Vedastia wrote:Don Carlos Enrique Jaime de la Carrera y Rojas, VIII Marqués de Güeñes (Chaz Carrera) - Free Citizens Party(Image)
Account Name: Vedastia
Occupation: Senator, Aristocrat, Landowner, Real Estate Investor, Diplomat, Freedom Fighter
Party Position(s):Member
Positions in Government:N/A (In opposition)
Constituency: TBD (preferably San Pancracio)
Political Ideology: Classical liberalism/right-libertarianism
Family:Spouse: Constantina Luisa del Huijsen de la Carrera, Marquesa de Güeñes (born Constantijna Louisa Jonkvrouw van den Huijsen, 7 February 1965)
Children:
- Don Rodrigo Hugo Arturo de la Carrera y del Huijsen, XV Conde de Amézqueta (born 19 March 1996)
- Don Ignacio Francisco Javier de la Carrera y del Huijsen, XII Conde de Lazcano (born 8 December 1997)
Background: Carlos Enrique Jaime de la Carrera y Rojas was born on 11 May 1956, the only child of Jaime Alejandro Fernando de la Carrera y Portillo, VII Marqués de Güeñes (15 June 1918 - 9 February 1980) and Marta Rojas y Esposito (4 August 1933 - 9 February 1980), on their Calaverdean sugar plantation, San Pancracio. His father, the 7th Marquess, came from an old Basque noble family with large land holdings that descended from Venetian merchants. He fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War for fear of persecution due to his Basque nationalist sympathies and/or noble ancestry (whichever he would be persecuted for depended on the outcome of the war). His mother, Marta, was the daughter of a wealthy criollo landowner and a peasant of indigenous ancestry. He attended local state schools, with a live-in private tutor at home, before attending Ampleforth College in England under the alias "Chaz Meskett," the surname an Anglcized version of his family's traditional courtesy title of "Conde de Amézqueta." He matriculated to Christ Church, Oxford, where read PPE, joined the Oxford Union, and was a member of the Bullingdon Club. He later earned an LLB from the University of Salamanca, an MSFS from Georgetown Uninversity's Walsh School of Foreign Service, and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Back home in San Pancracio, the 7th Marquess tried giving the appearance of cooperation with the Calaverdean junta, even though he was opposed to it, but his efforts were for naught. On 5 February 1980, he and the Marchioness were arrested for hiding dissidents in their house, as well as in unused buildings on their plantation, and were executed four days later (the dissidents were executed on site). The execution of his parents deeply affected Carrera, and it inspired him to work hard toward overthrowing the junta. He met his wife, Constantijna van den Huijsen, a member of a Dutch noble family responsible for administrating Adrius that eventually settled there, while they were at Harvard. They would marry about two years later. After his wife finished her undergraduate degree, he moved to London to set up the Calaverdean Government-in-Exile, which would later appoint him Representative to the United States. For almost twenty years, he would go back and forth between his residential hotel room at the Dorchester in Mayfair and his apartment at the Watergate in Washington, trying to find a way to overthrow the junta while still earning income from his real estate investments and his old Spanish properties, as well as (controversially) from his Calaverdean plantation. His two sons, Rodrigo and Ignacio, were born during that time; Rodrigo at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, and Ignacio at the GWU Hospital in Washington. Rodrigo currently attends Christ Church, Oxford, reading PPE under the alias "Rod Meskett," and Ignacio is in Lower Sixth at Malvern College under the alias "Nate Lazar." In 2006, he had heard that a civil war had started and joined the fray, funding the Republic of Calaverde forces and convincing the CGE to follow suit. After almost twenty years in exile, he returned to his homeland, crying that he was able to set foot on hallowed ground. In 2014, he decided to run for and won election to the Senate, and fights for the rights of his people to this day.
Faith: Agnostic atheism, but is often sympathetic toward the Catholic Church and its followers.
Likes: Industrialism, capitalism, diplomacy, the Catholic Church, Asian cuisine, history, bicycling, off-roading
Dislikes: Chavismo, warfare, hunting, whitewater rafting, snorkeling, secondhand tobacco smoke
Any Questions from the Public to be answered? - Yes, and I am open to more.
- What is your stance on autonomy, not independence, for Adrius and other lingustic/ethnic minorities? - I believe that they should be granted autonomy, possibly a stepping stone toward independence. If they haven't been assimilated into general Calaverdean society, it's only fair that they're given the opportunity to govern themselves while still being a part of Calaverde, and if they don't like that arrangement, I think that secession would be more than justified.
- What was your relationship, if any, with the Calaverdean Junta? - I was on the fence about it when it came to power, but when I started hearing of the human rights abuses, and later the execution of my own parents, I knew that I could no longer sit on the fence and joined the revolutionary cause. However, I got the American ambassador to Calaverde at the time, who was and still is a great friend of mine, to convince the Calaverdean junta to return San Pancracio to me around 1990 after they confiscated it from my family. It was a regrettable decision, yes, but it was for the good of the country, damn it!
- How many languages do you speak? - Spanish is my native language, and I'm fluent in English, but I only know a small amount of Dutch and Basque.
- What are your thoughts on Israel? - Personally, I do not think that a two-state solution is viable, but since we have our own problems at home, mainly civil unrest and economic depression, there are more pressing matters to attend to.
- What are your thoughts on abortion? - While I am personally against it, I do not believe that the state has the right to outlaw elective abortion before the second trimester of pregnancy.
- The US supported the dictatorship in Calaverde and many others in the regions assisting authoritarian regimes murder and torture thousands of anti-government activists. Should Calaverde ask for an official apology or financial compensation for the victims of this abuse? - I believe the US should issue an official apology for supporting the junta. That being said, asking for financial compensation would bankrupt the present Calaverdean government, and our economy, as well as our society as a whole, are unstable enough as it is, in addition to the fact that maintaining a good relationship with the US is paramount to our existence.
- Should Calaverde try and gain full employment? - Yes, but not through forceful government control of the economy. Let the private sector handle it.
- Do you believe in man-made climate change. How should we tackle it? - Yes, and it is a problem, just not as large of one as some make it out to be. Calaverde's role in this is very small, anyway, so why should we be concerned? While Calaverde is known for its natural beauty, which we should definitely preserve, we need to increase our industrial output and attract foreign firms to manufacture their products or otherwise invest here if we are to gain a stronger financial footing, doing so with reduced business taxes and lower legal liability in special economic zones.
- How did your upbringing influence your desire to enter politics? - My mother's family was highly involved in the political life of the nation before the junta. Even though my father was just a Spanish immigrant (although a fairly wealthy one at that), he taught me that there were few things more important than the civic life of the nation, even though he mainly wanted to supervise his plantation and develop new agricultural methods. Even though some of them were also members of the colonial administration, my mother's family agitated for independence from Britain and one of my maternal uncles was a minister in the elected government. He had resigned before the junta took over, so he wasn't a target for their purges, leading a quiet life afterward.
- What is your opinion on the situation in Ukraine and its effects rippling across Europe, particularly in Russia? - While I deplore how the situation is being handled, Russia should control the Crimea. It was a part of Russia before and a significant portion of the population identifies more with Russia than the Ukraine. The West needs to stay out of it.
- How should Calaverde respond to the recent decline in global oil prices? - Celebrate! We should take advantage of it while we can, but prepare for an eventual increase by eventually switching over to alternative fuels, augmented with such policy instruments as tax credits for car conversion.
- What is your proposal for maintaining Calaverde's biodiversity, especially in its rainforest and coast? - Are we not in the process of setting up nature preserves? If not, we should be, and I'll help.
- What international organizations do you believe Calaverde should join? - We should join the standard array of international organizations (the UN and its associated agencies) and the Association of Caribbean States, as well as the Commonwealth of Nations to foster relations with our mother country.
- Do you think the so called "Pink Tide" that has swept portions of Latin America could harm Calaverde? - Yes. While our populace is still fairly diverse politically, the specter of the far left gaining control of the country is a frightening one that isn't as far away as I'd like it to be. That being said, trying to prevent it with government coercion would not only be pointless but morally reprehensible and would go against everything that I have fought for.
- Should our nation look into taking part in free trade agreements similar to CAFTA? - Yes. We need to foster relations with our neighbors, as well as receive a stable source of imports without needless tariffs.
- How can Calaverde have a bigger voice on the global stage? Furthermore, should it? - Calaverde needs to get its affairs in order and join international associations and trade agreements. Other than that, there's not much else we can do, nor should we.
OOC: The current history (not fully official, but largely being treated as canon) has the coup occurring in 1984, after the death of your character's father.
IC: I'm unfamiliar with the CGE. Was that one of the militias fighting Junta forces?
