Pacitalian archonal election, 2016 | IC/OOC

[Pacitalia]

This thread will be the staging point for this year's Pacitalian archonal election (in which Pacitalians choose their new head of state for the next six years).

Background

• Pacitalia's archonate is the head of state of the republic. The position has existed since 2007 at the founding of the Second Republic. This year's election chooses the fourth person to hold the position, which has been previously occupied by one man and two women.
• He or she has the power to ask a party leader to form a government at the archonate's pleasure and become prime minister, to dissolve parliament if no viable coalition options exist in the current chamber, to assent to or to veto laws, to refer suspended potential laws to the public and hold a referendum on their passage or rejection, to appoint magistrates to the nation's judiciaries, and to represent the nation abroad, among other duties and powers.
• As the archonate is superior to the prime minister and his/her government, in the event that there is no government (for example, between elections, or after a government coalition dissolves and is eventually replaced by a new coalition), the archonate and his/her four administrators serve as a de facto caretaker government.
• The archonate also has reasonable influence over the domestic and international agendas of the government and can direct policy and lawmaking to that effect.

How the election works
The archonate is selected through a process usually lasting around four to six months in total, akin to a condensed and slightly modified version of a presidential election in the real-life United States.

• Political parties first convene to select their candidate in a closed "primary" process at least 3-4 months before the first round of voting. Parties are obligated to open the primary process to "supporters" (essentially casual members who may just be joining the party to have a say in the party's candidate), though supporters, like members, are limited to one political party per election cycle.
• During this process, if a political party does not foresee its choice candidate to have a good chance of succeeding in the election — such as smaller parties or parties that share common political ground with another party — that party's membership can vote at their primary convention to endorse another party's candidate. Supporters are not allowed to vote on this type of motion to prevent them from unduly influencing a party to decline to nominate someone.
• The first round of voting is held on the second Monday in November. Once all votes are counted, the top two candidates advance to a runoff and the remaining candidates are eliminated. The eliminated candidates can recommend one of the remaining candidates to their voters but there is no obligation for those voters to show up to vote in the second round or to vote for that candidate at all.
• If a candidate earns more votes than 50 percent plus one of the total during the first round, they are considered elected and there is no need to hold a second round of voting.
• The second round is intended to be held two weeks later but can be delayed by the Chief Magistrate of Pacitalia's National Superior Court by up to six weeks if needed. If the second round of voting is too close to a holiday, the candidates, provided they reach consensus, can request a deferment of the vote by Elections Pacitalia to the immediately following Saturday without involving the court.

Important dates
First round: November 14, 2016*
Runoff/second round: November 28, 2016

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OOC discussion is welcome but should be limited to important questions, otherwise please PM me.

* Yes, I am aware this date is now in the past -- we join the "story" in progress. Pacitalia has always been RP'd in real time.

[Pacitalia]

Monday 14th November 2016
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Gennaro Primadonna

Christian Democrat candidate Carmine Bello is projected to have won the first round of the Pacitalian archonal election / Photo credit: APR


Bello wins archonal election first round in a shocker
Polling in third place as late as three days ago, he now faces PSC's Russo in runoff and promises "a Pacitalian revolution"


TIMIOCATO — PBC News is projecting that Carmine Bello, the Christian Democrats' candidate for Archonate, has narrowly won the first round of voting in the 2016 archonal election.

The 63-year-old shipping magnate earned a surprise victory despite polls suggesting he would finish in third place, as millions of conservative voters abandoned their traditional home in the Federation of Progressive Democrats and eliminated the FPD's candidate, Timiocato mayor Domenico de Fiore.

With 100 percent of polling stations reporting results, Mr Bello had earned approximately 84.1 million votes across the country — roughly 30.8 percent.

Mr de Fiore, while he finished with a comfortable lead in Timiocato, appears, at first glance, to have been unable to overcome voter perceptions about his ties to the political establishment and the governing FPD. He has served as mayor of Pacitalia's capital since 2011 but was previously an MRP and a Senator. He is seen as a close ally of Prime Minister Archetenia Nera, who has been in power for most of the last ten years and recently had a 26-percent approval rating.

Mr de Fiore earned about 61.4 million votes, or 22.5 percent, according to results published by Elections Pacitalia.

While Mr de Fiore also dealt with criticisms from people inside his own party about a "tepid" and "uninspiring" campaign, Mr Bello's campaign seemed to soar, backed by populist and nationalist rhetoric that also appeared to whip up xenophobic sentiment among some of his supporters. Mr Bello repeatedly promised to create millions of jobs in primary industries, despite a steady decline in the primary sector's contribution to the national economy over the last half-century.

Pacitalia is currently dealing with its first recession in over 30 years, made worse by a slumping douro and real unemployment spiking to over 10 percent.

Mr Bello will now face the Pacitalian Social Congress' Franco Russo in a runoff on 28th November, with a stark choice facing voters. Mr Russo, a human rights lawyer and an economist, poses a very sharp contrast to his runoff opponent. Mr Russo is on track to finish less than 100,000 votes behind his Christian Democrat counterpart, out of over 272 million total votes.

The result was good news for the PSC and its candidate, as the party, newly resurrected out of the political wilderness, made it to the runoff vote for the first time in the party's history.

The PSC, one of the two establishment political parties for most of the 20th century, were nearly wiped off the map in the 2009 parliamentary elections, losing labour union support to the Democratic Nationalist Party and soft left support to the Pacitalian Green Party, who won the election that year. The party appears to have reversed that trend in the last couple of years — and tonight's result appears to be an indication that the party has returned to prominence in national politics.

The DNP's Sorinel Vulpes finished fourth with just under 20 million votes, while former Green Party leader Neros Constantakis, who carried his party's banner this year, finished just short of 18 million. Caterina Mosquera of the Empordian League won a comfortable plurality in Alt- and Baix-Empordà — 5.6 million votes — but did not stand for election in the other 14 apertures.

Voting in Pacitalia is compulsory for all citizens at least 20 years of age. Turnout was estimated at around 94 percent.

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Copyright © 2016 Pacitalian Broadcasting Corporation • http://www.pbc.pc/news/national/208382129/

[Sarzonia]

Fresh off a surprising, bruising victory over President Nicole Lewis in Sarzonia's own presidential election in November, former Lieutenant President, Senior Vice President, and acting President Grant Haffner was up late watching another round of election results.

As movers continued to pack up his and once-and-future first lady Gloria Haffner's belongings in The Manor to move them to storage, Haffner stayed glued to his television set.

"Grant! It's almost midnight! You need to be up at 6 a.m. for the External Affairs briefing!" Gloria called out from the parlour between her private office and their bedroom.

"Not yet, honey! The election results are still coming in from half the provinces," Grant said, sighing. He knew he needed the sleep, but he was disturbed by some of the rhetoric coming from Carmine Bello. The two had tepid dealings at best when Haffner was Senior Vice President and External Affairs Officer, and some of the Christian Democrat's more, well, bellicose statements got under his skin.

And now, Haffner thought, he's one step closer to assuming the head of the Pacitalian ship of state.

Gloria shook her head. She knew insisting Grant come to bed wouldn't work. She also knew Bello. She shook her head at the memory, but she also knew she left a rather ... indelible mark from their limited interaction. She also felt she may need to behave in a rather unladylike fashion if things went south in the archonate elections in Pacitalia.

For Grant's part, he recalled the relationship between him and Domenico de Fiore wasn't always rosy, but he respected the Timiocato mayor's grasp of policy. He also respected the professionalism de Fiore brought to the table. Even when they didn't agree, there was an undercurrent of respect that was noticeably absent when dealing with Bello.

During a commercial break, Grant looked at a wall that had the pictures of late President Mike Sarzo, his successor Jay Tyler, himself, and Lewis. It was a gallery of people who legitimately served as President, acting or otherwise. He knew he had an appointment for another portrait between the External Affairs briefing and the meeting with Brian Patrick. Even though Patrick was the former first gentleman, he was also the Lieutenant President-elect. The two of them would start poring over potential vice presidential picks, especially External Affairs.

But for now, Haffner's eyes rested on Sarzo's portrait.

Mike would be upset right now, Haffner thought. He knew his former boss. Shitting a brick would be how Sarzo would have described it. Sarzo probably would have already condemned the results, saying that a number of Pacitalian voters were making an idiotic choice for the hands at the helm of the Pacitalian ship of state.

His years as the voice of Sarzonian foreign policy and his interim tenure as the face of the Sarzonian government tempered Haffner, but his disappointment in the direction nearly a third of Pacitalian voters chose to take was no less pronounced. He recalled the roller coaster of relations between Pacitalia and Sarzonia that saw the two countries seemingly go from close friends to mortal enemies and back in the space of weeks.

Gloria shared many of those concerns. She also recalled her hand angrily smacking Bello's as he tried to touch her inappropriately. But she also knew this wouldn't be the final word. Bello still had to defeat Franco Russo in the runoff election. And she also knew Grant needed his sleep.

But for now, she worried that her husband wouldn't be ready for the briefing in time. She turned and walked back to their bedroom to slip into her nightgown. As her head hit the pillow, she got a sense that neither of them would be sleeping well that night, or for many other nights in the future.

[Pacitalia]

Friday 18th November 2016
Filed to: Pacitalian politics







Goodbye to all that
Pacitalia stands on the precipice of abandoning everything that
makes it great, in the pursuit of fixing what isn't really broken

---

Six weeks ago, Carmine Bello stood at the podium during a rally on the small outlying island of Lampedusa. It's a place that is only a couple of hours' flying time northwest of Timiocato, but it might as well be an entirely other world.

The 212 km² island is Pacitalia's smallest department — the political equivalent of a county — by land area and by population. Most of Lampedusa's roughly 260,000 people live in the declining port city of the same name. The island's people, by a significant margin, skew older, poorer and more ethnically Pacitalian than the national average. Doubly ominous for Lampedusa is that it remains one of the few parts of the country whose population is shrinking at the same time it is aging.

The economy is still largely dependent on shipping and fishing, though the former is in sharp decline as larger vessels avoid the aging port and its outmoded infrastructure. But the latter has also recently come under threat by virtue of overfishing diminishing stocks of the prawns, crab, tuna, mackerel and blue marlin that have powered the Lampedusan fishing industry for centuries. In place of these once-stalwart sectors of the economy, a robust black market and a subsistence economy have sprung up to try to fill the growing void.

Lampedusa ranks at or near the bottom of most economic indicators by virtue of its legacy as a centuries-old seaport outpost on the furthest fringes of the Pacitalian frontier. It has the lowest literacy rate, albeit low by Pacitalian standards, at just south of 98 percent. It has the fewest number of people who understand a second language such as English, the fewest number of residents with at least some post-secondary education, the second lowest annual disposable income per household, the third lowest ratio of passenger vehicles to people, and the second largest unskilled labour force.

The island's real unemployment rate has been over 20 percent for more than two decades, while academics estimate underemployed people make up nearly an additional third of the labour force. Functional unemployment, a separate and more common statistic that the Pacitalian government uses to measure active job-seekers, is lower at around eight to nine percent — but that was still nearly three times the national average prior to this year's recession.

Consequently, Lampedusa's crime rate is the highest in the country. Compared to the rosy, cosmopolitan life in the big cities, and even the rest of the mainland, life has been bleak here for quite a long time. It's exactly the kind of place crying out for a strongman to promise the moon to cure what ails them, a place that is ripe for the taking if you happen to be a wealthy nationalist with political ambitions.

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The crowd in front of Mr Bello was, as was increasingly becoming common, beyond capacity, beyond "standing room only". He boasted to the crowd about the turnout and his counterparts' inability to even come close to matching it.

Hundreds of people, thousands in fact, clung zealously to his every word and deft turn of phrase. He gesticulated wildly, shouting into the microphone, his face purpling. At the end of each sentence, after each promise of jobs created, livelihoods restored, children's futures brightened, members of the audience would thunder back something half-intelligible. Many times, the sentiments were of a station well below that of which the rest of the world regards the typical Pacitalian. Mr Bello's rhetoric was creating a different kind of safe space — one where brazen xenophobia and "othering" was acceptable. And yet, if Mr Bello heard what was being said — was at all bothered by it — he gave no indication.

Like all of his other campaign stops, he spoke entirely in Pacitalian, despite his top-tier university education abroad and his pedigreed upbringing.

It is a great credit, however reluctantly given, to Mr Bello's political instincts that he sensed a shift among many of the people outside Pacitalia's major cities long before his rivals, and, in many ways, pivoted himself to embrace these segments of Pacitalian society months, if not years before he launched his archonal campaign. There were many indications of what kind of campaign he would run before he even announced his candidacy. Several years ago, there was the infamous advertisements taken up in major national daily newspapers. In those advertisements, Mr Bello, ever the bold, brash, self-interested tycoon, posed an ultimatum to the national government to eliminate immigration and protect jobs for Pacitalians in an industry that he felt did not deserve to experience any undue difficulty, especially when it had always been such a proud pillar of Pacitalia's economic legacy.

It didn't matter to his supporters at the rally on that cool October evening in Lampedusa that he, that his own corporation, are largely responsible for the decline of the port as a terminus for cargo. Year after year, Comanav has downsized its operations in Lampedusa, blaming the need to "rationalize costs". In fact, Mr Bello's company has gutted most of their operations in the Pacitalian islands, moving their cargo operations to the mainland Amalfian ports of Rigunanta and Puntafora. These kinds of facts, in many cases, are irrelevant.

Lampedusi are too tired of scraping by while their fellow countrymen become more affluent, more socially mobile and more educated. They are increasingly convinced that they have finally found a man able to channel their deep frustrations to a government they feel has failed them. And they are increasingly taken in by the ability to find an easy scapegoat for their problems that they can accept, if not ignore, that same man's stunning hypocrisy.

The problem for the entire Pacitalian Republic is that there are millions more just like them all over the country ready to use their ballot as a weapon of change.

To call a politician like Mr Bello unconventional is to do him and his supporters a great disservice. To simplify his platform as just an affectionate ode to social conservatism is to mask the darker, nastier, scarier aspects of what has legitimized him in this election cycle. His supporters have completely disregarded his obvious poor character, whether it be his scandalous comments alienating the second- and third-largest ethnic groups in the country, his off-colour remarks mocking gay journalists in his media pool, or his repeated objectifying of women, including his own wife, before and during his campaign.

He has leaned heavily on Roman Catholic imagery and traditions, tying the Church's history to the country's in a naked attempt to stoke a kind of pride that is founded on a warped sense of nostalgia. It is the kind of wistful reflection on "the good old days" that glorifies the purest of nation-states with abject disregard for the realities of a globalized world, not recognizing that the Pacitalia that existed before opening its borders and its markets to the world was a much poorer, much more unequal country. That Pacitalia has outgrown its intertwinement with the Church and cast off the shackles of a society utterly dominated by the institutions of Catholicism is a testament to Pacitalians' resilience to make their country a better place.

The Pacitalia that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century was one earnestly prepared to embrace a multicultural, pluralistic and open society. However slowly and incrementally it got there, it did so with determination and guile. It has been mutually beneficial for Pacitalia to be more international, to share itself with the world. That attitude is what turned Pacitalia into a superpower and a model liberal democracy.

But Mr Bello has, instead, chosen to give a platform to that simmering resentment of pagani — rural slang referring to hedonistic city dwellers — and the decadence and irreligiousness his supporters feel they represent. He has given a voice to those shadowy aspects of Pacitalian society using the dog-whistles of racism, homophobia, misogyny and xenophobia, wishing to restore "national greatness", yet, clearly, speaking of it as if it was only lost because the country's governments dared to welcome immigrants, pursue social progress, or enshrine equal rights.

The fact that his most rabid supporters — frequently seen standing beside or behind him at his campaign rallies — have chosen to don black tunics and navy blue armbands to openly and proudly identify themselves should give any rational observer pause. Mr Bello's halfhearted disavowal of these supporters' "fashion choices", as he called them, was a critical error that emboldened them further. No amount of explaining away the tunic's historical significance to the earliest parts of Pacitalian history will mask the obvious connotations stirred up by the imagery of a black-shirted army of supporters.

Pacitalians have seen this type of gutter politics and authoritarianism before. They even have two examples of it within the last half-century. Both times, they rejected that vision for their country at the very first opportunity, a way to rectify a grave mistake. Mr Bello has succeeded in masking a nauseatingly hyper-nationalist platform that is nearly identical to that of his close friend, the late, infamous former prime minister Giorgio Cassata — whose government was an undeniable failure and a danger to the country — by distracting people with an admittedly impressive personality cult. He has attracted people who believe his success in business will make him a competent leader. Mr Bello is obsessed with "winning"; luckily for him, he's made his supporters believe that Pacitalia has just been losing for far too long.

---

In Monday's first round, cooler heads prevailed on the island of Lampedusa, despite Mr Bello's repeated visits to the island and places just like it over the last four months. Pacitalia's islands have traditionally leaned left in their politics, often reliant on the equalization subsidies and public sector-driven economic programs of social democratic governments. A candidate firmly on the opposite side, however tempting his words and promises may be, still has a long way to go to reverse that entrenchment.

Indeed, the Pacitalian Social Congress' Franco Russo won handily in Lampedusa, capturing almost 50 percent support and beating Mr Bello by 65,000 votes.

But the Christian Democrat painted the rest of the island outside the city of Lampedusa dark blue, and posted enough wins in places across the country that are just like Lampedusa — feeling the effects of the recession and the slumping douro and wanting a change in government that shakes up the political mainstream. As a result, he came in first place, narrowly coming out ahead of Mr Russo by a razor-thin margin, nationally, of around 80,000 votes.

Pacitalians go back to the polls on 28th November to decide which of these two men they want to lead their country for the next six years. Mr Bello's supporters will not simply disappear if he is defeated, and that's where the battle to defend the Pacitalian ideal will begin in earnest.

Mr Bello is a much more charismatic and natural politician despite his claims of being an "outsider", and Mr Russo, with his bland, bookish, technocratic disposition, will have an incredibly tough time against this. It won't matter how well the social-democrat can win the war of ideas if too many people are swayed by the personalities on offer before them.

The country is not broken, despite what Mr Bello claims. Its economy has simply hit a speed bump, one it managed to avoid for over 30 years thanks to the sound financial policy of the successive governments Mr Bello vilifies. Downturns are not a welcome sight but there is plenty of evidence to show that economies of comparable size have endured them with greater frequency.

The issue at hand is whose vision of a "great Pacitalia" is the right one. With the direction the country chooses for itself hanging in the balance, simple math indicates that Pacitalia's future could rest in the hands of tiny Lampedusa.

____________________________________________________
Copyright © 2016 The Economist Newsmagazine | http://www.economist.pc

[Dominion of Drakia]

DBC News report from 15 November 2016



Bello scores upset in archonal election
Christian Democrat’s victory adds new twist to Drakian election

MONTMIRAIL (DBC) - Controversial industrialist Carmine Bello has won the first round of Pacitalia’s archonate elections, setting off a political earthquake in that country and adding a new issue to Drakia’s own ongoing election.

Provisional results show Mr Bello, the Christian Democrat candidate, holding a narrow lead of 100,000 votes over his nearest competitor Franco Russo, who is representing the Pacitalian Social Congress. Both Mr Bello’s victory and Mr Russo’s close second came as a surprise to pollsters and pundits, who had suggested that the Federation of Progressive Democrats’ Domenico de Fiore was the favorite to win. Mr de Fiore, current mayor of the capital Timiocato, enjoyed the full support of the governing FPD and Prime Minister Archetenia Nera and had been expected to qualify for the runoff.

However, de Fiore’s campaign failed to account for the appeal of Bello’s populist message in ecconomically depressed areas. Much of Bello’s plurality came from apertures hit hard by the recent recession, including Amalfia, Beracanton, Franconia and Pomentane. Wide support from these areas, as well as a stronger than expected showing in Timiocato, helped Bello surge ahead to his first placed finish.

Bello’s stronger than expected performance also boosted Russo, who had united an otherwise fractious left-wing round his candidacy. Russo, a human rights lawyer and economist with no prior elected experience, offered himself as a progressive standard bearer opposing the FPD and the Christian Democrats. His strategy worked at the expense of the Democratic Nationalists and Greens, who themselves had split the PSC’s vote between them in the 2009 parliamentary elections.

In Drakia, Mr Bello’s surprise win added a new twist to an already turbulent election. Before Monday, the election had been a referendum on the National Liberals’ thirteen years in power and its associated scandals. The opposition Greens and Alliance heavily criticized the Prime Minister for his government’s involvement in the 2013 Northwest Gateway scandal, the passage of the controversial Digital Age Intelligence Act of 2015, and the stimulus bill passed in June as a response to the regional recession. But, as DBC political analyst Zach Vargas explained, Pacitalian issues have a way of impacting Drakian domestic politics.

It’s as truth as old as the Dominion itself: if Pacitalia sneezes, Drakia catches cold. Pacitalia has been our principal trade partner for several decades now, and successive governments- both the Alliance and the Liberals, let’s be clear, have deepened integration with Pacitalia. Daily border crossings go up every year, volume of cross-border trade increases every year; every day, we become more and more tightly connected with Pacitalia. That’s why we saw a recession last year and flat growth this year. That’s also why when you have a shakeup like Monday’s election, you’re going to see it have an impact down here. You would have to be living under a rock to think that Bello isn’t going to affect our relationship with Timiocato- it absolutely will, even if we don’t know how just yet.

For their part, the major parties’ reaction differed. During a rally at Wellsworth University in Port Shelbourne, Green leader Elisabeth Marais denounced Bello as a “complete dinosaur” who didn’t deserve “even one vote, let alone 84 million of them”:

Carmine Bello represents everything we Greens reject. We reject his xenophobia. We reject his homophobia. We reject his misogyny. This is a man who you can bait- and I bet will be many more times before the election’s over- with a chirp. Why would you trust him with running a government? I am hopeful that Pacitalians will have the good sense to send him packing on the 28th.

Alliance leader Stephen Antonescu, speaking at a town hall in the Grenville suburb of Fairland, echoed Marais’s feelings, but turned his criticism on the governing Liberals.

Let’s not kid ourselves, folks. What we just saw in Pacitalia could happen here easily. And if it does, Prime Minister Graves deserves the blame. Why do I say that? Look at his record. His government has created more immigration restrictions in the past 10 years than every other government we’ve had in the 50 years before. He’s also poured billions of taxpayer pounds into projects that haven’t even been built yet- but you can bet some of his party cronies have gotten rich. And, like Bello, Graves wraps his politics in the past. Between Bello shouting about a ‘Pacitalian Revolution’ and our Prime Minister waving the Union Jack, we’d have enough hot air to power the whole continent for a year...

Prime Minister Graves kept his remarks brief as he visited a brewhouse in Spencerville, arguing that Bello’s election underscored the need for a ‘steady hand’ at 17 Cambronne.

I’m not in the business of telling Pacitalians how to vote, and my policy disagreements with Mr Bello are well known- I won’t repeat those here. But I will say this: whether Mr Bello or Mr Russo wins on the 28th, we need someone who will be able to work with them on day one. This isn’t time for someone to learn on the job. Timiocato knows me, and I know Timiocato. I’ve worked with several Archonates and several Prime Ministers, I’ve negotiated multiple cooperation agreements. Neither Ms. Marais nor Mr. Antonescu can say they’ve done that.

[Pacitalia]

Monday 21st November 2016
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Albertina Semperesta

PSC's Franco Russo (bottom centre) with the party's Women's Assembly in Nortopalazzo at a rally Saturday / PSC press release


Three separate polls show archonal race too close to call
Survey companies in the field after the first round don't agree on who has the lead


TIMIOCATO — Pacitalians will have their hearts and minds firmly set on their national holiday Monday. But while the republic celebrates its five-hundred-and-thirteenth birthday, a showdown in the archonal runoff is brewing.

Polls suggest the runoff election between the Pacitalian Social Congress' Franco Russo and the Christian Democrats' Carmine Bello could go down to the wire, mirroring the results of the first round.

Mr Bello finished in first place in last Monday's vote with just over 84 million ballots marked in his name. Final first-round results show Mr Russo was just 80,653 votes behind. That razor's-edge difference, which represents less than 0.03 percent of the eligible voting public, appears to portend a similar result in next week's runoff, according to three separate polls conducted last week.

Pacitalia's three main polling companies, ABM/Capax, Strategic Vision, and Centreprise, all surveyed Pacitalian voters over the course of last week. While all three concur the race is a dead heat, they do not agree on who's ahead, and one pollster has the two candidates tied with one week to go.

ABM/Capax surveyed 3,632 voters between Wednesday and Friday, and found Mr Bello ahead of Mr Russo, 49 percent to 47 percent, though the pollster said it believes less than two-thirds of first-round voters are likely to show up for the runoff. Voting in the second round, unlike the first, is not compulsory.

Meanwhile, Strategic Vision has Mr Russo ahead of Mr Bello 39 percent to 36 percent among all voters, with a quarter of voters still undecided, or unlikely to vote. The company surveyed 2,500 eligible voters between Tuesday and Thursday.

What could be the most unnerving — or encouraging — news for the two campaigns is Centreprise's survey.

Centreprise shows the race is tied among likely voters, with 44 percent support each for Mr Bello and Mr Russo. Likely voters made up 68 percent of the 3,176 electors Centreprise surveyed in the poll.

Dr Elizabeth Cunningham, the head of the University of Mandragora's political science department, says, with so many voters still yet to make up their minds, it could take days to determine a winner if the result is that close.

"What we are seeing is there is a significant portion of voters who can't make a positive or negative distinction between the two candidates, and another, much larger bloc of voters who aren't feeling motivated to show up at all," she said. "That is both good and bad news for the campaigns."

"It could be a sign of voter fatigue with a long campaign, it could be that the two remaining candidates are not inspiring and exciting people who supported someone else in the first round. Subsequent tracking polls should demonstrate a shift as the number of undecided voters decreases, and those who said they might not vote are potentially swayed to show up and vote strategically, as the two candidates have very distinct visions for how they would run the country."

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Copyright © 2016 Pacitalian Broadcasting Corporation • http://www.pbc.pc/news/national/208383177/

[Pacitalia]

Wednesday 23rd November 2016

Reporting for PBC News
Niles Parker

Haffner: Bello sexually harassed me
Sarzonia's new First Lady makes explosive claims in one-on-one interview with PBC's Niles Parker

Transcript of the interview follows:
Niles Parker's remarks are in bold, Gloria Haffner's in regular text

---

Mrs. Haffner, I want to thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today.
Thank you very much for having me here.

Tell me how you're feeling about going into the Gray House. I know you have had some experience being in there from previous administrations, but now that your husband is preparing to take office, what's going through your mind?
Well, having been there before makes things a little easier. Having served as first lady previously means I know what to expect from the role. It's still an adjustment having Grant elected as President with such a large margin of victory. I'm confident that he will be able to handle the role. He's very well prepared.

With that sort of confidence in mind, what do you aim to accomplish as First Lady?
I've got some meetings with our new deputy vice president for corrections Jack Harlan to discuss reforms to our prison system. He spent a lot of time in Delaclava studying their prison system and he believes we can learn a lot from them. In addition to that, I believe I can help strengthen our relationships with some of our closest friends internationally, Pacitalia included. I hope...

You seem uncertain about the future of Paci-Sarzonian relations.
Well, a lot depends on who is elected as archonate in the next few days. One candidate will make it much more difficult to maintain the status quo if he's elected.

And by that, I assume, you're referring to Signore Bello?
You know me well enough, Niles. Of course!

Let's dive a little deeper into that, then. How would a Bello archonacy change Woodstock's approach to the bilateral relationship?
Well, if Bello is elected, it would mean Pacitalian voters give sanction to a misogynist who actively committed sexual harassment against the wife of a foreign leader.

Can you elaborate? Obviously, it's well-known that he has a reputation for womanizing and he has said many things during the course of the campaign that some people have found offensive. You are alleging that he has taken it even further?
Yes. Grant and I toured his offices after Grant and Signore Ell restored bilateral ties between our countries. Bello reached for my vagina. I slapped his hand away and kneed him in the privates.

Those are serious accusations, Mrs. Haffner, so, to be clear, you are alleging that Signore Bello groped you in 2005?
Yes, he attempted to grope Mr. The SSS has a report on the incident stored in Woodstock. Plus he all but admitted to it to Somerset State Police before he requested a visitation visa in 2006.

Certainly, people will respect that you did not feel comfortable coming forward with this before now, and I'd think maybe you didn't see a reason to?
He wasn't running for archonate before now. Besides, Sarzonian law enforcement had everything they needed to protect me if he tried again. He may have been a public figure before, but he never was on the political radar before now. I believe that a country tells you a lot about itself and its priorities by whom it chooses to serve them on the world stage.

I'm wondering why this wasn't publicly known before now, given that, even before entering politics, Signore Bello was a public figure in the private sector. Did anyone attempt to keep this a secret given that the attack was documented in some form?
No one ever asked the SSS about the incident. We would have been forthcoming if we were asked.

Has Signore Bello ever tried to reach out to you to apologize?
Never.

What would you say to him if he did?
Do you want something printable?

Let's say something diplomatic. Even though many people watching this will agree you don't owe it to him.
Too little, too late... that's as diplomatic as I can get.

There have been several studies over the years showing that as many as 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 7 men for that matter, will be a victim of a sexual assault, and a very small percentage of those victims will report. What do you think your coming forward would do?
I hope it gives those who are worried some confidence to know that sexual assault can happen to anyone at any time. And to know it's *never* the victim's fault.

You mentioned earlier that you believe a nation's leaders are a reflection of the character of the people who elect them. What message do you have to Pacitalians ahead of Monday's election?
Just remember that Monday's vote will set the tone for what you want your country to represent over the next six years. A vote for Signore Bello is a vote for the lowest common denominator.

Why do you believe that your husband's administration will be able to better work with a potential Russo archonacy over a Bello one?
Because Grant and Signore Russo have laid the groundwork for a strong working relationship already. The two of them have a level of familiarity with each other. A Bello archonacy would be a disaster for our countries because he's been nothing but antagonistic throughout this campaign.

What sort of familiarity exists between Signore Russo and the President-Elect?
Signore Russo and my husband talked extensively about your government's expectations pertaining to our countries re-establishing ties. Grant went into the negotiations fully prepared to discuss and own up to Sarzonia's responsibilities relating to Paci-Sarzonian tensions. Carmine Bello doesn't know his <expletive> from his elbow. That's the critical difference.

Let's say Signore Bello does win on Monday. How would Sarzonia's government work with him?
He hasn't given our government anything to work with. I'd leave the details to Grant, but I think I would have to stay home rather than join my husband in Pacitalia.

But you believe it's possible to maintain a relationship?
That question's best directed to Grant. I know I would have a hard time being cordial to a man who tried to grab my vagina.

It's unprecedented to have a foreign dignitary comment on another country's election to the extent you have tonight. What are your thoughts on this election? Has it changed your view of Pacitalia?
Pacitalia is a beautiful country with wonderful people. That doesn't change regardless of Monday's outcome. But the result on Monday can say a lot about the effects of the recession on the country.

Many supporters of Signore Bello are putting their faith in him because of the state of the economy. There has been a lot of talk about what legitimized his campaign. But here we are, five days before the election, talking about a man who has a fifty-percent chance of becoming the next archonate. Regardless of what happens on Monday, whoever wins, the country has clearly witnessed a divide open up.
That's what is so unsettling about this election.

What would you say to people to address that divide?
I would tell them that just because someone has different ideas about what can solve problems or make Pacitalia great doesn't make him or her an enemy. Our countries have seen too much history to allow differing opinions to drive us apart.

Thank you for joining me today, Mrs. Haffner, a pleasure as always.
My pleasure being here.

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Copyright © 2016 Pacitalian Broadcasting Corporation • http://www.pbc.pc/news/national/208501665/

---

Joint post by Sarzonia and I

[Sarzonia]

It was another busy day as the frenetic pace of the transition from President Nicole Lewis's administration to the beginnings of an official Haffner administration. Grant Haffner spent several hours interviewing candidates for arguably his most important hire: Senior Vice President and External Affairs Officer.

He sat across the desk from Commodore Elyse Barnard, who had recently retired after a 27-year career in naval service, including 12 in the Incorporated Sarzonian Navy. During her tenure, she helped negotiate several cease fires, sometimes using so-called battleship diplomacy in Praetonian parlance. She touted her experience in being able to find common ground with even the most ardent adversaries as vital to the task at hand.

Hers was the final interview of the day. Haffner slated the next hour and a half for a brief respite, dinner with Gloria and Lewis and studying the CVs of other candidates. However, a tall gentleman's appearance interrupted Haffner's attempt at reverie.

"Grant!"

"Brian! What's going on?" Haffner's eyes narrowed, betraying his annoyance at being interrupted so close to dinnertime. He'd had visions of a first rate Pacitalian pasta dish with salad and rolls from Crusty Carl's. He also had visions of the apple cake the Gray House staff learned to make from late President Mike Sarzo himself. These visions would quickly take a back seat.

"Sorry to interrupt you, but you need to turn on PBC News right now," Brian Patrick, the incoming lieutenant president said. Haffner looked at Patrick's face and noticed that Patrick's demeanor was troubled. He reached over with his right hand and turned the television on to PBC News. Seconds later, his jaw dropped.

There was his wife, Gloria, sitting with Niles Parker and going into detail over Carmine Bello's attempt to sexually harass her nearly 10 years ago. Grant's eyebrows scrunched in an expression even the least emotionally intelligent person on the planet could figure out was straight up anger. A second later, Grant straightened up in his chair.

He was angry, all right. Angry with Carmine Bello? Of course. The man was a scuzzball, to say the least. He carried himself with a haughty demeanour, a superior air that belied what Grant Haffner gathered was rather limited education. He recalled seeing Gloria knee Bello in the groin area and remembered her telling him that Bello tried to grab her in the vagina. He recalled seeing her try to scratch Bello's face with her fingernails before Sarzonian Secret Service agents separated the two of them.

Angry with Gloria? Grant wasn't the type to play blame the victim. Especially not with his wife. They'd been married for 24 years and he felt as in love with her as he did the first day he saw Gloria Melanie Taylor across a crowded dance floor 26 years ago. Angry that she revealed the sexual harassment? In itself, no. It would have made the tabloids in at least two countries, but it probably would have been appropriate timing then.

Grant was angry about the timing of Gloria's revelation to Parker about the sexual harassment that happened nearly 10 years ago. Just days before Pacitalians went to the polls to choose their archonate. And not only that, but statements that obviously endorsed Signore Russo's bid for the archonacy. Grant had directed his incoming administration to be publicly neutral and not endorse either candidate. He'd carefully worded answers to Sarzonian and Pacitalian media outlets about the election.

The last thing Grant wanted was any intimation that his country could possibly meddle in Pacitalia's election process. It would mark yet another brush fire he would have to put out. Yet another brush fire started by a Haffner, he thought ruefully. Although this time, it wouldn't be one *he'd* started.

"Gloria!" he called out, making no effort to hide the anger in his voice. When Gloria heard it, she knew Grant saw the interview. She slowly drew in her breath and exhaled, then called back.

"Yes, Grant?"

"I need to talk to you. Now."

"I'm coming!" She walked briskly, her high heels making an unmistakable sound that someone who knew her well would know she wanted to get this over with. She appeared in the doorway.

"Why did you fucking talk to Niles Parker without talking to me first?" Grant asked, not even waiting for Gloria to cross the threshold and enter his office.

"Because I felt like the world needs to know what kind of sleazeball Pacitalians potentially could elect as their head of state," Gloria said. "And the more informed Pacitalians are about their choice on Monday, the better off they are."

"You do realize that this now means Sarzonia is directly involved in the Pacitalian election? We can no longer suggest any pretense of neutrality now that you've made these statements."

"If you espouse neutrality when someone's an oppressor, you've chosen the side of the oppressor."

"Who's to say Bello's an oppressor?"

"I am."

"Not good enough, dammit! Not good enough!"

"Pacitalian media. Look at this," Gloria said, handing him an Economist article showcasing some of Bello's worst campaign promises.

It was Grant's turn to sigh now. He then inhaled slowly and exhaled audibly. Doing his best to soften his blustery tone, he turned to Gloria and spoke again.

"Next time, before you make a statement like that to foreign media, please talk to me first."

"I'm not a child, Grant," Gloria said. "And I will not subvert myself to any man, not even you." She turned and began to walk out of Grant's office.

The subsequent dinner was easily the most tense meal the Haffners shared in the 26 years they'd known each other. At night, Grant went back to his office and pulled out the hideaway bed from the couch in his office. For just the second time since the two shared living quarters, they slept in separate rooms that night.

The next morning, Grant requested a simulcast with Woodstock Daily Mail reporter Travis West, who by now had moved on to covering politics, and Niles Parker of PBC News. He would affirm Gloria's quotes, but then he would do his best to mitigate the damage caused by his wife's revelations. He knew he would have to tread carefully, but he also knew he couldn't give sanction to Bello's actions from 10 years ago.

[Pacitalia]

Monday 28th November 2016
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Albertina Semperesta

Supporters of PSC candidate Franco Russo anxiously awaiting results at Russo's headquarters in Monterio, Monday night / Photo credit: APR


BREAKING NEWS
PBC News unable to project winner of archonal election
Bello leads Russo by a very small margin in preliminary vote count


TIMIOCATO — Pacitalia's archonal election appears to have lived up to predictions and is currently too close to call.

With all polling stations across Pacitalia having reported results, the Christian Democrats' Carmine Bello has a marginal lead of less than 20,000 votes. Preliminary numbers from Elections Pacitalia show the industrialist with 124,664,468 votes. His opponent, the Pacitalian Social Congress' Franco Russo, captured 124,645,533 votes.

Mr Bello jumped out to an early lead thanks to the earliest results, from Trasteveria, Provencia and Pomentane, though Mr Russo kept close pace, in large part thanks to solid results from Pacitalia's largest cities and a sweep of Empordia and Margheria.

Mr Bello appears to have won decisive victories in Trasteveria (56 percent), Dossavora (55 percent) and his home aperture of Amalfia (54 percent).

Mr Russo, meanwhile, earned over 60 percent of the vote in Margheria and roughly 57 percent in the Empordias. Crucially to Mr Russo's chances of victory, he appears to have pulled off an upset win in traditionally right-leaning Beracanto, with just under 53 percent of the vote.

A screen capture of Carmine Bello's since-deleted Chirp from Monday evening claiming victory

Three apertures — Franconia, Rossopunia and Sambuca — mirror the national race and are too close to call at this time.

Neither campaign has officially commented on the preliminary election results, but Mr Bello took to Chirp, posting — and then deleting — a comment in Pacitalian, where he declared victory.

"As I said," he chirped late Monday evening, "proud people will not be defeated! The Pacitalian revolution, it begins!"

The two candidates did not campaign on election day, as mutually agreed last week, and spent the day with their families and senior campaign team members after each having cast a ballot.

As it became clear that no victor would be declared before the early hours of Tuesday morning, Mr Russo's senior advisor, Gianmarco Saccardo, came on stage at the PSC's party headquarters in Monterio and told supporters to "go home and get some rest". Faces in the crowd reflected a solemn sense of defeat, utter disbelief, even anguish at the preliminary results. Mr Russo's camp was confident that Pacitalians would decisively reject Mr Bello's divisive rhetoric, despite polls showing a tight race.

At the Christian Democrats' headquarters in Athalone, the mood was positive, though many of the people assembled at the convention hall watched results come in with trepidation. Supporters appear to be cautiously optimistic that Mr Bello's lead will hold even if the election is destined for a recount.

If the margin holds as currently reported, Mr Russo's campaign would not need to request a recount as the difference is less than 0.25 percent of the total votes cast. The difference between the two candidates is currently less than one-one-hundredth of a percent.

A candidate has the right to a recount if the final vote margin is within 0.5 percent; a recount by Elections Pacitalia is automatically triggered when the margin falls within 0.25 percent. If the margin is less than 0.1 percent, the National Superior Court has the power to order a judicial recount and supervise the process.

PBC News will continue to provide updates as we receive them.

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Copyright © 2016 Pacitalian Broadcasting Corporation • http://www.pbc.pc/news/national/208387670/

[Sarzonia]

The vote count kept people up in more than just Pacitalia. In Sarzonia, president-elect Grant Haffner was sitting at his desk as the election results came in.

In a mock election conducted by The Portland Press-Herald, the 1,750 Sarzonians polled overwhelmingly chose Franco Russo, giving him just over 62.4 percent of the vote, a tally well above the margin for error.

However, Sarzonians wouldn't be going to the polls to determine the fate of Pacitalia. Pacitalians would be deciding their own course.

And that's what worried Haffner. he looked at the results pouring in with ever increasing concern.

It shouldn't be this close, Haffner thought. It should never have been this close. Sarzonians saw right through Bello's campaign rhetoric. They saw him as inexperienced, as ill-prepared to steer the Pacitalian ship of state. Most of all, they saw him as someone who potentially could undo much of the progress in Paci-Sarzonian relations, progress that suddenly looked much more fragile than it did before the campaign began.

Unlike the primary results, which saw Gloria Haffner try to convince her husband to go to bed to be up in time for a 6 a.m. briefing, she was glued to the television herself. She didn't have an official office space as second lady. She had an office, but it was for her to organize her personal pursuits. When she officially becomes first lady, there would be a formal Office of the First Lady. But not now.

She had the cooks in The Manor bring her food to her office, marking the third meal she and Grant would have separately. This time, however, there was no angry rift between the two. She and Grant had a second conversation where Grant just asked her to notify him so he would be prepared for the stuff hitting the fan. Grant felt confident that his initial statement to the media addressing Gloria's interview with Niles Parker would be enough.

As the election coverage moved to a commercial break, Gloria placed a call to The Woodstock Daily Mail.

"May I speak with the news desk?"

"They're kind of busy right now."

"I get that. I don't need the news editor or anyone high up in the food chain. I just wanted to find out if anyone's eaten over there."

"Eaten?"

"Yes. Old American tradition of getting pizza for Election Night coverage."

"Uh, we did on Election Day here."

"Who's covering the Pacitalian election?"

"Travis West."

"Has he had dinner yet?"

"No."

"It's eight-thirty. I'd imagine he's starving right now."

"Yeah," the secretary said. "Payday's not until Friday."

"I'm sending him some pizza. Any idea what he likes?"

"Pepperoni pan pizza with extra cheese."

"Got it."

At 9:15 p.m., West would be completely shocked when Glen brought pizza to him.

"Um, I didn't order this."

"I know. Someone ordered it for you. The check's already been paid."

"For me?"

"Yes."

"Any idea who?"

"The person ordering it asked to remain anonymous."

"Can you make sure to thank this person?"

"Absolutely."

West flashed a grateful smile at the benefactor, not having any idea that the first lady-to-be sent him his favorite pizza.

In his office, Grant shook his head as PBC's report indicated the vote would be too close to call. The possibility that the National Superior Court could order a recount and supervise the process was looming large enough that he knew things would be all the more perilous.

After Gloria and Grant both finished their meals, Gloria walked over to Grant's office, where the incoming first couple would be joined by the lieutenant president-elect to watch more of the election results. Grant had his schedule cleared until 11 a.m. the next morning so he wouldn't have a repeat of the 6 a.m. briefing. Even so, as the clock creeped closer to 2 a.m. Sarzonian Standard Time (AOTC +1), both he and Gloria were fighting a losing battle with fatigue. Both ended up sleeping on the couch without bothering to pull out the bed underneath.

[Pacitalia]

Monday 29th November 2016
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Gennaro Primadonna

Graph depicting performance of Pacitalia's two major stock indices and the Pacitalian douro / Pacibank handout


Uncertainty over election results causes markets to plummet
Trades on the PAX, TMX and Mandragora forex stopped after reaching crisis trigger point


MANDRAGORA — The ramifications of Pacitalia's deadlocked archonal election spilled into the economy Tuesday as uncertainty over the final result caused panic in the Pacitalian stock market.

The PAX800, Pacitalia's main stock index, already reeling thanks to the country's first recession in three decades, fell over 1,500 points to 14,452.36 at midday before the exchange saw trading stopped. An auto-failsafe system kicked in to prevent any further runs on a stock exchange which has lost almost half its value over the past year.

The Timiocato Mercantile Exchange (TMX), meanwhile, has seen steady increases over the course of the year as a weaker douro increased the value of Pacitalian commodities exports. But much of that gain was wiped out in one day before the TMX, too, halted trading midway through the day. The TMX fell about 438 points before trading stopped; it closed at 6,614.43.

But the biggest victim of today's stock market troubles was, indeed, the douro. The Mandragora foreign exchange (forex) market, which controls 95 percent of trading on Pacitalia's currency, saw sell-offs of the douro reach levels not seen in almost 75 years. The douro plummeted as low as NS$1.8745 before trading was halted. Currency futures remain below $2.00 in overnight trading, suggesting that the douro will continue to shed value once markets reopen Wednesday.

Prime Minister Archetenia Nera called for calm Tuesday afternoon after the markets closed. Speaking to the government press gallery in Timiocato, she moved to assure investors that Pacitalian markets were a safe bet and that the uncertainty over the election results would pass.

"We will eventually have a winner, and I believe that the defeated person will respect the result and unify behind the next archonate," she said. "I expect the country will do the same. What we are seeing in the markets today does not represent the state of the economy, or reflect the state of our politics. We are not a country in chaos."

Nera added, "we simply do not know who has won the election yet and I call for patience in that respect. I call for cooler heads to prevail."

It remains to be seen whether the prime minister's remarks will achieve their intended result. Markets have been showing signs of destabilization over the last couple of weeks, particularly in the wake of FPD candidate Domenico de Fiore's stunning defeat in the first round of the archonal election.

Mario Parazzolo, a senior market analyst at Pacibank, says traders' reaction to Monday's election result has raised concerns among the big banks.

"I would say we find today's events curious as the candidate currently ahead in the vote count is the candidate the business community believes to be more open to reducing regulatory burdens in the market and making things easier for the private sector," Mr Parazzolo said on 2Network Business Tuesday afternoon. "If anything, in our opinion, Mr Bello's overtures to the private sector, and his background, should have caused the markets to move slightly upward today. We don't believe uncertainty over the election outcome should have caused this type of impact to the market."

He added that "even if the markets are concerned about the negative effects of a Russo archonacy on the long-term health of the economy, Mr Russo was never explicitly anti-market or pro-regulation during the campaign and a victory by him should not necessarily worry market interests".

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[Sarzonia]

SNN Report
By Carlton Andrews


President Nicole Lewis

Uncertainty in Timiocato is having a ripple effect in the Incorporated States.

After the PAX800 shut down following a near 10 percent decline in Tuesday’s trading, the Portland Stock Exchange fell 3 percent, closing at 13816 as uncertainty remained over Pacitalia’s archonacy election. Over 155 million shares changed hands in heavy trading.

The Sarzonian dollar showed some resilience, losing .02 to the NS $. Meanwhile, the Sarzonian dollar gained three cents compared to the Pacitalian douro, which has been hemorrhaging value in the midst of Pacitalia’s current economic recession. The economic decline in Timiocato has seen the douro lose 58 percent of its value compared to the Sarzonian dollar.

Leading economists are concerned the further erosion of the Pacitalian economy will drag down the Sarzonian economy with it.

“Our fortunes are tied pretty closely together,” said Camille Barclay, an associate professor of economics at Joe Gibbs University in Nicksia. “I’m frankly surprised the Sarzonian economy isn’t worse off.”

Tensions between Pacitalia and Sarzonia led to the countries severing diplomatic and economic ties during the Mike Sarzo administration, but president Nicole Lewis made major strides in repairing the damage. Ties between Sarzonia and countries including Isselmere and Praetonia may have buttressed some of the effects.

However, industry insiders are citing the largest selloff of the Pacitalian douro since the retaliatory selloff during the Panic of 2006 as a cause for concern. Sarzonian vice president for Business and Commerce Renee Weston called for calm in Sarzonian markets.

“Right now is not the time for reactionary practices,” she said. “We need to maintain the discipline we’ve shown here in the past few years and not go into a tailspin because of what’s happening outside our shores.”

A Gray House spokesman confirmed that Lewis spoke with Pacitalian prime minister Archetenia Nera last night.

“The President stated she called Ms. Nera to offer our support during this economic uncertainty,” said Press Secretary Heather Lloyd. “She reiterated Sarzonia would consult with Timiocato to explore ways to help Pacitalia recover from this severe economic recession.”

Several attempts to reach President-elect Grant Haffner for comment by SNN’s deadline were unsuccessful.

[Pacitalia]

Franco Russo had spent the week after the election taking quiet refuge in his country home in Falisca. The uncertainty of the result and the constant bombardment of calls and messages from wily reporters demanding comment had driven him from his Timiocato apartment and back to the home he’d owned for two decades. Mercifully for Russo, nobody except a few close friends and family members even knew of its existence.

This quiet part of the grassy plateaux of northwestern Franconia was one of the few places south of the Serrado Margheriana that regularly experienced true wintery conditions. It was in sharp contrast to the temperate, relatively warm Decembers in Amita, just an hour’s drive to the southeast.

The skies above were a static, whitish purgatory. The snow falling outside, wet, salty and sticky, was swirled around by the erratic winds careering down the sides of the nearby mountains. The heavy flakes pelted the side of the stone house and made light tapping sounds on the slightly frosted windows of the study. In the middle distance out the window, Russo had a view of the outlines of a flock of woolly sheep, huddled together for warmth inside a short wooden fence on the edge of his property.

Bookshelves lined the study, some of the titles a bit dustier and more worn than others. Russo’s prized legal volumes, collected over the length of his career, were locked behind a pair of glass cupboard doors.

Russo was enjoying the warmth of the fire crackling in the fireplace and looked over at the mug of tea on the side table next to him, steam dancing up and out past the rim. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a second, letting the book he was reading fall against his stomach. It felt so good to be home. The modesty of the main house, with just two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and nook, and the cozy study, always served to ground Russo and help him gather himself. He hadn’t had many opportunities to come back here recently and was relishing these moments of peace and quiet.

Removing his glasses, he rubbed the bridge of his nose to try to relieve the slight ache in his sinuses. Other than that nagging, dull pain between his eyes, he was much more content and at peace than he’d been in months.

The stress and exertion of the long campaign — twenty-hour day after twenty-hour day, rallies, fundraisers, events, meetings — was just starting to take its toll on him as the day of the first-round vote neared. He was exhausted and his closest and most trusted aide, Gianmarco Saccardo, demanded he pay a visit to his personal physician. The doctor very strongly advised him to take it easy and not campaign on election day to avoid illness, especially if he were to win, as it might delay the transition work between Franchessa Marconi and he.

That medical advice forced his aides to negotiate a hasty truce with his rival, Carmine Bello, so that the Christian Democrat would also take the day off under the guise of “spending time with family”. Somehow, they had managed to convince their opponents that this was a good idea for both camps; it bought Russo some much needed rest.

Unfortunately, the exhausting campaign did not end on the twenty-eighth of November as Russo had hoped — win or lose. With his rival surprisingly holding onto a razor-thin lead in the popular vote, the election appeared destined for a judicial recount, which could potentially take months. It certainly had delayed the inauguration of a new archonate to take over from Marconi.

It wasn’t just the reporters banging down his door that had made him want to flee the big city. His advisors had been driving him crazy talking about how best to position themselves over the next few weeks, especially if the recount still didn’t resolve the outcome. Several of his aides had started aggressively pushing Russo to round up lawyers to litigate the result.

But he had reservations about taking things that far.

He had convinced himself, however wrongly, that his platform was enough on its own to overcome his opponent’s utterly deplorable rhetoric. As much as he felt he was a warm and likeable person, and that his status as a political outsider was an asset to him, the media had seized this narrative and hammered him repeatedly for being “awkward”; his reputation for being a dour left-winger, a nerdy and uninspiring technocrat, had only been further solidified.

It had become clear to him over the months he’d campaigned that there were an alarming number of Pacitalian voters who had tired of the technocrats, in or out of politics, ruling the roost. And whether or not Russo was truly part of the establishment — objectively, he was not — a recession was dangerous territory for a candidate to be, especially one who wasn’t a populist.

The election had exposed Pacitalians’ indecisiveness over what type of political outsider they wanted to lead them. The result mirrored that indecision, a near-perfect split down the middle.

If Russo had overestimated his country’s conviction to reject unconditionally the vision that Bello was selling them, he thought, he would surely end up miscalculating how much support he would get from Pacitalians as their archonate.

He caught himself staring absent-mindedly into the fire and started a bit. Breathing deeply again, he replaced the bookmark on the novel in his lap and placed the book on the table. Just as he was about to take a sip of his tea, his mobile phone started vibrating, the ringtone sounding.

Russo was annoyed; not only did he love this secluded house for the very reason that mobile phone reception was almost non-existent, he had specifically instructed his aides not to bother him for a couple of days.

But he looked down at the display on his foxPhone and saw that it was Saccardo on the other end. He figured that, of all people, his chief aide would not try to reach him unless there was something important to discuss. Not to mention, he mused, if he really wanted to be off the grid, he should have turned his phone off.

But I didn’t, he thought.

He grabbed the phone off the coffee table and slid his thumb across the glass display to answer the call.

“What is it, Gianni?” Russo demanded.

As expected in this remote location, his aide’s voice came through sounding faint and tinny.

“I’m very sorry to bother you, I know you said not to... but this is important, Franco, and I need you to hear me.”

“What?” Russo repeated.

“With all due respect, I think your silence in the last week is only making things worse for our case,” Saccardo said. “Forget the fact that the media has been trying to track you down for comment; that doesn’t matter. What does matter is what the public thinks of you essentially going into hiding.”

“I’m not hiding,” Russo shot back.

“Oh, but you are, Franco, you are,” Saccardo replied. “Have you not been watching the news?”

“You think I want to watch the news after having my face basically glued to a screen of some sort twenty-four-seven since the summer?”

Saccardo ignored the sarcastic response. “While you sit up there in your mountain refuge brooding over the results,” he said, “Carmine Bello is dominating the daily news cycle, the major networks are airing story after story about him and his transition plans, his meeting with Franchessa Marconi, all of it. You look like you lost when we don’t even know for sure that you have.”

“I understand that, but--”

“No, Franco, I don’t think you do. You have not lost yet. Do you understand? If anything, we should be throwing some shame in the direction of the media for basically anointing him the official winner. He is leading, sure, but a recount could change that. They should not be indulging his blatant self-promotion. It’s disgusting that they are. And you’re making it worse by not challenging it.”

Russo left a pregnant pause on the line before responding.

“So what would you have me do? I don’t want to risk coming off as a sore loser.”

“Almost three hundred million people voted, Franco. You don’t think that a margin of eighteen thousand votes out of that total is a reason to hold off either way? No one is asking you to declare yourself the winner, least of all not me. But you’re effectively conceding by remaining out in the furthest reaches of Franconia, where you’re unreachable and not fighting back.”

Another pause, though this time Russo thought the network might have dropped the call. Just as he was about to remove the phone from his ear to check the screen, he heard Saccardo sigh.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” his aide continued. “You’re going to disappoint a lot of people by not coming forward… not remaining in the public eye. This has already given Bello a incredible sense of momentum. Tell me you see my point of view.”

“I do.”

“We can’t afford to keep waiting, Franco. I know I don’t need to tell you that our country’s future hangs in the balance; you’ve been saying as much on the stump for the last few weeks. Come back to Timiocato. We can get control of this again.”

Russo glared across the room. He resented his aide laying down what amounted to an order. But he was, after all, a lawyer, and had debated his fair share of ideas in his time. He’d always been willing to consider an alternative point of view.

“Look, Gianni, let me think about it. That’s the best I can give you right now.”

He sensed a protest coming from the other end, quickly adding, “I will call you back.”

Something about Russo’s response told Saccardo he wouldn’t hear back from his candidate in the timeframe he hoped for. It was time to bring in some backup.

[Pacitalia]

Monday 12th December 2016
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Apostis Kyriakodonis

The margin in Pacitalia's archonal runoff election is down to a mere 754 votes following a recount / Photo credit: APR


Election margin now less than 1,000 votes after recount
Elections Pacitalia blames the swing on temporarily misplaced absentee votes and tabulation errors on paper ballots


TIMIOCATO — The already-narrow margin between the two remaining candidates in Pacitalia's archonal election is now less than a thousand votes following Elections Pacitalia's recount of the votes cast on 28th November.

Carmine Bello, the Christian Democrats' archonal candidate, led his rival, the Pacitalian Social Congress' Franco Russo, by 18,935 votes after the initial count. But Elections Pacitalia has now revised Mr Bello's lead to just 754 votes out of a total of approximately 249.4 million valid ballots.

The election agency puts Mr Bello's vote total at 124,681,867, with Mr Russo right behind at 124,681,113, marking the closest head-to-head election result in Pacitalian history if the numbers stand.

Elections Pacitalia chief returning officer Milana Benedetta said in a statement that the swing was the result of "minor tabulation errors in Rossopunia, Palatinia and Dossavora, which still use paper ballots, as well as the recovery of approximately 53,000 postal ballots from Pacitalians living abroad".

The agency has "100 percent confidence" in the accuracy of the count in the other thirteen apertures, according to Ms Benedetta, as voting on election day is done through computer terminals.

Elections Pacitalia declined comment on the temporary misplacing of thousands of absentee ballots, referring media to Corriere Nazionale, the Pacitalian state-owned postal service. Ms Benedetta mentioned in the agency's press release that absentee ballots represented roughly 12 million of the total ballots cast and that there were no other mailed ballots outstanding.

The National Superior Court will now review Elections Pacitalia's final count and consider Ms Benedetta's report. As the initial result was already close enough to justify a judicial recount, there is widespread belief in political circles that the Court's review is simply a formality — most expect Chief Magistrate Tiberio Argento to order a court-supervised recount before the end of the week.

Mr Bello launched a series of Chirps Monday afternoon, demanding accountability for the sudden recovery of the absentee ballots, claiming that the votes were "conjured out of thin air" to try to "rig the result" in Mr Russo's favour.

"Ms Benedetta should be hung out to dry," he said on the social networking site. "She is a totally desperate, incompetent hack who couldn't even fake enough votes to give her friend the victory."

The remarks were roundly condemned by many political figures in Timiocato, with Mr Bello's former archonal rival Domenico de Fiore praising Ms Benedetta's impartiality and calling on Mr Bello to retract the comments.

Mr Bello added he "will continue the work of transitioning to [his] new administration" as his belief that he was the outright winner of the election remains unchanged.

The Russo camp chose a much more diplomatic response, with the candidate's spokesman, Gianmarco Saccardo, issuing a short statement noting Mr Russo's "deep concern" over the initial exclusion of thousands of ballots from the count.

"We feel very strongly that all Pacitalians who vote deserve to have their voices heard when they exercise their democratic rights and should not fear that those voices will be left out of the process, even temporarily," Mr Saccardo said. "We accept that mistakes may happen and they can be resolved during the process of counting ballots, but the emerging irregularities in the election are cause for deep concern."

"We hope that the end result will totally and completely reflect the will of the Pacitalian people," he added.

Pacitalian stock markets continued their downward trend in Monday trading. The PAX and TMX were initially up in morning trades but the release of the report at midday reversed those gains. Pacitalia's two stock indices ended the day in the red, with the PAX at a 31-year low of 14,097.65. The Pacitalian douro also slid again Monday, closing at $1.835 NSD.

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[Pacitalia]

Her Excellency, The Most Honourable Franchessa Marconi, Archonate Interregnate
Signora Archetenia Nera, Prime Minister of the Pacitalian Republic
Signora Milana Benedetta, Chief Returning Officer, Elections Pacitalia

Monday, 16th January 2017

Signorai,

Please find attached a report summarizing the National Superior Court's investigation into the Pacitalian archonal election of November 2016.

The Court has engaged in the process of an exhaustive judicial recount and, simultaneously, conducted a thorough investigation into the handling of election results, votes, management of polling stations, and protocols and procedures established and used by Elections Pacitalia to manage the electoral process.

There is an overall satisfaction among the Magistrates of the Court that the overall result of the election was fair and accurate in reflecting the will of each Pacitalian who voted. However, irregularities in the reporting of results and the supervision of the tabulation process, more specifically the temporary misplacement of thousands of ballots, have caused grave concern among the Magistrates. The Court notes that this same concern was shared by the final two archonal candidates and their solicitors in separate petitions to the Court.

The Court finds that it is in the country's interest to ensure that Pacitalians feel their votes have counted. Most importantly, there must be no improprieties affecting the outcome of an election, especially one with the greatest of implications on the country's future and that of its democratic institutions.

The nine Magistrates of the National Superior Court of the Pacitalian Republic, therefore, wish to inform you that it is the Court's unanimous decision to annul, unconditionally, the results of the archonal election of November 2016. The Court further instructs, in its power as the highest auditing body of the election results, that Elections Pacitalia immediately begin coordinative efforts to commission a new election to be held before 31st December 2017, to ensure that the will of the Pacitalian people is respected, and allow a legitimately, unquestionably, democratically elected Archonate to take office at the earliest opportunity.


Sincera in domina bene,

His Benevolent Excellency,
Signore Magistrato Tiberio Argento
Chief Magistrate of the National Superior Court
Pacitalian Republic

And, in his role as Chief Magistrate, speaking on behalf of the entirety of the Court.

[Sarzonia]

SNN Report
By Carlton Andrews


President Grant Haffner

President Grant Haffner hailed the decision announced by Pacitalian Chief Magistrate Tiberio Argento to annul Pacitalia's archonal election in November, calling it "the right decision" for Pacitalia.

"The Incorporated States of Sarzonia applauds the choice to ensure that the full-throated will of the Pacitalian people is heard loudly and clearly," Haffner said in a brief statement at The Gray House. "We know there have been numerous questions regarding the election, and we look forward to seeing the questions fully answered.

"The people of Pacitalia deserve the right to ensure that their government is a reflection of all the positive values they possess. Pacitalia is a noble country that stands for inclusiveness, fairness, and equal treatment for all. It stands for policies that ensure that everyone has the opportunity to stand or fall on their own merits. It stand for a people with a proud culture and a proud history. It deserves an archonate who reflects these values."

The Portland Stock Exchange is projected to lose 1 percent in light trading, according to industry analysts. The PSE has shed 4.9 percent of its total value since November.

Vice President for Business and Commerce Renee Weston announced plans to contact her Pacitalian counterpart to discuss strategy in helping Timiocato climb out of its current economic downturn.

"We don't want either Pacitalia or Sarzonia to ever experience what happened 11 years ago," Weston said. "Our countries need each other to be strong and prosperous."

[Pacitalia]

Tuesday 17th January 2017
News > National


Reporting for PBC News
Apostis Kyriakodonis

Pacitalian markets — and the country's currency — rebounded for the second day in a row / Photo credit: APR


Election annulment, good news on economy boost markets
Reassured investors push douro, stock indices higher for second straight day


TIMIOCATO — Better-than-expected results from the Pacitalian economy in the third quarter of the fiscal year sparked a further rally on the markets Tuesday — and signalled a potential end to one of the longest recessions in Pacitalia's history — as investor optimism appeared to be on course to return.

Monday's ruling from the National Superior Court to annul the results from November's deadlocked archonal election, and a statement of support from the Haffner administration in Sarzonia, which applauded the decision to re-run the election, buoyed the markets to their strongest finish in over a year Monday, with the PAX and TMX both gaining at least six percent at the close of trading.

Tuesday was no different. Markets cheered the Republican Central Bank's report showing inflation results in the third quarter of the 2016-17 fiscal year beat Timiocato's target. The Consumer Price Index average for goods and services rose 1.7 percent in the quarter.

Timiocato had not expected inflation at all; in fact, the government and the central bank both expected deflation of close to half a percentage point after an unexpected 0.6 percent drop in consumer prices in the second quarter, which spooked markets and led the bank to revise its estimates.

The douro has shed about 40 percent of its value against the NS dollar since mid-2015, but reduced demand on certain sectors of the economy has lowered overall imports, which would have been more expensive to bring into the country with a weaker douro.

Bank governor Domenica Ferreneta, who leaves the post on 1st February, hoped to have made the right move in refusing to introduce "quantitative easing" measures, which would have injected more money into the Pacitalian economy to help address the effects of the recession and stabilize the financial sector. Markets appear unbothered that Prime Minister Archetenia Nera is yet to appoint her successor, although an announcement on this is expected by the end of next week.

Ms Ferreneta was initially criticized by opposition politicians and the heads of Pacitalia's major commercial banks for not trying hard enough to stimulate the economy in her role as the head of the central bank, and for her comments that the recession was an "overproductive economy going through the process of a market correction", all while hundreds of thousands of Pacitalians joined the unemployment lines. As recently as late December, she maintained her position that the economy would steady on its own as the bank saw only "minor areas of concern".

The PAX800 was up another 168 points Tuesday to close at a six-month high of 15,149.59. Timiocato's Mercantile Exchange was up 45 points to 6,588.75, on the report's projections that finished good imports and raw commodity exports would both increase over the next year due to broader economic demand.

The douro also continued to rally, inching back toward NSD 2.00. It gained 1.1 cents against the universal currency to close at $1.8891. Meanwhile, yields on Pacitalian five- and 10-year government bonds to be issued in the first quarter of the next fiscal year decreased below five percent. It's the first time in nearly a year that medium-term bond yields have been this low and may be another sign the economy is at the start of a turnaround.

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[Sarzonia]

The first month of President Grant Haffner's administration as the duly elected leader of Sarzonia's ship of state went by with little controversy. He got a chance to get the cabinet fully settled in and also gave a few pointers to new lieutenant president Brian Patrick.

Sarzonia's government had begun a gradual shift toward a more parliamentary approach with the Sarzonian president remaining head of state with the lieutenant president serving as de facto head of government. Technically, the lieutenant president's authority over the Cabinet was at the pleasure of the president; however, Haffner gained appreciation for the separation in roles both as a former lieutenant president and as acting president.

He'd also spent a couple of weeks on state visits, including his just finished trip to Daurmont to meet with the Isselmerian-Nielander government. He'd particularly enjoyed a brief moment with King Henry V before Sarzonia One sped off in the night sky toward Woodstock. Now, he was in the beginning stages of planning his official state visit to Timiocato and the meeting between Jill Howard, the newly-confirmed chairman of The Central Bank of The Incorporated States, Sarzonia's central bank, and her counterpart in Pacitalia.

"Shouldn't we wait until Prime Minister Nera chooses the new central bank leader?" Haffner's intern Colin asked out loud, unaware that Haffner was standing in the doorway. "Timiocato might perceive it as being disruptive."

"We took that into consideration," Haffner said, startling Helen Ludden, the office manager who was getting ready to admonish Colin for speaking out of turn. "Sorry, Helen. But it's a fair question to ask. In fact, I asked Ms. Nera herself that very question. She believes a delay in scheduling the meeting would be more disruptive."

"Mr. President," Ludden said, "I apologise for Colin's intrusion" --

Haffner put his hand up quickly, silencing Ludden.

"No need," he said. "I want him to question why things work the way they do. I want him to develop his own critical thinking skills." I want him to feel like he can question me if he sees the need, he thought. "Colin, go right on questioning the things you feel need to be questioned. That'll teach you more than any textbook ever will."

Haffner turned and then placed a phone call to Vice President for Business and Commerce Renee Weston.

"Renee, got any plans for this Saturday?"

"No, Mr. President. Why?"

"I want you to fly with me to Timiocato. I'd like you to meet with the Republican Central Bank. Bring Jill with you if you'd like. We want to see if we can extend a hand to help Pacitalia with their recession."

"They didn't help us too much during the Panic," Weston said. That caught Haffner off guard. He cringed at some of the memories from that recession, and some of the hurt feelings that developed between Sarzonia and Pacitalia. He didn't want the reminder of his own missteps from that time, but he also wanted to show magnanimousness toward Pacitalia. He also wanted to set an example for future generations of Sarzonians, Colin included.

"I know, Renee, but we can't get into the habit of going tit for tat. That would be disastrous for our foreign policy, particularly for how we treat our allies. Call Jill. Make sure she's on that plane at 2 p.m. sharp."

"All right, Mr. President," Weston said, doing her best to stifle a heavy sigh. When the phone hung up, she called Howard.

"Renee, my son's got his recital Saturday morning. My daughter has her football game that night. I've already committed to being there for both of them."

"The President has asked that you join us on Sarzonia One. Whatever you have to do to be there on that plane, we need you to be there."

Now it was Howard's turn to stifle a sigh. She knew her job was to be on that plane at the president's behest, and she knew she would be there.

As she turned on the television in the hopes of finding a programme that would assuage her disappointment over missing her children's events, she noticed the PSE opened 2 percent higher, and the exchange continued a modest streak of improving numbers. Analysts were citing the rebound in Timiocato as a harbinger for the improvement in Portland. After a quick smile creased her face, she changed the channel, stopping at The Golden Girls.

As she heard Cynthia Fee sing, "thank you for being a friend, travel down the road and back again," she smiled. Watching the pratfalls of the girls would help ease her disappointment until her wife returned from her conference in Wilmington that afternoon.

[Pacitalia]

Franco Russo had been back in Timiocato for about three weeks. If he was being honest with himself, he did miss the bustle of the city even if the time at his mountain house provided a much-needed break. He'd flown back to the Pacitalian capital for Christmas to spend time with close friends and family. He smiled as he recalled his chief of staff's astonished facial expression after surprising him with a platinum-plated wristwatch to thank him for his tireless efforts during the archonal election campaign.

Even though it was all for nothing in the end, he thought to himself. But I couldn't have done it without Gianmarco.

He strolled purposefully down Corso di 21. Novembre toward his favourite sidewalk coffee cart, a few hundred metres from his office building. The weather in the city had been typical for January; showery with the occasional blustery wind, and cooler, with temperatures hovering in the mid-teens during the day. Some of the hardier trees lining the streets still wore their leaves, while others had been stripped clean by the change of seasons. It was a common misconception among foreigners that Timiocato was sunny and tropical year-round, to the chagrin of earnest tourists landing in the city during the winter. In fact, the winter months provided a much-needed break for the massive metropolis' 40 million people, who dealt with sometimes unbearable heat and humidity nine to ten months of the year.

Still feeling the lingering effects of fatigue from a long and exhausting campaign, he nonetheless felt a little bit more confident about going out in public, even if it meant running the risk someone would recognize him and either try to strike up a conversation or get an autograph or take a selfie. Times like this, he craved his old routines, his old anonymity.

He mused to himself, nobody ever really thinks about how the losing candidate gets on with their life. Russo remained in denial that victory was still within reach, even though the margin had narrowed to just seven hundred and fifty votes. He doubted that he could pull off a win over his fire-breathing opponent on the right. Carmine Bello was still incessantly Chirping in the aftermath, his confidence that the pesky justice system would get out of the way and let him lead at an all-time high. The election results were still up in the air, with the National Superior Court conducting a thorough review and determining a course of action. There had been speculation the Court might take the unprecedented step of annulling the election results and ordering a new vote.

That's certainly what his advisors wanted, having directed the lawyers petitioning the Court for an annulment. But that's not what he wanted. The more he thought about giving the campaign a second go, the less he wanted the job at all. He didn't question his initial decision to run, or leaving his career for politics, but he knew he didn't have the energy to fight a second round in the ring with an opponent like Bello. He was facing the conflict of wanting to be in public service and trying to find the right place and role to serve.

After all, if he was truly destined to be the next Archonate, he thought to himself, he would have mopped the floor with someone as divisive and instigative as Bello had been.

Handing the cart operator a glistening silver 20ƒ coin, he took a sip of his pitch-black espresso, the way he liked it — no sugar or milk or any other fuss, and lit a cigarette from a slightly crushed foil pack. For some subconscious reason after the campaign had wound down, he'd taken up smoking again, finding comfort in the Olímpico Lights from Margheria that he'd smoked when he was younger, though he was trying to be careful not to get back in the habit.

The wind and precipitation had both picked up a bit and pedestrians hurried in both directions down the street, with some of them rushing down the stairs into the metro station. He buttoned his overcoat to shut out the breeze and leaned into the warm steam coming from the coffee. Partially sheltered from the elements under a big umbrella, he heard his FoxPhone vibrate roughly against the metal table and looked down at the screen. It took him a second to process the two messages he saw pop up on the lock screen.

The first was an alert from PBC News.

"BREAKING: National Superior Court rules 9-0 to annul archonal vote, setting stage for fresh elections"

He grimaced, expecting a frantic call from Saccardo any minute demanding a meeting with the campaign's advisory team.

The second notification caused him to blanch a bit. It was from Franchessa Marconi's charge d'affaires, Carlo Parventi.

"Need you to come to Palmafiore ASAP. Arch + PM want to meet with you. Call me."

"What on earth could they want to discuss?" he said aloud without realizing. Not only that, he was being summoned to the Archonate's official residence.

The cart operator looked at him with a puzzled expression and Russo held up his hand as a sort of apology for the disturbance. He downed the rest of the espresso, said grazie, snatched his phone off the table, and hurried the rest of the way to his office. It looked like he might have to take initiative and call Saccardo.

— — — — —

Carmine Bello stood at the window of his moodily-lit, cavernous office on the 64th floor of the Comanav building in Puntafora, staring out at the gloomy harbour below. A few dozen cargo freighters, many of them part of his company's fleet, were anchored in the middle of the grayish-blue water.

He mindlessly paced behind his giant mahogany desk. Bello had been a shut-in for the last few weeks, waiting for a final decision on the election results. His wife, Amelia, couldn't pry him out of the sanctity of his office except to sleep a few hours each night in the living quarters a couple of floors below. She hadn't cooked a meal for him in years, having had a team of personal chefs on staff, but she tried in vain to tempt him back to their living quarters one evening with a painstakingly-made batch of his favourite pasta and a bottle of 1994-vintage Foraninum Cazo that probably would sell for hundreds of doura in a store. He grabbed the bowl out of her hands and told her to leave him alone, slamming the office door in her face. His two adult children, both of whom worked for their father as executives for the giant shipping concern, were not having any luck either.

He would listen to no one, though he definitely would speak to anyone who would listen. He had become somewhat paranoid and irrational about the election, convinced of a conspiracy to steal victory from him. He hurled several epithets in Russo's direction even though his opponent was nowhere nearby to defend himself. He lashed out at Russo's voters and couldn't believe that many Pacitalians would vote for "a man like that".

He was blaming and mistreating his staff, firing people at will, including the solicitors petitioning the Court to uphold the original election result, which had Bello ahead by almost twenty thousand votes. They didn't seem optimistic they could convince the court to side with them; Bello framed it as incompetence and dismissed them. The election was becoming a fixation.

Things progressively got worse as the days went by. He was throwing glasses of whisky at the wall in fits of rage every time he got even the smallest bit of news or rumour about what might happen, slamming his fists against the computer keyboard if it was running too slowly, even changing the décor in his office at whim as if to distract himself from reality. If he didn't have a team of people running the company underneath him, it would have probably gone bankrupt from a lack of attention. In fact, a report in his in-tray from earlier in the day noted hundreds of millions of doura in lost business over the last two fiscal quarters as other companies pulled out of deals and tried to distance themselves from him. He hadn't even bothered to look at it.

The e-mail app on his desktop computer pinged and he swivelled around to take a look at what had just landed in his inbox. A split-second later, Amelia burst through the doors of the office, startling him. Bello's secretary protested from the other side of the threshold but she fell silent, realizing it was probably futile to try to stop her.

"Don't look at your mail or your phone," she warned.

"Why not?" Bello snapped back. "What is it? Did the court jesters hand Russo the election or something? Did they magically find more missing ballots?"

"Just don't. Trust me."

He studied his wife's facial expression; it was a mix of concern and what looked like relief. He decided he was being a bit harsh and softened. "Sweetheart, just tell me what it is. What's going on?"

She paused, then spoke. "The Court has ruled to..."

"Ruled...to what?" he replied, a little more sharply than he had liked. "What?"

"They've annulled the election, dear. It's been overturned completely and will be held again before the end of this year."

Bello purpled, incredulous. "What the fuck?! Is that a joke?!" He shouted in the general direction of his secretary to get some lawyers on the phone and set up a meeting. An appeal would need to be immediate, for reasons both practical and political.

Amelia intervened. "I don't know what you think lawyers will accomplish. We can't appeal, Carmine. It's the National Superior Court. You can't go any higher on this one."

She shut the doors to the office and moved back toward the black leather couch on one side of the office.

He slumped into one of the adjacent chairs and leaned forward, pouring three fingers from a crystal decanter of rye whisky on the coffee table into one of the glasses he hadn't yet broken. He was shell-shocked. The knowledge he could not appeal was like a bomb going off right next to him. He had put considerable effort into maintaining the type of persona he had cultivated throughout the campaign — he had blustered, cajoled and incited his way through the last year and it was almost as if the Court had called his bluff. He would have to fish or cut bait.

Amelia sat down next to him, running her hand through her husband's hair to try to comfort him as he downed the alcohol. "You'll have to decide if you're going to run again. Your supporters are going to want to know how they can help. This can still be done, and you might even win easily this time. I doubt that Russo character has another election campaign in him. He looked absolutely savaged by the end."

The last comment made Bello chuckle a bit and he relaxed his falcon grip on the glass of whisky.

"Just do me one favour," she continued.

"What's that?" he murmured.

"Promise me you will save the revenge mission for after you become Archonate. Don't go fighting battles with them on social media. You know the Magistrates won't engage you and you'll just look petty for criticizing their decision. Save your energy for after you win... when you actually get to appoint the people who sit on that bench."

She got up. "I'll leave you to some peace and quiet and give you some time to mull over your options, but I expect to see you for dinner tonight."

He laughed and replied, "fine".

As she passed the threshold, she turned back, her expression suddenly much more serious.

"And call custodial up here, amore. This office smells and looks like a rat's nest. It's disgusting."

The door shut and Bello's gaze returned to his whisky. He swirled the caramel liquid around the glass a few times, took a few calming breaths, then downed it.

It was all for nothing in the end, he thought to himself. But I couldn't have done this without Amelia.