4 Feb 2024, 09:27

Nation

Raadik, Ikalsser, and 15 others expelled from NRP

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pictured: Makketis Ikalsser

The Central Committee of the National Republican Party announced yesterday that it had made the decision to expel Eliise Raadik, Makketis Ikalsser, and 15 members of its parliamentary faction for "fomenting chaos" in the ranks of the party.

"This was not," read a statement the Committee released, "a decision taken lightly. It was made after many weeks of deliberation, and only when the situation had escalated to such a point that there was no other solution. We pursued every other course of action available to us: we negotiated, bargained, begged. But still these seventeen refused all but complete capitulation - and then, in spite of our continuous efforts to reach some sort of reconciliation, claimed that we had ignored them completely. We must have both order and democracy in our party; there can be no tolerance for wreckers who sow division wherever they may go in order to impose their will above that of the majority of membership."

The expulsion follows an attempt by Raadik and Ikalsser to form a party of their own, the latest escalation in a long-running argument between them and the party leaders over party redlines and participation in government negotiations.

The 15 expelled MPs have since founded a new parliamentary group, the "Republican Syndicalists," which they claim will be dedicated to defending and furthering "the freedom of the nation;" that is, preserving an egalitarian distribution of property and the "social state," completely abolishing the current bureaucracy, and replacing it with a "republican government of producers' associations."

Raadik and Ikalsser themselves, while they have not yet made fully clear their intentions, appear to have signaled that they intend to fully cooperate with this grouping; they have moved for their "New Syndicalists" to bear the same name going forwards.

Raadik and Ikalsser are the only prominent party members among those expelled; while several other ministers and party "frontbenchers" had previously openly sympathized with their aims, most prominently of which was Minister of Agriculture Katharina Beck, the Committee made no reference to or mention of them.

Demirkol leaves Union/Progress, joins Statebuilders

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pictured: Yasemin Demirkol

Yasemin Demirkol, Minister of Public Distribution and Union/Progress's lead candidate in the 2022 parliamentary elections, has announced that she is leaving Union/Progress for the Statebuilding Party, citing an environment of "elitism" and "racism" that she claimed made it "ineffective" and "unsuitable for anyone serious about governing."

"I have no desire," she said at a press conference earlier today, "to further associate myself with these people. They represent the worst of our country, a disgusting cross-section of the rot and the corruption and the chauvinism that have come to pervade it. I thought, once upon a time - clearly, I see now, foolishly - that they could serve as a vehicle for the reform of the country. But one cannot reform with rusted tools - and that is, ultimately, what this faction is, a collection of rusted, broken-down tools, useless for everything except for poisoning and sickening our Istkalen."

"You would not believe," she continued, "the amount of abuse that has been hurled at me - even at me, one of its thankfully now former leaders - by the horrid things that form the membership of Union/Progress. They belittled me for my culture. They insulted me for having come into their ranks by merit and merit alone, and not whatever bizarre process of selection they have made for - and self-congratulate for so making - themselves. Day in and day out, an unending stream of this garbage. Who could take it? Certainly not them, in any case, who scream and throw fits whenever someone dares criticize them."

"The Statebuilding Party," she ultimately concluded, "is where the future of this country lies. They are the only party committed to sane, measured, and truly progressive reform; the only party I can see delivering our Istkalen from the morass of degradation it has found itself in into an era of growth and change."

Demirkol follows one of her colleagues, Eliise Sepp, in her decision, for broadly similar reasons; however, as, by far, the party's most prominent and popular figure, her departure is likely to weaken Union/Progress and strengthen the Statebuilders by a considerably more significant degree. ;

Union/Progress itself almost immediately responded to her announcement; its leader, Ilest Kerel, made a statement mere minutes later claiming that Demirkol was born in Nyetthem and had been considered by Governor [name] to serve either as Istkalen's Councillor to replace Iras Tilkanas or a token Istkalener on the J-TAI because of her hatred for her own country and love for Vayinaod.

Demirkol has since called Kerel an "idiot" whose "nonsense does not deserve the response I am giving it."

Meier rules out participation in gov't negotiations

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pictured: Inge Meier

Inge Meier, the current leader of the Social Democrats, has again ruled out the idea that her party might join government negotiations, refusing participation in a political system she accuses of being "hopelessly corrupt."

"The Social Democrats," she wrote in a statement directed at Elizabeth Ikrat, who had asked that the Social Democrats enter negotiation in order to bolster the "progressive cause," promising significant concessions on a number of economic issues in return, "will not be propping up any governments of elitists and anti-democrats. We refuse to play any part in the defense of a hopelessly corrupt system that continually sucks away at the people and denies them their right to self-determination. We will only even consider governing if we are sure that it will lead to real change - to the overthrow of the Lirisian orders that hold our country hostage, to a complete legal purge of all the corrupt civil servants and patrons who refuse any and all movement forwards, to the end of all the retrograde restrictions that exist only to maintain the continued dominance of a few above the whole."

Neither Meier's refusal, nor her maximalist demands, were unexpected; she has consistently been perhaps the single most consistent and extreme opponent of the political and economic systems that prevail in Istkalen throughout her political career. It nevertheless comes as a significant disappointment for other progressives in Istkalenic politics, from Ikrat and her Communist Party to the Agrarian Union and the Statebuilders, who had been hoping, in spite of its improbability, for an alternative to the increasingly uncooperative NRP.