NationStates Jolt Archive

18 August 1960

Being a Republican Party Prime Minister of Mala’aina was not a position suited to humble men and, whatever else they might say of him, no one had ever accused Lorrin Dole of humility. His party, after all, had continuously held government ever since the Cooper Liberal Government had fallen in 1845 as a direct result of Cooper’s proactive reconstruction program in the wake of the abolition of slavery. His family had sat in Cabinet two years out of every three ever since his ancestor, Crister Dole, had been a leading figure in the Republican Revolution led by Shieldian and other European planets and businessmen against the native monarchy. Dole himself had also known only success and prominence ever since he was a schoolboy. His attitude was not one he hid well. The slim, perpetually well-dressed man carried himself rather proudly, his shoulders back, his nose pointed slightly upward as though he were speaking down to anyone he addressed. It was certainly the impression he gave now, sitting at the head of the table in the Parliamentary Library, the head of a Party with a large majority in its own right, addressing a collection of Opposition and Crossbench leaders which he could not help but think of as a rabble.

Dole’s eye moved first to those faces which, as far as he was concerned, did not belong. Alice Burns, a relatively pretty woman with regular features and the mannerisms of a well-bred Mala’ainan woman caught his eye first and he inclined his head towards her. The personal distaste he felt for the Miss Burns’s National Women’s Party, which held a mere five votes in the House of Representatives, would not let him behave as other than a gentleman. To the only other woman in the room, Dole made no such courtesy. Kathleen Henry was one of the five representatives chosen in special elections to bring the concerns of the largely disenfranchised 9% of Mala’aina’s population which was of African descent to the attention of the Parliament and she was the first to do so through an independent political party. However, her New Alternative Party only commanded three of those five seats with the other two supporting the Government. The third face to catch Dole’s eye was that of Albert Keekaniau, the perpetual leader of the Royalist Party and champion of the long deposed native dynasty who commanded all five indigenous seats.

If Dole found Burns, Henry and Keekaniau particularly out of place, his scorn for the rest of the group was only slightly milder. Cold, dismissive eyes surveyed John Baker, the aging Socialist Leader; Andrew Carter, the aristocratic leader of the Liberals; and Colonel William Emmeluth, the Progressive Party’s flamboyant hero; Robert Christensen, the gruff leader of the Farmer-Labour Party; and Victor Stedman, the dour Christian Democrat. His feeling was somewhat natural for the leader of a party with a large majority confronted not even with a weak opposition but with a spattering of tiny parties, fighting one another as hard as they ever fought the Government. Keeping that thought in mind, Dole turned his attention to the Leader of the Opposition proper, Mr. Thomas Weaver, an exhausted, sweating old man whose political death loomed over his caucus.

Dole spoke slowly, as befitted a man who had no cause whatsoever for concern. “So, I am to understand that you asked to speak with me because you are no longer capable of forming an opposition?”

Weaver swallowed and glanced down, unable to meet Dole’s gaze. Emmeluth, a man known to always speak as though certain of victory despite his party’s constant defeats, interjected himself into the conversation in a rather brash tone which almost, almost mind you, made Dole feel sorry for Weaver. “Absolutely. There’s no way we can form a Shadow Cabinet with this bloke or caucus with him and the rules, as currently written, insist that the Leader of the Opposition must enjoy the support of a majority of members who did not vote with the Government in the last confidence vote. In other words, the Opposition proper has to be larger than the Crossbench.” Weaver looked like he was holding back tears. A situation like this, unable even to sit in Opposition properly, was humiliating for the leader of the nation’s second largest party and fundamentally undermined his chances of convincing the voters he was capable of winning elections now or ever and it was a humiliation which Emmeluth relished more than Dole.

Exhausted by nearly a decade of revolution preceded by a decade of war, the Gull Flag Republic might be forgiven for its relative ignorance of a small island with at least something of a Shieldian population. Mala'aina had always been a side-show in Shieldian politics, despite calls from some of the more ardent imperialists to annex it, what with the majority of Shieldian concentration being on securing the route to Gallaga.

Now that Gallaga was its own state, however, and with the stability of the Walmingtonian Empire severely in doubt, the Republic found that it had greater need of small, island colonies such as Palau, Fort Manly, and Insula Modesta to provide bases for its cruiser squadrons, refueling ports for its merchant marine, and bases for its Flying Corps. With peace seemingly restored under President Ranalte, it is decided that the time has come to open negotiations with Mala'aina regarding membership in the Iansislean Federation as an independent republic.

That is not all that Ranalte wants, however. Just like with Troobodia, Noropia, and Tharia, he hopes that quiet integration into a (semi-)cohesive block will make the tiny republic so dependent on Iansisle both economically and militarily that a peaceful annexation will be possible. As such, the Foreign Office begins preperations to send a diplomatic mission to Mala'aina while looking more into its history and the psyche of this Mr Dole.

However forgotten the 21,950,000 people of Mala’aina have been by the Ians, Iansisle had remained the center of the cultural, political, intellectual and social world for Mala’ainans since first contact in 1679. Not only Dole but also Emmeluth and Carter, all had degrees from Iansislean universities. The art of Mala’aina was almost entirely derivative of Iansislean trends and most upper class Mala’ainans considered it inferior to the original. 71% of the population identified as ethnic Shieldian and 80% was ethnically European. The laws of the Republic gave Shieldians resident in Mala’aina for more than one year all the rights of citizenship without ever actually having to apply for citizenship, rights denied to Japanese born in Mala’aina’s own territory. The Dole Government was not only wholly supportive of all of these policies but actively desired a closer relationship with Iansisle to the point of wishing they could be part of an Empire which no longer existed. Mr. Dole’s public record and all private reports of his thoughts indicated that he would not allow his personal power and position to be dissolved into the larger Iansislean body politic but that, so long as the local Government continued in existence, he would be willing to make almost every concession to Iansisle which annexation would bring: The leasing of bases on terms not allowing for their revocation by future Governments, free trade, the opening of Mala’ainan ports for shore leave purposes, a military alliance which allowed Mala’ainan troops to be place under Iansislean command and similar policies. The only caveat would be that the Dole Government, while actively encouraging immigration by ethnic Shieldians, was not willing to comparably open its borders to Gallagans or citizens of certain other former Shieldian colonies. He never made the reason explicit but he didn’t really bother hiding it either. All of these views are held even more strongly by Mr. Dole’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Theodore McCandless.

The attitudes of Mr. Dole and Mr. McCandless were hardly surprising when one took into account the history of Mala’aina. In 1691, all of the islands of Mala’aina were united under King Kakaio the Great, a Christianizing monarch. The descendants of Kakaio, because of their generally friendly attitude towards Europeans and because of their Christianity, were spared any outright colonial adventure even as Shieldian and other Europeans increasingly dominated the trade and agriculture, importing the first African slaves to work on their sugar plantations in 1703. These Europeans wielded increasing influence, holding many of the seats in Parliament, receiving Mala’ainan peerages and being admitted fully to the confidence of an increasingly Westernized monarch. They had to share power only with a tiny, Westernized, mixed-blood elite among the natives, one disdainful of its own heritage and happy to seek wealth in money and slaves. Kakaio V, the last of Kakaio’s line, died without an heir in 1776. After a hotly contested referendum, Lapa’ela was made the new king on condition that he sign a constitution forced upon him by wealthy Shieldians which stripped the king of direct administrative authority and created severe restrictions on voting which essentially limited to franchise to wealthy native and European men professing the Christian faith. Lapa’ela ruled until his death in 1791 when he was succeeded by his sister, Lahela, who was to rule for only two years before her attempts to restore royal prerogatives and expand the franchise led to her being overthrown by a collection of wealthy Shieldians in what was to go down in history as the Republican Revolution. For most of Mala’aina’s history, these events set the tone of national political life. The one exception was the Cooper Government of 1842-1845. William Cooper was the only member of the Liberal Party to ever hold Government. While generally a hero of the left, Cooper continued to be lionized in history because of his government’s primary contribution, the abolition of slavery. Cooper also passed a number of other important pieces of legislation, accepted by all parties today but controversial at the time. These included extending the franchise to women over 35, removing property qualifications for voting for the House of Representatives, granting limited representation to Africans and the indigenous population and banning any religious test for the franchise or for public office. However, after Cooper’s Government fell as a direct result of an overly ambitious attempt to break up the large sugar plantations, the Republican Party had begun an uninterrupted stay in power, keeping most of Cooper’s reforms but allowing no new ones.