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Qiu Heng: Difference between revisions
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Qiu Heng's ascended to the leadership of the country with his mind set on normalizing the political situation, he saw the perpetuation of the military junta system as inherently unstable, absent an electoral mandate of sorts, any general in charge of a division could see feel themselves justified in attempting to take power the same way as the junta did in the first place. Since Qiu distrusted the established but outlawed old political parties, he decided instead to build a new party from the ground up. As a base he chose a pro-military civic association called the National Daxian Rally-NDR that had existed since 1945 but had never reached much relevance. Qiu directed the Ministry of Social Services and the Ministry of Finance to direct significant financial resources to the NDR to support its growth. The junta leader himself joined the NDR in the summer of 1952 and was elected its leader 'by acclamation' of the party delegates. This was followed by a massive bump in party membership as government employees joined en masse(to curry favor, preserve their jobs or genuine agreement) and trade unions and government contractors enjoined their affiliates and employees to do the same. In this early stage the biggest labor union of the country, the then [[Central Confederation of Daxian Trade Unions|All-Daxian Workers Central Union]] negotiated generous terms on collective bargaining and perks for its members in exchange for its unrestricted support for the new political machinery. Qiu Heng announced the first national elections for President and a new National Assembly would take place concurrently in mid 1952, he also announced his candidacy at the head of the now renamed [[National Reconstruction Front (Daxia)|National Reconstruction Front]]-NRF. To contest in these elections, Qiu's junta released the leaders of the [[Daxia]]n Liberal Party, while of the more popular communist cadres only a handful were released. The campaigning was anything but fair, opposition events were routinely cancelled or when they went ahead they were not televised or were broken up by thugs. Several campaign aides of the communist party were assasinated and offices of the Liberal Party attacked by mobs (historians agree the mobs were paid by the government). The NRF campaigned mainly on a platform of nationalist xenophobia; its political rivals were painted as inwardly thinking like Bergendii wearing Daxian faces, lovers of all things foreign and traitorous internationalists willing to sacrifice the Daxian people in exchange for utopias being created abroad. On economics the party swung hard towards economic protectionism with policies such as the creation of nationally owned companies on strategic sectors like oil to massively employ people. | Qiu Heng's ascended to the leadership of the country with his mind set on normalizing the political situation, he saw the perpetuation of the military junta system as inherently unstable, absent an electoral mandate of sorts, any general in charge of a division could see feel themselves justified in attempting to take power the same way as the junta did in the first place. Since Qiu distrusted the established but outlawed old political parties, he decided instead to build a new party from the ground up. As a base he chose a pro-military civic association called the National Daxian Rally-NDR that had existed since 1945 but had never reached much relevance. Qiu directed the Ministry of Social Services and the Ministry of Finance to direct significant financial resources to the NDR to support its growth. The junta leader himself joined the NDR in the summer of 1952 and was elected its leader 'by acclamation' of the party delegates. This was followed by a massive bump in party membership as government employees joined en masse(to curry favor, preserve their jobs or genuine agreement) and trade unions and government contractors enjoined their affiliates and employees to do the same. In this early stage the biggest labor union of the country, the then [[Central Confederation of Daxian Trade Unions|All-Daxian Workers Central Union]] negotiated generous terms on collective bargaining and perks for its members in exchange for its unrestricted support for the new political machinery. Qiu Heng announced the first national elections for President and a new National Assembly would take place concurrently in mid 1952, he also announced his candidacy at the head of the now renamed [[National Reconstruction Front (Daxia)|National Reconstruction Front]]-NRF. To contest in these elections, Qiu's junta released the leaders of the [[Daxia]]n Liberal Party, while of the more popular communist cadres only a handful were released. The campaigning was anything but fair, opposition events were routinely cancelled or when they went ahead they were not televised or were broken up by thugs. Several campaign aides of the communist party were assasinated and offices of the Liberal Party attacked by mobs (historians agree the mobs were paid by the government). The NRF campaigned mainly on a platform of nationalist xenophobia; its political rivals were painted as inwardly thinking like Bergendii wearing Daxian faces, lovers of all things foreign and traitorous internationalists willing to sacrifice the Daxian people in exchange for utopias being created abroad. On economics the party swung hard towards economic protectionism with policies such as the creation of nationally owned companies on strategic sectors like oil to massively employ people. | ||
Despite the clearly tilted electoral campaign, Qiu Heng enjoyed geniune popularity with the population for his wartime achievements, his role in overthrowing an unpopular monarchy and his penchant for curbing and publicly punishing the excesses of other military officials. In one such instance he demoted a general to the rank of private for proposing that farmers protesting against the building of a railroad through their lands should simply be mowed down with machine guns; the dressing down and demotion was televised. Despite his reserved personality, he actively promoted his public persona as the 'People's General' with working tours of the countryside, visits to factories, children's nurseries and schools; polls of the time giving him a seventy percent preference of the vote may have been skewed but their trajectory was nonetheless true, his advantage over his rivals was an insurmountable chasm. The May 1952 polls resulted in an overwhelming victory for him; the NRF and Qiu Heng won with 73% of the vote, the Liberals won 13%, the Communists won 9% and the Peasant and Farmers Party won 5%. The NRF and the army could comfortably rule alone and had pushed the opposition to the margins of political representation, the Peasant and Farmers Party soon after decided to merge with the NRF arguing their objectives were better served as part of the governing party. The 1952 election was a watershed in the politics of [[Daxia]], it marked the beginning of an almost uninterrupted | Despite the clearly tilted electoral campaign, Qiu Heng enjoyed geniune popularity with the population for his wartime achievements, his role in overthrowing an unpopular monarchy and his penchant for curbing and publicly punishing the excesses of other military officials. In one such instance he demoted a general to the rank of private for proposing that farmers protesting against the building of a railroad through their lands should simply be mowed down with machine guns; the dressing down and demotion was televised. Despite his reserved personality, he actively promoted his public persona as the 'People's General' with working tours of the countryside, visits to factories, children's nurseries and schools; polls of the time giving him a seventy percent preference of the vote may have been skewed but their trajectory was nonetheless true, his advantage over his rivals was an insurmountable chasm. The May 1952 polls resulted in an overwhelming victory for him; the NRF and Qiu Heng won with 73% of the vote, the Liberals won 13%, the Communists won 9% and the Peasant and Farmers Party won 5%. The NRF and the army could comfortably rule alone and had pushed the opposition to the margins of political representation, the Peasant and Farmers Party soon after decided to merge with the NRF arguing their objectives were better served as part of the governing party. The 1952 election was a watershed in the politics of [[Daxia]], it marked the beginning of an almost uninterrupted thirty four year period of rule for the NRF, its percentage in national elections would not dip under eighty percent until 1984 when Yang Qiu secured 'merely' sixty nine percent of the vote during his reelection campaign. | ||
===Persecution of communists=== | ===Persecution of communists=== | ||
The new President and the military establishment despite allowing it to run in elections, still saw the [[Communist Party of Daxia|CPD]] with its radical ideas on wealth and land redistribution, world revolution and its 'massification' of the army, as its main internal enemy. With a strong public mandate secured and with the communists revealing part of their underground networks during the presidential campaign to try and amp up their political mobilization, the government organs began to take aim at them. While [[Communist Party of Daxia|CPD]] parliamentarians were booed and drowned out every day by the NRF majority in the National Assembly, their associates on the outside began to be arrested, assassinated and abducted in plain daylight. | |||
===Stabilizing growth=== | |||
===The Little Incursion=== | ===The Little Incursion=== | ||
==Final years== | ==Final years== | ||