Puertego: Difference between revisions

The Puertegan rebel forces were lead by Antonio Gonzalez a former sugar plantation manager who almost immediately began to order his soldiers to raid federal armories and fortify San Lina, only a few days afterwards on January 2nd Pelaxian soldiers made a landing only a few miles away from San Lina and were met just outside the city by a Puertegan militia force led by general Fernando Sanchez ending in a phyrric victory for the Pelaxian forces who did manage to capture San Lina and held it for a week and four days before an even larger Puertegan army showed up led by Antonio Gonzalez and retook the city from the weakened army. In the Eastern regions of Puertego the rebel forces immediately began launching attacks on loyalist towns and villages across the Pelaxian-Puertegan border starting on January 5th and lasting until January 12th prompting a response from the army to cross across the border and try to engage the rebel forces who retreated from them and utilized scorched earth tactics on the land they were retreating from, once the Pelaxian army crossed into rebel occupied territory they faced fierce resistance from the locals making them turn back only to find that the rebel army attacked them when they did so ambushing the tired and disoriented army and beating them. These defeats prompted the Pelaxian government to give Puertego independence on January 18th, 1904 except for the one island that stayed loyal to Pelaxia which was absorbed into their territory.

Almost immediately after Puertego declared independence on January 20th Antonio Gonzalez declared himself the first president of the republic, establishing the National Assembly and assisting in writing the first constitution, however president Antonio Gonzalez soon became infamous for his corruption having embezzled the modern equivalent of 850 million damillos across his 12 year rule, on top of that multiple opposition members of the National Assembly went missing under his rule and a law relegalizing slavery just barely didn't pass in the National Assembly. After 12 years of having to deal with the heavy corruption he allowed to run rampant in the government and his often time blatant authoritarianism and crushing of dissent a coup was thrown against him on  July 6th, 1916 resulting in him and his son who he appointed as vice president being hung in the center of a market in San Lina, he was replaced with Francisco Martinez who ruled in much the same way as Gonzalez being extremely corrupt and authoritarian, he was also suspected of being in the pockets of Caphiria with many new trade routes opening up between the two and him giving very generous concessions to the rich land owners to allow them to sell their produce to the Caphirians for cheap. Under this system almost all systems that weren't based on resource extraction and agriculture went bankrupt casing massive unemployment among the urban population and the government responded by printing vast amounts of money and spiking inflation to try and help with social services which were often rendered ineffective due to widespread corruption. Francisco Martinez ruled for 10 years until being overthrown in a coup on November 11th, 1926 by another dictator who ruled for 5 years who was in turn overthrown by another dictator with a 5 year reign before he was in turn overthrown by yet another dictator who only ruled for 3 years before dying of natural causes in office, they all ruled in much the same was as Martinez sparking wide scale protests among the population calling for a transition to democracy, after the last dictators death in 1958 the National Assembly rewrote the constitution to guarantee a multi party system and limits on the presidents power.

After the new constitution was implemented two parties gained dominance over almost the entire political system the Puertegan Conservative Party and the Puertegan Labor Party, both parties were essentially the only choices in elections and both engaged in corrupt practices such as bribery, embezzlement, and cronyism however the democracy protests ceased and the country was recovering from the harm the dictators did establishing a new currency to deal with the hyper inflation and growing the sectors that went bankrupt, this balance lasted until the National Assembly voted to increase the presidents power due to a separatist movement threatening to turn into a civil war, the then president Maximilian Anolsa a member of the Labor Party crushing the rebels with the increased power but afterwards also using the new powers to crack down on the Conservative Party with protests that followed being met with violence from the government security forces. Anolsa was decisively voted out in the next election but the powers remained and the now conservative led government used them to crack down on the labor party with similarly brutal methods. The issue of Caphiria vs Urcea also became a very dividing issue with the conservatives siding with Caphiria while the labor party sided with Urcea, both sides used this as an excuse to censor the other sides press outlets to get rid of "misinformation".

After around 30 years of rule by both parties cyclically taking power and cracking down on each other protests became much more common across San Lina with the main orchestrater of these protests Ricardo Verano a former mine manager running for president in 1972 as an independent and losing, he claimed that the election was rigged by both the conservative and labor parties against him and called on his supporters to throw a coup which they did a mere two days after the election was over taking over the National Assembly and shooting the incumbent president and multiple members of the National Assembly before declaring Roberto Verano the new president of Puertego. Verano openly called himself a fascist and called for autarky and a syndicalist economic model stating that the previous governments failed to improve conditions for Puertegans and that he must be given almost absolute powers to combat this at which point the National Assembly which he filled almost entirely with his supporters altered the constitution to give him every power he asked them for. He also embarked on multiple economic reforms creating a new currency, nationalizing several industries, raising taxes, expanding welfare, and making very pro union laws for the private enterprises remaining. However this economic model did not work very well at actually improving the countries economy with inflation rapidly increasing from him printing more money to fund his various welfare programs, shortages caused by his price controls, the country going through a debt crisis under him, and foreign investment almost non-existent, corruption also still ran virtually unchecked in all levels of the governments and the unions causing intense dissatisfaction among the people with him being overthrown in 1980 in a revolution by communists in Puertego beginning the regime of the Puertegan Red Flag Communist Party.

The Puertegan Red Flag Communist Party ruled as a one party state and was considered one of the most authoritarian governments the country ever had with a secret police called the Internal Watchman Society being responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of Puertegans even suspected of dissenting or who the government thought may offer dissenting opinions soon, massive food shortages also soon took hold of Puertego with the government taking control of all land and mainly using it to grow cash crops and neglecting food production, this along with them continuing Verano's autarkist policies meant that soon food shortages turned to famines resulting in the deaths of an estimated 12 million people dying from three separate famines across the countries history. In between two of these famines the government of Puertego tried to take back the island that stayed loyal to Pelaxia during their civil war in 1986 under the pretext of freeing Puertegan workers being exploited there, they lost the battle horribly and had to deal with massive protests back on the mainland over it ending in massacres of the protesters by government security forces. After their attempted invasion of the island the government went into a debt crisis and started printing more money to try and get out of it with inflation reaching a never before seen 650 trillion percent. In secret the Puertegan White Flag Communist Party was formed, it was made up of more liberal and reform minded communists who hated the hard line stance of the current party.