UBC Declares Election of President a Mandate to Govern; Mass Purges at Party CongressBy Antoine Umbabe
The elections in Talmoria resulted in mixed messages for the revolutionary socialist party the United Boroist Cadre (UBC). While the party’s candidate for President was elected with 100% of the vote due to technicalities in election laws disqualifying the candidates of two rival parties, the party’s fortunes in the Gbara collapsed. Despite a victorious presidential candidate, the UBC’s vote share in the Gbara plummeted from its 4640 mark of over 25% to the post-Baldur mark of just under 9%. Even with an increase of 400 seats in the Gbara, after electoral reforms, the UBC saw only a 21 seat gain - a huge defeat given the massive increases seen by the ruling Black Bloc and the Alliance of Talmorian Republicans.
This is where the message of the UBC has fallen apart. On the one hand, the party has been elated at the election of President Nnenna Olinka. Olinka, the former President of the University of Mahavan is a respected member of the country’s intelligentsia and, aged 81, not considered to be a political threat after President Baldur was forced from office. When technicalities forced the opposition off of the ballot, her election was essentially unopposed despite claims of fraud from the Black Bloc. Olinka’s election was declared by Dr. Nkiru Ladipo, General Secretary of the UBC, as a mandate for the UBC to lead the country. This, of course, ignores the Boroist proposal that created the ceremonial Presidency that now exists in Talmoria.
General Secretary of the UBC, Dr. Nkiru LadipoA different side of Dr. Ladipo was seen at the emergency party congress declared after the drubbing the party took in the special elections. The General Secretary, resplendent in a white hijab, harangued party members for the loss in the Gbara and declared that the party had been infiltrated by “gangsters” masquerading as revolutionaries. Ladipo’s floor managers at the party congress circulated motions to expel members deemed to be counter revolutionary or insufficiently loyal to the ideology of Olufemi Boro. As floor fights erupted and security forced the expelled members from the floor, Dr. Ladipo dabbed tears away from her eyes.
Political analysts, however, don’t put much stock into Dr. Ladipo’s conspiratorial accusations of infiltration and sabotage and point to a more mundane concern. The political insurgency that Ladipo built up around her academic research interest, former Great Farin Olufemi Boro, was made up almost entirely of student revolutionaries. The lack of experience and intersectionality with the rest of the left in Talmoria left the party from the outside looking in. Time will tell if the UBC can regain some of their power in the opposition.