Narikaton and Darnussia

[Mbites]

The second Berger term: building MATO

January 5713


Shipyards somewhere in Narikaton

After dominating in the 5708 elections, President Heinrich Berger and his VVP have pledged their political capital to set the stage for capitalizing on MATO benefits. The VVP-LRP coalition currently supplying confidence to Berger have a comfortable majority in the Senate and were able to pass many legislative projects without major trouble, while some projects were able to be initiated and finished, other promises made on the campaign trail have not been fulfilled by Berger and parts of the electorate are getting dissatisfied with how the VVP has been developing in the early 58th century.

As usual, the geopolitical and domestic situation in Narikaton & Darnussia has been developing along its traditional power-dynamics but it appears that the status-quo is being challenged. To understand the past few years in all its complexities we’re going to take a closer look at the second Bigman Berger term in the presidential office.

The Existential Promise of the Dual Republic

Political analysts and theorists from the various universities of the sister-republics argued that the stability of the Dual Republic rests on two pillars, the first and most important is the state guaranteeing ample supply of economic opportunities for its citizens, realizing the concept of participatory liberalism appears to be the main goal of the VVP and its conservative allies who’ve shaped the reality of Narikaton & Darnussia for centuries. Berger has managed to fulfil the inherent desire of Dual Republicans to do business. During his second term, Red Stad has been hit by a wave of modernization, while the industrial center of Narikaton and Darnussia has always been efficient especially in specialized markets such as building parts for military shipbuilding, the MATO investment hype has led to expansion and further urban sprawl, much to the dismay of resurging environmentalists within all major political parties. Industrial Titans such as Passschiffe AG and Feuer & Teichmann have formed purchase conglomerates to reshape their factories to the principle of “Industry 4.0.” The main take-away according to their press contents is to optimize production with the increased usage of artificial intelligence, gladly provided by Narikvidia; robotics and real-time data analytics.

Interestingly, in an ironic way, on the other side of the Dual Republic, on the island of Nihaton, traditional textile manufacturers have – for the first time in centuries – reported growth and flirt with the idea of expanding as funnily enough, the international popularity of MATO has led to immense desire to buy merchandise of the organization, according to private Statistics brokers, every third Dual Republican has a MATO flag at home. Parts of the less libertarian groupings within the VVP have started to criticize some of the effects as the traditionally diverse economy of Narikaton and Darnussia is shifting toward a worrying predominance of arms manufacturing as the military industrial sector is supplying large chunks of the alliance with both domestically developed hardware as well as licensed weaponry ordered to be made in Red Stad.

Generally it seems that the political consequences of the current direction of the economy is going to shake up historically entrenched power-structures as sectors which are not benefitting from these developments – for example farmers – are continuously voicing discontent. According to insiders within right-wing circles, there appears to be forming coalition of disgruntled politicians from the VVP and former thallerist factions (which now dissolved) which could shake up the coming elections, elections which have not yet revealed its leading characters as neither the VVP nor the GRP have confirmed their presidential candidates yet and it is rumored that Berger is not going to persue a third term.

MATO expansion

As previously mentioned there are two pillars to the existence of the Dual Republic; the second is the insurance of security. The current political structure of Narikaton & Darnussia has been birthed in an hegemonial interregnum and as such strives toward a certain sense of absolute security; Bannerhafen wants to have guarantees, assurances and if possible as many friends & allies as they can. After the dissolution of the Triad these things came into question, the vacuum has now been filled with MATO and its first wave of expansion with Badara, Dorvik and Luthori has re-assured Bannerhafen about the direction it has taken in this regard. President Berger has sent a formal letter to the respective heads of government to congratulate them on their entrance and to invite them to coordinate and develop MATO doctrines by executing joint troop-exercises and talk about potential investments.

An Artanian Project

Additionally with MATO reinvigorating Bannerhafens interest in its own continent, Artania, President Berger has publicly shared the idea of hosting a conference with Artanian nations to talk about the potential for a new continental project focussing on easing trade hindrances to eventually lead to a fully harmonized and internal market a prospect that would be very attractive to most if not all Artanian nations which adhere to market economies as there is a huge potential for both imports and exports which would increase the efficiency of resource distribution within the Artanian economies. As Heinrich Bergers political capital seems exhausted because this pan-artanian promise had already been proposed during his second electoral campaign and the elections are too close to kickstart such a politically sensitive project, it does not seem like an Artanian Internal Market will be created with the current president but with his successor, making the wait for the announcement of the candidates even more exciting.

Ending with a deal

Berger in an almost pathologic way for the Dual Republic is ending his second term by brokering a deal between the government of New Verham and Feuer & Teichmann to upgrade the recently stabilized nation’s aging main battle tanks to mid-line upgrade versions of them. The exact details of this deal are not available to the public as its more of a private business deal just mediated by the central government in Bannerhafen but apparently Narikaton & Darnussia and specifically Red Stad are going to upgrade the originally Nsanlosa-made tanks for New Verham using its knowledge in R&D recently expanded by working on big MATO government contracts. This deal has strengthened confidence in Berger and the political status quo as such agreements generally do within the Dual Republic but will this be the Bigmans last hurrah?