HistoryEarly historyGoias is relatively isolated due to its mountainous northern borders and its distance from western Asayl (the main population centre in prehistoric times), not helped by the presence of the Aumát Desert between Goias and the west (now in modern Tanán). Thus, it received no permanent settlement in ancient times until around 1000 BC and even then only very sparsely. The two main areas of settlement were the Yeshin Highlands in the north and the southern coast. These two populations were small in number and have since been washed away by Goias' turbulent history (mostly by interbreeding), leaving no cultural, linguistic or genetic traces in the area or any relations to modern inhabitants.
The area started being properly settled in the early medieval era, mostly by nomadic tribes and refugees fleeing from other countries. These often came from radically different backgrounds and tended to limit contact with different settlers. Thus, by 1500 the area of present-day Goias was filled with small city-states formed by a patchwork of different minorities. This period saw the consolidation of the country's main ethnic groups: the English, Portuguese, Greeks, Armenians, Germans (which all arrived almost simultaneously in the area), Zerians, Limburgians, Tomesians, Zinerans, Sinerauls, Nheji, Yaskans and Erlàns.
Slowly but surely the small city-states merged together and consolidated into nation-states, and by 1550 the area contained five regional powers: Arasar, Garés, Senik, Estro, and Ladeira. Relations between them were peaceful because all countries recognized that they were all formed from the fusion of various ethnicities and none could claim a predominant role in the space they were all occupying, instead preferring to expand eastward and westward.
The Azraq-Jelstan occupationThese small countries attracted the attention of the two emerging powers of western Asayl, the Azraq Empire (to the west of Goias) and the Kingdom of Jelstan (to the east). As part of a secret agreement, the two countries simultaneously invaded Goias in 1568, diving the countries among themselves - Azraq received Arasar and Garés, Jelstan took over Senik and Estro while Ladeira was forced to accept the suzerainity of Azraq in order to maintain its territory and a degree of autonomy while avoiding annexation.
Both Azraq and Jelstan largely left their occupied areas alone, only demanding that the population pay their taxes but otherwise not interfering, believing that the ethnic patchwork would be impossible to subdue and thus not worth the trouble. Azraq even allowed local governments to form and rule the provinces. Both countries expanded further over the years and implemented a policy of deporting unruly minorities to Goias in order to pacify unstable outer regions, along with whoever was opposed to the absolute monarchy. Due to this policy, the area of Goias steadily became ungovernable and prone to severe unrest, while in the same time relations between the two empires deteriorated, turning into outright rivalry only 50 years after their cooperation in conquering Goias.
Border tensions and disputes eventually erupted into war in 1680, but the Azraq-Jelstan War quickly turned into a stalemate marked by minimal advances on the front and repeated attempts to quell insurrections by minorities in both countries.
In this atmosphere, Ladeiran armed forces (which had become a force to contend with in the century since the invasion) quickly joined a revolt in Arasar in 1692 under the leadership of the brilliant General Hayçao, which spread throughout the region. The exhausted and bankrupt Azraq forces could not defeat the insurrection, and the territory was liberated by 1697. The independence of the newly-christened Kingdom of Goias was recognized by Jelstan and Azraq with the Yeshin Treaty of the same year. Shortly afterwards, the respective countries splintered themselves, replaced by a patchwork of small- and medium-sized countries, of which three bordered Goias: Antánas, Zeri and Morzame. Morzame and Zeri were taken over by the emerging Nezrak Empire in 1747 and 1761, respectively.
The Kingdom of GoiasThe early periodOnce independence was recognized, the country was organized as the Kingdom of Goias in 1697. King Hasur the Founder was chosen as the first king of Goias by a popular congregation, and for the next two centuries the country was ruled by the Hasur royal family.
Hasur's reign saw a preoccupation with establishing solid foundations for the functioning of the country, which had almost no national identity to speak of besides the fact that all ethnicities lived in the same area and had shared bitter experiences under Azraq and Jelstan's occupation. Arasar was designated as the capital, the country's first unified currency was implemented (the gáreis), taxes were decreed and the first schools appeared in the country. The country was an absolute monarchy, but its sheer size made centralized rule impractical and ineffective, as it was hard for the king in Arasar to assert his authority in the distant regions, especially in the Yeshin Highlands. Hasur lost popularity thanks to increasing taxes throughout his reign and in his final ears he was increasingly seen as aloof and uninterested in governance, more preoccupied with libertine, hedonistic behaviour at the Royal Palace and building up a royal family through polygamy.
Hasur died in 1728 due to an accidental drowning and was succeeded by his 20-year old son Daitsen. Daitsen set out to rebuild the royal family's image from Hasur's escapades and fulfill Goias' potential as a great power. After imposing a strict code of conduct (including a ban on polygamy and the obligation that each family member must enter a marriage and produce a child) along with a dress code on the family, the new king set out to establish a proper administrative apparatus and assert his authority over the country. He divided Goias into various regions and appointed governors on the basis of merit, reorganized the country's army and implemented numerous programs to increase the quality of life. These included abolishing serfdom, extensive construction and maintenance of the country's infrastructure, reducing taxes, allowing free trade and transit through Goias for foreigners and using his large fortune to invest in architectural work and culture. His long reign (1728-1789) is considered Goias' first golden age due to internal stability, prosperity and a flourishing Goian culture. For his success, he has received the epithet "Daitsen the Great", in keeping with Goian tradition of bestowing epithets or nicknames upon their monarchs.
All was not rosy however. Towards the end of Daitsen's reign the nobility of Goias had gained an increasingly important political position, while the country had to weather the combined disasters of the 1787 famine (with circa 1 million victims) and an outbreak of cholera in south-eastern Goias in 1789, which claimed half a million people including King Daitsen. He was succeeded by King Satyakar the Bloody (1789-1800), who proved to be completely unfit for the office thanks to his combination of ruthlessness and naivety. Satyakar fell under the influence of the Goian nobility and took many measures considered to favour them (including special privileges and reduced taxes), while brutally suppressing any opposition to his reign and attempting to centralize the administration. Soon he became massively unpopular, and his obsession with stamping out dissent led to paranoia and neglect of governance.
"Guided democracy"With Goias' economy suffering from Satyakar's incompetent and erratic rule and popular unrest at a breaking point, an insurrection broke out in Yeshin in 1798. The insurrectionists, formed chiefly of mutinying soldiers and the local population organized into militias, managed to resist the initial attacks by the Goian army due to the mountainous terrain, and eventually more and more Goian troops deserted and joined the insurrectionists in opposition to Satyakar. The newly-assembled army started advancing southwards and reached Arasar on 17 February 1800. Joined by the residents of the city, the crowd marched up to the Royal Palace and demanded Satyakar's resignation. Satyakar appeared on the balcony of the palace and delivered a defiant speech that only served to enrage the crowd further. In what would be subsequently named "The Great Defenestration", Satyakar's wife Rosana suddenly appeared on the balcony, grabbed Satyakar, lifted him over her head and threw him into the crowd, which cheered wildly and immediately beat him to death.
Rosana was crowned Queen of Goias immediately, in the capital's central square. Her lasting achievement was to transition to a constitutional monarchy by introducing the Goias Charter, forming a Parliament and establishing the office of Prime Minister. While the charter delegated the day-to-day running of the country to the Prime Minister, Rosana reserved for herself enormous reserve powers which she could use at her pleasure. In fact, she secretly ruled the country by proxy, introducing or supporting legislation through the Prime Minister in Parliament and not hesitating to blackmail, threaten or use her powers to prevent conservatives from damaging her reforms. She struck a great blow to the nobility through her economic reforms and managed to install a puppet government with Prime Minister Aytrámanes Gar (1825-1845) by endorsing him in the election, something she had previously not done.
Despite this behaviour, Goias remained a democratic state which respected the basic rights of the citizens and had a more efficient government. Rosana was unanimously supported by Goians due to her role in democratization, her open, friendly persona and rapport with the populace - she was a commoner who had married Satyakar, and in contrast to the previous kings she regularly visited all the regions in the country in order to listen to her subjects. Her support was so widespread that Goians even tolerated her uses of her reserve powers to block the nobles who wanted to revert to absolutism, believing them to be necessary for the ultimate success of democracy in the country. She instituted various reforms that brought Goias back to fiscal health, contributed to a more equitable distribution of income and steadily diminished the political power of the nobility.
In this period the two main factions of Goian politics formed two main "political organizations" (the precursor to modern parties) which ran in elections: the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Liberals drew their main support from the urban population, the working class and the farmers, and supported a program of democracy and reforms meant to improve the conditions of ordinary people and strengthen the middle class (which represented the "toss-up" electorate, which could go towards either faction). The Conservatives were noblemen and members of the upper class, who believed in maintaining their own privileges and wealth and restricting popular participation in politics. However, the Liberals had a trump card over the Conservatives: the support of Queen Rosana, whose views on reform coincided with theirs.
In her final year, Rosana disinherited her son Prince Fajar and named as successor her youngest daughter, 30-year old Princess Sarah. The reigns of Queens Rosana (1800-1850) and Sarah (1850-1890) are considered Goias' second golden age, and the two have been given the epithet "the Great". Sarah was just as popular as Rosana, but still had to contend with the nobility and the conservatives, which even in their weakened state had formed a coalition and still represented a threat, having managed to secure the election of Prime Minister Dengar Vida (1845-1853). His program called for the restriction of the electorate to landowners, creating a House of the Lords, adopting a proportional representation system that would give extra weight to rural areas (where conservatives were the strongest) and a reform of the tax system. This agenda was repeatedly blocked in Parliament, but the conservatives received further gains in the 1850 election, forcing Sarah to block the legislation by refusing to sign it.
Sarah became more politically active after Vida's sudden death in office resulted in snap elections. She campaigned all over the country for the liberals, who received a plurality of votes in the highly polarised political climate, and helped install liberal leader Ayàr Nemaz (1853-1868) as Prime Minister by refusing to swear in a conservative government. Sarah took no further chances after Vida's term, amending the Goias Charter to increase her powers (changing them from reserve powers to regular powers) and hand-picking her Prime Ministers afterwards, ensuring a 30-year domination of liberals in government under Nemaz, Evangelios Mikis Roussos (1868-1878) and Hayberd Svisàr (1878-1883). This system that combined the absolute monarchy with a constitutional framework, extensive civil liberties and elected governments came to be known as "guided democracy", surviving thanks to the radicalisation of conservatives, economic prosperity and Sarah's popularity, commonly perceived as protecting Goias from a return to Satyakar's excesses. Having squeezed the conservatives out of government and basically gained absolute powers, Sarah gradually withdrew from actively ruling the country starting with Roussos' term, delegating this task to her cooperative Prime Ministers.
However, guided democracy required that Sarah maintain a tight grip on the country's politics using her absolute powers to prevent the system's inherent contradictions from surfacing. While her popularity remained absolute, Sarah's increasing withdrawal in favour of spending time at home, visiting the country and nurturing an obsession with increasingly elaborate clothes and crossdressing demonstrated signs of failing mental health and had the effect of isolating her from the power structures. A corruption scandal erupted in 1881 and knocked Svisàr out of the race, with conservatives winning the election. Sarah attempted to reject the government and force the formation of a new one, but the narrow result stymied her efforts. After three separate votes, the only concession she extracted was the more moderate Geyder Dörpatch (1883-1888) as Prime Minister. This wound up not making a difference in the end: while Dörpatch was outwardly moderate, he and the rest of the conservatives were furious at being shut out of power and wanted to retaliate by doing the same to liberals. They bided their time and waited for the increasingly frail and distant Sarah to stop being a threat, while Dörpatch simply preserved the liberal policies that had been applied to Goias. His attempts to increase the majority of conservatives by expanding Parliament and using proportional representation constantly failed in Parliament or weren't signed by the Queen.
Dörpatch was still not trusted by the population, and as his term went on protests started taking place against his rule, spontaneously but regularly. Time was on his side though: Sarah became increasingly senile and unhealthy, withdrawing to the Royal Palace permanently in 1886 after suffering an almost-fatal case of pneumonia. Dörpatch expected that the withdrawal of the queen would make it easier to implement his policies, but liberals only rallied and became more radical after this event. With his policies repeatedly blocked and his slow reaction to the famine of 1887-1888, Dörpatch became highly unpopular and left the race, with Radisaz Keymer being elected Prime Minister instead. Keymer's term coincided with an increase in political instability and another natural disaster (the Yeshin Flood of 1890), and he was forced to resign in 1890. The liberal Kezir Docksa took over instead, but could not halt the increasing destabilization of Goias.
The Civil WarQueen Sarah's increasingly unstable health while at the Palace and isolation did not dent her popularity, and her death of a heart attack in 1890 resulted in a period of national mourning. Her son Syrk was crowned as her successor, having only just turned 18.
However, Syrk proved to be the last straw for the country due to his radical conservative views and closeness to the Arasar nobility. He repeatedly stymied Docksa's attempts to legislate and restore order to Goias' politics. The 1893 election was highly fraudulent: despite the conservatives' unpopularity among Goians they rigged themselves a majority and installed Jé Novan as Prime Minister. Novan and Syrk were just as authoritarian, and they instituted changes including the reduction of Parliament to an advisory status, transferring more powers to the monarchy and restricting suffrage to landowners and noblemen.
The massive uproar that resulted from these changes led to an insurrection in 1895 led by Syrk's older sister, Princess Julia. The insurrection, formed of ordinary people who took up arms and half of Goias' standing army, managed to secure the west of the country and Yeshin before being bogged down by quickly organized conservative forces towards the east.
Syrk and Novan were deposed, and all their changes were declared null and void. Julia was crowned Queen, and named Naci Kuradzo as Prime Minister. However, the war quickly turned into a bloody stalemate between the Julians and the Syrkists, who managed to fight themselves to a standstill along the Tsikona River in central Goias, with repeated tactical maneuvers and attempts to break out ending up ineffective. However, Julians managed to advance southwards from Yeshin in 1897, allowing the Tsikona units to advance towards the east towards the regional stronghold. Panicked, the Syrkists massed their entire army to defeat the Julians. Both armies met at the Battle of Ervor in 1898 and suffered massive casualties, to the point that the battle is now considered a draw.
The Nezrak occupationThe expansionist Nezrak Empire had been a source of anxiety for Goias ever since it swallowed Goias' eastern neighbours Morzame and Zeri in 1747 and 1761, but King Daitsen managed to negotiate an alliance in 1762 that, for the time being, kept Goias safe. However, Nezrak had increasingly expanded in the subsequent century and by the time of the civil war had begun having designs on conquering Goias. In the aftermath of the Battle of Ervor, the Syrkists' leading general Marius Sençeta, a long-time spy for the Nezrakis, offered his services as a ruler and urged the empire to invade as soon as possible. Nezraki forces invaded Goias only a week afterwards, quickly overrunning the country. King Syrk was initially pleased, believing that they had come to restore him to the throne, but was shocked to find that Sençeta had usurped power and he was arrested.
Goias was quickly declared a province of the Nezrak Empire and Marius Sençeta was installed as Governor. His first acts were meant to squelch opposition to his rule: dissolving Parliament (replacing it with an advisory body), banning the previous political organizations and arresting the entire Royal Family, who were publicly executed in the capital on 7 September 1898. These acts set the tone for the rest of his term, in which he introduced to Goias all the characteristics of a typical authoritarian state (lack of freedoms, secret police, censorship, no elections) and practically tripped over himself trying to appease the new Nezrak overlords, obsessed with the idea of eventually having a career in mainstream Nezrak politics instead of being just the ruler of a border province.
Nezrak did not have much interest in Goias besides its strategic position and natural resources. Thus, they carried on with the same attitude as Azraq and Jelstan, largely leaving Goias under Sençeta and again deporting unruly minorities and those convicted of political crimes to the province as an alternative to costly imprisonment. While they did send supervisors to make sure that Sençeta would not try to defy the Nezrakis and to make sure that tax collection proceeded correctly, the central Nezraki authorities seemed to regard Goias as merely "another outer province", albeit one which occupied 15 million square kilometres and had about 2 billion people. As more and more "advisors" poured into the province Sençeta begun increasingly relying on them exclusively, and by the time of his death they had formed the country's main political class, popularly and perjoratively referred to as the "jaezìn", which is Erlàn for "foreigners".
Sençeta's economic policies soon became focused on catering to the jaezìn. While he hiked taxes for the population, he gave them tax cuts and bestowed on them nobiliary titles and properties confiscated from the old nobility of Goias, who were soon reduced to the status of ordinary citizens despite being allowed to retain their titles. Increasingly large revenues were swallowed up by the repressive state apparatus and a bloated bureaucracy staffed by Nezrakis.
Sençeta died in 1925, having never fulfilled his ambitions of advancing into Nezraki politics and leaving a legacy as a national traitor who sold out Goias and ruled it dictatorially. His successor was Saykiz Karén, a Nezraki banished to the post of Governor for an outer province after supporting the losing side of an internal power struggle. In contrast to the Goians' intense hatred for Sençeta, Karén is comparatively well-regarded. He was a laid-back, apathetic politician who lacked the dictatorial zeal and power-hungry inscrupulous nature of Sençeta and even took a few steps towards liberalizing Goias. He slashed the funding of the secret police to 10% of its former budget, changed the mandatory punishment for "anti-Nezrak agitation" to merely a fine and dissolved the Media Regulation Department of the Nezrak Military Police. While his uninterested demeanour allowed Goians more freedoms than they had under Sençeta he also left the jaezìn alone, who accumulated even more power and wealth to become the upper class of Goias. Their extravagance and conspicuous consumption outraged ordinary citizens who found themselves shut out of power and unable to advance socially beyond the middle class.
The tide changed in 1928 when
Tsikan Sanyan formed the National Independence Party of Goias (NIPG), advocating securing independence by any means necessary. The Nezrak Military Police attempted to harass them and repeatedly shut them down but they were stymied by Karén's restrictions on prosecuting political crimes and disinterest. In this environment, the NIPG soon became the largest political organization in the country. When it became obvious that, while Karén honestly didn't care, the Nezrak Empire refused to make any concessions, Sanyan and General Udisya Lejas established and organized the Goias Partisan Force (GPF) in preparation of a future liberation. While initially small, the GPF soon became a force to be reckoned with as a result of its intense training and militant zeal.
The Democratic RepublicLiberationWhat is now known as the Great Awakening started on New Year's Day 1945 with "the blunder that killed the Empire". In the capital of Xerion Province, a certain L. Roi Denkinz had just attempted an armed robbery of the Xerion National Bank when his plan went horribly wrong and turned into a hostage situation. While the hostages eventually escaped unharmed, Denkinz barricaded himself in the bank building and engaged in sporadic shootouts with the entire police force, which had showed up to end the situation. Taking advantage of the chaos, the local resistance group managed to seize the mayoral building and subdue the police by attacking them from the back. At precisely midnight, the Xerionites broadcasted their declaration of independence over the local media and began a disorganized insurrection. However, what the Xerionites lacked in preparedness (Denkinz's blunder caught them by surprise) they more than made up with the element of surprise, additional numbers from hastily-formed citizens' militias and quick organization. By the morning the insurrection had managed to gain the upper hand. Panicked, Nezrak sent in the army, which Xerionites resisted using guerilla warfare tactics.
Seeing that Xerion managed to resist, Sanyan and the NIPG seized the opportunity and declared Goias' independence on 5 January 1945 at 7:00 AM. Lejas' GPF moved quickly and smoothly, seizing the major cities and disarming the administrative apparatus, capturing most Nezrak forces and their weaponry. Everything went according to plan, and by the end of the day all internal threats had been neutralized and the GPF massed on Goias' eastern border to repel any Nezraki attacks. While Nezrak sent ten divisions to attempt to subdue Goias, they were easily repelled by the GPF at the fortified border and their attention was diverted by further declarations of independence (Zerians on 7 January, Tanáns on 10 January, Luzerites on 15 February, North Limburgians on 3 March).
The world almost immediately recognized all these countries' independence after having ostracized the Nezrakis for imperialism and dictatorial governance. Thanks to the disarray of the Nezrak military and internal turmoil, Goias was spared any further attacks, and the GPF even had sufficient manpower to aid the Zerians and the dangerously overstretched and disorganised North Limburgians. However, Sanyan's "interim administration" led the country during a tense and precarious period where fear of Nezraki counterattack was high and preparation for such was considered paramount. Conscription was introduced, nationwide martial law was declared and the government in the meantime focused on cleaning up and purging the country's administration and bureaucracy of Nezrakis. Tens of thousands were brought to trial and convicted for active participation in the dictatorship (those who could prove that they had done nothing wrong and had merely joined to advance their careers were acquitted), many of them sentenced to long terms in prison or death. Notably, Karén managed to escape such a fate; when repeated testimonies and documents proved that he was apathetic and did not actively govern the country, the court decided to acquit him because he had done nothing wrong and had even helped the NIPG through his utter incompetence.
As the war went on, it became obvious that Nezrak could not win. Emboldened, the GPF left the fortified border and started an offensive into the Empire along with the Zerian armed forces in 1947. Finally, under the combined assault of all the minorities, the Nezraki capital fell in 1949 and the Empire was officially disbanded.
Early post-war periodGoias was in a very advantageous position after Nezrak's collapse. It had performed its cleanup during the war and now had managed to change its bureaucracy without much disruption. But most importantly, the economic and social gap which handicapped the country's "guided democracy" had disappeared after Goias' former upper class had been replaced by the jaezìn, and the more-or-less equal status of the citizens defused the polarization the country had undergone in the 19th century.
After Nezrak's collapse, Sanyan dissolved the temporary Parliament and his NIPG handily won the 1949 elections against a barely-nascent opposition, with him being elected President. With the war over, he quickly refocused and redoubled his efforts to lay solid foundations for his newly independent country. A constitution was adopted, organizing the country as a federal presidential democracy, implementing strict division of powers and introducing the official name "The Democratic Republic of Goias" (both perceived as slams against the old "guided democracy"), a constitution still in use with some modifications.
Sanyan's main areas of concern were the economy and the society, wishing to prevent another upper classes-lower classes schism and remedy the deteriorating conditions. Securing his funding through the implementation a progressive tax system, Sanyan launched a massive reform program to transform Goias into a welfare state befitting its size and population. Universal healthcare and social security was introduced to guarantee a "social safety net", the education system was modernized and made free for all, government regulation and oversight to protect consumers was introduced. Sanyan's main goal was to create a mixed economy, and other than strong environmental and consumer protection laws he left businesses alone. His term saw great investment in what he termed the "three fundamental areas": education, health care and social services, which were government-subsidised. He also nationalized many important areas of the economy, such as transportation, financial services, communication services, energy services and water distribution.
During his term, the GPF was transformed into the Goias National Army (GNA), and the National Police was founded in 1945. The NP's creation was accompanied by the National Law Enforcement Code (NLEC), a highly-detailed document that listed precisely the police's activities, obligations and restrictions, the latter including several strict provisions against behaviour that would infringe on civil rights. The NLEC, just like the Constitution, is still used in Goias with only minor modifications. The President also proved to be quite forward-thinking for his time, implementing universal suffrage and socially liberal measures. Since his term, with a few interludes, Goias has largely followed the socially liberal policy patterns set by the NIPG.
Sanyan was massively popular in Goias and won easy re-election in 1954, but the NIPG was highly fractious and prone to infighting due to its "big tent" construction, and indeed Sanyan was practically the only thing that held the party together. His second term saw the rise of the Socialist Party (SP) and the Conservative Party (CP), a disintegration of the NIPG that even he couldn't stop and a conservative backlash against his social liberalism.
The ReorganizationTsikan Sanyan announced that he would not run for another term in 1959 and would withdraw from politics at the end of his term. The subsequent decade between Sanyan's retirement and his offspring entering government is called "The Reorganization" due to the realignment of politics in this period.
Lacking the glue that held them together, the NIPG lost the election to the CP, with moderate gains by the SP. While the CP wasn't as publically disorganized as the NIPG, it had its share of tension between the moderate wing and the rightist wing of the party. The newly-elected president Jeru Saroyan belonged to the latter faction, and hopes were high that a reconciliation between the two would take place and the CP would become a legitimate political force.
These hopes were dashed on 10 March 1959. Only a month after his inauguration, Saroyan abandoned the moderate language of his electoral campaign and showed his true colours as a hardened conservative. An package of social laws was introduced which represented a 180 turn from NIPG moderation. These laws included: the Membership Amendment to the NLEC, banning women from joining the NP, a reform of education popularly known as "militarization" (readopting corporal punishment, mandatory uniforms), the establishment of the Censorship Bureau (which would have wide-ranging powers to censor the media in the interests of "public morality"), a mandatory public dress code and criminalizing extramarital sexual relations. The package was blocked in Parliament by an ad-hoc alliance of moderate conservative MPs, socialists and the NIPG, but Saroyan used the support of the rightist faction and was able to have it passed by one vote.
The package provoked immediate revulsion and anger for the Goian populace - the country's main broadsheet memorably summed up the country's fury with the headline "FUCK YOU, SAROYAN!", the only time they abandoned objectivity. Many moderate CP MPs quit the party and instead served as independents. Daily protests started taking place against the measures, including the now-infamous Dzerjin Street Protest in Arasar, when the NP forces attacked and brutalised a crowd of non-violent protesters against the Membership Amendment on 20 December 1959, which served as an impetus for the formation of the Crowd Control Police Force (CCPF), the riot police. The reforms of education were widely ignored and rejected by both students and teachers, the Censorship Board was ineffective at best and attempts to enforce the dress code only served to swallow up large NP funds. The conservative elements of Goias had managed to reverse Sanyan's social policy, at the expense of destroying their legitimacy as a political movement, having their changes ignored by the populace and strengthening the SP.
But the final bomb came in 1961, when it was revealed that Saroyan used to work in the Nezraki administration. Saroyan was summarily thrown out of the CP by a unanimous vote, serving for the rest of his term as an independent as Goias did not have an impeachment procedure until 1964. Saroyan was left unable to pass any further legislation due to his isolation. In 1962, disgusted moderates left the CP
en masse to form the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), while simultaneously the NIPG collapsed and all its members joined the SP and the National Liberal Party (NLP) was formed two years later. The CP was now left with only the radical conservatives, and could not block the SP-championed 1962 constitutional convention, which transformed Goias into a parliamentary republic, switched many powers from the President to the Prime Minister and scheduled elections for Prime Minister for 1964.
Thanks to their spirited opposition to Saroyan and spearheading the constitutional convention, the SP's William Narayan won the presidential election, while Darán Zheran of the PDP became Prime Minister on a platform of collaboration with the SP and reversing Saroyan's "fuck ups", as he called them. Narayan was the last President of note, from then on the attention, importance and main duty of governing the country shifting to the office of the Prime Minister. Narayan and Zherán immediately passed a law rendering Saroyan's changes null and void, but which did not apply to the NLEC due to a constitutional technicality. Three attempts to quash the Membership Amendment were narrowly denied the necessary amount of votes by the CP despite Zherán's attempts. Instead Zherán narrowly passed two watered-down amendments in 1966 and 1969 that allowed women to serve in the NP but with a few separate restrictions, and only in 1981 discriminatory language was erased from the NLEC.
Zherán refused to run for reelection in 1969, an election that saw a reversal of the 1964 results: Pavel Sukodza of the PDP was elected President and Renata Sanyan of the SP was elected Prime Minister, an event that affirmed the strength of the Sanyan political family. Renata's term saw the adoption of even more socially liberal measures (legalizing and regulating drugs and prostitution, legalizing drugs, legalizing abortion) and the introduction of the flexicurity model still in use, combining labour market flexibility (easy hiring and firing) with security for the unemployed (high unemployment benefit). She also oversaw the fusion of the SP and Social Democrat Party in 1972, forming the Moderate Socialist Party (MSP) and the introduction of environmentalism into the party's platform as a reaction to the formation of the Green Party (GP) in 1970.
Post-Reorganization Goias1974 saw the MSP and PDP lose ground to the NLP, which spurred Renata Sanyan to form a coalition MSP-NLP government, the first coalition government so far. The coalition convened another constitutional convention and agreed to reduce the term of the Prime Minister and President to four years starting with the next election.
However, Renata died of a heart attack in 1976. Instead of immediately swearing in a successor, the Parliament decided to have the election take place immediately, and lengthen Sukodza's term by a year to synchronize the two in 1980. At a loss for a good leader, the MSP experienced the worst result of its history, winning only 200 seats out of 500. A new PDP-NLP coalition installed Jana Meivich as Prime Minister.
Unfortunately, Meivich had the bad luck of being in office during a period of economic stagnation. Believing that the socialistic reforms pursued by the SP/MSP had reached their limit, Meivich introduced a program of liberalization, reducing the tax rate, privatizing many public companies and attempting to streamline the bureaucracy. When these did not appear to have any immediate results, she launched an even more radical initiative and gave the National Bank independence from the government, floating the currency.
While these changes did result in the economy picking up again, Meivich suffered in the polls due to the slow recovery. The PDP-NLP coalition was trounced in the 1980 polls by the MSP, which dominated the government for the next twenty years under Daezín Sanyan (1980-1988) and his sister Maria (1988-2000). The terms of both siblings were marked by similar policies: liberalization of the economy, allowing private companies to complete with publicly owned institutions in certain areas of the economy, keeping the progressive tax system intact and cutting spending to maintain the country's budget surplus. Maria most notably began investing in alternative energy resources and started a program to gradually replace the country's power plants with environmentally-friendly ones. Both siblings presided over a period of rapid economic growth (with the exception of a slight slowdown between 1981-1982 and 1988-1989) and continued the trend that had taken place since independence of neglecting foreign affairs in favour of a focus on internal problems and socioeconomic development. However, both Daezín and Maria took this disinterest in foreign affairs to a new level by reducing the GNA's funding.
Maria retired from the post of PM in 2000, when the first PDP government in 20 years was formed by Yanaz Daralà, who won a narrow majority in Parliament by promising to maintain the MSP policies with "slight adjustments" and a reform of the welfare state. Daralà had no time to act on this plan however, as only a year after his term begun the Noah Lenker scandal erupted.
The scandal involved three businessmen: Noah Lenker, John Paul Russwall and Miles Ameise-Weyler, who had been involved in a long-running scheme of embezzlement and money laundering since 1990, using foreign bank accounts. Exposed once NP officer Jane Fletcher discovered irregularities within their tax accounts, Lenker, Russwall and Ameise-Weyler were convicted of money laundering, tax evasion and bribery. The scandal grew to implicate NP members such as Officer Nancy Gray (who had stashed nearly R$ 10 million in her accounts and did not declare it as revenue), Officer Mary Davis (an officer in the city of Yetra who engaged repeatedly in police brutality but covered it up and extorted R$ 20 million frmo local businesses) and Officer Tyera Lyèsaina (the authoritarian mayor of Yetra who had steadily accumulated power, intimidated journalists and engaged heavily in corrupt practices), along with two other businessmen, Jim Miller and Naven Dzari. Miller also revealed that Daralà was involved, having repeatedly taken bribes and "funding" from Lyèsaina while serving as MP for Yetra and had entered into an agreement under which he would help her accumulate more power and become practically a dictator.
Daralà was immediately impeached and thrown out of office by a unanimous vote. His deputy Geza Radik was named PM instead, at the head of a national coalition PDP-MSP government. He promised to bring all those guilty to justice and rule during a period of "national healing".
Despite polls which indicated Radik was considered more trustworthy by the populace, the PDP suffered a setback in the 2004 elections in favour of the MSP, not helped by the fact that his Minister of Finance Atus Khan had been convicted last year of implication in the Noah Lenker scandal. Radik entered into a "coalition of convenience" with the NLP in order to form a government. He again promised to devote his fullest attention to prosecuting everybody involved.
Throughout 2004 and 2005 the Lenker scandal grew even further, and five of Radik's minsters had to resign in disgrace successively for taking funds from Lenker and bribery: Ryauden Neryák (Minister of Interior Affairs), Lamna Lai (Minister of Transport), Zenya Arynos (Minister of Education, also convicted of tax evasion), Soka Ayudh (Minister of Foreign Affairs) and Nady Gery (Minister of Health, given a harsher sentence because he was found to have stolen money from hospitals). By the start of 2006, the Mayor of Arasar Ken Turan and the region's MP Bavyz Tèlemach were also implicated. Tèlemach however spilled the biggest beans in early 2006 when he revealed that Radik had also been involved in securing legal protection for the company and concealing its assets.
The NLP immediately pulled out of the coalition, while Radik was thrown out of the PDP. Since the PDP lacked a coalition and was badly damaged, the MSP instead formed a government under PM Esím Sanjedan.
Under Sanjedan's leadership and having nothing to do with the scandal, the MSP trounced the PDP in the 2008 election, winning 265 seats out of 500. Sanjedan immediately declared that his main priorities would be to confront the widespread black market (estimated around 65% of Goias' economy), reduce taxes and increase spending on the army. He also promised to break from the past tradition and increase Goias' involvement and attention to foreign relations.
While the Lenker scandal damaged the PDP temporarily, all sides recovered quickly due to the swift prosecution of those involved. The NP did not undergo any changes in public perception (still as popular as ever), but increasing attention was payed to setting up proper checks and balances in small and medium-sized towns to prevent what happened wiith Lyèsaina from happening again.
Sanjedan's tenure has so far been marked by success in the domain of foreign relations and defense, having increased defense spending, introduced mandatory conscription and raised Goias' profile in foreign relations, but difficulty in reducing taxes and failure in confronting the black market, which has since risen to 70%.