Estado Social (Rumahoki)
Rosarian Republic (1933-1976) República Rosariana Delepasian Commonwealth (1976-1994) Mancomunidad Delepasiano | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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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The Estado Social ("New 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.
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. It 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, 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. 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, and was a founding member of the League of Nations since its formation in 1955. As Delepasia, the Estado Social regime was well on its way towards 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 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 under the Estado Social saw its GDP per capita increase at an annual average rate of 6.9 per cent. Despite the remarkable economic growth, and economic convergence, 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 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 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 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, forbade any member of the former royal house from ever ruling over a Delepasian polity, he having come to hate the Delepasians thanks to the highly turbulent Delepasian Kingdom. This new republic quickly fell into a decades-long struggle to sustain the fragile parliamentary democracy under 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.
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). Pasqual became Prime Minister in 1935, and in 1938 renamed it as the Estado Social (Social State), defining Rosaria as a corporative, single-party and pan-Vallosi country.
With fascist organisations being popular and widely supported across many countries (like Bertocca's Caphiric Fascism and Falangism) as an antagonist of communist ideologies, Fernando Pascual developed the Estado Social, which can be described as a right-leaning corporatist government. The basis of his regime was a platform of stability, in direct contrast to the unstable environment of the First Rosarian Republic.
According to some Rumahokian scholars like Jaime Valentin and Luis Estevez, his early reforms and policies changed the whole nation by permitting political and financial stability and therefore a calm social order and economic growth, after the politically unstable and financially chaotic years of the First Rosarian Republic (1853-1919). Following the First Republic, when not even public order had been achieved, this looked like an impressive breakthrough to most of the population; at this point, Pascual Salazar achieved the height of his popularity. This transformation of Rosaria was then 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, 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
The Estado Social based its political philosophy around a close interpretation of the Catholic social doctrine, a relatively new idea to the Vallosi subcontinent. The economic system, known as corporatism, was based on similar interpretations of two papal encyclicals which were used as the basis for this economic theory. Corporatism was designed to prevent class struggle and transform economic concerns secondary to social values. Labour associations were seen by the Church as part of the natural order, like the family. The right of men to organize into trade unions and to engage in labour activities was thus inherent and could not be denied by employers or the state. These encyclicals provided the needed blueprint for the erection of the corporatist system.
A new constitution was drafted by a group of lawyers, businessmen, clerics, and university professors, with Pascual as the leading spirit and Gregorio Valdez also playing a major role. The constitution created the Estado Social ("Social State"), in theory a corporatist state representing interest groups rather than individuals. The leaders wanted a system in which the people would be represented through corporations, rather than through divisive parties, and where national interest was given priority over sectional claims. Pasqual thought that the liberal 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 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; the goal was to strengthen and preserve traditional values rather than to induce a new social order. Ministers, diplomats, and civil servants were never compelled to join the National Renewal Party.
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 Michael Breen, "The men who came to power in the Estado Social were genuinely concerned with the poverty and backwardness of their nation, divorcing themselves from non-Levantine political influences while developing a new indigenous political model and alleviating the miserable living conditions of both rural and urban poor."
The new constitution introduced by Pascual established an anti-parliamentarian and authoritarian government that would last until 1976 when it was replaced by a similar constitution which enshrined the Navidadian System that lasted until 1994. The president was to be elected by popular vote for a period of seven years. On paper, the new document vested sweeping, almost dictatorial powers in the hands of the president, including the power to appoint and dismiss the prime minister. The president was elevated to a position of preeminence as the "balance wheel", the defender and ultimate arbiter of national politics. President Santa Anna, however, had allowed Pascual more or less a free hand since appointing him prime minister and continued to do so. Santa Anna and his successors would largely be figureheads as Pascual wielded the true power. Breen argued that Pascual achieved his position of power not just because of constitutional stipulations, but also because of his character: domineering, absolutist, ambitious, hardworking, and intellectually brilliant.
The corporatist constitution was approved in the national Rosarian constitutional referendum of 12 June 1938. A draft had been published one year before, and the public was invited to state any objections in the press. These tended to stay in the realm of generalities and 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 "yes" or "no" with no opportunity to accept one clause and reject another. 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 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.
The year 1938 marked a watershed of legislation in Rosarian history. Under Pascual's supervision, Tomas Carranza, the Sub-Secretary of State of Corporations and Social Welfare, reporting directly to Pascual, enacted extensive legislation that shaped the corporatist structure and initiated a comprehensive social welfare system. This system was equally anti-capitalist and anti-socialist. The corporatization of the working class was accompanied by strict legislation regulating business. Workers' organizations were subordinated to state control but granted a legitimacy that they had never before enjoyed and were made beneficiaries of a variety of new social programs. Nevertheless, it is important to note that even in the enthusiastic early years, corporatist agencies were not at the center of power and therefore corporatism was not the true base of the whole system.
In 1936, Rosario crushed the Rosarian fascist movements and exiled 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 denounced the National Falangists as "inspired by certain foreign models" and condemned their "exaltation of youth, the cult of force through direct action, the principle of the superiority of state political power in social life, [and] the propensity for organizing masses behind a single leader" as fundamental differences between fascism and the Catholic corporatism of the Estado Social. 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 philosophy. 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. One overriding criticism of his regime is that stability was bought and maintained at the expense of suppression of human rights and liberties.
The corporatist state had some similarities to Galdo Bertocca's Caphiric fascism, but considerable differences in its moral approach to governing. Although Pascual admired Bertocca and was influenced by his political charters and theories, Pascual distanced himself from fascist regimes in general, which he considered a pagan Caesarist political system that recognized neither legal nor moral limits.
Pascual also viewed Rosarian Falangism as espousing pagan elements that he considered repugnant. Just before the Second Great War, Pascual made this declaration: "We are opposed to all forms of Internationalism, Communism, Socialism, Syndicalism and everything that may divide or minimize, or break up the family. We are against class warfare, irreligion and disloyalty to one's country; against serfdom, a materialistic conception of life, and might over right." however the Estado Social adopted many characteristics of fascism, most notably with the economic policies of the corporatism; after the end of the Second Great War, Pascual distanced his regime from fascism.
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.
Post-Second Great War
After the Second Great War (1934-1943), however, the corporatist economic model was less and less applicable. The Estado Social regime became also a source of criticism and dissent by most of the international community. Nevertheless, Pascual clung to it, thereby slowing the nation's long-term economic development. Pascual's postwar policy allowed some liberalization in politics, in terms of organized opposition with more freedom of the press. Opposition parties were tolerated to an extent, but they were also controlled, limited, and manipulated, with the result that they split into factions and never formed a united opposition. He created two additional "government-approved" parties (the Democratic Revitalisation Party and the Popular Reform Party) which would collectively win one-third of the Rosarian legislature. He also permitted the formation of the the Coalition of Independent Democrats (CDI) in 1944. It boycotted the election and Pascual won 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. In 1949, President Isador de Santa Anna died in 1949 after 30 years in office and was succeeded by Jaime Trastamara. However, Trastamara was not willing to give Pascual the free hand that Santa Anna had given him, and was forced to resign just before the end of his term in 1956. Naval Minister Francisco de Costa, a staunch conservative, ran in that year's election as the official candidate. He won handily. Fearing that a rogue candidate could try an 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 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 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 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.
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.
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 "25 years ago, the polities of Delepasia were in such a horrific state that death would have been the most merciful thing to have come to them. They were atrociously governed by blunderers, bankrupted by petty vanity projects, far more squalid than even the poorest of our nation, and ridden with rampant disease and cycles of poverty that never seemed to end thanks to mass amounts of illiteracy. It was such a mess that the term "Delepasian" became a byword for all that was wrong in our side of the world. Eventually in 1919 the Army overthrew the Rosarian Republic which had brought Rosaria to this sorry pass." Fuero added that ruling a Delepasian polity was a nearly impossible task after 1852, and went on to explain how Pascual "found these polities in chaos and poverty, and turned his Rosaria into a much more stable regime with the first economic surpluses since before the end of the old viceroyalty in 1852; this prompted the neighbouring polities to copy what Pascual did to similar results".
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.
Capitalist 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 mass consumption 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 capital equipment and consumption expenditure for durable and nondurable consumer goods.
The Estado Social regime's economic policy encouraged the formation of large conglomerates. The regime maintained a policy of corporatism, 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 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).
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 labour unions were prohibited, and minimum wage 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.
Education
The first years (1938-1941)
With its founding 1938 political constitution, the Estado Social would establish compulsory education at six years. Compulsory education in the Delepasian polities was first introduced in 1852 during the short-lived Delepasian Kingdom with the duration of six years, then increased to eight years during the years between the end of the kingdom in 1852 and the rise of Delepasian exceptionalism in the 1900s, but it was never really enforced. The political constitution defines public education as aiming for: "in addition to the physical reinvigoration and the improvement of intellectual faculties, the formation of character, professional value and all civic and moral virtues".
The Ministry of Juan Marquez (1941-1945)
In 1941, Juan Marquez (then Rector of the University of Adouka) was nominated as the Minister of the Public Instruction. In the same year, his Ministry issued a law that altered the Ministry's name to Ministry of National Education, and included a National Board of Education. This National Board of Education aimed to study and inform the Minister in all matters of both education and culture. Parents and educators were to be represented in all sections of this Board, except for the cultural relations and scientific research section. This Board would replace the Superior Council for Public Instruction, which had existed since 1855, along with other consulting boards, such as the National Board of Excavations and Antiques.
Further events of note during Marquez's mandate were the creation of the Children of St. Brendan, the Grand Centennial Plan, and the adoption of a single, national textbook for each grade.
The Children of St. Brendan would be established in 1941, defined as a "national and pre-military organization that is able to stimulate the integral development of [the youth's] physical capacities, the formation of [their] character and devotion to the Fatherland and put [them] in conditions to be able to compete effectively for its defense".
The Grand Centennial Plan aimed to build a network of schools, uniformed by region, that would obey the pedagogical and hygienic criteria of the time. The buildings would be adapted to reflect the differences in climate, material resources, and processes of construction of each region. The plan was officially approved in 1944, and had began its first phase that same year. It would extend beyond Marquez's mandate, with its sixth phase in 1959. It was replaced in 1961 by the "New Grand Construction Plan". Between 1940 and 1950m the number of primary schools grew from 23,000 to 45,000.
Between Marquez and Vargas (1945-1990)
In 1952, while 81.4% of the children aged 11 to 12 were literate, only 6.3% of them had finished the compulsory six years of education, mostly due to their parents, who were often rather impoverished, needing them for the farms or to get a job to help support the family. In that same year, a vast multi-pronged Plan for the People's Education was launched with the intent of reducing adolescent and adult illiteracy and to ensure that every child of school age is in school as legally required. This plan included fines for parents who did not comply, and these were strictly enforced, often escalating to imprisonment if some of the parents refused to comply and send their children to school. Adult illiteracy was tackled through the use of night schools.
In 1956, compulsory education for all regardless of gender was raised from six to eight years.
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.
In 1974, compulsory education was raised to ten years, the final compulsory grade remaining as such to this day even after the end of the regime.
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, during the reforms of Nicolas Torres, Alejandro Vargas (1939-2024) became the last Minister of National Education of the Estado Social. In 1991, Vargas would go on TV to present two projects, one aimed at reforming the school system, the other aimed at reforming higher education. In that same year his ministry would recognise the Delepasian Memorial University. In May 1993, after ample social discussion of his projects, Vargas would launch a "Basic Guidelines of Delepasian Education", which aimed to democratise education in the Estado Social, and in June of that year, would also launch a decree that would establish universities, politechnical schools, and superior schools. He also introduced the concept of "nursery schools", which prepared toddlers for primary school, and increased the amount of years for compulsory education from ten to thirteen, making it a requirement for parents to send 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 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 national interest. The criticism it got against some kinds of racial discrimination were refuted on the grounds that the Loa would be Occidentalised and assimilated in due time, through a process called the civilising mission. 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 conscription 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 authoritarian Estado Social (Social State) regime and its secret police which repressed elemental civil liberties and political freedoms. However, the military coup's organisation started off as a professional class protest of United Delepasian Armed Forces captains 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 government budget. 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 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.