Party General Secretary Hoàng Lan Mai has criticized Sotirianity before
Nainan's push to remove Sotirianity from it's political ranks
The NPSL has slowly began to expel Sotirian members from the party, this being lead by the party hardliners. Their success in achieving that so far has mostly gone unnoticed.
Asako Saki reporting from Keisi, Senria
1 December, 2021
The ruling NPSL of Nainan has never been shy to espout it's rhetoric against many things it claims to be Euclean colonialist ideals and foreign subversion. With the party policy calling for an "independent" state. Including religions of foreign origin, Sotirianity in particular.
Since as early as the 16th century, Sotirianity has had a presence in Nainan, their numbers would continue to grow, especially during Weranic colonial rule. There are over 1 million Sotirians in Nainan today, making up over 2% of the population. After the victory of the NPSL in the civil war the popularity of Sotirianity fell, during the nationalist, anti-Euclean governments of Hoàng Viện Trai and Nghiêm Nài Phúc during the late 60s and into the 70s. During this period the government would shut down numerous Sotirian churches and arrested Sotirian anti-government activists.
A period of liberalisation during the 90s into the early 21st century would lead to a split between the party hardliners, and those who are willing to allow reforms to the government. The NPSL have never explicitly banned any religious group from it's membership, from 1999 to 2003, the province of Cá Triều even had a Sotirian regional council chairman. The reformist-hardliner middle ground government of State Director Lê Tranh Lộc has tried to create compromise between the two groups, though some would say his government leans much more towards the reformist wing.
The leader of the hardliners, daughter of the first State Director Hoàng Viện Trai, is General Secretary Hoàng Lan Mai, who has been pushing to keep the party under strict adherence to it's original values. Over the years their wing has been trying to push slight reforms in a more slower manner to try and appease the reformists, lead by Premier Quách An Tương. These slight nudges seemed to have been able to influence many policy changes that benefit the hardliners, including their slow push to remove Sotirians from the party.
The first change passed was in 2018, when the party voted to require it's members state their religious backgrounds, this was once in place before but was removed in 2002 when the party began to undergo liberal reforms. In 2019 the party would remove funding to a pro-NPSL Sotirian political activist group. This was followed by the party's youth wing, the Young Partisans, to shut down all public service missions that worked with or for local Sotirian churches. In early 2020 the push was stalled when Lê Tranh Lộc criticized Hoàng after meeting with religious leaders, stating that the NPSL's goal is to benefit all of Nainan, including Sotirians. Followed by Lê approving reconstruction of Sotirian churches shut down.
Later that year the hardliners would successfully pass a bill that would have some high-ranking Sotirian members join a "Religious Outreach" group which would operate separate from the party but was lead by hardliners, and would keep it's members out of party events. By early 2021 the hardliners would pass a bill that would make high-ranking party members include committee heads and members of the central council required to practice a syncretic faith with the dominant religions of Dai Tin, Zohism, and Badi. And just this November Hoàng would expand this rule to all party members, but now strictly only for Sotirians. This would mean Sotirians must state that they practice some of synretism of both Sotirianity and either or both of the dominant faiths, and likely discourage. The reformists so far have done little to stop this change and furthermore, just two weeks later the party voted to disband it's Sotirian "Religious Outreach" group and expel it's members. It is increasingly clear what the party is undergoing, a slow removal of a minority faith from it's ranks, and other minority faiths like Irfan are also threatened by these, as it has mostly gone unnoticed but has a lucrative goal, which seems to have embolden those pushing it, such as Hoàng.
