Mal Malenkirk
First Post
It was this time of years again; elections. Every three years, the circus started over in Undhil. Just about every meaningful office was elective. Half of the People’s Assembly and a fourth of the Senate was up for grab every three years, of course. But since the early Senate Wars, various executive and judicial functions had also become subject to periodic popular approval. Tribune, Protector, Ordinator, Justicar... The list was long. The most prestigious office, the competition for which overshadowed the rest, was the Consulship.
In Undhil, three Consuls shared the consulship. They had wide and varied powers. They appointed the Chief Secretaries of the various Bureaus (such as SCU) and kept them accountable. They had the right to force the senate into session, submit various propositions to their vote and had partial right to veto and censor the Senators actions. More importantly, they had irrevocable right to veto anything that touched on the Republic’s security, had sole right to conduct negotiation with foreign entities and propose international treaties for approval to the senate. Once a war was declared, they became master of the army. They had a fair amount of influence within the republic, but to the outside world, they were Undhil. Within the consulship, any decision was reached at a simple majority but was legally deemed to have been taken unanimously. By tradition, a consul who had been overruled in private by his two colleagues never voiced dissent in public.
They were appointed for nine years and one of their seats became open for election every three years. This year, Consul Maria Graccus had opted not to seek another term which meant that the race was wide open. The front runners were Senator Logar Serram and Tribune Nara Silverfox. The first was an old fashioned and stuffy Dragonborn intellectual. He was a stout constitutionalist and an unrelenting defender of the charter of rights. The other was a firebrand half-elf maiden who was running on a security platform. She terrified the establishment. The last few years had seen turmoil. It was pretty much a given that the empire of Kerr sponsored bandits in the countryside as some sort of land based corsairs, the economy was in a slump and as a result destitute people turned their hopes to various cults. Some of these were genuinely dangerous and evil organization which in turn increased the sentiment of insecurity of the rest of the population. As a result, citizens of Undhil were scared and listening to a woman who proposed radical solutions such as building walled ghettos to contain the slums or systematic torture of known members of illegal religious cults in order to get them to divulge the identity of the member of their cells. That kind of laws implied changing the constitution with all the upheavals that such events brought with them.
There were no official party in Undhil, but there were still many well organized informal factions. There was no duty of neutrality whatsoever in Undhil and any elected or even appointed official could campaign on behalf of a colleague. The leader of the Red Seal, the traditionalist faction who upheld the constitution as the foundation of the republic, was Consul Jorgen Jak. A tiefling, a scholar and an orator without peer, he had decided to put his weight in the balance. Until recently, the Red Seal had controlled the republic with a moderate and conservative approach to government. The relatively recent creation of the People’s assembly, the new universal suffrage and the creation of the Tribune’s office had brought a new element of populism to the proceedings and the charismatic Consul Jorgen was one of the few from the old guard capable to play skilfully on this new playing field. He was in fact, Senator Logar’s best hope to win. And that’s where SCU came in.
There was really no such thing as neutrality in Undhil, not even in the bureaucracy. The Red Seal still controlled the executive. The newly appointed head of SCU, the dragonborn Karath Dred, had been appointed at the suggestion of Maria Graccus, herself a Red Seal woman. Karath was of course of the same allegiance and believed that populism was a plague threatening his beloved republic. And so, instead of regular Royal Guards, he had assigned some of his best agents to the security detail of Consul Jorgen Jak and Senator Logar Serram. That was why some much decorated agents were now freezing their balls off in the cold December rain, waiting on Consul Jorgen to make a speech in front of thousands of citizens in the Brahak Square.
In Undhil, three Consuls shared the consulship. They had wide and varied powers. They appointed the Chief Secretaries of the various Bureaus (such as SCU) and kept them accountable. They had the right to force the senate into session, submit various propositions to their vote and had partial right to veto and censor the Senators actions. More importantly, they had irrevocable right to veto anything that touched on the Republic’s security, had sole right to conduct negotiation with foreign entities and propose international treaties for approval to the senate. Once a war was declared, they became master of the army. They had a fair amount of influence within the republic, but to the outside world, they were Undhil. Within the consulship, any decision was reached at a simple majority but was legally deemed to have been taken unanimously. By tradition, a consul who had been overruled in private by his two colleagues never voiced dissent in public.
They were appointed for nine years and one of their seats became open for election every three years. This year, Consul Maria Graccus had opted not to seek another term which meant that the race was wide open. The front runners were Senator Logar Serram and Tribune Nara Silverfox. The first was an old fashioned and stuffy Dragonborn intellectual. He was a stout constitutionalist and an unrelenting defender of the charter of rights. The other was a firebrand half-elf maiden who was running on a security platform. She terrified the establishment. The last few years had seen turmoil. It was pretty much a given that the empire of Kerr sponsored bandits in the countryside as some sort of land based corsairs, the economy was in a slump and as a result destitute people turned their hopes to various cults. Some of these were genuinely dangerous and evil organization which in turn increased the sentiment of insecurity of the rest of the population. As a result, citizens of Undhil were scared and listening to a woman who proposed radical solutions such as building walled ghettos to contain the slums or systematic torture of known members of illegal religious cults in order to get them to divulge the identity of the member of their cells. That kind of laws implied changing the constitution with all the upheavals that such events brought with them.
There were no official party in Undhil, but there were still many well organized informal factions. There was no duty of neutrality whatsoever in Undhil and any elected or even appointed official could campaign on behalf of a colleague. The leader of the Red Seal, the traditionalist faction who upheld the constitution as the foundation of the republic, was Consul Jorgen Jak. A tiefling, a scholar and an orator without peer, he had decided to put his weight in the balance. Until recently, the Red Seal had controlled the republic with a moderate and conservative approach to government. The relatively recent creation of the People’s assembly, the new universal suffrage and the creation of the Tribune’s office had brought a new element of populism to the proceedings and the charismatic Consul Jorgen was one of the few from the old guard capable to play skilfully on this new playing field. He was in fact, Senator Logar’s best hope to win. And that’s where SCU came in.
There was really no such thing as neutrality in Undhil, not even in the bureaucracy. The Red Seal still controlled the executive. The newly appointed head of SCU, the dragonborn Karath Dred, had been appointed at the suggestion of Maria Graccus, herself a Red Seal woman. Karath was of course of the same allegiance and believed that populism was a plague threatening his beloved republic. And so, instead of regular Royal Guards, he had assigned some of his best agents to the security detail of Consul Jorgen Jak and Senator Logar Serram. That was why some much decorated agents were now freezing their balls off in the cold December rain, waiting on Consul Jorgen to make a speech in front of thousands of citizens in the Brahak Square.
