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Archbishop and Secretariat Sworn-in Following Pink WaveJune 22nd, 2023
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The Archbishop celebrates being handily re-elected
The College of Bishops met to today to elect the Archbishop of the Inquistan Orthodox Church. Archbishop Mikaela Kligenberg was re-elected in the first round with 161 votes, while Bishop Michael Cunard received 76 votes and Bishop Karinn Lallana received 3 votes.
The Archbishop was supported by her legion of 149 allied bishops who were elected under the Kligenbergist tent, as well as the 11 bishops who were elected under the Reformist banner, including Bishop Secretary Anja Emerett.
The formerly Reformist bishops announced they would support the Archbishop and join her bloc following the election results. While the Kligenbergist Bloc was already 150 members strong, the additional 11 members will be quite welcome, as they will provide the governing bloc with a super majority, which requires 159 voting members of the 240 member legislature. A super majority within the College of Bishops will allow the Archbishop to accelerate or circumvent certain aspects of the legislative process, diminishing the political tools of her opponents.
The Archbishop then swore-in the Church Secretariat, the executive body of the Church. Silas Kligenberg has been named Chief Secretary, which means the Archbishop's cousin will have his hands in much of the Archbishop's proposed legislation. Chief Bishop Kligenberg has been considered an inside architect of the Archbishop's New Public Propserity agenda.
Antoni Reynels has been named as the new Bishop Secretary of State, replacing Bishop Secretary Emerett. Despite being sworn-in as the country's new Secretary of State, Bishop Secretary Reynels also continues to serve as the European Commissioner of Foreign Affairs.
Bishop Secretary Emerett was also named to the Secretariat, making herself the only former Reformist to make it into the executive body, perhaps for her decision to join the Archbishop and provide her bloc with a super majority, and heal any linger divides between the cohort of former allies. The Bishop Secretary was made the new Home Secretary, which is a brand new position born out of a merger between the Secretariats of Public Safety and Immigration and Citizenship. Bishop Secretary Emerett's new position represents neither a promotion nor a demotion from her previous position as Secretary of State, as the Home Secretary will be considered a core Secretariat position. Bishop Secretary Emerett herself was once a longtime civil servant within the Church's Immigration Secretariat, was Secretary for Immigration under Archbishop Alexander Kligenberg, and is popular with both Sahrawi and Czech immigrant communities, and so makes an ideal fit for the position.
With the exception of the Home Secretary, all other positions within the Church Secretariat are made up of members of the Klingenbergist Bloc who had previously pledged their loyalty to the Archbishop. The Church Secretariat has been slimmed down to 21 members, representing 19 secretariats and 2 executive offices. The previous Secretariat maintained gender parity between members, but the new Secretariat features only 9 men, while 12 women make up the majority. This is the first ever woman-majority Secretariat in the history of the Inquistan Orthodox Church.
The Archbishop and the Church Secretariat are now tasked with executing on their bold and ambitious election pledges, which notably includes implementing New Public Prosperity. While a mountain of work lies ahead, the governing bloc has mustered a super majority to move things forward, and otherwise faces little opposition.
In spite of the Archbishop's sweeping victory, Bishop Lallana managed to cling onto re-election as Inquista's Councillor to the European Union, barely managing a comeback during the second round of voting before reaching a decisive victory in the final round. The Archbishop and Councillor have promised to work cordially together despite their political differences, which could certainly develop into a closer working relationship as the Archbishop's fiancé appears poised to become a European Commissioner under Bishop Lallana's Everyone's Front eurogroup.
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