Estado Social (Castadilla)
The Estado Social ("Social State") was the corporatist Rosarian and, from 1976, Delepasian state installed in 1938. It evolved from the Dictadura Perfecta ("Perfect Dictatorship") formed after the coup d'état of 14 July 1919 against the unstable First Rosarian Republic. Together, the Dictadura Perfecta and the Estado Social are recognised by historians as the Second Rosarian Republic (Pelaxian: Segunda República Rosariana). The Estado Social, being greatly inspired by conservatism and autocratic ideologies, was developed by Fernando Pascual, who was the Prime Minister of Rosaria from 1933, and Prime Minister of Delepasia from 1976, until illness forced him out of office in 1988.
Rosarian Republic (1935-1976) República Rosariana Delepasian Commonwealth (1976-1994) Mancomunidad Delepasiano | |||||||||
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| 1938-1994 | |||||||||
Motto: Dios, Patria y Familia ("God, Fatherland, and Family") | |||||||||
Anthem: Delepasian March (1976-1994) | |||||||||
 Location of Delepasia, the greatest territorial extent of the Estado Social (dark green) | |||||||||
| Capital | Las Joquis (1938-1976) Santa Maria (1976-1994) | ||||||||
| Official languages | Pelaxian | ||||||||
| Common languages | Cartadanian Reform Tainean | ||||||||
| Religion | Levantine Catholicism | ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Rosarian (1938-1976) Delepasian (1976-1994) | ||||||||
| Government | Unitary one-party corporatist parliamentary republic under an authoritarian dictatorship (1938-1976) Unitary one-party corporatist parliamentary constitutional monarchy under an authoritarian dictatorship (1976-1994) | ||||||||
| Emperor (1976-1994) | |||||||||
• 1976-1994 | Maximilian I | ||||||||
| President (1938-1976) Commander-in-Chief (1976-1994) | |||||||||
• 1938-1949 | Isador de Santa Anna | ||||||||
• 1949-1956 | Jaime Trastamara | ||||||||
• 1956-1994 | Francisco de Costa | ||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1938-1988 | Fernando Pascual | ||||||||
• 1988-1994 | Nicolas Torres | ||||||||
| Legislature | General Assembly of Rosaria (1938-1976) National Assembly (1976-1994) | ||||||||
• Upper houses | National Council of Rosaria (1938-1976) Congress of the Regions (1976-1994) Congress of the Peerage (1976-1994) | ||||||||
| National Assembly of Rosaria (1938-1976) Congress of the Commons (1976-1994) | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Beginning of Pascual's tenure | 21 August 1935 | ||||||||
• Estado Social declared | 3 August 1938 | ||||||||
• Ousting of Pascual | 27 September 1988 | ||||||||
| 30 April 1994 | |||||||||
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Greatly opposed to the ideologies of communism, socialism, syndicalism, anarchism, liberalism, and anti-Levantism, the regime was conservative, corporatist, nationalist, and exceptionalistic in nature, defending Rosaria's, and eventually Delepasia's, traditional Catholicism as an integral part of its national identity. Its policies envisaged the perpetuation of the Delepasian people being the most "civilised" and thus was the supposed source of civility to all of Vallos in general, and to the Loa in particular since 1976 and the integration of the Navidadian System, an idea which dates back to the early 20th Century as the Delepasian Kingdom became highly romanticised as a short-lived golden age. To that end, Rosaria generally sought relations with its fellow Delepasian polities, the fruits of which being the eventual Pact of Eighteen.
Rosaria, like all other Delepasian polities, was a member of the Levantia and Odoneru Treaty Association (LOTA) since its founding, and thus was involved in the Second Great War on the side of the Levantines (being heavily involved in the liberation of Volonia), and was a founding member of the League of Nations since its formation in 1955. As Delepasia, the Pascualist regime saw its economy grow immensely after roughly two to three decades of economic stagnation following the end of the Second Great War, soon becoming an observer state of the VEA by 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 series of reforms inspired by the relatively peaceful democratisation of Volonia in the 1970s.
These reforms were soon forcibly reversed by the armed forces, who at this point were not so keen on giving Torres the same amount of autonomy as they had been durinng Pascual's time as prime minister; many senior military leaders were still loyal to hardline Pascualism. 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 of the Delepasian Commonwealth. The final remnants of Pascualist control would not be eliminated until early 1996, just months after the Council of the Nation Revolution had emerged victorious after the civil war period that followed the Velvet Revolution.
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 Mestizos. 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 Pelajia en el hermoso dominio de Delepasia. Nosotros, los delepasianos, deberíamos desarrollar una identidad separada de Pelajia, una identidad en la que abracemos la única fe verdadera sin importar si nuestros antepasados fueron pelajianos, 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 dual monarchy 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 government-in-exile. 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.
One of these new Delepasian polities was the First Rosarian Republic, which was proclaimed as a republic in 1853 after a short-lived attempt at establishing a monarchy the year prior under the rule of a cadet branch of the House of Girojón, only for King Luciano II, the last king of Pelaxia, to forbid any member of the former royal house from ever ruling over a Delepasian polity, he himself having come to hate the Delepasians thanks to the highly turbulent Delepasian Kingdom and their perceived inability to govern properly. This new republic quickly fell into a decades-long struggle to sustain the fragile parliamentary democracy under liberal republicanism from 1853 until 1919. During this period of chaos, Rosaria went through 176 presidents between the years 1876 and 1919, and 512 prime ministers in that same time period through assassinations, being forced out of power by the legislature, or just dying from profound stress. There were many cases where politicians would simply retire early to avoid being designated as president of prime minister out of fear that they could wind up dead or with a permanently ruined political career.
The 14 July 1919 coup d'état or, during the period of Estado Social, the National Revolution (Pelaxian: Revolución Nacional), was a military action that put an end to the chaotic First Rosarian Republic and initiated the Dictadura Militar (Military Dictatorship) which in 1921 transitioned into the Dictadura Perfecta (Perfect Dictatorship). In order to fix the more than a century's worth of economic turmoil and collapse, the regime invited noted university professor and economist Fernando Pascual to serve as the minister of finance. Pascual was subsequently made prime minister in 1935 after finally giving the Rosarian state its first budget surplus in many years, and in 1938 he renamed it as the Estado Social (Social State), defining Rosaria as a corporative, semi-stratocratic, single-party and pan-Vallosi country.
With fascist organisations becoming popular and receiving wide supported across many countries (like Bertocca's Caphiric Fascism and Falangism found in neighbouring Bahia) as an antagonist of communist ideologies, prime minister Pascual developed the Estado Social, which can be described as a right-leaning, corporatist, and theo-nationalistic government. The basis of his new regime was a platform of stability, in direct contrast to the unstable environment of the First Rosarian Republic, and of the preservation of traditional values, which stood in stark contrast to fascism and falangism, which posited themselves as alternative revolutionary ideologies to socialism.
According to some Rumahokian scholars like Jaime Valentin and Luis Estevez, Pascual's early reforms and policies had allowed the whole nation, and other Delepasian polities in general that had adopted similar regimes inspired by the ideology of the Estado Social, to change through the permitting of political and financial stability which in turn heralded the beginnings of a new social order and economic growth that were seen as foreign mere decades ago such as through the unstable and chaotic years of the First Rosarian Republic. This was perceived as an impressive and major breakthrough to many Delepasians. By that point, Pascual's popularity was at its zenith, and his seemingly miraculous transformation of Rosaria from a anarchic state to a stable and orderly regime became known as La lección de Pascual – "Pascual's Lesson". Pascual's programme was opposed to communism, socialism, and liberalism. It was pro-Catholic, conservative, nationalistic, and exceptionalistic. Its policy envisaged the perpetuation of the Delepasian people being the most "civilised" and thus was the supposed source of civility to all of Vallos in general, financially autonomous and politically-aligned with the Levantines in opposition to the seeming threat of Caphiria, and a source of civilisation and stability to all the nations in Vallos.
To support these policies, Pascual eventually adopted the ideals of Delepasian exceptionalism by asserting that, since the Delepasians were the first "civilised" peoples in Vallos since the 15th Century, losing its position as the torch-bearer of civilisation in Vallos would dismember the Delepasian identity and end Delepasian independence and self-sufficiency.
Regime
Pascual based his regime's political philosophy around a close interpretation of the Catholic social doctrine, a relatively new idea to the Vallosi subcontinent, that opposed philosophies and ideologies ranging from free-market capitalism to atheism. The economic system that Pascual had advocated for based on his interpretation is known as corporatism, itself having been based on similar interpretations of two papal encyclicals which were used as the basis for this economic theory and as well as critique against opposing theories. Corporatism was designed around the idea of class collaboration as a means to prevent class struggle and to transform economic concerns into secondary concerns while social values were given priority. Labour associations were seen by the Church as part of society's natural order, like the family and the Church itself. Man had the inherent right to organise into trade unions and to engage in labour activities and thus such a right could not be denied by employers or the state. These encyclicals provided the needed blueprint for the erection of Pascual's corporatist system.
A new constitution was drafted by a group of lawyers, prominent businessmen, senior clerics, and noted university professors, with Pascual himself serving as the leading spirit and Gregorio Valdez also playing a major role. The constitution officially created the Estado Social, which in theory was a corporatist state representing interest groups rather than individuals. The group that drafted the new constitution intended for a system wherein representation would be done through corporations and not through partisan politics and divisive agitation movements, with the national interest being given top priority over more local interests. Pascual thought that the liberal democratic party system had failed irretrievably in Rosario and thus he advocated for organicism as an acceptable alternative.
Unlike Bertocca and Diego Hernandez, who was the leader of the National Falangist Party, Pascual never had the intention to create a party-state. Pascual was against the whole-party concept as well as vanguardism and in 1935 he created the National Renewal Party initially as a single-party, but he created it as a non-party. The National Renewal Party was set up to control and restrain public opinion rather than to mobilize it as a vanguard; the goal of the Estado Social was to strengthen and preserve traditional values rather than to induce a new social order, something which Pascual believed stood in direct opposition to the values that he felt were inherent in the Delepasian people. As such, ministers, diplomats, and civil servants were never compelled to join the National Renewal Party or any other political party throughout the regime's existence.
The legislative houses, called the National Council of Rosaria and the National Assembly of Rosaria, was initially restricted to members of the National Renewal Party. They could initiate legislation, but only concerning matters that did not require government expenditures. The National Council included representatives of municipalities, religious, cultural, and professional groups, and of the official workers' syndicates that replaced free trade unions.
According to Alstinian historian Michael Breen, "The men and intellectuals who had came to power under the Estado Social were genuinely concerned with the poverty and backwardness of not just their nation, but also of the Delepasian polities in general. They have ultimately divorced themselves from any and all non-Levantine political influences as they developed a new indigenous political and social model that could effectively alleviate the rampant and miserable living conditions of both the rural and urban poor."
Pascual's new constitution established provisions that greatly empowered the state while siphoning away power from parliament to established a "social and authoritarian" government which would last until 1976 when it was replaced by a similar constitution which also enshrined the Navidadian System; the 1976 constitution would last until 1994. Under both constitutions, the chief executive (President in the 1937 constitution; Commander-in-Chief in the 1976 constitution) was to be elected by popular vote and would serve a seven-year term with no set limits on the amount of terms that may be served at once. One paper, both documents had vested sweeping, and almost dictatorial powers in the hands of the chief executive, which included the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister at any given time. This elevated the chief executive into a position of preeminence as the regime's "balance wheel", and thus held the responsibility of being the defender and ultimate arbiter of national politics. However, President Santa Anna and his successors for the next fifty years were reduced to the role of figureheads during Pascual's time in office, effectively giving the Pascual more or less a free hand ever since Santa Anna appointed him prime minister. Breen argued that Pascual achieved his position of power not just because of constitutional stipulations, but also because of his personal character: he was domineering, absolutist, ambitious, hardworking, and intellectually brilliant.
The 1937 constitution would be approved in the national Rosarian constitutional referendum of 12 June 1938. The original draft was already published in the year prior, and the general public was allowed to state any objections in the press or through a valid petition. These tended to be questions asking for clarification and thus stayed in the realm of generalities for the most part and ultimately only a handful of people, less than 6,000, voted against the new constitution. The new constitution was approved with 99.5% of the vote, but with 488,840 abstentions (in a registered electorate of 1,029,042) counting as "yes". Thomas Taylor points out that the large number of abstentions might be attributable to the fact that voters were presented with a package deal to which they had to say either "yes" or "no" with no opportunity to accept one clause and reject another, effectively establishing a dilemma as one could only choose between accepting and rejecting the constitution in its entirety. In this referendum, women were allowed to vote for the first time in Rosaria. Their right to vote had not been obtained during the First Rosarian Republic, despite feminist efforts, and even in the referendum vote, secondary education with a valid diploma on hand was a requirement for female voters, whereas males only needed to be able to read and write. The right for women to vote was later broadened twice under the Estado Social. The first time was in 1944 and the second time in 1988 under Nicolas Torres, law 2137 proclaimed the equality of men and women for electoral purposes. The 1988 electoral law did not make any distinction between men and women.
After the 1937 constitution was approved, there came an extensive series of legislation enacted by Sub-Secretary of State of Corporations and Social Welfare Tomas Carranza. Under Pascual's supervision, these new laws were designed to establish and consolidate the corporatist structure as well as a new and comprehensive social welfare system. This new system was designed to cripple free-market capitalism and socialism, and the working classes were corporatised through strict legislature that governed business regulations. This meant that although all workers' organisations were order to submit to state control, they were in return granted a newfound legitimacy that many had never enjoyed during even the era of the First Republic and were more often than not made beneficiaries of the regime's new social programs. Nevertheless, it is important to note that even in the enthusiastic early years, corporatist agencies were not at the centre of power and therefore corporatism was never the true base of the whole system.
In 1936, Pascual crushed the revolutionary far-right movements that had once supported his regime and exiled prominent fascist leader Diego Hernandez as a part of a purge of the leadership of the National Falangist Party, also known as the camisas plateadas ("Silver Shirts"). Pascual held an intense dislike for the National Falangists and accused them of having been "inspired by the Caphiric model" and condemned their "idolatrous exaltation of youth, the revolutionary cult of force through vanguardism, the blasphemous principle of the superiority of the state's political power in all aspects of a person's life, [and] the slavish and sacrilegious propensity for organising the masses behind a single leader" and stated that the Catholic corporatism of the Estado Social "exalts a national sense of collectivism under the guidance of principles that were wisely established by the Church; it preserves traditional values and the natural order of society while cautiously allowing for certain changes so long as it benefits the nation as a whole". Pascual's own party, the National Renewal Party, was formed as a subservient umbrella organization to support the regime itself, and therefore did not have its own set philosophy beyond the main philosophies as enshrined in the constitution. At the time, there was a legitimate fear in the Occident of the destructive potential of communism. Many members of the National Falangist Party eventually joined the National Renewal Party, often abandoning the principles of falangism so as to appear more palatable to the regime. One overriding criticism of Pascual's regime is that the regime's stability was bought and maintained at the cost of suppressing human rights and civil liberties.
The corporatist state had some similarities to Galdo Bertocca's Caphiric fascism, but Pascual made some considerable differences in the regime's moral approach to governing. Pascual was an admirer of Bertocca and his views were somewhat influenced by the political charters and theories that formulated Caphiric-style fascism. However, after having purged the falangists, Pascual soon distanced himself from fascist regimes in general, which he considered a pagan Caesarist political system that recognised neither legal nor moral limits to how far they are willing to go and thus was considered in his eyes to be repugnant. Just before the start of the Second Great War, Pascual made this declaration: "Us true Delepasians are in direct opposition to any and all forms of revolutionary vanguardism whether it be Internationalism, Communism, Fascism, Falangism, and everything that may divide, minimize, or break up the family. We are against class warfare, we are against irreligion and disloyalty to one's country; we are against serfdom, a materialistic conception of life, and the barbaric concept of might over right." however the Estado Social had adopted many characteristics of fascism, most notably with the economic policies of the corporatism.
Second Great War
As a member Levantia and Odoneru Treaty Association (LOTA) since its founding, the Estado Social regime, like the other Delepasian polities, was on the side of LOTA with most of its contributions to the war effort being through either its collaboration with Bahia in the cause for Volonian independence or through aiding Burgundie in the Invasion of Vespera.
Post-Second Great War
After the end of the Second Great War in 1943, the corporatist economic model became less and less applicable due to its association with Caphiric fascism. Indeed, it was during this time that the Estado Social regime was fast becoming a source of criticism and dissent by the international community. Pascual, however, clung to the corporatist economic model under the belief that there was no need to fix something that had fixed a broken republic; this would wind up causing the regime's long-term economic development to massively slow down, especially as other Delepasian polities decided to abandon corporatism in favour of a more liberal economy. What the regime was lacking in terms of economic development, it certainly did not lack in terms of political reform. Pascual had liberalised the political sphere, granting an extended freedom of the press as well as the establishment of an organised opposition. He also allowed for the formation of controlled, limited, and manipulated opposition parties and factions that were barred from ever forming a united opposition. The first of these opposition parties were two "government-approved" parties that were formed by Pascual: the Democratic Revitalisation Party and the Popular Reform Party; these two parties would collectively win one-third of the Rosarian legislature. Even independent opposition parties were permitted to form, with the Coalition of Independent Democrats (CDI) being formed in 1944 with Pascual's blessing. The CDI boycotted the election, allowing for Pascual to win handily on 18 November 1944, with CDI soon splitting into three opposition parties: the left-wing Social Democratic Commission (CSD), the right-wing People's National Action (ANP), and the new CDI.
A consequence of the political reforms of the 1940s meant that the National Renewal Party itself was no longer apolitical in nature and thus factions within the party began to form; these factions were mostly kept at bay due to Pascual's influence over the party, but that did not stop them from formulating their own ideas on what direction they wish to take the regime in. The most prominent of these factions, however, would not emerge until the early 1970s. This faction, inspired by Volonia's relatively peaceful transition to democracy, hoped to achieve meaningful political and social reform in the future. However, unlike the reforms in Volonia, these reforms were intended to revitalise the regime and to ensure its continued existence long after Pascual's death, chief among these reforms being an extensive liberalisation of the economy, and even a pathway for the establishment of an authoritarian democracy.
In 1949, President Isador de Santa Anna died after 30 years in office and was succeeded by Jaime Trastamara. However, Trastamara was a strict constitutionalist and thus was not willing to give Pascual the free hand that Santa Anna had given him; Trastamara was forced by Pascual to resign just before the end of his term in 1956 under threat of indictment for treason. Naval Minister Francisco de Costa, a staunch conservative and ardent Pascual loyalist, ran in that year's election as the official candidate. He won handily. Fearing that a rogue candidate could try to win an election, Pascual abolished the direct election of presidents in favour of election by the National Assembly—which was firmly controlled by the regime—serving as an electoral college.
Pact of Eighteen
Starting in 1970, Pascual embarked on the ultimate goal of Delepasian exceptionalism, which was to unify the Delepasian polities under one flag. 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. This new Delepasia would integrate the Navidadian System, which was a system of racial segregation established in Navidadia in the 1940s. and apply the system to the nation's Cartadanians and Taineans by creating new ranks where they are positioned higher than the Loa but lower than the Delepasians, complete with certain restrictions to ensure Delepasian supremacy.
Delepasian Commonwealth years
One of the first tasks facing the new nation was the election of their head of state, that being the Emperor, with the President of Rosario, Francisco de Costa, being elevated to the national level and becoming the nation's first commander-in-chief. 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.
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, many of whom were often aligned with the nascent reformist faction that arose in the early 1970s, who studied abroad and majored in economics as well as having obtained technical-industrial expertise during their studies. These technocrats wanted to revitalise the fledgling nation's economy in hopes of turning Delepasia into a hub for international investment. New industries were developed with the express purpose of building up the stagnant economy as well as to catch up with the Vallosian Economic Association's average; Delepasia would use this average as a benchmark for their goals and as a means to determine which sectors of the economy should be given priority in development at a given time. Free trade agreements with neighbouring countries and an increase in international trade beyond just Vallos were achieved during this time, with plans being drafted up for the purpose of opening up select sectors of the economy to foreign firms. Pascual had finally decided that it was time to let go of the corporatist economy, especially as much of the Delepasian polities that had joined up with Rosaria had better economies thanks to them having abandoned corporatism decades ago. This new economic outlook allowed for foreign trade in both exports to imports to greatly increase, and by 1993 the nation's total output was more than double the nation's total output in 1980.
However, the unprecedented economic growth could have been much larger if not for the fact that the nation was expending huge amounts of money and resources into the immensely costly Loaland campaigns in Navidadia. Starting in late 1979, guerrilla movements rose up in the internal protectorate of Loaland with the express aim of 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 and decrepit regime.
In 1988, just one month before his 99th birthday, Fernando Pascual suffered a haemorrhagic stroke. 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 thus 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, resulting in scenarios in which foreign dignitaries had to be received by the deluded Pascual before being received by the actual prime minister.
Nicolas Torres was chosen by de Costa and the Privy Council to succeed Pascual. Although initially a protégé of Pascual, Torres became one of the founding members of the emerging reformist faction of the National Renewal Party that arose in the 1970s. Having studied the extensive political and economic reforms that were enacted in Volonia which had enabled that nation's government to transition towards a democratic form of government without bloodshed, Torres and many other prominent intellectuals within the regime felt that key reforms to both the economy and the political sphere would allow for the Estado Social to survive, and maybe even under a somewhat sincerely democratic form of government. Thus, upon his appointment as prime minister, Torres set to work on modernising and liberalising 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 and a reversal of any and all reforms. With the threat of force looming over him, Torres had no choice but to back down. This led to the very people who had hoped that he would be the bringer of reform to turn against him, now seeing him as an indecisive and inept leader, the most notable of these new critics was the nascent Rumapunk subculture, which had arose in the name of open defiance against the regime. However, this new subculture was unable to inspire the mass demonstrations that they had hoped for whether out of fear of reprisal or out of not wanting to be associated with what was seen as a very uncouth counterculture.
With the regime being deemed as being incapable of effective reforming itself, there began the rise of a new sentiment amongst many groups—the armed forces, the opposition, and liberals within the regime—the sentiment 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 revolutionary sentiment was further fanned by the number of growing tensions on the political and social scene as the stresses of an increasingly geriatric regime and an immensely costly campaign in an area that very few really cared about began to emerge.
Economy
One of the greatest issues that have plagued the Delepasian economies from 1852 until the rise of the Estado Social was the exponentially-growing public debt. The debt was so bad that no matter which entity, whether private or public, some of the Delepasian polities have approached in hopes of getting a loan, either these requests were rejected on the spot, or those polities were unable to meet the terms and conditions for each loan. During this era of financial uncertainty, Isador de Santa Anna, the leader of the military dictatorship in Rosaria, invited Pascual to become the regime's minister of finance in 1931, complete with a near-blank cheque on his veto powers when it came to any and all forms of government expenditure regardless of the department. Thanks to these special powers and financial know-how, Pascual was able to balance Rosaria's budget and stabilise the peseta. This restoration of order to the national coffers through austerity measures and censoring waste gave Rosaria its first out of many budgetary surpluses, which at that time was considered a near-impossibility. This would be followed by the other Delepasian polities copying what Rosaria did to balance the budget which too were met with budgetary surpluses.
In July 1945, the Almadarian Fuero magazine featured an article on Rosaria and the rest of the Delepasian polities, and, referring to its recent chaotic history, asserted that "just a quarter-century prior, our Delepasian neighbours to the east were in such a sorry state of affairs that they were worth more dead than alive in many cases. Their governments were atrocious and filled with blunders that wound up bankrupting them through things such as petty vanity projects. Their living conditions were so squalid that it made even the poorest of our nation look wealthy in comparison, and such conditions were perpetuated through both near-constant epidemics and abysmal literacy rates. Indeed, the term "Delepasian" was for the past several decades a byword for the absolute worst of the worst in the Occident. It would not be until 1919 when the Rosarian Republic was overthrown by its own armed forces which by that point had had enough of the extreme poverty and miserable living conditions that the Republic was suffering under." Fuero added that after 1852 it would've been easier to tame the jungles of Vallo than to rule a Delepasian polity before going on to explain how Pascual "entered the public sphere to a land of chaos and destitution, and transformed it into a stable and even prosperous regime complete with multiple annual economic surpluses for the past decade; even the other Delepasian polities were able to replicate this success story".
By the early 1980s, the Estado Social saw the rise of younger technocrats, many of whom were often aligned with the nascent reformist faction that arose in the early 1970s, who studied abroad and majored in economics as well as having obtained technical-industrial expertise during their studies. These technocrats wanted to revitalise the fledgling nation's economy in hopes of turning Delepasia into a hub for international investment. New industries were developed with the express purpose of building up the stagnant economy as well as to catch up with the Vallosian Economic Association's average; Delepasia would use this average as a benchmark for their goals and as a means to determine which sectors of the economy should be given priority in development at a given time. Free trade agreements with neighbouring countries and an increase in international trade beyond just Vallos were achieved during the 1980s, with plans being drafted up for the purpose of opening up select sectors of the economy to foreign firms. Pascual had finally decided that it was time to let go of the corporatist economy, especially as much of the Delepasian polities that had joined up with Rosaria had better economies thanks to them having abandoned corporatism decades ago. This new economic outlook allowed for foreign trade in both exports to imports to greatly increase, and by 1993 the nation's total output was more than double the nation's total output in 1980.
For a comparison, the regime's GDP per capita was only at 42 percent of the VEA's average in 1980, and yet by the end of Pascual's tenure as prime minister in 1988 it had grown to 54 percent thanks to him having granted some token economic reforms, with it rising even further to 61.7 percent by 1993 during the latter days of the Torres premiership thanks to his liberal economic reforms, which were promptly reversed by Pascualist hardliners that same year in favour of a return to the economic policies as implemented before 1988. Through an analysis of the previous 130-plus years of Delepasian economic history at that time, the economic growth that was experienced during the early years of Pascual's premiership was in fact only a slight economic recovery which had slowed down thanks to Pascual's insistence on maintaining corporatism and economic autarky. It would not be until 1980 when the regime began to pursue a path which involved a strong economic convergence with the wealthiest economies of Vallos, which was ended with the Velvet Revolution in April 1994. The period of economic growth that was experienced from 1980 until 1993, even with the effects of an expensive war effort in Loaland against liberationist groups, created many opportunities for real integration into the economies of the VEA. 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 designed to handle these challenges.
As for Loaland, which had become the responsibility of the Estado Social since Delepasia's formation in 1976, the regime opted to develop Loaland into a so-called "internal protectorate" where it may receive economic aid from the government as needed. In order to accomplish this strategy, the regime engaged in population and capital transfers, liberalised trade, and even created a separate currency for Loaland that would be pegged to the Delepasian Peseta. As a part of the new integration programme as established in 1981, Delepasia would remove any and all duties on imports from Loaland by 1984, but Loaland would retain the right to levy duties on any and all goods imported from Delepasia proper so long as it was at a preferential rate such as a 50 percent discount off of the normal duties levied by Loaland. The intended effect was to provide Delepasian exports preferential access to Loaland's markets, allowing the protectorate's economy to boom.
The economy of the Estado Social began to take on the trappings of capitalism, albeit a heavily-regulated form of capitalism that had industrial licensing requirements that would not be removed until after Pascual's removal from power. The liberalisation of the economy during the final years of Pascual's rule was very slow and came very late into the regime's existence, and it took until the beginning of Nicola Torres's premiership for the regime to take a more proactive role in economic liberalisation. Industrial licensing requirements for most firms were among the first things to have been abolished by Torres, followed by a free trade agreement with the Vallosian Economic Association in 1992. Under the agreement, which was effective at the beginning of 1993, the regime had seven years to abolish much of its protectionist policies on most goods, and an additional five years on products that make up at least 10 percent of the VEA's total exports to Delepasia. Beginning in 1980, being granted observer status in the VEA as well as successes in attracting foreign investment allowed for the regime to modernise its sorely-outdated industry and to greatly increase its export diversification by 1993. With economic growth well underway, Torres was able to award a monthly pension to rural workers who had never had the chance to pay into social security.
Although the means of production was still concentrated in the hands of a small number of firms and holding groups that were more often than not held by wealthy and influential families, Delepasian business culture still allowed for the upward mobility of middle-class university graduates into positions of professional management which were often lucrative.
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 unlike older firms which were established in the early years of the Estado Social.
Because of Delepasia's fast economic growth allowing for the increase of mass consumpation on a wider scale, automobile sales rose drastically, encouraging the regime to focus on improving transportation throughout the country. 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 to handle the sudden increase in vehicular traffic.
The Delepasian economy grew well above the Vallosi average by late April of 1994, with the average family purchasing power rising alongside the emergence of new consumption patterns and trends. These new patterns and trends necessitated the expansion of investments through captal equipment and through the expenditure of consuming durable and nondurable goods.
The Estado Social regime's economic policy encouraged the formation of large, family-owned conglomerates. Through corporatism, this allowed for the rise of the gransindinales, which were large, family-owned-and-operated conglomerates. The most notable of these grandsindinale familes included the Alonso family, the de la Puente family, the Zavala family, and the Serrano family.
The Zavalas, whose ancestry dates back to the first arrival of the Pelaxians onto Vallos, was the most prominent of these gransindinales through their ownership and operation of the United Manufacturing Company, which offered a wide and varied range of interests spanning multiple sectors including but not limited to insurance, 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).
Below the gransindinales were the agrupresas, which were medium-sized companies that tended to specialise within one given sector of the economy, but much like the gransindinales they were also family-owned-and-operated. These groupings tended to exist in rural areas further inland while the gransindinales dominated urban and coastal areas, with the former most often engaging in agriculture and forestry, but there was often the occasional agrupresa that instead engaged in small-scale tourism or engineered wood.
Although labour unions were permitted as per the papal encyclicals that inspired the formulation of corporatism, they had to be state-controlled which meant that labour unions that adhered to socialism or free-market capitalism would either be forced to abandon those political beliefs or be forcibly dissolved by the state. Minimum wage laws were neglected for many decades, with some having been last update in the 1920s in the most extreme cases. However, with the advant of a growing and expanding economy, the rise in living conditions throughout the country in the 1980s, and the outbreak of the Loaland campaigns, there emerged certain social changes such as the rise in female employment within the labour market. The reforms heralded by Nicolas Torres allowed for further economic growth and even social improvements such as an extensive pension reform that allowed for rural workers to collect a pension even if they never had the chance to pay into social security. The pension reform was a three-pronged endeavour that was intended to provided equity for millions, reduce the financial imbalance between the urban workers and the rural works, and expanding economic efficiency in general. The crowning achievement during the brief era of reform under Nicolas Torres was the introduction of some very limited yet significant democratic reforms inspired by the reforms enacted in Volonia just two decades prior, complete with the formation of the first democratic labour union movement in Delepasia's history.
Education
The first years (1938-1941)
Compulsory education during the first few years of the Estado Social was established at the original span of six years as it was when it had first reached the short-live Delepasian Kingdom in 1852 before being raised to eight years. The chaos and instability in the decades after the fall of the Delepasian Kingdom prevented the Delepasian polities from effectively enforcing the eight-year period. The 1937 constitution states that the purpose of public education is to: "aid in the physical and intellectual reinvigoration of one's faculties, as well as to formulate character and instill not just professional value but also all civic and traditional moral values that define the character of the new republic".
The Ministry of Juan Marquez (1941-1945)
Pascual had nominated his friend and Rector of the University of Adouka, Juan Marquez, to serve as the new Minister of Instruction in 1941. In that same year, Marquez's ministry had altered its name to that of Ministry of National Education, which included the formation of a National Board of Education. The main goal of the nascent National Board of Education was to serve as a main research body for the Minister and to inform him in all matters that are within the realms of both education and culture. In nearly all sections of this Board, representation was granted for both parents and educators with the sole exceptions being within the cultural relations and scientific research sections. The Board replaced the Superior Council for Instruction as well as the National Board of Antiquities and Archaeology, among other consulting boards.
Another event of note during Marquez's tenure was the creation of the Children of Santiago, the Grand Education Plan, and the adoption of a single, nationally-standardised textbook for each grade.
The Children of Santiago was established in 1941, with its founding documents defining it as a "national and pre-military organisation that can stimulate the fundamental development of the physical and intellectual capacities of the nation's youth, to formulate their character as well as their devotion to the Delepasian identity, thus putting them into conditions where they are able to effectively compete for its defense and honour".
The Model Education Plan was a masterplan for the establishment of a robust school network that would be made uniform based on their given region, that would be made compliant to the fullest extent of the teaching and hygienic standards as were established by this point. The buildings were designed so as to be able to handle certain modifications that were intended to reflect the differences found in climate, available resources, and the processes of construction pertaining to each region. The plan would not be approved until 1944, but it did begin almost immediately after its approval was secured. This new education plan would outlast Marquez's tenure, lasting for seventeen years and going through six phases before being replaced by the "New Model Plan" in 1961. The number of primary schools had more than doubled by the time the "New Model Plan" was established.
Between Marquez and Vargas (1945-1990)
According to education statistics in 1952, over 80 percent of preteens were literate, but just over five percent of them were able to complete the six years of compulsory education; many of them had to cease their studies on account of their parents, who were often impoverished types who needed their children for farm work or to enter into the job market at a young age so as to help the family out financially. To tackle this abysmal completion rate, the Ministry of National Education launched a multi-pronged Plan for the People's Education that was designed to reduce both adolescent and adult illiteracy while making sure that all children were able to complete the mandatory years of schooling as required by law. This meant that strictly-enforced fines were introduced to be levied onto noncompliant parents under threat of escalation into imprisonment for further noncompliance. Adult illiteracy was tackled through the use of night schools.
In 1956, compulsory education for all regardless of gender was finally raised from six to eight years under strict enforcement.
By the late 1960s, Rosaria had succeeded in pulling itself out of the educational abyss in which it had long found itself for the past century: illiteracy among children of school age had virtually disappeared, and adult illiteracy had been slashed down to one-quarter of its original rate; the Plan for the People's Education was a huge success.
In 1974, compulsory education for all was raised from eight to ten years.
In 1975, an instructional television programme is created ("Telacademia"), filmed in the Rosarian Radio & Television studios in Adouka to support isolated rural areas and overcrowded suburban schools.
The Alejandro Vargas Reforms (1990-1994)
In 1990, Alejandro Vargas was appointed by then-new prime minister Nicolas Torres to become the last Minister of National Education for the Estado Social regime. The next year, Vargas went on TV to present two highly ambitious projects that would not only reform the school system, but also higher education. The Delepasian Memoerial University would be recognised shortly afterward, with Vargas's greatest achievement being launched in mid-1993 under the new "Basic Guidelines for Delepasian Education", which was designed to provide certain democratic reforms for the regime's education system, itself followed by a decree that established new universities, politechnical schools, and superior schools. "Nursery schools" were introduced at the same time, intended to prepare toddlers for primary school, which also necessitated increasing the amount of years for compulsory education from ten to thirteen years and legally requiring parents to send their children to nursery school at the age of three. Less than a year later, the Velvet Revolution would take place, ending the Estado Social, but not the basic framework of the modern education system in Rumahoki.
End of the regime
The end of the Estado Social regime, and of the Delepasian Commonwealth as well, began when guerrillas began to rise up in the Loaland protectorate in the early 1980s. For the Estado Social, which had inherited the laws of the Navidadian System, the Loaland protecture was seen as being a part of the regime's national interest. The criticisms and accusations the regime received in terms of what the international community saw as blatant racial discrimination were refuted by the regime, which had countered by stating that the Loa would be Occidentalised and assimilated in due time, through a process called the civilising mission. The Loaland campaigns that came as a result of these guerrillas were very unpopular both internally and externally, to say nothing of the fact that the campaigns were immensely expensive and were only leading to further diplomatic isolation for the regime, thus in turn leading to the question of whether or not the war should even be continued, with some even applying that to the regime as a whole. Although the Delepasian forces were able to maintain an upper hand in much of these battles thanks to its usage of elite paratroopers and special operations troops, the guerrillas, through covert foreign aid to the Loa fighters and sanctions against the Estado Social, were still able to inflict losses on the Delepasian forces. With the end of the Occidental Cold War in the mid-1980s, there was even less of an interest to entertain the regime's continued existence; with there no longer being a need for a LOTA-aligned nation in Vallos, many of the regime's international allies have decided to no longer maintain diplomatic relations. This situation was exacerbated by Pascual, the main leader of the regime, having a stroke 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.
Even further diplomatic isolation had occurred after an Ænglish priest when he wrote about having witnessed a massacre during his visit to Vallos in 1993. He described himself having witnessed the Delepasian Army executing about 500 Loa in northern Loaland; when he asked one of the soldiers after the executions were carried out, he was told that these Loa were rumoured to have harboured guerrilla fighters months ago. His report was published and received international publication, which in turn led to the international community condemning the regime for this blatant disregard for human rights. This report has been cited as one of the factors that helped to bring about the "velvet revolution" coup which deposed the Torres regime in 1994.
The many guerrilla uprisings had resulted in the later Pascual and the subsequent Torres governments to expend more and more of the regime's budget and resources to administer Loaland and to pay for the increasing military expenditures, with nothing to show for it beyond even further diplomatic isolation from the world in general, which had began to show as the campaign as a whole entered its second decade in the 1990s; the military was overstretched and there appeared to be no politically-viable solution or an end in sight. When Torres was appointed prime minister after Pascual's incapacitation in 1988, the Loaland campaigns were a common subject for criticisms and dissent against the regime. Many of the nation's youngest dissidents were students who have embraced left-wing politics, members of the nation's growing punk counterculture, and committed peace advocates; they would have to flee the country at least once in their lifetimes to avoid imprisonment or the draft, often by illegally immigrating to either Almadaria and Cartadania. However, there also existed elements of society that have embraced far-right politics during their time in university or school, and were primarily guided by a revolutionary and extreme form of nationalism based upon the ideology of the falangists and of Galdo Bertocca's fascism. The core of the struggle of these radical students lay in an uncompromising defense of Delepasian exceptionalism in the days of the authoritarian regime.
The campaigns in Loaland, which just a decade prior were heralded by throngs of cheering people, were now becoming the subject of ridicule to the people of Delepasia as war-weariness and expenses increased rapidly. By this point, many ethnic Delepasians that were living in Loaland were calling for an end to the hostilities in favour of a plan for Loa autonomy that was conditional on ensuring that Delepasian superiority could be preserved. However, despite the increasing economic burdens the campaign was accumulating through the unpredictable and sporadic Loa guerrilla attacks that had occurred against rural targets across the protectorate, Loaland's economy was booming, with expanding and affluent urban areas emerging over time, leading to transportation networks being established to facilitate trade between the protectorate and Delepasia and further immigration from Delepasia proper (creating a small but powerful Delepasian minority in Loaland).
In late April of 1994, a sudden military coup had overthrown the Estado Social regime. It was not the first attempt at a military rebellion, but it was the most successful; organised by left-wing elements of the Delepasian armed forces, the Democratic Revival Society (DR Society), which was a military faction created and supported by the coup plotters, had emerged out of hiding. The Velvet Revolution, as this coup became to be known thanks to its relative bloodless nature, has been described as a necessity for the emergence of democracy in Delepasia, as well as bringing an end to the unpopular and costly Loaland campaigns where thousands of Delepasian soldiers were sent to, and of the authoritarian Estado Social regime and its secret police, which had long repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms, as a whole. Although the military coup's organisation was initially that of a professional class protest of captains in the United Delepasian Armed Forces against a new decree law that introduced a programme designed to lower expenses in the Loaland campaigns while bolstering up the amount of officials employed against the Loa guerrillas, namely through commissioning militia officers who have completed a brief series of training sessions and had served in the Loaland campaigns at the same rank as graduates of the nation's military academy. Torres's Privy Council had begun the programme (which included several other reforms) so that they could secure some funding for the nascent space programme that the VEA and its observer states had been participating in and build what would become the Vito Borbon Memorial Spaceport. After the coup, the Junta for the Salvation of Civility, a military junta led by the DR Society, 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 refugees (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 far-left politics of the labour movement-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.