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Mr. President
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The leaves that are green turn to brown
Jul 2001
time: 15:36
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Or whatever year this is.
Just reminding everyone: Karakas has a unicameral Assembly with 100 members. Both members and the President are directly elected. (No electoral college for us! Yee-ha! Yee-ha!)
The current Assembly is one of the more settled ones we've had recently, with five different parties represented. It looks something like this:
Karakas Nationalist Party - 58
Labor Party - 36
Green Party - 4
Farmers' Electoral Council - 1
Socialist Alliance - 1
They say war is good for nationalist sentiments, but the left-wing parties have been hammering at Djordjevic and the nationalists over Azan. Polls have just closed, and the count should be released soon.
A review of the most important parties participating in the election and their platforms:
Karakas Nationalist Party
This has been the strongest in the late 1990s and, seemingly, the party that led Karakas through many of the important events of its history. Kyralia seceded from a Nationalist government, for example. The Nationalists incorporate politicians (and voters) from every part of the right-leaning spectrum. As such, they have the advantage that at least some of their policies will probably appeal to at least a few voters, but they have been embarrassed in the past by extreme religious right elements.
Labor Party
Traditionally the party of poor urban Karakans, the Labor Party has lost votes from voters previously thought to be "hardcore" supporters to the Nationalists, spurred by the education and crime reduction initiatives of Valentina Nurhaliza and then Jose Djordjevic. It remains strong, however, due to the strong role played by the labor unions of the west coast. Most Labor Assembly members supported Karakan involvement in the Azan war, but opposed increasing fishing quotas in the Marshall Islands, upgrading of the nation's nuclear power plants, and entering the League of Armed Neutrality.
Green Party
"Our land and our environment are paramount," reads the Green Party charter, "and we shall fight any battle, make any sacrifice, to protect them." Like many environmental parties, however, a large number of its followers are rich. The Green Party has taken over the championing of ecological issues from Labor's left wing. Staunchly anti-war and anti-business.
Socialist Alliance
The Socialist Alliance's raison d'etre was once reconciliation with Kyralia - and reorganization of Karakan society in the Kyralian fashion. Now that reconciliation has come, only the second goal remains. Unfortunately for them, the good economy and increasing standards of living have undermined some of their positions.
Farmers' Electoral Council
The FEC's platform is narrow and almost apocalyptic: to shift power in Karakan society away from the cities and to the country. It is virulently anti-free trade, advocating punishing tariffs on all foreign products, especially agriculture. It has also been accused of harboring neo-Nazis, but the allegations remain unproven.
Karakan Technocracy
A party founded by industrialists and dot-com CEOs, Technocracy has contacts with the Cerooan Technologists and had some with the last pre-war Azani government. They own a newspaper, @11 T3H N3WZ U N33D, which has a slightly larger circulation than you might expect.
Hammerheim National Council
The HNC was formed in the 1950s as a autonomy / secessionist movement for the traditionally rebellious northern province of Hammerheim. It has been banned three times since then, but later reinstated after being vetted by government secret services (as recently declassified documents will testify). The recent reorganization of provincial rights has made redundant certain of its positions, but it retains a small core of loyal pro-provincial autonomy voters.
(I shall post results later when I decide how I want to calculate them.  )
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Mr. President
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The leaves that are green turn to brown
Jul 2001
time: 15:36
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The votes have been counted!
Assembly:
Nationalists: 74
Labor: 20
HNC: 1
Green: 4
Socialist Alliance: 1
Presidential:
Jose Djordjevic (Nationalist): 68%
Sally Walker (Labor): 31%
Alvaro Kucinich (Green): 1%
Comments:
It's a stunning victory for the Nationalists, who were expected to retain power, but certainly not by such a large margin. The President's popular war in Azan probably helped, as did Labor's complaints on new nuclear power plants (in response to unprecedented blackouts in Adailton and Vina del Mar).
Walker and the Labor Party conceded defeat in both the Assembly and Presidential elections, before vowing to begin preparing immediately for the next election. Walker also took the opportunity to condemn the (rumored) nerve gas attack in Frankychanland, asking "What kind of monsters are we allied with?"
The fortunes of the small parties varied, as they so often do. The Greens and the Socialist Alliance did well to hold on to the seats they controlled. The FEC was a major disappointment, thrown out by a wide margin. But the HNC won, by the standards of the small parties, a major victory, coming from a poor position in the last election to claim a single Assembly seat.
Until the next election, though, the Nationalist lawmakers are clearly going to set the tone.
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Mr. President
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The leaves that are green turn to brown
Jul 2001
time: 15:36
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quote:
From SouthernNews.com
Due to the recent capture of a foreign terrorist in Karakas, high-level military officials want the government to authorize torture to extract information about other terrorist activities.
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The man, a Chimerican national, was dramatically stopped at the Adailton airport (just before polls opened!) carrying "suspicious materials", according to inspectors. While he was in detention, authorities checked the records and found him to be a known terrorist.
It appears that he was on his way to link up with still-unknown local collaborators. In this context, some politicians and pundits have been calling for the Chimerican to be tortured to determine the identity of his local allies.
The new Assembly Speaker seemingly dismissed the issue, saying "Our police and intelligence will handle this, within the existing parameters." General Erik Jensen of the Joint Chiefs was more direct, saying "We don't have the education quotient of Guardinia, but we certainly know how to get a man to talk without using a car battery."
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All times are GMT. The time now is 05:36.
Apolyton Time is 00:36. |
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19-05-2004 11:48
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