Members of the European Commission
Polling 10/4 - 17/4
conducted by Kaitmulen, 2.445 respondents
Party Preference
Social Democratic Party (banned)/Bloc of National Reform (refounded SDP) (left-wing to far-left): 36,1%
Union Party (right-wing to far-right): 34,5%
National Republican Party (right-wing): 12,1%
Republican Syndicalist Party (right-wing): 9,8%
Communist Party (left-wing): 4,5%
Agrarian Union (left-wing): 1,2%
other: 1,8%
Government Approval
approve: 4,1%
disapprove: 91,9%
no opinion: 4,0%
Kalessed refuses the removal of Íkrat: "I am the guarantor of the republic"
Head of State Ilmaras Kalessed has announced that she will not comply with the Censorate's decision to remove Elizabeth Íkrat as Prime Minister, and will take "all necessary action" to ensure that the current coalition government maintains in office.
"This government," she said at a press conference held earlier today, "is the highest expression of the will of the Istkalenic people. It derives its legitimacy from the parliament they elected; it is formed out of the parties they freely placed their confidence in; it is carrying out the agenda they chose at the last election. I am the guarantor of the Republic: our constitution gives me full power and responsibility to keep Istkalenic government a public matter, a democratic matter. And as guarantor, as Head of State, I will not let - I am bound not to let - a small and anti-democratic clique run amok over the affairs which rightfully are the people's. Ms. Íkrat's government will remain until parliament - until the representatives of the people - withdraw their confidence in it. This is absolute and final - and I will take all necessary action to ensure that it remains such."
Kalessed's announcement is a radical break with thousands of years of Istkalenic political tradition, which has traditionally ascribed to the courts and the Censorate absolute power over government affairs. While her action is theoretically legal - the Head of State is indeed given broad and absolute power to determine the exact form of the Istkalenic government and ensure its "republican nature" - it is nevertheless so contrary to the principles that have historically guided the country that it may very well be an act of treason.
The Censorate itself has not yet responded, but is expected to do so later today. Most experts predict that it will move to remove Kalessed from office.
Íkrat claims existence of "reactionary-technocratic" coalition conspiring against her
Elizabeth Íkrat, Prime Minister, has claimed that a "reactionary-technocratic" coalition has been conspiring against her government to put to an end her corporatist program for Istkalen, blaming it for recent poor polling number as well as for the Censorate's recent attempt to remove her from office.
"Istkalen," she said at a Communist Party rally held yesterday, "is beseiged by reaction. The Reitzmics and Vards outside conspire to reduce us to colony; the compradors, the capitalist roaders, and the religious reactionaries within have joined together to bring to an end popular government. Even now they sit in their offices, their mansions, their palaces, here and abroad, planning my downfall - the end of our movement for reform, justice, democracy. Let us stand against this cabal! Let us smash this coalition of reactionaries and technocrats and bring to full flower in our Istkalen a people's regime!"
In the few days she has been Prime Minister, Íkrat has been faced with massive and uniform public opposition to her agenda, a politically bizarre syncresis of the corporatism of the Istkalenic right and the welfare-levelling of the Istkalenic left that finds itself entirely incompatible with either. She has found herself with almost no allies in civil society; her statement is likely an attempt to regain their confidence by appealing to their general opposition to the dominance of the Istkalenic judiciary over the state.
However, while her legal removal at the hands of the Censorate has proven similarly unpopular, it has not in any way aided her popularity or legitimacy; her allegations are therefore unlikely to gain her any additional sympathy.
With popularity in free-fall, the Ecologists, New Agrarians, Farmer-Greens, Radical Democrats, and Statebuilders come to an agreement to create a new Agrarian Union
The Agrarian Union has - yet again - been refounded, now as a coalition between the Ecologists and New Agrarians - the members of the old Agrarian Union - the Statebuilders, the Radical Democrats, and the Farmer-Greens. In its new incarnation, it will be led by Esketal Indretek, and be an "agrarian and solidarist movement" which will work primarily for "social justice," "regional levelling," and "auto-development."
Its program is modelled on that of the 1970s and 80s Agrarian Union, focusing on a transformation of economy, society, and polity on corporatist lines coupled with a full, if gradual, return to traditional methods and organizations of industry, abandoning even those few Western innovations that have found their way into the country since the beginning of the occupation in order to pursue a "full independence" on the economic front. However, the new Union will also maintain a firmly socially progressive line, as well as a more intense commitment to environmentalism and opposition to nuclear power.
Formed as its constituents decline sharply in polling as a result of their participation in government, the Agrarian Union seeks to bolster moderation and stability in the country by consolidating pro-government and reformist forces under a single, ideologically coherent umbrella. As the center flees, however, to more radical opposition parties, like the Union Party and Social Democrats, in its strong opposition to the radical incoherence of the Ikrat government, whether this strategy will be successful is unclear.
We have voted to suspend the government of Elizabeth Íkrat due to concerns over stability both domestic and in foreign affairs. We point particularly to Íkrat's calls for unacceptably radical change to the economic and political consensus that has formed in Istkalen, to her illogical and fervent opposition to this country's closest ally, and her deep unpopularity among the public, which has already, in a matter of days, put into question the continued existence of the Republic.
Ursula Orlich has again been appointed Prime Minister, and will have full responsibility and power to constitute a government of her own to return Istkalen to full stability.
We have also made the decision to permanently dissolve the Social Democratic Party, which, though existing in opposition, has played a key role in influencing the extremism of the Íkrat cabinet and pushing against the moderate forces of our Republic. Opposed to popular rule, opposed to the rule of law, opposed to peace and stability, the Social Democratic Party has bedeviled Istkalen since the end of the war and the beginning of the opposition. In hopes of maintaining something of a political consensus, in averting civil war, we have tolerated its existence - we have even worked with it in misguided attempts to bring it, at last, into the fold of the acceptable.
But its actions have proven to us that tolerance is untenable. Ms. Meier's agitation against all the freedoms and traditions Istkaleners hold dear has already done severe damage to our Republic; if she is allowed to go on with her provocations, we will see its end. To ensure the continued integrity of our country, it is necessary that a full and final end be put to her political force, her organization, her power - and that is what we have done and intend, with all possible force, be carried out.
Ursula Orlich
President of the Censorate and Prime Minister of the Republic of Istkalen
Polling 5/4-6/4
Party Preference (+/- 5/3-6/3)
Union Party (right-wing to far-right, in opposition): 40,3% (+35,2)
Social Democratic Party (left-wing, in opposition): 20,3% (+8,9)
Communist Party (left-wing, in gov't): 10,6% (-9,5)
National Republican Party (right-wing, in gov't): 7,5% (-5,1)
Agrarian Union (left-wing, in gov't): 6,5% (-5,6)
Republican Syndicalist Party (syncretic, in gov't): 5,2% (-10,0)
Statebuilding Party (center to center-left, in gov't): 3,8% (-4,3)
Radical Democratic Party (center, in gov't): 3,5% (-6,0)
Farmer-Green Alliance (center-right to right-wing, in gov't): 2,1% (-4,8)
other: 1,0% (-)
Government Approval
approve: 5,1%
disapprove: 94,0%
no opinion: 0,9%
An interview with Katharina Beck
Katharina Beck is an aberration. She is an ardent Women's Committee-er, and yet also a staunch National Republican; a young and university-educated activist, and yet also the most prominent leader of the party with the oldest average age and lowest average level of education in Istkalen; a "political dinosaur," according to her colleagues, and yet also one of the most popular and electorally successful politicians in Istkalen.
Now set, joined by influential trade unionist Riina Kruus, to become the co-leader of the National Republicans in the wake of the resignation of Kaisa Malk and Grete Reiner, she promises a "political renewal" just as unusual as she is: a "return," she claims, to the syncretic history of her party, to "progressive conservatism" and "democratic anti-parliamentarianism."
Our political correspondent, Kestalas Milresile, now interviews her in hopes of getting to understand her - and her future plans - better.
KM: Thank you for having agreed to this interview.
KB: And thank you for having given me this opportunity to speak. It isn't often that I get to speak in this sort of environment - one-on-one, without the terrible theater, all the camera-clicks and cheering and jeering and so on, of rallies or press conferences.
KM: Yes. As you probably know - and I'd like to apologize in advance for it- I'm a very direct person, and so I'd like to get right into it. How did you get into politics?
KB: I actually got interested in it a lot earlier than is often said about me. I grew up in the German Territories, under that theocracy, and so everyone, I think, assumes that I was tabula rasa, a baby, at the time of the war and the invasion, and only really gained consciousness, political consciousness, after that. But that isn't true at all - I'm not even sure why so many people think it is.
My mother had me secretly enrolled in a girls's school - illegal - run by the Communists, when I was very young - 4, I think. I have to be clear, they provided a very good education, entirely non-ideological; I wasn't coerced or brainwashed into anything. But at a certain age - I was 15 or 16, something like that - I realized what their party was doing for me, and that they were doing it against the Arian regime and the state that tolerated, at times actively supported, it.
So from then to a bit after the surrender to Reitzmag, I was a devoted Communist. I don't regret it. They gave me so much - I felt obligated to give back, to them and to the future generations, as a matter of moral duty, and would be ashamed, would still be living with that shame, had I done nothing and gone on passively.
I was very active with them. I was a part of their youth wing, I eventually got some local leadership position; when I got older, I helped run their school while taking courses at this underground university, and then after that did trade union work at a textile workshop. In the year leading up to the occupation I was actually doing partisan work. And then came -
KM: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm curious - how did you go from that, from being a Communist for what, 15, 16 years -
KB: 16, I think.
KM: Yes, from being a Communist for that long, from being so devoted to that cause that you were a partisan on its behalf, to becoming a National Republican - from ardent leftist to ardent rightist?
KB: There are two things I want to say, but let me begin with the reasons for my switch between parties.
The Communists, at the time of the collapse of the Federation, were very supportive of, and certainly very heavy participants in, the people's and women's committee movements. They were very much in line with the theory the party had developed in regards to social development and revolution in our country, they had a great deal of popular support, they were carrying out many progressive reforms - economic redistribution, women's liberation, prosecution of "patrons" - they were very much a dream come true.
Very quickly, they gained a huge deal of influence over the committees. They were very much the leaders and coordinators of the movement; the ball was in their court.
And so when Kerel announced elections for the 5th of May, we expected them to call for non-participation. There had been some collaboration before that, and we, the party cadres, accepted that as necessary against the more pressing threat of the occupation forces and their nebulous plans for the country, but we still saw the Kerel government as being a continuation of the old regime, and their elections as being an attempt to re-establish it in a more acceptable form, and believed that those above agreed. But leadership went along, completely, with it and called for the unity of the people's committees and the national government - for the redirection of all this extraordinary energy among the people into the defense of what we saw as reaction.
It was then that I made my break. I saw the decision as an immense betrayal, as it has, with all the disaster and tragedy we have seen over the past few years, turned out to have been; I simply could not carry on.
The National Republicans I joined not much later. Here is where I must come to the second thing I wanted to say.
The National Republicans, with the exception of the Linek period - and even that we can debate, because many of Linek's proposals were made with very progressive intentions - had hitherto been seen as a left-wing force in Istkalenic politics. And during the occupation, when Lawrence Ketist was at the helm of the party, I think they were, very decisively, still left-wing. They wanted radical economic reform - the complete liquidation of the "patrons," the end of the state occupational unions and workers' societies that had at that point become organizations whose sole purpose was to keep new workers out and allow their members to cheat their clients - and were quite strongly against the full restoration of the Censorate and the Courts of Examination.
For me, then, it was not a decision to go from left to right; it was a simply a choice between two left-wing forces. Even now, I still do not see myself as a rightist - I, as my party now does, still support the same reforms, the same policies, on exactly the same lines, as I did then.
KM: Hmm. Do you think people - the media, academicians - are wrong to label the National Republicans right-wing?
KB: Not necessarily. If they had done so in 2021 - yes, absolutely, they would have been well beyond wrong. But things have changed, drastically, since then. The left has implemented the vast majority of its original proposals, and has moved on to others - subsidy and pension reform are two fairly major ones, and another is, of course, the debate on business incorporation - so the parts of it that refused to similarly move on have become the right.
It's also true that there are elements in the National Republicans that would have been right-wing even then. Kaisa Malk and Grete Reiner presented far more reactionary positions, on both political and moral issues, than even the old social democrats held - the two did it under pressure, of course, but the existence of that pressure quite obviously points to very right-wing currents within our party. And that's not to mention Makketis and Eliise, who, in the short time they have been outside of the party, have begun collaboration with every single banned far-right formation there exists in our country.
KM: As an aside, didn't you support those last two?
KB: Yes. It was a mistake. I was dissatisfied with Malk and Reiner's approach to leadership; I wanted change. Evidently what change might have been wrought from what might have been accomplished would have been in the worst possible direction. But I didn't know that at the time. I was blind, and to be honest a little willingly as well.
KM: Moving on, you've effectively become one of the party's leaders, alongside Riina Kruus, and it's fait accompli that you'll formally ascend to the co-leadership as soon as the party holds an extraordinary congress - what do you intend to do with your power?
KB: I want to return to basics. That's what I, with Riina and Lawrence [Ketist], did when we were charged with running the campaign in the recent associational elections, and it's what, I think, led us to perform so strongly. So - return to the issues that used to define us: further reductions in licensing and the barriers to work, further work against corruption, clientelism, and patronism, and further strengthening of our central state. And return to the old ideological framework in order to bring these all together into a coherent whole - the republican and decidedly anti-fascist corporatism that was for so long our standard.
KM: Corporatism hasn't been republican or anti-fascist for quite some time, if ever, in fact, here or abroad; very much the opposite on every count. Why this term?
KB: I don't see any reason not to call it what it is. It's the proper term; many others, liberals, agrarians, even a few socialists, have used it - why should we be forced to surrender it to reactionaries?
KM: It makes you seem reactionary, don't you think?
KB: No.
KM: Recently, the Prime Minister proclaimed her support for it, and the whole public seemed to think she was very reactionary for having done so.
KB: There's a difference between saying that you support a corporatism that is republican and anti-fascist and saying that you love a foreign right-wing dictator, one who was incompetent, unpopular, and the parent of several fascists to boot. I was personally very taken aback by what she said, to be clear.
KM: But you, too, though you haven't praised foreign dictators, have called for dictatorship. Yesterday, you called for the abolition of the parliament and its replacement with a "more authoritative and harmonious system." That, combined with your corporatism, seems to mark you as reactionary.
KB: I didn't call for the abolition of the parliament; I called for the abolition of parliamentarianism. I don't think it is good for any country to be ruled by a small group of out-of-touch politicians who bicker among themselves constantly; I would like a system that incorporates more democracy, with more room for initiatives and referenda, while also encouraging more unity in government, with a permanent, assured grand coalition that prevents excessive instability and ensures both consensus and sane policymaking.
KM: Moving on, the National Republicans made a number of unexpected alliances with the Farmer-Greens for association control; most media believed that they would unite with the liberal Radicals, who seem closer to them ideologically, but they seem, instead, to have universally preferred you. Why do you think this was?
KB: It was odd, I think, that anyone thought they would ally with the Radicals in the first place. The Farmer-Greens do not support that type of "liberalism;" they are not for respecting so-called subsidiarity which outsources governance to various corrupt, rent-seeking groupings. Their politics are simply a less pragmatic, more rurally focused version of ours. They are, in essence, to us as the Agrarian Union is to the Communists; for them not to ally with us would be as likely as the Agrarian Union deciding, suddenly, to ally with the Union Party, an impossibility.
People see, I think, that they have a more decentralized base, that they are more libertarian on social and cultural issues, and conclude that the Farmer-Greens must simply be a rural version of the Radicals. But look at the actual proposals and there is a world of difference; almost no similarities in ideology at all, in fact.
KM: Quite inversely, the National Republicans were rather cold to the Statebuilders in the few associations where a coalition might have been possible, in spite of the general perception being that the two are virtually identical - why, again, do you think this was?
KB: Grudges. The Statebuilding Party has effectively become Yasemin Demirkol's latest attempt to fuse the traditional National Republican ideology with wonkery. She has been at it for years, first with Progress, then with Union/Progress, and now with this, and, to be entirely honest, many in our party are upset with it. It seems to them - and even to me - that it's some odd tantrum on her behalf that she has thrown for two years now because she is still upset that leadership overruled her, when she was still a member, in deciding to move towards populism. It's just irritating, I think, to many.
KM: But your party nominated her - with her full consent - as an "independent guest" to occupy the position of Minister of Public Distribution, as you did for all of the other Statebuilding leaders - Uklertal, Sepp, Ilves, Laakonen...
KB: They're all very effective ministers who align with us ideologically; we want them in our fold.
KM: Do you think a full merger is likely?
KB: Fait accompli.
KM: Well, that's all the time we have, unfortunately. Thanks for having spoken with us, and all the best of luck in your future endeavors.
KB: You too. Thanks, again, and farewell.
Iketemar nodded. "Yes. I try to look for truth wherever it might be - whether in rock, wind, water, or fire. There's just so much knowledge waiting to be found, so much knowledge that has been ignored, so much knowledge I feel must be, for the sake of good in this world, liberated and made clear and visible to everyone."
"That was Rikkalek's way," she continued in response to Reiserova, "making sure that no one ever had the full picture. Even I don't have it - me, one of the victims of his bizarre plots. He would send people to move things around, you know, in my apartment - my furniture would travel from room to room, my plates would be reorganized, my files would be hidden and placed in different cabinets, things like that, every day. And then he had the Minister of Culture continually cut funding - illegally - for the music institute I direct, and claim that the cuts were increases and that I was deluded for thinking they were cuts. The man was trying to drive me insane; he wanted me in an asylum. That was where he wanted all truthseekers, everyone who saw the importance of the spirit and the soul. Very sad, very, very sad, for him, for the country . . ."
Iketemar then watched, a slight smile playing on her lips, as Reiserova and Slavomir accosted the Roscoes. "Be careful!" she called out from away. "You must be careful with these people! Don't let them get out!"
It would be a wonderful day, she thought, truly wonderful.
by Janice Kyou - March 31, 2024
The logo of the alliance, titled UnitedLeft, was revealed at the announcement.
The Green Party of Elthize, the Elfiz Party, the Democratic Socialists of Elthize, and the Communist Party of Elthize have announced their electoral alliance for the July general elections in a joint conference held this morning at Forecoaster. The alliance, called UnitedLeft, aims to run on a common leftist political agenda and bring a leftist government to Elthize for the first time since 2002.
The alliance comes after a series of negotiations which lasted for weeks. All four party leaders were present at the conference. Matthew François, leader of the Green Party, unveiled the logo and name of the electoral alliance alongside Meti Adebayo (formerly Kendall Hudson), leader of the Elfiz Party, Melissa Chai, leader of the Democratic Socialists of Elthize, and Leon den Hollander, chairman of the Communist Party of Elthize.
The upcoming election will be the first time the Elfiz Party participates in national elections. Previously, the party only operated in the province of Southern Counties, formerly known as Hunnicutt. When asked about the change, Adebayo stated that the party's previous decision to only run in the Southern Counties was a "grave mistake". "Every Elfiz from Ackerson to Montgomery needs to be represented," Adebayo continued.
The real star of the show, however, was Melissa Chai, the presidential candidate of the alliance. "Our country is in dire times," is how Chai started her speech. She continued, "For three decades, we have endured ultra-capitalist, inhumane, and exploitative liberal regimes that have drained the life out of our fellow Elthic working class. Today is the day we set aside our ideological differences and say 'Enough!'"
Melissa Chai, the current mayor of the city of St. Lucas, first assumed office in 2013. She is highly regarded by the people of St. Lucas for her generous social programs, which have also gained attention across Elthize following the economic crisis that affected the country from 2008 to 2011. Her campaign comes after eleven years of speculation about her possibly seeking a position in the national government.
Martha Krystoff, the governor of St. Lucas, endorsed Chai and UnitedLeft for the 2024 elections. She stated that the alliance is "what our nation needs right now."
"Elthize, you have seen the work I have done for St. Lucas. Now it's your turn. It's time to vote for a government that cherishes and prioritizes life above all else." The room roared with applause the moment Chai ended her sentence.
Ikrat promises "corporativist and social republic," rule modeled on "Lunon and Primo de Rivera"
Elizabeth Ikrat, both leader of the Communist Party and Istkalen's new and controversial prime minister, delivered her inaugural speech yesterday morning, detailing her plans for the country.
In the tradition of the progressive left, she dedicated her government to the "forgotten poor," promising to defend and invest in Istkalen's lowest two classes - its "manual laborers," a class of people for whom labor is theoretically illegal completely, and its "self-dislocated farmers," a group composed of those born in rural areas who illegally moved to the cities and were, as punishment, deprived of the vast majority of their legal and economic rights - in order to make their conditions, legal and material, equal to those of the majority.
In a less orthodox vein, however, she appeared to plot the path to this equality through the thoroughly middle-class workers' associations, calling for them to "dominate the Republic," praising them as "the organs of material and social progress" and the "future engine of an economic socialization both moral and literal," and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, taking the historically radical-right position of demanding a corporatist reform of state, society, and economy with them as base.
"The driving purpose of my government," she proclaimed, "what has been the driving force of all progressives in this country since the revolution of the 18th of April, what is the surest path to true and firm equality and liberty for the Istkalenic people, is the quick establishment of a corporativist and social republic: a government of the people, built upon the workers' associations, concerned with the maintenance of the social welfare, of justice and equity at all turns."
Ikrat further veered into eccentricity by simultaneously claiming inspiration for her ideal state from the far-left Lunon, the founder of the original iteration of the UNSR, and the right-wing Miguel Primo de Rivera, who ruled Spain autocratically in the 1920s.
"Our models," she said, "are Lunon and Primo de Rivera. We shall go forth, as they did, in establishing national progress, national unity, national justice; in overturning and reforming and building until we have made our Istkalen a nation of plenty, of great and common prosperity."
Ikrat's words were not necessarily a deviation from the line of the Istkalenic Communist Party, which has long been close to similar syncreticism in its endorsement of many aspects of the Istkalenic economic system - seen by more orthodox Marxists as a form of petty-bourgeois or conservative socialism - as progressive and communistic.
They were, nevertheless, deeply unusual and strange in terms of the extremity of the melding of right and left they suggested; with them, Ikrat became the first Communist figure in Istkalen to openly call the workers' associations progressive, and almost certainly the first person of left-wing inclination since the 1930s - perhaps of any inclination, anywhere - to simultaneously praise the Lunon and Primo de Rivera dictatorships as ideal.
However, though unusual, they were not necessarily unexpected. With the government being composed of parties from both the far-right and far-left, the development of unusual syntheses was almost certainly a necessity in negotiation - and thus one in actual policy and its presentation.
How the creation of Ikrat's "corporativist and social republic" will proceed in practice remains to be seen.
I want to make a few things clearer: I proposed an emergency "government" - an emergency executive, let's put it that way now - and not specifically a Commission in order to allow for flexibility. I simply do not think it is wise to fix ourselves to the idea of a three-member executive, especially one that would hold such an important role - it may be necessary, for example, for an emergency administration to have four or five members, with overlapping portfolios, so that if one or two goes missing there are still others to perform the necessary duties, or, conversely, for it to have only one, to prevent gridlock.
In terms of my own, more concrete proposals for reform - reform which I believe, again, should be discussed after the resolution of the current crisis, whether within a convention or elsewhere - let me list them here:
The positions of Premier and Internal Affairs Commissioners shall be merged into a single, one-member Presidency, which will hold the power of the executive, the full power of the purse - that is, the power to create a budget that goes into effect if not vetoed by an independent motion that passes the European Council with a simple majority - the power of the suspensive veto, and the power to refer newly passed bills to the European Court of Justice to determine their constitutionality.
The President shall be elected by the Council for a term of one year, renewable indefinitely. Presidents may be ousted by a constructive vote-of-no-confidence, which may be initiated by any Councillor.
Regular legislation, and other resolutions, excluding those of impeachment, shall pass the Council so long as there does not exist a majority against it. Votes-of-no-confidence shall fail so long as there does not exist a majority against the sitting President; for votes of confidence, vice-versa.
The threshold for impeachment shall be lowered to 3/5 of Councillors present.
On most other points, I agree with Cllr. Čikarová.
Iras Tilkanas
Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen
