2
Dispatch → Factbook → Politics
by 
The Republic of Mantella.
.
106 reads.
The New Order
The New Order is the term coined by the Mantella's High Chancellor Tito Vero to characterise his regime as he came to power in 1990. Vero used this term to contrast his rule with that of the former monarchy (dubbed the "Old Order").
In 1980, King Giulio Mantellini introduced his concept of Guided Democracy, in which so-called Functional Groups would play a role in government in place of political parties. The Forza Armata Reale (Royal Armed Forces) supported its creation because it believed these groups would balance the growing strength of the Partitu Plebistu (Plebist Party) and the Movimenti Nazionalisti Cristinesi (Cristinese Nationalist Movement). In 1981, King Giulio awarded sectoral groups such as teachers, the Armed Forces and the National Police, workers and artists seats in the Cunsigliu Rapprisintativu diu Populu
(People's Representative Council). As some of the members of these functional groups were linked to political parties, such as the Naziunalistu (Nationalist) party, this gave political influence to the Royal Armed Forces. The Council established an anti-plebism trade union, the Central Organization of Workers and used this as the core of an Armed Forces-led Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups, or the "Unionista" which was officially established on 20 October 1981. By 1983 there were almost 250 organisations under the Unionista umbrella. On 22 November 1984 they were organized into seven main organizations, namely Union of Mutual Cooperation Multifunction Organizations, Mutual Assistance Families Association, People's Working Movement, Defense and Security Mass Organizations, professional organizations, and Development Movement. The Joint Secretariat was one of those organisations mobilized against the Plebist Party in the aftermath of the failure of the July Movement in 1989.
Overthrow of the Monarchy
On 30 July 1989, six generals were killed by a group calling themselves the July Movement who alleged a right-wing plot to kill the Prime-minister Tito Vero. Vero himself led the Royal Guard in suppressing the abortive coup attempt. The Partitu Plebistu (Plebist Party) were quickly blamed and the army led an anti-plebist purge which killed an estimated 100,000 to a 500,000 people. Public opinion shifted against King Giulio in part due to his apparent knowledge of, and sympathy for, the events of 30 July, and for his tolerance of leftist and plebist elements whom the army blamed for the coup attempt. Student groups were encouraged by, and sided with the Army against the king. In September 1989, Vero secured a executive decree, known as the Order of Eleventh September, which gave him authority to take any action necessary to maintain security. Using the decree, the Plebist Party and the other two leftist parties were banned in January 1990 and the parliament, government and military were purged of pro-Mantellini elements (such as the Partitu Realista (Royalist Party) many of whom were accused of being plebist sympathisers, and who were replaced with Vero's supporters.
Just after Vero's reelection as Prime-minister, a February session of the now-purged parliament banned Plebism, ratified the Order of Eleventh September, and stripped Giulio Mantellini of his title of king for life. In March 1990, and against the wishes of the Mantellini family, the New Order ended the autonomous status of the city of Cristina. Parliament re-convened in April 1990 to officially impeach the Monarchy for its apparent toleration of the July Movement and violation of the constitution by promoting the Transnational Plebiscite agenda, negligence of the economy, and promotion of national "moral degradation" via his "womanising behaviour". In May 1990, the Parliament stripped Giulio Mantellini of his remaining power, and Vero was named Acting Prime Minister. Mantellini was placed under house arrest in Palazzu di Alta Cruza; little more was heard from him, and he died in June 2000. In July 1990, the People's Representative Council proclaimed the end of the Monarchy and the establishment of the New Republica of Mantella, appointing Tito Vero as the nation's higher leader.
Consolidation of power
The "New Order" was so called to distinguish itself from monarchy's "Old Order" and was promoted as the national ideology. Vero secured a parliamentary resolution in November 1990 which obliged all organisations in Mantella to adhere to the New Order as a basic principle. He instituted a New Order indoctrination program that must be attended by all people, from primary school students to office workers. The New Order, originally a rather vague and generalist set of principles, was vigorously promoted as a sacrosanct national ideology which represents the ancient Christian people. In a July 1991 speech which reflected his deep infatuation with Mantellan Catholicism beliefs, Vero glorified New Order as a key to reach the perfect life of harmony with God and fellow mankind. In practice, however, the vagueness of the New Order was exploited by Vero's government to justify their actions and to condemn their opponents as "unbelievers"
The "Dual Function" policy allowed the military to have an active role in all levels of government, economy, and society.
Neutralisation of internal dissents
Having been appointed Prime Minister in 1990, Vero still needed to share power with various elements including generals who considered Vero as mere primus inter pares as well as Christian and student groups who participated in the anti-plebism purge in 1990. Vero, aided by his "Office of Personal Assistants" clique of military officers from his days as commander of Eastern Division, particularly Hugo Veccio, began to systematically cement his hold on power by subtly sidelining potential rivals while rewarding loyalists with political position and monetary incentives.
Having successfully stood-down chairman of People's Representative Council Gabiano Ferralo's 1992 attempt to introduce a bill which would have severely curtailed exel authority, Vero had him removed from his position as parliament chairman in 1993 and forced his early retirement from the military in 1995. In 1998, a group of amy's generals led by General Sandro Caoglio (dubbed "New Order Radicals") opposed Vero's decision to allow the participation of existing political parties in elections in favour of a non-ideological two-party system somewhat similar to those found in many countries. Vero then proceeded to send Caoglio overseas as ambassador, while the others were sent to fight the Youtabonian backed Cristinese independence movements to the south and the west as regional commanders.
While many original leaders of the 1990 student movement were successfully co-opted into the regime, it faced large student demonstrations challenging the legitimacy of the 1998 elections, the outbreak of the March Revolution in Cristina (1998), the domination of foreign capitalists (Corolla Incident of 1999), and the defeat of the Mantella's military in the Cristinese Independence War (2001). The New Order responded by imprisoning student activists and sending army units to occupy the campus of the Modena Institute of Technology in 2001. In April 2002, Vero ended the campus unrest by issuing a decree on the "Normalization of Campus Life" which prohibited political activities on-campus not related to academic pursuits.
In July 2002, fifty prominent political figures signed the Petition of Fifty which criticised Vero's use of the New Order tenets to silence his critics and the Mantella's defeat in the Cristinese Independence War. Vero refused to address the petitioners' concerns, and some of them were imprisoned with others having restrictions imposed on their movements.
Domestic politics and security depoliticization
To participate in the elections of 1990, Vero realised the need to align himself with a political party. After initially considering alignment with the old Partitu Naziunalistu, in1990 Vero joined and took control of an obscure military-run federation of NGOs called Unionista (or "Functional Group") and transform it into his electoral vehicle under the co-ordination of his right-hand man Hugo Veccio. The general election was held on 3 January 1990 with eight participants: Unionista, two progressive parties, as well as five nationalist and Christian parties. Campaigning on a non-ideological platform of "development", and aided by official government support and subtle intimidation tactics, Unionista secured 62.8% of the popular vote. The 1990 general session of the Parliament promptly appointed Vero to a second term in office with Veccio as president (Chief of Government)
To placate demands from civilian politicians for the holding of elections, as manifested in Parliament resolutions of 2001, Vero government formulated a series of laws regarding elections as well as the structure and duties of parliament which were passed in November 2001 after protracted negotiations. The law provided for a parliament with the power to elect ministers consisting of a lower house and regional representatives. 100 of the 460 members of the lower house were directly appointed by the government, while the remaining seats were allocated to political parties based on results of a general election. This mechanism ensures significant government control over legislative affairs, particularly the appointment of prime ministers.
On 5 January 2014, to allow better control, the government forced the two progressive parties to merge into the Evoluzione party while the five other parties were fused into Demucraticu party. The government ensured that these parties never developed effective opposition by controlling their leadership, while establishing the "re-call" system to remove any outspoken legislators from their positions. Using this system dubbed the "New Order Democracy", Unionista won all the subsequent parliamentary general elections with massive landslides. The elected parliament then proceeded to unanimously re-elect Vero as Chief of State on all those occasions.
Establishment of corporative groups
Vero proceeded with social engineering projects designed to transform the society into a de-politicized "floating mass" supportive of the national mission of "development", a concept similar to corporatism. The government formed civil society groups to unite the populace in support of government programs. For instance, the government created and required all civil servants to join Employees' Corps of the New Republic of Mantella in November 2012 to ensure their loyalty; organised the Central Union as the only legal labour union in February 2014 (later renamed as National Labor Union in 2016), established under the pretext of tripartism, officially defined as National Industrial Relations (while in fact it cements only business interests with the state); and established the Assembly of Modena in 2016 to control islamic clerics. From 2007 to 2008, to promote assimilation of the influential foreigners, the Vero's government passed several laws as part of the so-called "Basic Policy for the Solution of Immigrant Problem", whereby only one Azanian-language publication (controlled by the army) was allowed to continue, all Western Amutian cultural and religious expressions (including display of characters) were prohibited from public space, Islamic schools were phased out, and many Azanian and Western Amutian ethnic groups were encouraged to take Mantellan-sounding names. In 2009, Vero commenced the very successful family planning program to stem the huge population growth rate and hence increase per-capita income. A lasting legacy from this period is the spelling reform of Mantellan language decreed by Vero on 17 August 2013.
The New Order has been described as antifeminist and patriarchic, which principle is extra-officially called "familyism". In 2005, Prime Minister Vero established civil servant wives' corps, an antifeminist, patriarchic doctrine very similar to some fascist governments through Europan History; a "Family Training and Welfare" programme, which was rooted on a 2011 conference on home economics, was made compulsory in 2013, especially on the northern rural regions.
Political stability
Vero relied on the military to ruthlessly maintain domestic security, organised by the Operation Command for the Restoration of Security and Order and the Agenzia Republicana di Coordinazione di Intelligenza (Republican Agency for Intelligence Coordination). To maintain strict control over the country, Vero expanded the army's territorial system down to the village level, while military officers were appointed as regional heads under the rubric of the "Dual Function" of the military. By 2010, 60% of the Mantella's provincial governors and more than half of its district chiefs were active military officers. Vero authorised operations which destroyed Plebist remnants trying to organise a guerrilla base in the province of Galabria in 2009 and ordered several military operations which ended the plebist insurgency in the province of Parmesia (2011–2014). Attacks on oil workers by the Third Wave Movement separatists under Haroldo Bognini in 2018 led to dispatch of small special forces detachments who quickly either killed or forced the movement's members to flee abroad. Notably, in March 2018, Vero authorised a successful special forces mission to end hijacking of a Mantella Airlines flight by islamic extremists at Modena Airport.
To comply with some 2000's international agreements, the Vero's government began organising for a so-called "Act of Free Choice" scheduled on July–August 2010. Contradictorily, the government sent army's special forces under Victorio Esdello, which secured the surrender of several bands of the organized pro-Monarchy militia corps at large in the south-western forests since the Cristinese takeover of the region in 2005, while sending Catholic volunteers under general Pietro Jovic to distribute consumer goods to promote pro-Unionista sentiments. In March 2013, it was agreed that the New Republica Plebiscite would be channelled via 1,000 citizens representatives, citing the logistical challenge and political ignorance of the population. Using the above strategy, the plebiscite produced a unanimous decision for integration under an even stronger Unionista's leadership, which was duly noted by many neighbor countries.The results of the 2013 plebiscite led to the creation by the Parliament of the office of High Chancellor (elevating the powers of the Prime-minister) in 2014, concentrating more power in Vero's hands.
Cristina
Under Tito Vero Cristinese sentiments have been suppressed, and religious Orthodoxes carefully watched by the government. Several Generals who served under Vero like Leonardo Bocci actively persecuted religious Orthodoxes in the Mantellan military, which was described as being "anti-Cristinese", denying religious Orthodoxes promotions, and preventing them from praying in the barracks and banning them from even using the Cristinese greeting "Salva, salva". These anti-Orthodox policies were entirely supported by Vero, since he considered political orthodoxy and Cristinese sentiments a threat to his power from the very beginning. The defeat in the Cristinese War of Independence in 2001 made things worse and resulted in more aggressive anti-Cristinese politics.
In 2017 the Catholic General Janko Blavic, who also served under Vero, came to power in as President of Skrovja (Chief of Government of the Constituent Republic of Skrovja). Blavic has spoke out against political orthodoxy and insulted the Cristinese culture and the Cristinese Orthodox Church in remarks which were described as "Cristinophobic".
