Delepasian Commonwealth

The Delepasian Commonwealth (Pelaxian: Mancomunidad Delepasiano) was the second attempt at a unified Delepasia formed in 21 May 1976. It evolved from the Pact of Eighteen that was in effect on that same day, and the Rosarian Estado Social. Historians recognise this period in history as Delepasia, mostly to differentiate it from the short-lived 1852 Delepasian Kingdom. The Estado Social, greatly inspired by and  ideologies, was developed by Fernando Pascual, who served as the  of Rosaria and later Delepasia from 1935 until illness forced him out of office in 1988.

Opposed to, , , , , anti-Levantinism, and the Loa, the regime was conservative, , and in nature, defending Delepasia's traditional Catholicism. Its policy envisaged the perpetuation of Delepasia as an exceptional nation where the Delepasian people were considered to be the most "civilised" and thus was the supposed to not just the Loa, but to everyone in Vallos in general. To that end, Delepasia embarked on an anti-Loa campaign through much of its existence.

Delepasia was a member of LOTA and had joined the League of Nations in 1976 with the prospect of becoming an observer state to the VEA in 1987. In 1988, Nicolas Torres was appointed prime minister, replacing an aged and debilitated Pascual; he continued to pave the way towards economic integration with Vallos and a higher level of economic liberalisation in the country, achieving the signing of an important free-trade agreement with the VEA in 1992.

From 1976 until Pascual's death in 1990, Delepasia saw its GDP per capita increase at an annual average rate of 6.9 per cent. Despite the remarkable economic growth, and economic, by the fall of the Estado Social in 1994, Delepasia still had the lowest per capita income and the lowest literacy rate in Vallos (although this also remained true following the fall, and continued until the 2000s). On 30 April 1994, the Velvet Revolution in Santa Maria, a military coup organised by left-wing Delepasian military officers – the Democratic Revival Society (SDR) – led to the end of the Estado Social and the Delepasian Commonwealth.

Prelude
Since the turn of the 19th Century, there was a growing national sentiment amongst the populace of the Viceroyalty of Los Rumas. For about three centuries, many of the viceroyalty's colonists saw themselves as one of two groups: Pelaxians or. The former living near coastal areas, and the latter further inland. The rise of a Delepasian identity began when author Juan Guerrero wrote in 1797: "Hace trescientos años, el intrépido héroe Mauricio Delepas plantó la bandera de Pelaxia en el hermoso dominio de Delepasia. Nosotros, los delepasianos, deberíamos desarrollar una identidad separada de Pelaxia, una identidad en la que abracemos la única fe verdadera sin importar si nuestros antepasados fueron pelaxianos, cartadanianos, latinos o los Vallosi, mitificados durante mucho tiempo." ("Three hundred years ago, the dauntless hero Mauricio Delepas planted Pelaxia's flag on Delepasia's fair domain. We Delepasians ought to develop an identity separate from Pelaxia, an identity where we embrace the one true faith without regard towards whether our forefathers were Pelaxian, Cartadanian, Latins, or the long-mythologised Vallosi.").

Guerrero's words struck a chord with many of the colonists and, most especially after Almadaria became an independent republic in 1846., they began seeing themselves not as Pelaxians or Mestizos, but as Delepasians, a distinct national identity based on their multicultural heritage and intermarriage with the indigenous Vallosi and the Latins who live on Vallos before the colonial era. As national sentiment grew, so did the idea that the Viceroyalty should become a proper country. Before the end of Pelaxia's monarchy in 1852, this meant turning Pelaxia into a known as the Pelaxio-Delepasian Union. An attempt at the dual monarchy idea was made in 1852 when the Delepasian Kingdom was established as a pro-Girojón. This marked the first attmept at unifying Delepasia. The kingdom collapsed within three months, fracturing into several Delepasian polities, with the area surrounding Lake Remenau falling under Almadarian rule while Rios Gemelos managed to repel the Almadarian attempt at conquest.

124 years later, a second attempt at unifying Delepasia was made, this time led by Rosarian Prime Minister and head of the Estado Social regime Fernando Pascual. This second Delepasia also included the Cartadanian-majority Portas Gemeas, the Tainean-majority states of Ibimini, Inaua, and Kauabimini, and Navidadia, a Delepasian-majority state established after the failed first attempt. A convention of eighteen people was formed from amongst the highest dignitaries of the polities from Pascual himself to the King of Rios Gemelos. This group would sign a pact which set out how the new Delepasia was going to function. Satisfied, Pascual put the Pact of Eighteen in effect on 21 May 1976, forming the new Delepasian Commonwealth.

Electing an emperor
One of the first tasks facing the new nation was the election of their head of state, that being the Emperor. Although the Imperial title was a strictly ceremonial role as defined in the nation's constitution, the Emperor still served as a cultural symbol of unity for the Delepasians. Because of that, the committee in charge of nominating and electing a new Emperor was given the stipulation that the new Emperor must be a direct descendant of Mauricio Delepas himself. The committee took almost six months tracing down each and every lineage of the male-line descendants of Delepas's sons, and almost all of them were either dead-ends or was traced to a childless elderly descendant. Failing to have found a proper candidate, the committee had to broaden their search to descendants through female lines. Within two weeks time, they have found a descendant who would be suitable enough for the role, an Alstinian man by the name of Marion Delmar de Bruce, who was the direct descendant of Delepas's great-granddaughters son. De Bruce was chosen because of his relatively young age, the fact that he was married, and because he had seven children with an eighth coming along, and so he and his family were taken to Santa Maria where he was elected in a rushed manner, and was coronated months later in 1977, though legally his reign retroactively began on 21 May 1976.

Pascual's later years
With an Emperor elected, the government of Delepasia could finally move on to other matters. By the early 1980s, the Estado Social saw the rise of younger technocrats with a background in economics and technical-industrial expertise who wished to foster the fledgling nation's economy with the idea being that Delepasia must become an attractive country for international investment. This led to the development of industries designed to grow the economy and to catch up with the Vallosian Economic Association's average which Delepasia would use as a benchmark to determine which sectors should be focused upon the most. It was during this time that Delepasia began to enter into free trade agreements with its neighbours and trading to realms beyond Vallos, with plans being set in motion to open up select sectors to foreign firms. Pascual seemed to have developed a more outward-looking economic policy after decades of economic isolation. Foreign trade had increased by 64 per cent in exports, and 53 per cent in imports. In the years between 1980 and 1993, total output (GDP at factor cost) saw a 120 per cent growth in real terms, with an unparalleled robust annual growth rate in GDP by 6.9 per cent, in industrial production by nine per cent, in consumption by 6.5 per cent, and in gross fixed capital formation by 7.8 per cent.

However, Delepasia's economic growth could have been larger if not for the fact that the nation's armed forces was engaged in the immensely costly Loaland campaigns in Navidadia. In late 1979, guerrilla movements have emerged in the internal protectorate of Loalan that aimed at liberating the Loa from what was then over a century of living under the sectarian Navidadian System. Fighting these numerous groups for several years would soon prove to be enormously draining for the poor, increasingly backwater nation in terms of labour and financial resources at a time when it was trying to strive to economic growth. This fact became ever more burdensome after the end of the Occidental Cold War in 1984, and Delepasia would become diplomatically isolated now that there was no need for what was quickly becoming an aged and increasingly senile regime.

In 1988, just one month before his 99th birthday, Fernando Pascual suffered a. After the incident, Pascual's life initially went on normally until two weeks later when he fell into a coma. With Pascual incapacitated, Commander-in-Chief Francisco de Costa considered that the prime minister was not long for this world and so dismissed Pascual and replaced him with Nicolas Torres. Amazingly, Pascual managed to live for a couple more years, having unexpectedly regained full lucidity despite his advanced age. He would die on 28 September 1990 at the age of 101, believing that he was still the Delepasian prime minister up to that point.

Torres's tenure
Nicolas Torres was chosen by de Costa and the Privy Council to succeed Pascual. Although initially a protégé of Pascual, Torres began his tenure by attempting to modernise and liberalise the old Pascualist system. However, Francisco de Costa, who previously had allowed Pascual to do as he pleased as prime minister, was not so willing to give Torres the same leeway, and so he, alongside senior officers of the armed forces, and the heads of some of the country's most powerful gransindinales, established "the stronghold" which represented the interests of the old-school Pascualists who opposed Torres's reforms, and thus any attempt to reform the regime would be met with the overthrow and replacement of Torres. Torres quickly became indecisive and thus the very people who hoped for reform began to turn against him, the most notable of these instances was the emergence of the Rumapunk subculture in the name of open defiance against the regime, though this had failed to inspire the mass demonstrations they had hoped for.

However, it was during this time that a sense began to grow among all groups—the armed forces, the opposition, and liberals within the regime—the sense that the only way to effectively liberalise the regime and to ensure that the nation will make it to the year 2000 was through a revolution. This sense of revolution was further fanned by the number of growing tensions on the political and social scene.

Economy
The most overriding problem with the economies of the Delepasian polities was their enormous public debt. The public deficit kept on growing, and some of the polities have attempted to obtain loans from both private and public entities, but the conditions were considered to be unacceptable. With these polities under threat of imminent financial collapse, Pascual was made the Financial Minister of Rosario in 1931 under the personally-secured assurance from the country's president, Isador de Santa Anna, that he would have a free hand in vetoing expenditure in all government departments and not just his own. Pascual was the financial imperator from the day he took office. Within a year, armed with special powers granted to him by de Santa Anna, Pascual balanced the budget and stabilised Rosaria's currency. By restoring order to the national accounts, enforcing austerity, and red-penciling waste, Pascual had produced the first of many budgetary surpluses, an unparalleled novelty in the Delepasian polities. This would be followed by the other Delepasian polities copying what Rosaria did to balance the budget which too were met with budgetary surpluses.

From 1970 until Pascual's death in 1990, Delepasia saw its GDP per capita increase at an annual average rate of 6.9 per cent. The early 1980s saw the rise of younger technocrats with a background in economics and technical-industrial expertise who wished to foster the fledgling nation's economy with the idea being that Delepasia must become an attractive country for international investment. This led to the development of industries designed to grow the economy and to catch up with the Vallosian Economic Association's average which Delepasia would use as a benchmark to determine which sectors should be focused upon the most. It was during this time that Delepasia began to enter into free trade agreements with its neighbours and trading to realms beyond Vallos, with plans being set in motion to open up select sectors to foreign firms. In the years between 1980 and 1993, total output (GDP at factor cost) saw a 120 per cent growth in real terms, with an unparalleled robust annual growth rate in GDP by 6.9 per cent, in industrial production by nine per cent, in consumption by 6.5 per cent, and in gross fixed capital formation by 7.8 per cent.

In 1980, at the initiation of Pascual's more outward-looking economic policy after the beginning of the end of a period of deep economically illiberal corporativism and protectionism, Delepasia's per capita GDP was only 42 per cent of the Vallosian Economic Association average; by the end of the Pascual period, in 1988, it had risen to 54 per cent; and in 1993, under the leadership of Nicolas Torres, Delepasia's per capita GDP had reached 61.7 per cent of the VEA average. On a long-term analysis, after a long period of economic divergence since 1852 which also included the period of chaos before 1931, the collective economies of the Delepasian polities recovered slightly until 1970, entering thereafter on a path of strong economic convergence with the wealthiest economies of Vallos, until the Velvet Revolution in April 1994. Delepasian economic growth in the period between 1980 to 1993, under the Estado Social regime (and even with the effects of an expensive war effort in Loaland against liberationist groups), created an opportunity for real integration with the developed economies of Vallos. Through emigration, trade, tourism and foreign investment, individuals and firms changed their patterns of production and consumption, bringing about a structural transformation. Simultaneously, the increasing complexity of a growing economy raised new technical and organizational challenges, stimulating the formation of modern professional and management teams.

Regarding Loaland, beyond military measures, the official Delepasian response was to develop it into an "internal protectorate" where it was able to receive economic aid from the central government. This was accomplish through population and capital transfers, trade liberalisation, and the creation of a "Loa Peseta" pegged to the Delepasian Peseta. The integration programme established in 1981 provided for the removal of Delepasia's duties on imports from Loaland by January 1984. Loaland, however, was permitted to levy duties on goods imported from Delepasia but at a preferential rate, in most cases, 50 per cent of the normal duties levied by Loaland on goods originating outside Delepasia. The effect of this two-tier tariff system was to give Delepasia's exports preferential access to Loaland's markets. The economy of Loaland boomed. in nature to an extent, although in a very conditioned way through industrial licensing requirements until the beginning of the final stage of Pascual's rule, in the 1980s, the very late and excruciatingly slow liberalization of the Delepasian economy gained a new impetus under Pascual's successor, Prime Minister Nicolas Torres (1988-1994), whose administration abolished industrial licensing requirements for firms in most sectors and in 1992 signed a free trade agreement with the Vallosian Economic Association. Under the agreement, which took effect at the beginning of 1993, Delepasia was given until 2000 to abolish its restrictions on most community goods and until 2005 on certain sensitive products amounting to some 10 per cent of the VEA's total exports to Delepasia. Starting in 1980, observer state status in the VEA and a growing foreign investor presence contributed to Delepasia's industrial modernization and export diversification between 1980 and 1993. Torres moved on to foster further economic growth and some social improvements, such as the awarding of a monthly pension to rural workers who had never had the chance to pay social security.

Notwithstanding the concentration of the means of production in the hands of a small number of family-based financial-industrial groups, Delepasian business culture permitted a surprising upward mobility of university-educated individuals with middle-class backgrounds into professional management careers.

Before the 1994 Velvet Revolution, the largest, most technologically advanced (and most recently organized) firms offered the greatest opportunity for management careers based on merit rather than by accident of birth.

By the early 1980s Delepasia's fast economic growth with increasing and purchase of new automobiles set the priority for improvements in transportation. The ATC was founded in 1992 and the State granted the company a 30-year concession to design, build, manage, and maintain a modern network of express motorways.

The economy of Delepasia on the eve of the Velvet Revolution (a military coup on 30 April 1994) was growing well above the Vallosi average. Average family purchasing power was rising together with new consumption patterns and trends and this was promoting both investments in new and consumption expenditure for durable and nondurable.

The Estado Social regime's economic policy encouraged the formation of large. The regime maintained a policy of, which resulted in the placement of much of the economy in the hands of the gransindinales, large family-owned-and-operated conglomerates. The most notable of these included the Alonso family, the de la Puente family, the Zavala family, and the Serrano family.

The Zavalas held the largest of these conglomerates, the United Manufacturing Company, with a wide and varied range of interests including, ship-building both naval and commercial, tourism, banking, paper-manufacturing, and even consumer electronics (mostly video game consoles and computers; there was an attempt in 1985 to buy Televideo from the state which fell through due to the high price tag).

Asides from the gransindinales, there was the agrupresas, medium-sized family companies with more specialised interests. These groupings were more common in rural inland areas of the country, as the gransindinales had a stranglehold in urban areas and along the coast, and mostly engaged in agriculture and forestry, though some engaged in tourism and engineered wood.

Independent were prohibited, and  laws were horrifically outdated, some having not been updated since the 1920s in more extreme cases. However, in the context of an expanding economy, bringing better living conditions for the Delepasian population in the 1980s, the outbreak of the Loaland campaigns set off significant social changes, among them the rapid incorporation of more and more women into the labour market. Nicolas Torres moved on to foster additional economic growth and some social improvements, most notably the pension reforms directed at rural workers who had never the chance to pay social security. The objectives of Torres's pension reform were threefold: the enhancement of equity, reducing fiscal and actuarial imbalance, and achieving more efficiency for the economy as a whole, for example, by establishing contributions less distortive to labour markets or by allowing the savings generated by pension funds to increase the investments in the economy. In 1989, with the replacement of Pascual by Nicolas Torres, the Estado Social-controlled nation got indeed a very slight taste of democracy and Torres allowed the formation of the first democratic labour union movement since before the 1919 coup in Rosaria.

End of the regime
The end of the Delepasian Commonwealth, and the Estado Social as a whole, effectively began with the uprisings in the protectorate of Loaland in the 1980s. For the Delepasian ruling regime, Loaland was a matter of great. The criticism it got against some kinds of racial discrimination were refuted on the grounds that the Loa would be and  in due time, through a process called the. The Loaland campaigns were very unpopular and expensive lengthy wars which were doing nothing but isolating Delepasia diplomatically, leading many to question the continuation of the war and, by extension, the government. Although Delepasia was able to maintain some superiority in Loaland by its use of elite paratroopers and special operations troops, the covert foreign support of these guerrillas, including arms embargoes and other sanctions against the Delepasians, made them more manoeuvrable, allowing them to inflict losses on the Delepasian army. After the end of the Occidental Cold War in 1984, the international community had isolated Delepasia due to the long-lasting Loaland campaigns. The situation was aggravated by the illness of Pascual, the strong man of the regime, in 1988. His replacement was one of his closest advisors, Nicolas Torres, who tried to slowly democratise the country, but was unable to hide the obvious dictatorship that had oppressed Delepasia.

Delepasia became even more isolated after an Ænglish priest created a storm in 1993 when he wrote an exposé about a massacred he had witnessed during his time in Vallos. He revealed that the Delepasian Army had massacred some 500 Loa in northern Loaland under the belief that they were harbouring guerrilla fighters in December of 1992. His report was printed around the world, resulting in further condemnations against the regime. This exposé has been cited as a factor that helped to bring about the "velvet revolution" coup which deposed the Torres regime in 1994.

The various conflicts had forced the Pascual and susbequent Torres governments to spend more and more of the country's budget on Loaland administration and military expenditures, and Delepasia quickly found itself more and more isolated from the rest of the world. After Torres succeeded to the premiership, the Loaland campaigns became a major cause of dissent and a focus for antigovernmental forces in Delepasian society. Many young dissidents, such as left-wing students, members of the nation's growing punk subculture, and anti-war activists, were forced to leave the country so they could escape imprisonment or conscription. However, between 1945 and 1994, there were also a few generations of militants of the radical right found in Delepasian universities and schools, guided by a revolutionary nationalism partly influenced by the National Falangists and the beliefs of Galdo Bertocca. The core of the struggle of these radical students lay in an uncompromising defense of Delepasian exceptionalism in the days of the authoritarian regime.

By the early 1990s, the Loaland campaigns continued to rage on, requiring a steadily increasing budget. The Delepasian military was overstretched and there was no political solution or end in sight. While the human losses were relatively small, the war as a whole had already entered its second decade. The Delepasian ruling regime of the Estado Social faced criticism from the international community and was becoming increasingly isolated. It had a profound impact on Delepasia – thousands of young men avoided by emigrating illegally, mainly to Almadaria and Cartadania.

The campaigns in Loaland was increasingly unpopular throughout Delepasia as the people became weary of war and balked at its ever-rising expense. Many ethnic Delepasians in Loaland were also increasingly willing to accept Loa autonomy if their economic status could be preserved. However, despite the guerrillas' unpredictable and sporadic attacks against targets all over the countryside of Loaland, the economy of Loaland was booming, cities and towns were expanding and prospering steadily over time, new transportation networks were being opened to link Loaland with the rest of Delepasia and the number of ethnic Delepasian migrants increased rapidly since the 1970s (although always as a small minority of the territory's total population).

Suddenly, after a few failed attempts at a military rebellion, in April 1994 the Velvet Revolution in Santa Maria, organised by left-wing Delepasian military officers – the Democratic Revival Society (DR Society), overthrew the Estado Social regime. The military-led coup can be described as the necessary means of bringing democracy to Delepasia, ending the unpopular Loaland campaigns where thousands of Delepasian soldiers had been commissioned, and replacing the Estado Social (Social State) regime and its secret police which repressed elemental  and. However, the military coup's organisation started off as a professional class protest of United Delepasian Armed Forces against a decree law that introduced a programme whereby militia officers who completed a brief training program and had served in the Loaland defensive campaigns, could be commissioned at the same rank as military academy graduates. Torres's Privy Council had begun the programme (which included several other reforms) in order to increase the number of officials employed against the Loa insurgencies, and at the same time cut down military costs to alleviate an already overburdened. After the coup, the DR Society-led Junta for the Salvation of Civility, a military junta, took power. Torres resigned, and was flown under custody to Trescolinia where he stayed for a few days. He then flew to exile in the Cape. By 1995, the Delepasian Commonwealth had all but collapsed.

Aftermath
After the fall of the Estado Social-led regime, Delepasia would then experience a turbulent period of provisional governments and a nearly disintegrated state reminiscent of the post-Pelaxia period, a condition that the Estado Social had with great care and perseverance attempted to avoid. These provisional governments also briefly censored newspapers and detained oppositionists. For many reasons, Delepasia, in its transition from authoritarian rule to a more democratic government, resembled Vallos during the periods of the warring states. During this period, Almadaria considered invading Delepasia to check the perceived threat of a civil war caused by the Velvet Revolution.

After a period of social unrest, factionalism, and uncertainty in Delepasian politics, between 1994 and 1996, neither far left nor far right radicalism prevailed. However, pro-communist and socialist elements retained control of the country for several months before elections. The Marxists remained very much on the hardline in outlook and was unsympathetic to the sort of reforms that were emerging in the nation's more moderate strands of socialism such as Velvetine Socialism.

The retreat from Loaland and the acceptance of its autonomy and eventual statehood had initially prompted a mass exodus of ethnic Delepasians from the new regions of Kalanatoa and Na'aturie in 1995, creating hundreds of thousands of destitute Delepasian (many of whom would eventually return to those regions when the new Loa states assured them that nothing would happen to their property). By 1995, Loaland was dissolved and Delepasia held its first democratic elections in many decades. However, the country continued to be governed by a military-civilian provisional administration until the formation of the first Rumahokian privy council in January 1997.

For all Rumahokians, this was a very difficult period, but many felt that the short-term effects of the Velvet Revolution were well worth the trouble when civil rights and political freedoms were achieved. The Rumahokians celebrate Velvet Day on 30 April every year, and the day is a national holiday in Rumahoki. By refusing to grant autonomy to Loaland, the Delepasian ruling regime of the Estado Social was criticised by most of the international community, and its leaders Pascual and Torres were accused of being blinded by "Delepasian delusionalism". After the Velvet Revolution in 1994 and the fall of the Delepasian Commonwealth, many of the previously successful Delepasian exporters did not survive the of the -inspired PTeC (1995) and its influence over the Delepasian and subsequent Rumahokin economy, society, and governmental policies, including the newly written Rumahokian Constitution adopted in 1996. In the following decades, the policies surrounding Velvetine Socialism as defined by the ruling People's Democratic Party had allowed for economic growth in Rumahoki to surpass the rates achieved by the Estado Social regime by 2005. In 2011, upon Rumahoki's surpassing of the VEA's economic average, Vito Borbon, the military officer who was the chief strategist of the 1994 Velvet Revolution in Santa Maria, stated that he was glad to have started the revolution, and that he had wished he had started it earlier if he had known what the country would become after it. He has also stated that prime minister Francisco Carvalho is a man who is as honest as Pascual and that his handling of the economic consequences of the Velvet Revolution would have done him proud. However, he was quick to point out that Carvalho has a better idea on considering the long-term effects of his polices.