NationStates Jolt Archive

Irminsul, Iluminaria - Two days after his inauguration, President Kellson of the Iluminaria Monarchist Party announced the abolition of his own office, in accordance with the IMP campaign platform. The IMP seized power in last month's elections following ten years of heated protest against the policies of former President Garant Krim and the Glorious Republic of Iluminaria Party. Krim's mishandling of the nation's economic crisis, combined with his hardline Jehovite policies, ignited longstanding currents of discontent among the Republic's majority Ilune ethnicity, who hold that the Republic and its Constitution unduly favour the Jehovite faith and the Firnic ethnicity, both imported in the late 1800s by foreign missionaries and traders.

Campaigning on a platform of restoring the rule of the Starian dynasty and the 1749 Code of Law, the IMP reached out to moderate Firnic voters by opposing the corruption and political horse-trading of Republican politics, which is commonly held to be the cause of the nation's twelve-year economic recession.

Constitutional scholars say it's debatable whether President Kellson has the power to abolish his own Presidency, as while former President Krim sought to forbid the reestablishment of the monarchy, he also passed Constitutional amendments increasing his own powers. If it goes to the Senate floor, a bill to restore the monarchy might well be struck down by the GRIP opposition, but the President might yet have the support to succeed if it goes to a popular referendum, providing he can still muster the turnout among Iluminaria's Ilune voters that he orchestrated in the elections last month.

Kellson has declared himself "acting Regent" until a monarch can be located and crowned. Since its abolition in 1798 the Starian dynasty has spread out over the globe, and genealogists are carefully tracing its descent to locate the candidate with the most royal blood. Given the IMP's stated preferences that the ruler be Iluminarian, Ilune, and not Jehovite, however, royal right may end up second to political expediency in President Kellson's search for a monarch.

"Of course he can't do this. The Constitution forbids it! Any alteration must pass a Senate vote, and even if the IMP is the majority party right now he can hardly expect the rest of us to go along with his insane plan to return us all to a governmental and legal system a quarter of a millenium old!" -- Senator Karning Krim, GRIP Opposition Leader

"According to the structure laid out at the Second Constitutional Convention in 1872, radically rewriting the Constitution requires a public referendum. You can put as many different options on the Constitutional referendum as you like, and the people get to vote on it. As opposed to the bloated Senatorial toads squatting on the corpse of public office in Irminsul. ... Although I'd suggest rather less than the hundred and thirty five they issued in 1872." -- Dr. Yuri Tan, IMP Constitutional Advisor

"What? Why are we bothering with this? The Regicide and the Occupation were illegal at the time, and they are still illegal now! Who cares what the 1873 Constitution says? It's scrap paper! We are restoring the rule of law in Iluminaria, ejecting the Firnic overstayers and their legislative fictions, and returning the Starian dynasty to its rightful place of power!" -- Senator Haris Otchekta, IMP, Representative for Kassiran

"The idea that the IMP can find itself a suitable monarch and all our woes will be solved is fantasy of the sort that usually features dragons in it. We need to face facts here; unemployment has been I-don't-want-to-think-about-how-high for a decade, our factories are empty, our shops are empty, our larders are empty ... and somehow the labour unions are still clamouring for a higher minimum wage! What we need is immediate deregulation of industry and the abolition of the minimum wage, so that businesses will be able to set up shop in Iluminaria without being ruined by taxation!" -- Girard Dane, Libertarian Action Party Leader

Shirin, Illuminaria - A busload of tourists early this morning found their outing disrupted, as the ancient Elerist holy site of An-Carinal had been destroyed. The shrine, which consists of a ring of twenty-three standing stones on the Shirin moorlands about two hours' drive from Irminsul, was wrecked by unknown vandals some time last night, with all the stones broken and removed from their places, and the J, K, and L stones shifted to the center of the ring. Human bones were found in the holes of the standing stones, but archaeologists quickly confirmed that the remains were contemporaneous with the erection of the stones.
Shirin's First Warden, head of the local Elerist faith, has decried the vandalism as "sacrilege of the highest order", blaming Firnic Jehovite activists angry at the inauguration of pro-Ilune Monarchist President Gar Kellson three days ago. In retaliation, Shirin's Archbishop Yarosin has condemned Elerism as a faith "built on bloodsoaked idolatry". Shirin's Senate representative, Senator Elia Dawson, called for religious unity, suggesting the formation of a local ecumenical council to discuss theological issues. The Archbishop dismissed her suggestion, saying that "The faithful have nothing to discuss with heathen idolators."