Nennia loses seventh Rectoral election in a row
July 4499 - The elections in March followed an all too familiar pattern: the Republican Party entered strong disagreements with the governing party, issued controversial statements on foreign affairs, and its perpetual candidate proceeded to lose both rounds of Rectoral elections to the Left candidate. This leads to the questions: why don't Republican's just ditch Nennia already? She's clearly become a liability for the party, with her perpetual and unsuccessful quest to gain executive office keeping younger party members and potential contenders out of the spotlight. But the answer to that question is clear to anyone willing to notice: for all her faults and unpopularity, Helena Romilia Nennia has become the electoral vehicle of the Republican Party. In all recent elections she gathered more votes in the Rectoral elections than her party did in the Senate, meaning that the party, in spite of its inability to gain executive power, is dependent on Nennia's own personal appeal to the voters. Regardless, if the Republicans want to regain their relevance, they would do well to adopt a more effective strategy.
Responding to the attempted blacklist of her party's ideology in Istalia and the criticisms issued by Istalian President Manzelli towards the Republican Party, Ms. Nennia issued a brief statement of condemnation:
The Republican Party is deeply saddened by the visible decline in the quality of democracy in our ally Istalia. As your friends and close allies, it is our duty to respectfully criticize your errors and point you in the right direction. However much our own party may condemn the ideology of Liberalism, not once has it occurred to us to attempt to ban that ideology. Selucia is a pluralistic multi-party democracy with a vibrant civil life, and as such it is premised on the free exchange of ideas and open debate and criticism, in a struggle towards the public good. The Republican Party has always remained committed to these basic features of Selucian democracy, and as such we cannot but graciously accept criticism raised against us, however misguided it may be. In turn we cannot but offer our own criticism, including on the irresponsible military adventurism with which our ally has unfortunately become associated. In the ongoing Pontesian crisis the Istalian Republic is, sadly, playing right into the Pontesian oligarchy's hands. As your close and faithful friends, we implore you, understand the consequences of your actions. To your brief overview on the history of interventionism we can respond with our own history lesson that shows the disastrous consequences of intervention. Just as you now believe that intervention in a sovereign nation's sovereign affairs is legitimate because segregation is "wrong", during the long global reign of the Hulstro-Luthorian monarchy the hegemons were convinced that republicanism, democracy, and popular sovereignty were "wrong" and offended common morality and ethics. Need I remind you of the Grand Crusade, the Beiteynu-Luthori War, or the Great Sekowan War, when the Great Powers of the time had no qualms against invading and occupying independent nations merely for having the audacity to not have a Rothingren-Traugott on their throne, or even for having the "wrong" monarch of the "right" dynasty? Back then, the complete disregard for national sovereignty prevented the peoples of Terra from striving for their own self-determination. Given the non-democratic nature of most current Great Powers, then, how are we to see the frightening erosion of sovereignty and the unchallenged acceptance of intervention, even premised on humanitarian grounds, as anything else than the return of empire and the conduct of international politics on the principle that "might makes right"? And lest you forget, the World Congress intervention against the Hulstrian supremacists was precisely motivated by a desire to defend Ostland's sovereignty, while the Crownlander peoples, bravely led by the Reichsbürgerwehr and the Volkspartei, fought for and obtained their own freedom. It may be "naive" to expect all peoples under tyranny to rise for their freedom, but it is even more naive to expect a democracy imposed from abroad and against the wishes of its people to survive. If a people successfully overthrow a dictatorship they will acquire a taste for self-government, an understanding of the fragility of liberty, and commitment to vigilance against threats against it. And if they fail, then they lack a desire to be free and a willingness to endure death and torture for liberty. Without such commitment no democracy can last. In any case, reducing oppressed peoples to passive recipients of benevolence will make them incapable of self-rule. This ideology of victimization is a neo-colonial attitude that deprives the oppressed of any agency and reduces them to passivity defined by suffering, whose only role is to exemplify the virtues of their rescuers, with no ability of holding their self-appointed benefactors accountable. We strongly urge our Istalian allies to understand this and stop treating the oppressed peoples of the world as passive victims.