Republican Nationalist Party (the Cape)

The Republican Nationalist Party (Cape Coscivian: Parduv Restarka Nationalista) is the founding and ruling political party of the Federacy of the Cape. The RNP currently holds 377 out of 503 (or 74.9%) seats in the National Stanera and is constitutionally defined as the of the republic under Planoarita politics.

The RNP was founded as the Political Office of the National Revolutionary Army in 1896 during the Capetian War of Independence. Under Melvyn Kalma, the party was declared a political organization in 1897 and became the founding party of the Federacy of the Cape. It led a period of until 1924, when it narrowly won its first free elections against the Communist Party. Following the invasion of the Cape by Paulastra and Arcerion in the Second Great War, the RNP was incorporated as the political wing of the resisting National Reclamation Government. Following the re-establishment of the republic and the party's refounding in 1951, the RNP ruled as a one-party dictatorship until the 1992 Republic Day revolution and the country's subsequent partial liberalization. Since then, it has lead a. Political scientists often classify the RNP as a "" and as a "" - as, from even its name, ideology, and symbolism, the party has always been intrinsically linked to the very concept of the Capetian republic.

The RNP is the only Capetian party that practices intra-party democracy, with over 40% of Cape citizens voting in its quadrennial open s, choosing candidates for both the Prime Executure and local representatives to the National Stanera. However, the Republican National Congress remains the highest body of the RNP. It is elected by the party's official members, chooses the first secretary, and approves candidates to compete for the Prime Executure.

The party's guiding ideology is Restarkism, described as, , , and. A primarily party, a majority of RNP politicians have voiced support for the  movement,, and. Although the RNP has no international affiliation, it maintains connections with a wide variety of parties and groups; from the Kiravian right-wing Coscivian National Congress to the parties of the Pelaxian left.

Ideology
The ideology of the Republican Nationalist Party is Restarkism; a nationalist ideology based on series of four principles -, , , and - developed by Melvyn Kalma. It concurrently serves as the constitutional state ideology. Though originally an ideology based on Occidentization and, Restarkism has changed much throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, and today manifests as a , and  ideology with a focus on economic growth and popular welfare.

Restarkism posits a phased plan for the implementation of. The "first stage of national construction", a one-party state led by the RNP, took place between 1951 and 1994. The second stage, Planoarita politics, where the RNP leads a, is currently in place. While the RNP remains, in theory, committed to the promise of full, it has been argued that the party has no commitment or ideology and instead takes a nationalist perspective on what is for the country’s interests.

Pursuant to this goal, reformism in the Restarkist tradition has allowed the RNP to adopt a from left, right, and centre - sometimes all at the same time. The relationship between ideology and policy in the party's governance is inductive, with decision-making justifying ideology and not the other way around. Each generation of leadership since the 1992 Republic Day revolution, which led to the end of the party’s legal, has believed that the ideology of the pre-1992 party-state RNP was “rigid, unimaginative, out-of-touch, disillusioning, and deserved of hate and overthrow by the people”. To maintain the popular legitimacy of the particracy under Planoarita politics, the party believes that its ideology must remain fluid and responsive to public opinion through and mass public participation in the party’s inner workings.

Planoarita politics
Planoarita politics, literally “politics in accordance with the popular will” is the current guiding philosophy on how the RNP should rule. It was envisioned by Melvyn Kalma as a system of, where a united party maintains power over a growing in a period of political tutelage to build a strong democratic culture.

However, since the reforms of Isnet O’Niall, this conception has been reversed. Planoarita politics today manifests through the centralization of state power within the party, with the party’s structures becoming the arena of democracy and participation instead. The RNP sees this system and itself today as the “gatekeeper of democracy” - allowing within its organization the flourishing of a “democracy of tolerated ideas” while those intolerable are left outside with no influence over the machinery of the party-state. The hallmark trait of this “democracy” is the party’s quadrennial open primary elections - where any Capetian voter is invited to vote in a free election for their district’s RNP nominee to the National Stanera.

Since the adoption of the current form of Planoarita politics in the party congress of 1993, a variety of RNP factions ("democrats") have decried it as revisionist and a betrayal of Kalma's original framing; criticizing it for making permanent a temporary stage of the phased plan and leaving no open road for the decentralization of power from the party towards the intended multi-party system. Supporters ("developmentarians") view it as a further development of Kalma's ideas, with it allowing for the development of a vibrant political culture while preventing the instability of the first multi-party period.

Capetian dirigisme
Reformed out of the idea of Capetian autarky that dominated the party pre-1992, Capetian dirigisme is an ideology widely embraced by a plurality of the party. First of the inductive ideological reforms adopted in the early 1990s, it posits that a and  mode of production is unopposed to the RNP's ideology of equitable national development. As stated by Isnet O’Niall: "the difference between the Capetian mode of production [referring to the prevalence of cooperatives and state entities] and the capitalist mode of production is fundamentally not between central planning or market forces. They are both equal tools we can use to direct our national economy."

The adoption of Capetian dirigisme led to the offloading of a variety of state assets and corporations, either sold to private individuals, made into joint stock companies, or handed to a cooperative of its workers. While the party continues to publish its four-year and ten-year economic plans, observers have noted that they have taken on minimal amounts of prominence and have become vague. The predominant view today is that the state should direct, although no longer own or maintain, the country's economy and major corporations. While direct and indirect state control remains for "critical sectors" such as extraction, certain manufacturing, and certain financial services, the rest of the economy is allowed to develop in a broadly free-market capitalist manner.

Government stock ownership and subsidies have become the primary tools of state control in the dirigiste economy.

Foreign policy
Despite years of attempts, a united foreign policy remains uncodified. Two major foreign policy camps have subsequently developed.

Republican tradition
The "Republican tradition" of foreign policy has been dominant since 1992. While the "Republican tradition" has been the official policy of a relatively short amount of time in Capetian history, its name and positions are derived from the foreign policy outlook of Melvyn Kalma and early Restarkism. It posits pan-Cronan anti-imperialism, while retaining a more reserved outlook based on neutrality, cooperation with anti-imperialist neighbours, and most critically on pragmatic, level-headed actions aimed at the economic development of the Capetian people.

"Students of the Reclamation"
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Factions
Three major, informal factions (referred in the parlance of the RNP as “caucuses”) have grown since the start of Planoarita politics - namely, they are the RNP-Liberals, the RNP-Labourists, and the RNP-Nationalists.

Liberals
The Liberals have been the traditionally dominant faction of the party, having descended from the 1992 revolution’s reformist faction. Prime Executive O’Niall was the founding member of the faction. It is a neoconservative faction dedicated to the continuation of post-1992 economic and political reforms. These reforms include the continued decentralization of power within the state and the party to local government and provincial caucuses respectively, and the continuation of market reforms and the divestment of state assets and services to either their workers or the private sector.

For the first time since 1992, it is currently the second largest faction within the RNP. It is supported by the traditional pillars of party support - namely the established, business leaders, and retired generals.

Labourists
The Labourists descend from the left-wing of the 1992 reformists, having opposed the party-state for its ignorance of worker’s rights and its of the Cape. An originally and  grouping, the Labourists today support a “strong ” economy through promoting worker-ownership, establishing stronger worker protections, and subsidizing Capetian industry. It is also a neoconservative faction, having supported foreign interventions in Varshan and Kelekona in the name of the working class of those nations.

It is the third largest faction of the RNP and is supported by the Association of Republican Labour. Restarka, the party’s newspaper, is considered a Labourist stronghold.

Nationalists
The Nationalists are the newest faction of the party - having been established in 2015 with the goal of “bringing forth a great national renaissance” and “setting the stage for constitutional democracy”.