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(NATIONWIDE): On 12 February 4728, Sekowo held its last contested federal election. The party, which for so many generations has represented the vanguard of the national governing consensus, stood for the election. Though that party captured all 177 seats up for grabs, a government was not formed. Rather, mere days after the election the
Jiyū Party imploded, triggering the progressive collapse of the nation's social, political, economic and spiritual foundation.
The Jiyū Party had ruled Sekowo at various times since 4120. In the 4650s, the party pushed record-low interest rates and coupled them with a
low or no tax environment, fuelling stock market and real estate speculation which sent valuations soaring during the 4660s and 70s, inflating what has come to be known as the Sekowan asset price bubble.
On 20 March 4679 the bubble popped, and the moderate economic growth Sekowo had experienced under the highs of
Jiyunomics came to a crashing halt. The F&E 250 index lost over 30% of its value in a single trading day, while property values in Ishinawa, Seritei, Heimei-kyō, Toyama and Nago fell sharply. Real wages fell across the nation by an average of 12.5%. After the initial economic shock, Sekowo's economy was sent into its now-infamous Long Decline, where economic expansion declined for more than ten years.
As a result of the 4679 crash, the Sekowan electorate moved left, electing the New Democratic Party on 24 March 4683. The NDP implemented
soft-Kodonomics;
raising taxes, enacting
anti-trust legislation, and building a
modest social safety net. The NDP governed for 13 years, during which time the economy stabilized but effectively stagnated while the National Assembly became increasingly gridlocked.
On 4 September 4696, young outsider Kasai Kenji's leftist
"National Reform Campaign" surged to power, sweeping the executive and legislative branches. Kasai's Democratic People's Party was a coalition of moderate and left-wing politicians, unions and businesses. The Party's official ideology was based on and informed by Kamism.
President Kasai's government introduced
new stimulus spending which led to some modest growth, though the economy still had not recovered to pre-4679 metrics. The most notable developments to occur during Kasai's administration came from outside government in the realm of civil society.
First, there was a rapid emergence of Daenist and Kamist temples, schools and civic organizations which have increasingly fulfilled the role of local government in providing services across the country, empowered by the aforementioned ideology of Kasai's governing party. Second, there was a reemergence of right-wing economic discourse, as the Kasai administration came under fire for increasing the national debt and
draining the government's reserves to subsidize the fledgling private sector.
These forces collided upon the election of a Jiyū Party majority in 11 February 4724, after 27 years in the opposition. During their four years in power, the Jiyū Party, reversed course: the government completely privatized the
healthcare system and the
education system, repealed
anti-trust legislation, rolled back labour protections and repealed the
minimum wage.
The shock economics of hard austerity and tax cuts did little to improve the economy, and much to damage the federal government. Desperate for employment, many workers began to occupy factories and businesses that were lying empty since the 4679 crash and formed democratic workers' co-operatives, particularly in the Orinco communities of Sanko. Accordingly, the aforementioned religious institutions and the new workers' co-operatives grew larger in response to popular demand for public services, their power often rivalling and in many cases supplanting the established polities they are located within. With little legitimacy, and with a minuscule role in the lives of ordinary people, the government entered a period of protracted administrative collapse, leading the nation to where it is today.
The government buildings lay empty, with legislators unclear on who has the constitutional legitimacy to occupy them, given a confusing and often desolate decade politically. Kasai Kenji has occasionally cited his continued, legitimate constitutional claim to the presidency in attempting to form a government, though each of these efforts has ended in futility and legal malaise. It is clear that the old institutions of Sekowo will not be able to effectively hold the reigns of power over the nation once again.
What then, might the future hold for Sekowo? The vast majority of Sekowans have come to realize that any constitutional framework designed to hold Sekowo together will have to somehow incorporate the Daenist movement, the Kamist movement and the workers' movement while bridging the urban-rural divide, and the divide between ethnic Sekowan Kunihito peoples and Orinco peoples in the south. In this regard, we can observe a number of encouraging developments.
First, there have been friendly relations between the two largest popular religious movements, namely Daenism and Kamism, with leaders from both faiths pledging strong interfaith cooperation and dialogue, such as Master Seichō Sakura of the Kando-ji sect of Daenism, and whose temple has attracted agnostic secularists, Daenists and Kamists alike. Master Seichō in particular has had a close relationship with organized labour in the country, often aiding labour actions materially or with moral and spiritual support. Second, the workers' movement has largely embraced a multi-ethnic coalition that brings together cooperative worker-owners with trade unionists, Kunihito or Orinco. Third, the greater collaboration between all these loosely-federated institutions is building a sense of urban-rural cohesion, with many young people joining their local temples as mendicant monks and performing development work alongside lay-practitioners and workers alike. Finally, a Daenist-socialist tendency has emerged among urbanites, regardless of race, which seeks to unite all these factions in the name of establishing a Daenist-socialist society.
Only time will tell whether the political leadership necessary to bridge the divides in Sekowan society will emerge: and with it, a new federal arrangement. Only one thing is certain – there's no going back
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The Kankawara Shimbun is a major broadsheet newspaper, regarded as one of Sekowo's "newspapers of record."