The 1260 Election:
After the formation of the Early Republic (Federal Estates of Retun), the enactment of its Constitution, and the election of James Black in 1248 as its first Prime Minister, the political theatre leading up to the 1260 election consisted of a major divide between the progressive National Labor Party and the conservative National Foundation Party. Initially, during the war of the 1240s, the Council of the Early Republic had been united in solidarity against the Chartered State of Combria, the country from which they were gaining independence. Afterward, the Early Republic formed the first truly free market of modern Middle Remikra, in contrast to the command market that existed under Combria. But before long, Council members began sparring over subsequent policies favorable to business entrepreneurs versus policies favorable to the working class. Council members who favored the working class formed the National Labor Party before the 1254 election, while the incumbent Prime Minister James Black joined colleagues in the formation of the National Foundation Party.
Edward Jackson was born in a relatively affluent family in the Chartered State of Combria. He was educated to remain independent of political sides, both in the former nation of Combria and the Early Republic. He was also brought up to believe in running a business for profit, with the exception being that the existence of an unregulated wealthy social class was not acceptable, and that the wealth held by these figures should be re-circulated through loans to fund small businesses. Scholars in the present-day consider Edward Jackson to have been a political centrist, as he was critical of both the Foundation and Labor Parties. The Foundationists, he believed, catered too much to the existing wealthy establishments, while the Laborists did not allow for enough economic and social individualism. Jackson's solution was to implement an agenda to initially tax existing capital gains in the wealthy parties, tax capital gains transferred abroad, and provide a deduction in said taxes only when money was loaned to entrepreneurs or transferred to private banks lending to prospective entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the lending banks were subject to the same tax code. In 1257, Jackson announced his run for Prime Minister, challenging the incumbent Prime Minister Black, in the upcoming 1260 elections, as Jackson and his colleagues came together and formed the Diplomatic Party.
During the year 1260, Edward Jackson was listed as a write-in candidate while the two main candidates were listed as James Black of the Foundation Party and his main opponent, Robert Smith, of the Labor Party. The Labor Party had grown more popular than the Foundation Party up to this point, but its popularity had been championed by Arnold Stone, who would certainly have unseated Prime Minister Black and crafted economic policies to form the Early Republic into a society very similar to the Independent Commonwealth State of Retun. But alas, Smith had corrupted the party primary process by having Stone prosecuted over trumped-up charges. Thus, Stone would be disqualified. News of the disqualification sparked nationwide protests; and in the midst of this chaos, Edward Jackson came forward with his policy in addition to a promise to enact a program to throttle a spellcrafting practice known as deep-trade. This led to a sharp rise in his popularity, and on 16 September 1260, the election was carried out. It is important to note that, unlike the Independent Commonwealth, politicians during the Early Republic were chosen not directly by the people but by a hierarchical structure of provincial, county, borough, and estate electors, starting with each estate elector being chosen by the people of each estate. Estate electors would then choose borough electors, borough electors choose county electors, and county electors choose provincial electors. The provincial electors met nationally as the Public Assembly, which would then vote on national-level politicians such as the Prime Minister. With the 1260 election, the Public Assembly was evenly tied three ways between each candidate (Black, Smith, Jackson), and the ultimate voting district to decide the final outcome was the Docks District of South Masonia County in Combria. A Supreme Court trial was carried out in the weeks following the election, where ballots were counted and recounted many times. The final verdict determined Edward Jackson to be the winner.
Prime Minister Edward Jackson and The Diplomatic Party:
As the new Prime Minister, Edward Jackson signed into law the Enterprise Vitalization Act (EVA), which placed a 33-percent "net-worth-held" tax on banks and wealthy parties, voided only when over 1/3 of "net-worth-held" was proven to have been lent out to individual borrowers registered officially as entrepreneurs or to banks lending out to registered entrepreneurs. Lenders could charge interest and set their own repayment policies with the condition that payback plans were implemented over a period of no less than fifteen years, were set at monthly rates, and that interest rates could not be over fifteen percent. Furthermore, interest rates had to be fixed and agreed upon mutually beforehand by both the lender and the borrower. Additional payments made by the borrower to advance repayment of the principal amount could not be subject to any additional interest rates.
Also under this new law, loans could be made to any borrowing entrepreneur for any industry, with the exception of critical infrastructure (law enforcement, fire protection, and healthcare), which could only consist of taxpayer-funded or non-profit entities. Meanwhile, farming businesses were permitted to buy out existing county grocery distributors (and this essentially happened everywhere), while a previously-existing farming tax was abolished. Private chain restaurants and "fast-food" franchises emerged. Individuals and estates had market freedoms between privately-owned water taps and springs, while the House of Masons in Combria was permitted to sell varieties of hubstone batteries to people, estates, and businesses. With the new tax laws, old-school Ebony Valley firms (the ebony shale industry) sold their assets to emerging entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, estates were now allowed to sell their properties for profit to emerging private banks, who would, in turn, pay for the construction of bigger and newer houses and offer them for mortgage rates while partially paying estate taxes in the form of "estate tax insurance." While the Post Office was immune from privatization by a clause in the EVA, other forms of communication, like telephone systems, were privatized. County governments were free to choose between keeping roads and airports or selling them to banks and businesses. The same held true with airships and other types of aircraft for boroughs, counties, and provinces. The Council enacted subsequent legislation to have the federal government sell all of its airplanes and airships (with the exception of military aircraft), automobiles, and cable trains to private businesses, in order to balance the budget. What remained in place were the mass transit safety regulations from the James Black era. Provincial public education systems remained intact. However, private schools emerged, being given the option to borrow money whenever necessary. Furthermore, they were allowed to buy and sell property like private businesses and to expand whenever needed.
In 1261, Edward Jackson, through negotiation, convinced the entirety of the remaining Combrian government, housed in the Diamond District of Hasphitat, to resign. And thus, the jurisdiction was officially renamed the Federal District of Hasphitat, which was run by a democratically-elected governorship. A free market exempt from provincial taxes emerged here, giving rise to the "Big Five Banks": Atkinson, Baylor, Bucksworth, Cunningham, and Esther.
In 1272, the Acrean Kingdom proposed several contracts of deep-trade to the Early Republic, agreed upon and implemented by the Federal Estates Deep-Trade Administration (established in 1261). Deep-trade stones were made by spellcrafters to represent the value of a share of a business. Common practice was that the trade stone of one business would be purchased by a business in another nation. Thus, a mutual joint ownership would form where each party would contribute value to or withdraw value from the said stone. Ultimately, the holder of the trade stone had the option of hiring a spellcrafter to "explode" the stone, which would generate some form of material representing the net value of the stone. However, the act of "exploding" deep-trade stones was a rare practice, as stone-holders would usually wait until their stones gained value and then simply sell them for profits.
Between 1272 and 1273, many individuals and businesses in the Early Republic bought Acrean trade stones with borrowed money; this was especially the case in the city of North Kempton in the province of Nintel. In late 1273, the Acreans, owing to internal political struggles, suddenly withdrew from their mutual deep-trade deals, causing Acrean trade stones to become "duds" in terms of value. This sparked economic hardship in the Early Republic and was especially devastating for North Kempton, where borrowers who lost trade stone revenues were unable to repay their loans. This led North Kempton banks to collapse, causing account holders to lose their savings and businesses to close. With an alarming rate of employee layoffs, bank runs hastened North Kempton's descent into turmoil. The Big Five Banks in Hasphitat would ultimately bail them out with a credit line, but this, along with their own trade stone revenue losses, put a strain on the Big Five Banks, themselves.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jackson ordered the Early Republic to carry out an armed conflict against the Acreans in order to effectively coerce them into a deal to resurrect trade stone investments. However, by 1275, the Federal Estates Council determined this agenda to be a failure, leading the Jackson Administration into signing a cease-fire agreement with the Acreans. The Acrean War, although short-lived and never officially declared by either nation, was arguably the point where the Diplomatic Party went from being a centrist-leaning to a conservative-leaning party.
In March 1276, Prime Minister Jackson held a Conference that included representatives of the Big Five Banks in attendance, where they blamed economic hardship, especially in North Kempton, on government "red tape" enacted in the EVA regarding lending and repayment. Jackson agreed to lift these specific regulations while the Conference developed an entire dictionary of ambiguous financial terms for Conference-related legislation to be discussed during Federal Estates Council sessions. It was in September of that year that the Council worked on and successfully passed such legislation, which became known as the Economic Re-Vitalization Act (ERVA). The ERVA completely repealed the "net-worth-held" tax, the 1/3 minimum lending threshold to borrowers, the official entrepreneur registry, the fifteen-year minimum on repayment plans, and the requirement that repayments would be charged at a monthly period. Regarding the monthly repayments, a special clause in ERVA permitted banks to set their own criteria in order to declare "emergency loan liquidation" whenever necessary. The new law also repealed the fifteen-percent limit on repayment interest rates as well as the requirement for interest rates to be fixed. Banks were allowed to write their own policies regarding those terms.
Beginning in 1277, an economic boom materialized, and 1281 is considered by scholars to have been the beginning of the Gilded Era of the Early Republic. In September 1281, elections for governor seats and legislative posts yielded near-total control for the Diplomatic Party. With that term beginning in 1282, the Council passed the Third Amendment of the Constitution, which fundamentally changed the function of the Offices of the Mitigators, which were originally established to provide checks on the power of Council. It was a change that, having received little attention from the public or the media, effectively provided a boost in leverage for the upper social classes.
Endorsed by the incumbent Jackson, Arthur Cummings ran for Prime Minister in 1284 on behalf of the Diplomatic Party, declaring his promise to continue Jackson's policies. Opposing the Labor and Foundation Parties, Cummings won the election easily. However, upon taking office in 1285, Cummings became the first Prime Minister to authorize the federal goverment to borrow money from private banks. Former Prime Minister Jackson was ashamed of this and effectively withdrew from the public. Meanwhile, the Labor and Foundation Parties collapsed, as members from each left their Party and formed independent platforms. Before long, however, these members came together and established the Reformed Foundation Party, whose agenda was to break-up large banks and reverse the ramifications of the 1276 Resolution. This Party gained reasonable traction following the Provan attacks of 1287, which drew scrutiny to Cummings and the banks, and the Reformed Foundationists won a large number of seats in the 1287 gubernatorial elections. One notable Reformed Foundationist was John "Red" Waltman, who won the Governor Seat for the Province of Ereautea.
For the 1290 Prime Minister election cycle, Dennis Hall won the 1289 Reformed Foundationist primary. The Esterzy, a third-generation airship, was shot down over Lotemn in Canticula, provoking an economic downturn and political windstorm, amid which the incumbent Prime Minister Cummings was accused of the involvement in the events leading up to the incident. Not long after, evidence surfaced proving Hall's involvement as well, which prompted another Reformed Foundationist, Jack Casey, to run against Hall as a write-in candidate. Cummings cited internal conflict within the Reformed Foundation Party, while he won popular appeal over solidarity within his Party. And thus, he and the Diplomatic Party won the 1290 election.
In 1291, information was leaked that a business conference had taken place between Dennis Hall, Jack Casey, Prime Minister Cummings, and prominent figures of the Provan Republic. The Reformed Foundation Party lost popularity over this and suffered the same fate as the Labor and Foundation Parties six years previously. However, opposition figures soon began supporting a new platform: the Progressive Party, championed by Governor Waltman. Running with this new Party, Waltman won re-election as the Governor of Ereautea in the 1293 gubernatorial election, as the Progressives grabbed a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and four of the eight contested seats in the Ministry Council. Soon after, Waltman ran for Prime Minister with the promise to implement a national healthcare system, a national education system, and a national highway system. In light of economic hardship and ensuing political corruption, Waltman defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Cummings in the 1296 general election.
John Waltman and the Progressive Party:
As Prime Minister, John "Red" Waltman signed into law three pieces of legislation, each of which fulfilled his promises. His first law, the National Healthcare Act, transformed the nation's healthcare system from one being administered at the county level to one being administered uniformly by the federal government, eliminating the bureaucratic chaos created by the previous system of vouchers for patients traveling between counties for treatment. Before Waltman's tenure, education was administered at the provincial level, with some provinces having better education standards than others. The National Education Act resolved this by creating a federal Department of Education and providing federal funding as needed for each provincial system, setting federal standards and providing an "equal opportunity" curriculum. The National Education Act required each public provincial University to be governed democratically like Cabotton University, and the Act throttled an agenda to establish the Global Academy of Ancondria. Then came the National Transportation Act, which resolved the issue of cable-rail-price-gouging and the conflicting laws from county-to-county over driving with hubstone-battery-powered or henshale-gas-powered automobiles by establishing a national highway system and repealing the county laws. The three Acts were first implemented through budget reconciliation in 1298 and took effect in 1299. Education and healthcare proved to be quick, easy transitions while the highway project began its first phase and continued through five phases over a Five-Year-Plan.
All hopes of progress, however, came to a halt in September 1301 when, after large amounts of money were lent out for both private and public endeavors, fear propaganda over investments toward economic development in the Ancondrian territories prompted the Big Five Banks to invoke the 1276-Resolution emergency measure of "loan liquidation," forcing all businesses involved to immediately repay the entirety of their loans by the end of the month, and triggering a stock market crash. Most of these businesses closed, forcing the layoffs of millions of employees and leading to total economic collapse. As a consequence, those unemployed were unable to make mortgage payments on their privately-owned homes, leading to foreclosures, a dramatic rise in homelessness, and the collapse of the housing industry. Loaned automobiles were repossessed, leading to the collapse of the automobile industry, while a volunteer bussing industry emerged but proved insufficient. Meanwhile, barely anyone could afford to travel by cable rail, leading the cable rail industry to collapse. With the grocery industry mostly privatized at this point, many became unable to afford food and were left to starve. Local governments collapsed, leading to the collapse of utility services such as water, electricity, and energy. Even critical infrastructure (law enforcement, fire protection, healthcare) began to experience difficulties in administration. The only infrastructure unaffected was education. People flocked to universities to enroll in academic programs, creating unprecedented competition.
Prime Minister Waltman responded to this by establishing the Crisis Emergency Department and authorizing it to construct essential housing. Such structures were later nicknamed "Waltman Houses." They were quickly and cheaply made, and effectively eliminated the homelessness crisis. However, conditions were unfavorable, as living spaces were cramped and surrounded by thin walls. Ceiling collapses and other structural incidents were problematic with residents; and some structures even caught on fire. These conditions became breeding grounds for strong anti-establishment sentiment.
The Crisis Emergency Department also bought out the grocery and utility industries and provided federal relief for critical infrastructure. And despite the hardship, the Global Academy of Ancondria opened, with its satellite campuses in Middle Remikra providing additional education opportunities. Then came the 1302 election, during which Prime Minister Waltman ran against the Diplomatic Party challenger, Mervin Teller, who served as the Governor-General under Former Prime Minister Edward Jackson. Teller blamed the economic downturn on the financial burden of the three Acts reforming healthcare, education, and transportation. He also blamed complacency and overconfidence in the lightfire industry, the main driving force in the agenda to expand economically in Ancondria. Teller had a leading edge in popularity until he publicly recommended ending the Crisis Housing program enacted by Waltman in order to "give people incentive to find jobs." Amidst the ensuing popular backlash, Teller lost easily to Waltman in 1302.
The 1308 Election:
Economic hardship continued between 1303 and 1308, as the 1276-Resolution powers of the Big Five Banks proved a hinderance to Waltman's recovery efforts. Eventually, Waltman began making compromises with them, which helped to float the economy temporarily in order to prevent a complete collapse of Middle Remikran society, but proved unpopular so that growing numbers of people began to regard Waltman as being more in touch with business figures than the general population. Meanwhile, the economy contracted again in 1304 and 1305. In 1307, a fallout with an attempted trade deal with the Ancondrian city of Silba led to the worst stock market contraction since 1301, sparking a nationwide riot. The ensuing chaos led to the formation of two political movements. One movement involved the gravitation of many supporters toward Middle Remikra's most legendary darkfire figure: Holz Finzi. They began constructing armed compounds and would eventually call themselves "Finzi Legions." Supporters of the second political movement gravitated toward an emerging figure of the Diplomatic Party: Walter Scott Mason.
Growing up with a religious and traditional background, Walter Scott Mason dealt with the loss of his father, who was killed in the Chemkan War of 1259, by joining the Federal Estates Armed Forces and bringing the nation to victory over the Battle of Elsa Island in 1270. Afterward, Mason joined the ranks of the National Disaster Relief Foundation, taking part, most notably, in the relief efforts following the 1287 attacks. In 1291, Mason volunteered for a NDRF effort in a tornado-stricken suburb of the city of Maryk. During the recovery effort, Mason called for and led a mass prayer circle, violating a principle of the NDRF which respected the Constitutional freedom of religion and expression, and was consequently expelled from the organization. Mason made an appeal to the NDRF Office of Affairs while the organization became embroiled in an intense political controversy, which would earn Mason national attention. When the Office of Affairs sided with the NDRF administration and expelled Mason, local chapters of the organization unhappy with the decision seceded and formed independent "Rotary Legions." Eventually, the NDRF became too weak to function and disbanded.
Meanwhile, Mason became involved in the "Blackbooker Community" an outcast group of religious figures who revered the late Alexander Morgansen, who, during the war between the Early Republic and Combria of the 1240s, attempted an internal coup to establish Retun as an authoritarian state. The coup failed and Morgansen's followers scattered, but they and their descendents carried on in separate factions before eventually coming together as "Blackbookers." After engaging with this group for a few years, Mason returned to mainstream Middle Remikran society and joined the ranks of the Rotary Legion of North Kempton. His appeal and charisma led to his election as its President, and in this position, Mason convinced the Legion Council to overturn existing leadership term limits. His popularity within the organization led him to be continually re-elected as the President, as he enacted measures to eventually dissolve the democratic role of the Legion Council and the organizational electoral process.
The economic downturn in 1301 led to a lapse in North Kempton law enforcement, to which Mason responded by having his Legion establish a vigilant task force. Other Legions around North Kempton began to imitate the Legion led by Mason and began to owe allegiance to him. Such a trend grew through the Province of Nintel, and eventually throughout the Early Republic. In 1306, Mason announced his run for Prime Minister, criticizing "establishment figures" of businesses and both the Progressive and Diplomatic Parties. In 1307, amidst the chaos and growing resentment toward said establishment figures, Mason won the Diplomatic Party primary nomination. Very soon after, the loyal Rotary Legions united with Mason's Legion and formed the "Knights of the Common Good," or the KCG.
And so began the election year of 1308, during which Mason would challenge the incumbent Prime Minister Waltman. With surprising betrayal to Waltman's voter base, Waltman's Supreme Court nominee, Justice Jefferson Davis, led the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the existence and function of the KCG, and to also rule that ballots cast for Holz Finzi, who was also running for Prime Minister, were illegitimate. Many of Finzi's voters would resist and write-in Finzi's name regardless. Mason, on the other hand, was responsible for the bloodiest election campaign in the history of Middle Remikra. Violent clashes early on led his accompanying KCG members to arm themselves. Confrontations worsened in nature as Mason's campaign continued, with many witnesses likening his later campaign stops to "battlefields." On 16 September 1308, the election was carried out, resulting in Mason winning the popular vote (relative to the ballots deemed legitimate), but losing the Public Assembly vote to Waltman. With Public Assembly vote being what determined the election winner, Waltman won re-election. However, Mason, in an unprecedented move, publicly refused to concede, and continued his campaign on his platform for a motion to bring into question the "corrupt bureaucracy and 'red tape' crafting this unacceptable outcome." In late October of 1308, Mason called for a major "Conference" with prominent members of the KCG to be held in the city of Tandowyn in the province of Chemko. This alarmed many Middle Remikrans, who feared that Mason was plotting a coup against the Federal Estates Government. On 2 November 1308 an anti-Mason convoy ventured out and assassinated Mason. Grieving Mason's death, KCG groups wagered a war against opposing militant factions as the nation plunged, effectively, into a civil war. Going into 1309, and into his third term, Prime Minister Waltman implemented numerous measures of martial law to keep the peace and quell the violence between the warring factions. On the international front, Waltman attempted to establish a deep-trade agenda with an Ancondrian-based entity; but this failed, sending the stock markets into yet another downward spiral and sparking nationwide riots. Waltman attempted to keep his failed agenda, the cause of the economic downturn, a secret. But all too soon, it became public. On 6 September 1309, Waltman's newly-appointed Governor-General, William Irving, confronted him over this, leading the two to get into a physical scuffle during which Irving produced a pistol and shot Waltman dead, before turning the gun on himself and pulling the trigger.
In accordance with Constitutional protocol, Marshall Nolan was made to be sworn in as the next acting Prime Minister. However, while this ceremony was in progress in the Public Assembly Chamber of the Council Building, the structure took a hit by a missile fired by the KCG. The ceremony was brought to a halt, and the Council of the Early Republic, forced to disband, would never meet again. Over the course of 36 hours, the Basin District became a battleground between the KCG militias and Finzi Legions. With cunning strategy, Finzi and his forces gained the upper hand and secured the Capital under his control. A pro-Finzi Council would later convene and pass the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the District of Retun, establishing the Republic as the Independent Commonwealth State of Retun.
***All names of characters, places, and things are entirely ficticious and purely coincidental!*** © Christopher J Nutter, 2020