Fourth Round of Negotiations Yields Significant Progress
Crifoso, Tupenga- After six months of at-times stalled negotiations, the Provisional Government for a United Tupenga has announced a framework for a permanent government. this comes on the heels of rising tension in the south after previous negotiations stalled and slowed the rebuilding of the broken nation. The framework calls for a democratically elected government to meet in the newly christened People's Parliament Building, where the elected officials will select the nation's first prime minister and formulate the nation's first constitution. While the details of that document will be decided in full at a later date, it is believed to have taken considerable influences from several foreign documents. The date for the election has been set for June 14 nationwide, with any possible runoffs being conducted on June 28th, and any supplementary elections on July 5th. The new government is expected to take its seat on July 12th, and the new Prime Minister is supposed to be selected no later than July 19th.
While this plan on paper seems feasible, it faces several mighty and mounting issues. The years of insurgency and genocide visited on the people of the Kalkala-Sumbe have left much of the region on the edge of collapse and underdeveloped. MAFT and other northern rebel groups have consistently called for elections to be held only when the region has recovered to an appreciable degree, and they blame southern-based political organizations for pushing the elections to give the better-equipped south an edge at the polls. While they deny this, the Tupengan People's Party and Radical Revolutionary Front of Tupenga have both declined to send aid north to MAFT-led areas citing security concerns. This, coupled with several strikes and shutdowns in the south, has crippled the already wounded nation's ability to help its devastated northern half recover.
For their part, various communist parties have accused northern political parties of being inflexible in demands, and of kowtowing to foreign interests. They point to several attempts to broker settlements on core issues being rebuffed as well as an increasing reliance on occupying Marshite forces to resolve disputes. This has led to accusations that the north is preparing to hand the country over or otherwise make it subservient. MAFT and others decline this, but in turn have multiple times since the start of Marshite occupation petitioned for an increase in the length of their occupation to provide security, which has been approved every time.
That is, until recently. Mistress-Commander of the Tupengan Crusade Selaria Unchaka has stated that she has set a date of August 1st for the start of the withdrawal of all Marshite forces from Tupenga barring agreements with a permanent government. This pleased many in the south, but Marshite forces have also allocated several billion standard NS dollars to aid directly in the north among the billions being spent otherwise.
The TRC has accepted this and is working on providing 'free, fair, and transparent elections'. The Executive Committee of the Provisional Government and its nine officers have worked to establish a few departments that over the months have started to function, in one degree or another. Basic services across much of the south, while spotty, are considered under control while the north has seen some progress despite massive infrastructure and political issues. The Armed Forces of Free Tupenga (AFFT) have already seen multiple leadership changes and exist more on paper than in practice, but with Nadira Zakia helmed to take over as the first non-military head of the department, there is considerable hope that various facets of government will at least have some structure present when the new government takes over.
Of course, this assumes that the new government will be able to take its seat without any great difficulty. Kabula Bombo has refused to accept the legality of the Executive Committee's Reconciliation of the People- a slow-moving yet public hearing where former colonial overlords speak as to their actions so the horror of the time period is well-documented- and other measures he sees as not being appropriately punishing. He has called southern machinations a threat to a Free Tupenga and has made a number of demands that are considered untenable: MAFT control over elections in the north and vetting and approval of all candidates to ensure they are free of colonial mindsets, which has often been used in his department as a means of keeping non-creoloso outside of the reins of power.
Meanwhile, The Creoloso People's Party and Radical Revolutionary Front of Tupenga have not ceased their calls for nationwide strikes and have supported those who have in recent times rather violently seized the means of production. It is considered unlikely that they would be willing to bow out of the limelight if an election were to go against them. While it has not been a platform for the other communist parties, the consistent breakdowns in the cities relating to strikes and agitations have come without comment from others.
With the regional and political differences presenting extreme difficulties, the chances of the elections going off without a hitch seem small.
