Kalistani Major History

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President of the Republic Harold Phipps-Bennots to retire in 4907
Socialist Party looking to Endorse Coalition of Workers Candidate
Kaliburg, Ananto
August 4, 4905


President of the Republic Phipps has served the Republic since 4893

The President of the Republic, Harold Phipps-Bennots has announced that he will not seek re-election in the 4907 general Elections. "I am ready to retire," said President Phipps, who is 83 this fall. "As a caretaker President, I have worked closely with the Premier and his cabinet, and feel it is now time for me to stand aside and hand the reigns off to a younger Comrade."

The Socialist Party of Kalistan, who has ruled the Republic as a single Party state for more than a generation, thanked the President for his dedication to his office and to the Republic. But it also signaled its willingness to open the Government up to the newly organized Coalition of Workers, who have expressed their desire to run for President.

"We are looking into restoring the Powersharing Agreement which governed Kalistan for Centuries," said Socialist Spokesperson Anita Grefsheim. "This arrangement, called 'The Separation of Powers Doctrine' said that the President and the Premier should not be from the same Party, that the Head of Government should go to the Largest non-Presidential Party in the Governing Coalition, and that the Cabinet should proportionately approximate the Composition of the National Assembly. Combined with a restored Presidential Prerogative, that would mean that the President would most likely be from the Coalition of Workers, and the Cabinet would be led by the Socialists."

While it is clear that there are points of agreement between the Socialists and the Coalition of Workers, as demonstrated by a recent spate of bills proposed by the zero seat CoW, and passed with Socialist Support, it is likely that the Socialists will agree to share power with the Coalition of Workers, and will help them become a viable second Party to the degree that this is possible in the Republic. "One Party Rule essentially relegates the National Assembly to a fiat institution," said President Phipps. "Weekly, I meet with the Premier, we discuss our joint agenda and then he passes it in a series of measures which rarely draw much notice. Policy runs smothly in a one-Party state, but our ideas also become stale. Democracy is the curative to this, within institutional limits, of course."

Unlike many ephemeral Parties which have graced the Republic throughout our nation's history, the Coalition of Workers appears to have adopted a favorable attitude toward Kalistani institutions and have not set out to immediately destroy them. "The respect for the Institutions of Socialist Kalistan has spoken very highly for the Coalition of Workers, in our opinion," said Grefsheim. "Anything can be done while honoring the historic and the ancient institutions of our Republic, while dismantling them wholecloth from the word go is what alienates the Socialists from those who take that approach. As long as those institutions remain in place, or if they need to be revised, the primary institutional Party in Kalistan has buy in, there is nothing else that will necessarily exclude our cooperation."

Grefsheim was clear that the Separation of Powers was an ancient tradition, as was the Presidential Prerogative. "But these have not been utilized in hundreds of years," said Grefsheim, "due to ignorance, or impossibility. The Socialists believe it is possible to restore these traditions as well, and hope the Coalition of Workers will work to provide a candidate who is willing to cooperate and share power. We believe Comrade Small can be this person at this moment, and we are prepared to endorse him in the coming elections."

Grefsheim also said that the SP reserves the right to pull back the endorsement, and will do if the Candidate, who is new to the Kalistani Political Arena, veers too far away from a commitment to Kalistan's Institutions or Kalistan's Workers. "Protecting the positive slant of power toward the workers in this country is important to the Socialists, and we believe it is also important to the Coalition of Workers. We can certainly support them in their efforts to improve the lives of the workers of the Republic, but of course, the moment they turn their backs on the workers is the moment that we part ways. We hope Comrade Small has this in mind as he campaigns with the Party's support, for the Presidency."

Time will tell about the restoration of the Separation of Powers Doctrine, but currently the President himself looks forward to retirement, and the Socialist Party looks forward to a newly dawning period of multi-party Democracy in the Republic.