Republic
Recognition of partnerships to end, civil marriage to enter into force
With her new cabinet having been approved by the National Assembly, the Prime Minister has announced that her government will end state recognition of so-called "labor partnerships," originally introduced by the prewar Social Democratic regime as a part of their greater program of social engineering and transformation, and replace it with a system of civil marriage.
"It is time," she said in a short address made to the public, "to move on from the authoritarian past. My government is fully committed to the opening and modernization of the state - most of all the role it plays in our daily life. We will therefore break with the unfortunate precedent set by past governments, and abandon the experiments in social engineering that have gone on for far too long: the still-lingering Cult of Labor, the system of quasi-confessional marriage, and, above all, the labor partnership. We will propose, to the National Assembly, a bill, long in the works, to do away with the labor partnership and finally create an equitable system of civil marriage, open to all, in this country."
The new framework will be open to all and permit for no-fault divorce. Current benefits meant for labor-partners or those married under the pre-existing confessional system will be diverted to a new, fully-secular system that will help fund parental leave and childcare.
Most expect the proposal to be approved by the National Assembly; while opposition to the full state recognition of marriage is common within some government parties, particularly the Statebuilders and National Republicans, the entirety of the coalition is being whipped to vote in favor, with several particularly hardline deputies having been threatened with expulsion from all committees and even their respective parties if they vote otherwise.
Nevertheless, even government ministers have criticized, if lightly, the proposal.
"If we are to recognize marriage," insisted Minister of State Security Lauri Laakonen, voicing a sentiment in which he was joined by many others, from Minister of Social Affairs Grete Reiner to Minister of Finance Indras Irakemar, "we must ensure that it does not jeopardize the rights of women and children. One of the aims of the 18th of April was to liberate the whole family of labor - to socialize the tasks of education, childcare, and other forms of onerous domestic work to free ordinary Istkaleners, and particularly Istkalenic mothers and daughters, of the weight once forced onto their shoulders. With the collapse of the social state in the aftermath of the NSC disaster, it is more important than ever that we hold onto what gains remain - and while civil marriage doesn't necessarily threaten them, it very much has the potential to."
Light opposition notwithstanding, the issues of marriage and the labor partnership have not been contentious since the end of the occupation, making a broader public reaction or movement strongly against or for the proposal unlikely.
Housing-climate switch in new cabinet
In a last-minute change, the Statebuilders and Populists (members of the People's Party) have exchanged a cabinet portfolio, the Statebuilders taking Housing instead of Climate and the Populists Climate instead of Housing.
The switch is both a weakening of the Populists' already weak position in the cabinet and a significant concession to alleged climate denialists for the heavily climate-orientated Statebuilders, and may cause both parties to decline in popularity.
Nevertheless, while the change does even further weaken the Populists' already severely weakened set of briefs, it gives them, who already control conservation policy, almost full control over environmental policy in Istkalen, an area in which their strong stances, against strict regulation and in favor of entirely subsidy-based approaches to transition and preservation, have given them broad popularity. Similarly, although it is, indeed, a major cession of a key issue on the part of the Statebuilders, the switch gives them control over an issue which has won them significant popularity in the past, during a time in which the Statebuilders' priority is rebuilding popular support.
Virtually no one has commented on the swap. When asked for a response, Prime Minister Elizabeth Íkrat opted merely to call it "a procedural issue" and "a triviality." The ministers appointed to the switched briefs, Kalju Ilves and Makketis Íkalsser, for their respective parts, both insisted that it was nothing more than a matter of expertise - Ilves, Íkalsser claimed, had more experience than him with urban issues, while Íkalsser, Ilves said, had a more comprehensive and appropriate background than him in externality regulation. Even the deputies of the National Assembly seemed to be entirely blasé with regards to the issue - none appeared to notice the change at all. Kondres Uklertal, the founder of the new, right-wing populist Union of Greens, former co-leader of the Statebuilers, and outgoing Minister of Climate, remains the only prominent politician to have said anything at all with regards to it.
"The Statebuilders," he wrote in a blog post entirely dedicated to the subject of the swap,"again clearly demonstrate their complete abdication from responsibility. How can we have such people, willing to give up their principles, to sell them to the highest bidder, governing the country? I am ashamed of the role I played in creating such a monster."
In spite of the significant effects it may have on policy, the public is nevertheless unlikely to follow Mr. Uklertal in noticing the issue, and is generally expected to join the Prime Minister and National Assembly in their position of indifference.
Íkalsser, Raadik lose last-ditch lawsuit against Andrus Liiv and Marianne Sèguy
Makketis Íkalsser and Eliise Raadik, the leaders of the People's Party, have lost a last-ditch lawsuit they filed against Andrus Liiv and Marianne Sèguy in an attempt to wrest back control of the Republican Syndicalist Party they founded and Liiv and Sèguy, several months ago, seized the leadership of in a so-called "coup."
"My court," said the primary judge who presided over the case when asked to explain his decision in plain language, "found that Mr. Liiv and Ms. Sèguy's election to the leadership of the organization in question was entirely legal. That is all."
The decision in favor of Liiv and Sèguy ends a long and acrimonious battle in the courts between them and Íkalsser and Raadik, who had held that they had been unjustly removed, alongside most of the party's membership, in a far-right takeover that they further regularly posited was a part of a greater plot against the Republic.
Nevertheless, both Íkalsser and Raadik continue to assert their right to their party.
"The Republican Syndicalist Party was our creation," they wrote in their response to the decision, posted to both their personal websites. "We were its leaders; we commanded the support of its partisans. Only through undemocratic and corrupt machinations was the Liiv-Sèguy clique able to seize control of it; no matter what any court may say, they are usurpers, and they are criminals."
Liiv and Sèguy have responded only in tweets, all mocking the two's predecessors.
While both a solidification of the legitimacy of the Liiv-Sèguy leadership and a major, personal loss for both Íkalsser and Raadik, the court's decision may still help bolster the influence and popularity of the latter, whose People's Party has now moved firmly into the republican fold. Indeed, for the first time ever, many non-Populist, politically acceptable figures commented on the conflict. Liris Vesek, for example, leader of the center-right, agrarian Farmer-Greens, and a consistent critic of Íkalsser and Raadik, calling them "dirty populists," condemned the court's decision as "an attack on the construction of Istkalenic democracy," while even Inge Meier, long-time liberal partisan and certainly no friend of the Populists, called it a "dangerous normalization of creeping fascism."
In any case, however, the "loss" of the Republican Syndicalist Party to the radical right has been made, in effect, final. No longer facing the threat of legal action, the party under its new leadership is now entirely free to further cement itself, and thus the broader extreme-right, in Istkalenic politics.
No deputies for Mr. Uklertal
Kondres Uklertal's new Union of Greens may have died before it could even begin to live. Though 12 deputies of the National Assembly had previously pledged their loyalty to the movement, all have since declared their intention to remain within their respective original parties, depriving it of a parliamentary faction.
The result of threats by virtually all other political parties - even the Republican Syndicalists, around whom a cordon sanitaire has been constructed - to isolate and deny committee positions to any deputy choosing to join the new party, this collapse of support is a death blow to Uklertal, who will now not merely be unable to run candidates in November's indirect elections to renew half of the National Assembly, but also will be entirely alone and without any influence at all upon his return to parliament.
Nevertheless, he has refused to stand down, accusing the "establishment" of "plotting against [him] to promote the degradation of the country's environment and morality," insisting that he will both continue and sit independently in the National Assembly, regardless of what consequences it may bring.
The parliamentary leader of the Statebuilding Party, Hendrik Kõiv, has already announced his intention to propose a motion to expel Uklertal, which is expected to succeed with almost unanimous approval if Uklertal genuinely does choose to remain a deputy.
Why such a hard line has been drawn against Uklertal and his new party is as of yet unknown; no party has yet explained their reasons for their opposition, nor is any expected to.
Nevertheless, given that his party would have emerged, in its simultaneous environmentalism, welfarism, and social conservatism, as a competitor to both right and left, many have theorized that the rest of the parliamentary parties may have seen the proposed Union of Greens as a destabilizing threat to their positions and the relative balance that has formed in the months since the end of the NSC regime, particularly dangerous with the November elections inching ever closer.
The Kaitmulen poll commissioned by Republic for July will continue to include the Union of Greens, nevertheless, to determine their standing in the general public opinion.
