Mouri-Kudo Announces Second Term Bid, Faces Primary Challenge within Social-Progressives; Lahaye will not Run for Prime Minister for 2024

President Ran Mouri-Kudo electrified the political landscape today by officially declaring her candidacy for a second term. In a televised address from the presidential palace, she highlighted her administration's achievements on foreign policy, social justice, and environmental protection, while acknowledging the challenges that remain.

(President Mouri-Kudo making her televised address to the Commonwealth on her plan to run for a second term)

"During my first term," President Mouri-Kudo stated, "we've secured historic trade deals, strengthened alliances, and championed human rights on the global stage. At home, we've expanded access to affordable healthcare, enacted landmark environmental legislation, and made significant strides towards gender equality."
President Mouri-Kudo's announcement comes amidst a flurry of primary elections across the Commonwealth of Leagio. Within her own Social-Progressive alliance, she faces a primary challenge from renowned environmental activist Racheal Brownson, who has garnered support for her call for more radical climate action. The Social-Progressive primary promises to be a lively contest, highlighting the internal debate within the alliance. President Mouri-Kudo represents a pragmatic approach, focusing on incremental progress within the existing political framework. At the same time that she announced her candidacy for the Social-Progressive Presidential Primary, Prime Minister Marie Lahaye announced that she will not seek another term for Prime Minister for 2024 and would run only as a Senator for the Progressive Alliance. In response, President Mouri-Kudo announced that she endorsed the idea of having Revy Robertsen as her candidate for Prime Minister. Revy Robertsen is currently a Councilor representing the List Sector of the State of Jullien who has a reputation of being hard on members of her own party that backtrack on agreements. In fact, it was through the shrewd and tough tactics of Revy Robertsen on pressing on members of her own Alliance to vote in favor of the Treaty of Tellum Ratification Resolution through the House. Although, she also managed to use a good amount of negotiation for the reform on electing members of the House of Councilors through a PR-District method.

(Revy Robertsen before entering the chamber for the House of Councilors)

While the Social-Progressive primary captures much of the current attention, other parties and candidates are vying for the spotlight. Meanwhile, in the other parties and alliances, there are still debates and questions on the top candidates at the moment. James Moriarty, the President of the United Peoples Front, has confirmed that he will not run as the Alliance’s candidate for President nor Governor-General at the moment, which leaves the question that he might run for a National Congress seat to be Prime Minister if his alliance wins. As the primaries unfold, voters across Leagio are grappling with critical issues. The economy, healthcare, education, and the environment remain key concerns, with each party offering distinct positions. The upcoming months will be filled with passionate debates, rallies, and strategic maneuvers, as candidates strive to earn the trust and support of the electorate.

Meanwhile, the Republican Future Alliance are currently unable to back a main candidate for their alliance as it is divided between candidates that either want to align with the Alternative for Leagio party (formed out of merger with the Christian Democratic-Republicans and the National Patriot Party or work with the Federation of Democratic Centrists).

Meanwhile, the Federation of Democratic Centrists are stuck between two main candidates for President: Carlito Silvestre (a Senator for the FCD representing Tullion) and Jackson Ellis (a Councilor representing the FCD for the List Sector of Kiev). Senator Silvestre is running a strong deregulation policy on business, while Councilor Ellis has been running his primary campaign on a balanced approach on deregulation and government spending to support local governments.
President Mouri-Kudo's decision to seek re-election throws open a series of questions. Can she overcome the primary challenge within her own party? How will she address the concerns of young voters and those frustrated with the pace of change? What strategies will her opponents employ to capture the public's imagination? One thing is certain: the upcoming elections in Leagio promise to be exciting and consequential, shaping the nation's trajectory for years to come. All eyes are on the primaries, where the seeds of tomorrow's leadership are being sown.

Sertia prepares for tourism growth this summer

and, no doubt, tourism politics.
26 April 2024

The government and businesses are getting ready to accommodate high volumes of tourists this Summer season.

With the Summer tourist season due to officially start on 1 May, the government have expanded train, Sertia HorseRail and coach service timetables, as well as scheduling more ferries between Sertia and Nofoaga for ease of accessibility. Business owners are also finishing up winter renovations on their properties and are preparing to open in just four days.

The West Olves are also readying to welcome visitors by air, land, and sea. The provisional government of the West Olves have ordered expanded ferry timetables from Plariaras, Sertia to Icaserch, WO.

Tourism is the second largest industry in Sertia, next to textiles (the 3rd) and fishing (the 1st). To many, this Summer will determine how well they are able to get through Winter.

Arts and culture

Summer is a time for celebrations of fine art and culture in Sertia. Most notably is the Baelo Arts Festival held in the Erdais district of Osperfey, which attracts world-renowned writers, artists, and cultural icons. This year, a record number of people are due to attend, making Erdais the place to be in the Caribbean this summer for lovers of fine art.

Erdais Politics

While tourists are a necessary part of Sertia's economy, there was quite a bit of uproar last year when the Erdais District Braetha ordered an additional tourist tax to be included in accommodation fees. This came after local residents complained of disorderly behaviour from tourists, a group of whom had been arrested and charged for criminal damage to private property.

Local festivals

Major Sertian destinations are not the only place for this, however. Around the country, local arts festivals will also be showcasing their homegrown talent to passers by and locals alike. The village of Tyr'n Bever, about 20 miles north of Rowsperch, is proud to present an exhibition by local artist Benjamin Tyr. It is an art installation which concerns the fleeting state of Sertia's natural, pastoral landscape, much of which is part of the ancient marshland known for generations as Tremaras. While the majority of people now live in Sertia's major cities, many of them hail originally from the towns and villages of Tremaras, of which Tyr'n Bever is one. Tyr's project is one that he says "comes from the heart".

"My family, the Tyrs, have lived around this area for over 400 years. Tyr'n Bever has shaped me", Tyr says. Indeed, around 1597 the Tyrs purchased the land where Tyr'n Bever is now.

When asked about what tourists should look for in Sertia this summer, Tyr says "come out to Tremaras and see how the Sertians really live. We are very welcoming and kind and not like the city-dwellers. Here you will have it easy, you can take it slow and enjoy yourself".

Sertian tourism season runs from 1 May to 31 August 2024.

State and Territory Governments

Sierra

Espanicito

Napa

Nation

Mea Culpa

Irenet Isteresskemar

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

This is what and all I must say to those who have stood with me through the past few years. It is - yes - my fault, and my fault alone, my fault in the highest, that your long work has been for naught, that your hopes have suddenly been crushed, that our efforts to bring the voice of the countryside to Kirelesile have ended in failure.

I gave you, unnecessarily, to extremism. I pushed your cause to the fringe. And I staked out a position that could never find itself with real power and influence.

With these mistakes, I betrayed you, and I am now, in the aftermath, bound to make right what I have done wrong.

I am therefore retiring from electoral politics. I will not take part in the refoundation of the Agrarian Union, and will resign from all positions I hold in the apparatus thereof.

I will continue to hope for your victory, so that your work is protected against the advance of foreign industry, so that our independence is safeguarded, so that our democracy is maintained and strengthened. But I will limit myself to this and nothing else.

I will retain only my position as Minister of Foreign Affairs, as a nonpartisan. Only here, I feel, have I been able to do any productive work, and only here would my loss be more of a burden to the country and the movement than my continued presence. I will therefore remain to continue to chart a non-aligned, internationalist, and resolutely national course for our Istkalen in the world.

To the people of Istkalen, its real heroes, to whom I owe my life, to whom I address all my possible apologies and respect, then.
Irenet Isteresskemar.

Review of the Two Worlds

The failure of elite politics

The Statebuilding Party is dead. Almost all of its leaders have been discredited completely in Istkalenic politics; the organization itself has been absorbed by the already moribund Agrarian Union. The "moderate social democracy" it claimed to represent has been left without support popular or institutional; in every way, the project it spearheaded has failed. And the few of its most prominent figures who remain influential and popular - Yasemin Demirkol, Lauri Laakonen, Eliise Sepp - have spurned it completely.

Political commentators say, now, that this extraordinary collapse was entirely predictable - that it was easy to see that the Statebuilders were doomed from the very beginning. But this was not the tune they were singing but two months ago. Their insistence, which they claim now only the foolish could have believed, was that the Statebuilders were not on the path to implosion but instead ascendant - that their politics, a synthesis of the reformist and moderate left with the technocratic, law-and-order right, were the future of an Istkalen disillusioned, through the misrule of Vistek Rikkalek and the NSC, with populism and extremism. Only with the failure of the 4 March elections, in which the Statebuilders, defying polling that had pointed to them being the country's second most popular party, failed to make any significant showing outside of the associations of the elite - of the civil service, the security service, and the financiers, merchants, and economic planners of the Commerce Association - did they even begin to change their minds.

The mirage of Statebuilder-success, in essence, was one that was, at the time, very convincing to all - and not without reason. The popularity of the technocratic government of Ursula Orlich, the rapid decline of the far-right, and, above all, the rapid growth of the Statebuilders themselves in polling at the time painted a clear picture of a new Istkalen, an Istkalen that had grown to hate the old parties and politicians, an Istkalen entirely eager to embrace order and firm authority.

Why then, a mirage and not reality? With everything pointing so clearly to the inevitability of change, why did change ultimately not happen?

As the political commentators now quite correctly insist, the answer is simple.

The Republic of Istkalen is an oligarchy. It is a state in which politics is conducted by unaccountable elites, in smoky backrooms, for their own benefit; a state whose republicanism is nothing more than a paper-thin facade meant to obscure a reality of corruption and authoritarianism.

It is because of this that populism-as-strategy has been so enduring; there being no real democracy in Istkalen, its politicians, fearing retribution, must create with their words a facsimile of it, radical enough in its appearance to distract from its obvious falseness.

Everyone with real power pretends to be a populist; no one who shies away from this mask has any hope of remaining in office. Even women like Ursula Orlich, the President of the Censorate and an example par excellence of the closed and elitist nature of governance in Istkalen, center in their words a people fighting against an elite of patrons and compradors and now, in the aftermath of the occupation, Reitzmic and Vardic spies, a brave people who must be defended, who must be represented, who must be helped and strengthened so that they may win their struggle and thereafter establish a state of their own over and against their erstwhile oppressors.

The Statebuilders saw simply that those who had held power before and through the NSC period, who had been left without support, had attempted to portray themselves, as all Istkalenic politicians had been wont to do, as populists, and so tried to reject that same populism to avoid the same fate.

And without a populist approach, they could come across as being nothing more than, like the Union Party, active and open supporters of corruption, authoritarianism, and reaction in Istkalen. In a period still characterized by widespread fear of punishment for dissent, this is enough to create the appearance of widespread public support - but not enough to produce the same in a secret ballotage held among and for a population wanting, however secretly, nothing more than reform, opening, and democracy.

Now, as this same elitism, in the face of the deep unpopularity of Elizabeth Ikrat and her government, seems to make a resurgence, it is important to keep this experience in mind. The most aristocratic and authoritarian aspects of state remain, as they were just a few months ago, deeply unpopular; though the idea of order may now be in demand, Istkaleners do not cry out for a dictatorship of the courts. An embrace of elitist rhetoric and appearance continues to be politically suicidal; politicians, especially those in the opposition, internal or external, would do well to remember this in order to avoid being consigned to the same fate as the Statebuilders.

Republic

Internal debates over the future of the Communists

The Communists of Istkalen are at a loss. The 18th of April robbed them of ideology, the occupation of opportunity, and now their own government of any and all legitimacy. Currently polling under the threshold, and likely to fall even further as even those who were once their most stalwart partisans flee them for Inge Meier's Bloc of National Reform or Katharina Beck's National Republican Party, they stare oblivion in the face.

With so existential a threat so near, they have retreated from the wild experiments in organization and ideology they have been conducting since the capitulation to Reitzmag and returned to the solid, time-tested tradition that unites all Communists: infighting. Though they currently have only 12 deputies in parliament, the support of but a few mutualities, and effectively no activist base, they have found themselves divided into four factions, none of which can find common ground with the others and all of which claim that it is them and only them who have the ability to guide the party back towards its former popularity and dominance.

The largest is led by Antras Arkalis, former Minister of Finance and current Minister of Energy, who calls for the party to become a defender of Western-style capitalism. Claiming that the country continues to suffer under "feudalism," he demands a break with the old doctrine of "socialism with Istkalenic characteristics," which suggests that "the concentration of existing industry" under the auspices of the workers' associations is the surest and most possible path towards socialism. It is, he insists, a reactionary position, one out of accord with communist principles - for him, it preserves too much, when the aim of the communist and workers' movements ought to be to destroy so as to level.

To take its place he would like most his own "market socialism," involving a legalization of incorporation, the creation of a legal framework for joint-stock companies and a stock market, subsidies for voluntary collectivization in the agricultural and crafts sectors, and privatization of most "non-social" assets, particularly factories, currently owned either by the state or by associations - the establishment on firm ground, in essence, of a fully Western economy in Istkalen. This, he insists, is the only way to sweep away the patrons, the courts, and all their companions, and to develop the country, both socially and economically, to a point where it can be ready for a "realer socialism on the Czech or Nicoleizian style," in his own words.

The second largest is that of Iras Tilkanas, Istkalen's sitting European Councillor, the only Communist figure with net-positive approval ratingsand the last of the public figures of its once-dominant right-wing. Her call is for a fuller embrace of "socialism with Istkalenic characteristics:" she insists that the party, to remain relevant, must "moderate and become a party of the broad left," in essence move closer to the more popular "economic federalism" and "corporate statism" of parties like the National Republicans and Republican Syndicalists.

She wants the party to embrace the politically authoritarian designs of the Istkalenic right, from their support for ultra-presidentialism to their schemes to abolish the legislature, as well as their approach, founded on layered duties, the worker to the association and the association to the state, to the economy; she would like conservatism on all things except for environmental, cultural, labor, and subsidy-related issues.

The third is of Indras Irakemar, the sitting Minister of Finance. Her insistence is that the party must adopt planning as the solution to all problems. It is planning, she says, will drive forth economic development, planning that will prevent overconsumption, planning that will cure Istkalenic of all its ills - planning, planning, planning. She envisions a great planning board dictating and the associations mobilizing in service; this is her socialism, her democratic economy, the future ideal she believes the Communists must promote above all.

And the fourth, the smallest, is that of the floundering Ms. Ikrat herself. It has but one belief - that the Communists must remain in power for as long as possible.

With no party congress in sight, and with Ikrat and her colleagues dominant over the central committee, the struggle between these four will not be fought in any formal environment. There will be no ousters of committeemen and commiteewoman, no sudden purges of liaisons with mutualities; none of that. But it will, nevertheless, be an obvious struggle.

Those involved are among the most powerful men and women in Istkalen. Though they may not be able to change the party through formal mechanisms, they nevertheless will have a broad array of tools available to them to intimidate and therefore, perhaps, to force change. There will be rallies, there will be great speeches, there will be public, emotional ultimatums with threats of splits and betrayals - these, the methods of mass manipulation and mobilization, will be, in the place of backroom arguments and long ballotings, the mechanisms of this intraparty struggle.

It is a form of politics entirely new to these politicians, and certainly to the country; how successful it will be, especially in the face of such intense public opposition to the Communist Party, remains to be seen. The opportunity for revival and change, not merely of and to the Communist Party but to the greater Republic, is, nevertheless, clear and present.

Duchies government pass ban on destruction of heritage buildings
The law to ban the demolition of buildings built before 1950 has officially passed today. The Heritage Preservation Act essentially lists all buildings built before 1950 as protected buildings. The act requires that all alternative uses for housing, commercial use and community use must be exhausted before the building can be demolished with developers having to prove that any sensitive development or alternative use is impractical. The acts passing comes after years of campaigning from heritage preservation organisations in the United Duchies. The act is expected to protect entire neighbourhoods and also requires that should such a building burn down buildings built before 1950 must be rebuilt in the same location and with the same design lest the developer face jail and imprisonment. The act will also allow heritage organisations to object to redevelopment plans and propose alternative uses being able to buy the building from site owners if they can pay the market rate for the building and have funds to redevelop the site in a sensitive manner themselves.

Republic

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%

Republic

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.