Republic: The co-presidents will take direct control of the nation
Indras Uskeled's attempted economic reforms have ended in what is no less than disaster. Following the outbreak of mass demonstrations throughout the country protesting the significant cuts to pensions, as well as the introduction of market principles and extreme centralization in employment policy, Uskeled resigned, insisting that she was no longer able to govern the country effectively; she was then replaced by Liris Vesek, who governed for a whole of three days before herself resigning, with the almost mythical Ayros Tiraki, previously ruler of Istkalen between 1983 and 1985, taking her place, only to herself quit within 18 hours.
With the Prime Minsterial office now vacant, co-presidents Kondres Uklertal and Yasemin Demirkol have announced that, until order is returned to the country, the prime ministership will be abolished and all executive and legislative power placed in their hands, in order to make the reforms necessary to end the current political crisis and ensure stability.
"Within the past week alone, two successive governments have tried and failed to stem the growing unrest," said Demirkol at a press conference held this morning. "We no longer have trust in any one person to form a government able to meet the demands of the current situation, and therefore, unwillingly and reluctantly, ourselves take the responsibility of solving the political crisis for the sake of the preservation of our homeland."
The courses of action available to them will be severely limited. People's committees across the country, driven by popular opinion, have declared their unwillingness to cooperate with any national government with any connection to the failed Uskeled, Vesek, and Tiraki cabinets; several have gone as far as to announce tentative support for a national congress of committees which would hypothetically appoint a new government and, more radically, draft a new constitution to serve in the place of the current, much weaker, "basic laws," which many blame for having allowed for the drastic, unpopular welfare and employment reforms made by the Uskeled government to be enacted. While previous governments have used the workers' associations to impose control at a local level in times of such rebellion, this, too, is no longer an option for Uklertal and Demirkol - most of the members of their controlling workers' commitees and councils, on both a local and national level, have resigned in protest of new laws which would end their historical decentralization, replaced with unpopular appointments broadly viewed as illegitimate. Even the final, "nuclear" option - use of the military - seems out of reach, with Minister of Defense Eliise Sepp, accompanied by several generals, having announced to the public, mere minutes after the co-presidents' announcement, that the country's armed forces would not enforce the edicts of the government against popular opposition.
These extraordinary conditions have led many opposition leaders to ridicule Uklertal and Demirkol's decision.
"A farce, a farce!" cackled Erkanas Istentek, president of the Istkalenic Pensioners' Association, before an assembled crowd of thousands of elderly demonstrators. "They dared to take away our savings, our income - and now they will pay! Let them take for themselves their scraps of power - we have already brought them to their knees, and they have no way, now, to stand again! Let them do as they wish, for we have the power, we have them in our grasp!"
"I don't quite see the point, to be honest," said Kalju Ilves, leader of the Social Democratic Party at a press conference held shortly after the announcement. "No one is behind them, even the military has fled them. It's beyond ridiculous, there's no point even in responding to it. Pathetic posturing."
It is unclear whether Uklertal and Demirkol will retain Tiraki's cabinet, functionally identical to Uskeled's. Several of the most controversial ministers, most notably Myriam Leclerc, Greta Schulz, and Antras Arkalis, who are widely seen as the drafters of the reform that led to the crisis, have indicated that they are likely to remain in their positions; however, nothing truly concrete has yet been made public.
It is similarly unknown whether they will, as Tiraki and Vesek did, attempt to push forwards with the reforms and merely attempt to suppress the protests, or rather do away with them and meet the demands of the demonstrators. While they have made statements in favor of the abolition of the measures, all have been vague in nature; their actual intentions remain opaque.
With significant pressure on them from virtually all sectors of civil society and institutions of state, however, they are effectively bound to action. The military now refusing to intervene on their behalf, and the people's committees and workers' associations increasingly tending towards rebellion, there are simply no other paths out of the current abyss apart from abandoning the reforms and returning the country to its pre-election path.