Republic
*Íkrat has headed off the internal threats to her rule - but is not yet out of hot water
Against all odds, Elizabeth Íkrat has managed to consolidate power and put an end to the disintegration of the country.
Under her direction, the Tabithist (formerly Arian) Church has surrendered much of its hard power in exchange for relaxed regulations on evangelism and public communications and guaranteed representation in certain national cultural organizations, releasing the ex-members it had abducted and held captive in an attempt to gain leverage over the government, dissolving the "intentional communities" it had founded to disrupt governance and foment terrorism in Kirelesile and the former German Territories, and surrendering what remaining arms it was allowed to retain under the October Accords it agreed to following the failure of its attempt to seize control of the Istkalenic state.
The paramilitary of the Agrarian Union, led by the still-obscure far-left firebrand Veia Veivet Iveva, and the increasingly restless "young officers" of the Istkalenic military, allegedly led by long-time ASPIS head Lauri Laakonen, ex-Colonel Kuldar Loime, and Colonel Kallentan Ésketemar, have, too, stood down in the violent campaign they, in a tenuous alliance, had led across the countryside to root out perceived corruption, material, moral, or otherwise, and re-establish what they saw as "18th of April revolutionary institutions" unfairly dissolved previously governments, such as the radical feminist Women's Committees and the levelling, redistributionist People's Courts. In exchange for a number of admittedly significant concessions - Veia Veivet Iveva and Lauri Laakonen have been made the country's co-presidents, succeeding interim Head of State Ursula Korhonen, the Agrarian Union paramilitary is to be integrated into the existing civilian police force, and the Women's Committees, though not People's Courts, are to be re-established with full powers across the country - they have agreed to recognize the legitimacy of the national government and the monopoly on power, and particularly violence, it is thus entitled to.
Even the Radical Democratic Party, which had used its positions in cabinet and in parliament, in addition to its paramilitary presence in Kirelesile, to intimidate the government into placing strict caps on non-Kitetois wealth and participation in the professions, has been forced to kneel before a newly bolstered and emboldened Íkrat, agreeing to surrender its arms and allotted ministerial portfolio, receiving in exchange only amnesty for those of its members guilty of inciting and participating in intercommunal violence.
Only the religiously-aligned Censorate remains out of purely civilian government; while its ability to directly influence and even govern parts of the country is now significantly diminished from its peak in mid-December, it retains its independence and hatred for Íkrat, with its President, Ursula Orlich, continuing to threaten to do, in her own words, "everything that is possible" to "permanently end liberal Western perversion in Istkalen" and "oust, condemn, and mercilessly punish Íkrat and all of her traitor-collaborators in the civil service." But even the Censorate must now continue its campaign against the cabinet and the parliament from a point of precarity - with Íkrat now re-empowered, her government can once again threaten and deliver on its threats, and thus place severe practical restrictions on the ability of the institution to execute its plans to abolish Istkalenic parliamentary democracy.
But Íkrat is by no means out of danger. Though she has managed to put an end to any serious institutional threat to her power, she has done so, again, only by making enormous compromises that may ultimately do more to undermine the state than even her earlier intransigence did. By granting the Tabithists free reign to propagandize to the population at large, they have put the country at genuine risk - especially considering the growing reaction against the rapid cultural liberalization of the occupation and Rikkalek years - of a future fundamentalist uprising, one which would put the Lirisian foundation, increasingly Western-liberal nature, and by extension stabliity of the modern Istkalenic state in question. The integration of the unruly, highly ideological, and mob-like paramilitaries of Veia Veivet Iveva, too, already threatens to place the continued rule of law in question, and may serve, if Íkrat ever again falls out with Iveva and her followers, as a dangerous fount of revolution. This is not to speak of the legitimization of the "young officers," a group which descends from the NSC, remains deeply enamored with the idea of military rule, and now have effectively been told that mutiny remains possible and enormously promising as an avenue for change - nor of the lack of consequences faced by the provocateurs and thugs of the RDP, who now remain free to continue to stoke ethnic tensions and division in Istkalen.
Perhaps more importantly, virtually all of these cessions and concessions are deeply unpopular with the Istkalenic people. Though the resulting stability has managed to create statistically significant improvements in public approval for the Íkrat government - where its support once was as low as 13-17%, it now appears to stand in the low to mid twenties, from 21-25% - there is significant evidence to show that they have also led to an even further collapse in public trust around it. In mid-December, before these agreements, distrust, while high, was also unusually weak - though roughly 90% of Istkaleners indicated a lack of trust in the sitting ministry, only 5% of their number insisted that theirs was strong. Now, however, though distrust remains in the low 90s, its strength has exponentially increased; a supermajority of those claiming a lack of trust insisted that theirs was strong in polling organization Kalitmulen's January poll. If Istkalenic opinion was capricious before, only God might be capable or properly describing what it might be now, under such extraordinary conditions - and even then it may very well be that He is incapable of rising to the task. In any case, with suspicion now so intense, even the slightest of mistakes might now lead to the Íkrat government losing virtually all of its credibility. With so many alternative centers of power having survived the crisis, such an event would almost certainly be catastrophic for the continued survival of the Republic.
