Instead, the Pony Party had teamed up with two Pony nationalist party and the pony branches of the Liberal and Green Parties to form a "Ponytag". Negotiations had seen its seats apportioned according to a previous Gallup Poll, since elections couldn't be held for it. The Pony Party held a few seats short of a majority.
Meanwhile, Becker had unveiled a cabinet consisting of 10 members of the Social Democratic Party including himself, 6 from the Liberal Party and 4 from the Green Party. Their support in Parliament was fragile; the coalition had exactly one seat short of a majority, but since the Communist Party had abstained from the vote of confidence, they outnumbered the right wing opposition.
Becker was sitting in his office when Wilhelm Schmidt, the Minister of Justice and leader of the Green Party, came rushing in with a piece of paper. "Mr. Becker! Look at this!"
"This isn't about global warming is it?" he replied in a bored voice.
"No it's a message sent to me from Regenbogen. You'd better take a look."
Becker dropped the paper and looked up as Schmidt handed him the message. "In hindsight I wouldn't have minded something that was on global warming," he sighed as he picked it up and read it.
To: Herr W. Schmidt, Liberal Party
From: Regenbogen, Pony Party
We are disappointed in your decision to join the government of the socialist Robert Becker, who unlike you supported the banning of pony parties from participating in the elections. We call for the immediate merging of the Menschtag and Ponytag to make a truly representative assembly. Then we can decide on a government that has the true support of the people, both human and pony.
We fail to understand why the Green Party (along with the Liberal Party) are simultaneously recognising the Becker government and the Ponytag as being legitimate. Becker regards the Ponytag as being "an illegitimate, unelected assembly" while we regard Becker as being an illegitimate, unfairly elected leader. Who do you side with?
Accordingly, if you continue to support Becker and his actions against us, we cannot allow the Liberal Party to be represented in the Ponytag.
"What a load of whiners," said Becker. "They could have easily circumvented the election laws by removing direct references to ponyism from their manifesto. I know that the German nationalist parties did exactly that and got in easily. It's the sheer arrogance of the Pony and Russian nationalists that got them barred from running."
"I disagree. I'll tell you what's bugging me though. They say this is an illegitimate Landtag and that theirs is not.
"Tell the ponies that they should take advantage of the fact that a party with some pony support is in the government, because the alternative is the right-wing German nationalists. In the mean time we need to open up negotiations on this."
"I will see you soon, Chancellor."
"Thank you, Mr Schmidt."
A few minutes later, Thomas Krupp, the leader of the Liberal Party and Foreign Minister, came rushing in.
A few days later, the Ponytag voted to suspend the membership of the Green and Liberal parties for supporting Becker. "The hypocrisy is staggering," said Becker during an interview. "They say the Landtag is illegitimate, but now their 'Ponyclub' has none whatsoever."
On the same day, Becker presented his first proposal to the Landtag - to approve of the militarisation of the two Pony regions - Teisland to the west, Boden to the east. A state of emergency would be proclaimed in these regions and the army would temporarily assume control with fairly broad powers, until local governance was sufficiently "reorganised". It passed unanimously.
The following day, he recieved a letter:
To: Whoever it may concern
From: Regenbogen, Pony Party
The pony regions of Pferdburg hereby proclaims the founding of the free and sovereign Ponyrepublik Pferdburg and encloses a map of our new territory. The capital shall be Tagstadt. The head of state shall be the President and the legislature shall be the Ponytag. The country shall have the right to decide its own laws, foreign relations and military decisions. We do this to protect our right to representative government, freedom and self-determination, but our final straw is the government's decision to impose military rule on our territory. We will not wait. As it has been affirmed many times in the past, it has never been our intention to secede.
Meanwhile, Boris Baranikov, the leader of the Russian Independence Front, read the news report of the "incident" with interest.
"Who should we side with, or should we be neutral?" asked an aide.
"Hmm, we'll have to wait and see," said Baranikov with a grin.
The Map
Pink: Ponies (35%) Red: Germans (40%) Blue: Russians (25%)