5,277
edits
National Reconstruction Front (Daxia): Difference between revisions
National Reconstruction Front (Daxia) (view source)
Revision as of 21:09, 21 October 2023
, 21 October 2023no edit summary
mNo edit summary Tag: 2017 source edit |
mNo edit summary Tag: 2017 source edit |
||
| Line 99: | Line 99: | ||
Chi Long Qua was elected as president in late 1964 after a campaign where his most prominent slogan was 'Continuity with a human touch', an empty phrase by the reckoning of most political scientists. The new president did not deviate much from his predecessors economic policies of growth based on import substitution but he did start dialing down the overwhelming presence of the state in the economy. He began the process of divesting the state from several sectors that had become unprofitable due to the corruption of state companies; he sold many of these state owned entities to government insiders and figures linked to the regime. This is the start of the phenomenon dubbed the 'musical chairs of wealth', the gist of it being that each new president disempowers and persecutes the economic elite that grew under their predecessor and grants their economic fiefs to figures closer to him; in effect creating a new economic elite that profits enormously during his term of office. | Chi Long Qua was elected as president in late 1964 after a campaign where his most prominent slogan was 'Continuity with a human touch', an empty phrase by the reckoning of most political scientists. The new president did not deviate much from his predecessors economic policies of growth based on import substitution but he did start dialing down the overwhelming presence of the state in the economy. He began the process of divesting the state from several sectors that had become unprofitable due to the corruption of state companies; he sold many of these state owned entities to government insiders and figures linked to the regime. This is the start of the phenomenon dubbed the 'musical chairs of wealth', the gist of it being that each new president disempowers and persecutes the economic elite that grew under their predecessor and grants their economic fiefs to figures closer to him; in effect creating a new economic elite that profits enormously during his term of office. | ||
This act to assert presidential power became an important part of the NRF's internal political culture, almost a ritualistic form of imbuing the new president with supreme authority and at the same time freeing him from any ties and promises made by the former president; by reshaping the constellation of the stars around the center of power in his own image, the president underwent apotheosis and could never again be challenged. The labor section was also subject of reshufflings, with the forced retirement of Gong Zhen, the president of the All-Daxian Workers Central Union and a [[Qiu Heng]] crony who had been grumbling in private that the union's workers were due for a wide reaching renegotiation. When his comments were leaked to the president, he put in place an operation managed from the Ministry of Labor to give Zhen's internal rivals a shot in the arm; Gong Zhen was scandolously trounced in the internal election when he tried to reelect himself. | This act to assert presidential power became an important part of the NRF's internal political culture, almost a ritualistic form of imbuing the new president with supreme authority and at the same time freeing him from any ties and promises made by the former president; by reshaping the constellation of the stars around the center of power in his own image, the president underwent apotheosis and could never again be challenged. The labor section was also subject of reshufflings, with the forced retirement of Gong Zhen, the president of the All-Daxian Workers Central Union and a [[Qiu Heng]] crony who had been grumbling in private that the union's workers were due for a wide reaching renegotiation. When his comments were leaked to the president, he put in place an operation managed from the Ministry of Labor to give Zhen's internal rivals a shot in the arm; Gong Zhen was scandolously trounced in the internal election when he tried to reelect himself. [[Chi Long Qua]] moved quickly to subdue and bring in line all of the pillars of support that underpinned [[Qiu Heng]]'s power, a playbook that all NRF presidents after him would follow to the letter. | ||
[[Chi Long Qua]]'s reelection to a second term saw a minor hiccup when despite all of the NRF's trickery and electoral thuggery it saw its support slip by five percentage points, a drop in support that might be explained by a particularly silver tongued Liberal party candidate who positioned himself to the right of the NRF and attacked it for its 'socialist' positions, siphoning some middle class votes with his tactic. In any event he was crushed at the polls and later disappeared without a trace but the party took it as a warning; they were not differentiated enough in their economic policies from their much maligned foes and the public could tell. | |||