Nightmare Party
Equalist Party (Marksist-Glimmerist), Equalist Party (Trotskyite), and Equalist Party (Blankist)
Free Alliance of Farriers and Ferriers
The last party contesting general district seats.
The Discordian Party is a right wing republican party in Equestria. The party originated in the Free Rein Society, a think tank that advocates the idea of natural self-governance and market economics. The Free Rein Society initially was associated with one faction of the Everfree Party, but formed its own party following a resounding rejection of the Society's more radical leanings by the Everfree establishment. The Free Rein ideology draws inspiration from the Everfree Forest as well, but goes even further. In a more literalist interpretation of the adage about the Everfree Forest, the Free Rein Society believes the ideal relationship between ponies and the natural world is to relinquish all control over it and let the weather, animals, and plant growth operate freely and of its own will as it does in the Everfree Forest without any pony management.
After the depetrification and later the reformation of Discord, the party adopted his name as a more recognizable symbol to draw upon. While the origins in the Free Rein Society are still very present within the Discordian Party in much of its ideological underpinnings, the association with Discord has made the Discordians somewhat popular as a purely anti-establishment force and as a protest party rather than a party with a coherent ideological base. The current party leader Monte Carlo has kept the party mainly in line with its previous platform, but influence from some of the more protest-oriented members of the party including deputy leader Crisdod have recently put some more out there policy ideas into the platform. The first is the advocacy of sortition, determining who holds offices by lottery. The second is the party advocating for heliocentrism, a theory that the planet, moon, and other heavenly bodies all revolve around the sun. Heliocentrism is a fringe conspiracy theory and is in all likelihood meant as a nonserious protest policy meant to mock the Triple Crown and other establishment parties' perceived subservience to Princess Celestia and the diarchy.
For its first several decades, the candidates endorsed by the Free Rein Society and then the Discordian Party did not do very well. However, the growing anti-establishment reaction following the Storm King's invason and the Cozy Glow Crisis has given the party a boost in some parts of Equestria. In particular, in the most recent election the Discordians have seen a jump in support in northwestern Equestria, one of the already more naturally self-governing regions of the country due to its remoteness and largely rural population outside of Vanhoover. In the riding of Pugallop-Seaddle-Vanhoover Island, the Discordian candidate Twisted Hemp emerged as a strong protest candidate against Triple Crown Party MP Pineapple Express. The Discordians came in second, but took enough vote from Pineapple to swing the overall vote to the Everfree Party's Salt Spring. Additionally, the Discordian Party gained their first seat in parliament in the Equinemalt-Naneighmo riding. Local celebrity Frank Neigh ran and won the riding for the Discordian Party after gaining notoriety for fending off a wandering Cadborosaurus that had wandered onshore during the magic outage caused by Cozy Glow.