Roxolan

Roxolan
President of the People Rally Party
In office 1929–1951
Governor of Abshturia
In office 1949–1951
Rahban
In office 1946–1948
Deputy of South Gülam
In office 1930–1933
President of Shirazam
In office 1915–1929
War Minister of Shirazam
In office 1911–1913
Third Marshal of the Second Republic
In office 1888–1911
Personal details
Born	(1863-07-04)4 July 1863
Died	2 June 1954(1954-06-02) (aged 90)
Political party	People Rally Party
Spouse	Ariana
Occupation	Military officer, politician

Roxolan (4 July 1863 – 2 June 1954) was a Shirazamite general, revolutionary, and politician. He contributed to the creation of modern Shirazam, served as President of its third republic and as Rahban for the Fourth Republic during the War of Sin. He founded and led the People Rally Party, a movement from which all current Despotist and Caesarist parties find their roots. Popular and populist, he was a staunch defender of the Republic but one of Democracy most ardent opponents despite serving a mandate in the House of Deputies where he was commonly nicknamed "The Enemy".

Early Life

Roxolan was born on July 4, 1863 in the modern district of Southern Gülam, in the west of Shirazam. His father, Oxar Begzada Ruslan, was a respected clan leader of the Harulads, a Erron tribe that lived a nomadic lifestyle to the south of the Gülam Heights. His mother, Adyana Elistina, was the daughter of a Mangud Chieftain who had been married to Oxar as part of a larger alliance between the Harulads and the Manguds during the Gülam War and the anti-Zilung tribal resistance.

At sixteen years old, Roxolan and some of his friends fled the Aletheic Seminar he had been placed in by his parents to join the rebel group led by one of his cousins. They lived in the Steppe as bandits and pariah, organising ambushes and raids on the gold mines and railways. In 1882 they were caught in an ambush and his cousin was killed in the ensuing firefight. Roxolan, wounded, was arrested and placed in Shirkal penitentiary. There, he met Zavir Khakestari, co-founder of the Front for an Ayar State and other political prisoners. He was persuaded to join the FAS, Zavir notably hoping that his relations with the tribes would help create FAS cells in the Steppe and improve the Party' network before the incoming Revolution.

In 1886, Roxolan managed to escape his prison and flee back to the Steppe. There he found refuge in his mother's family and made contact with the few FAS agents and cells already active. He managed to convince the Manguds to participate in the incoming Uprising despite their lack of interest for the constitution of an 'Ayar State', promising them revenge against the Zilungs and that the ownership of the goldmines and pastures of Mangudia would be returned to the tribe.

He then returned to the Harulads where he established his own FAS cell. He was unable to convince the Chiefs to follow him in the incoming Uprising, but a great number of young Erron joined the FAS. In 1887, he married Ariana, an Erron girl and sister of one of Roxolan' late brother in arms.

The Second Republic

The Uprising

Roxolan preparatives did not go unnoticed by the Zilung government. This and other mistakes in the FAS preparation allowed Zilung Chen to be alerted of the incoming uprising before it could be fully prepared. Batraz Khan Shazadeh, leader of the FAS, decided to launch his coup anyway. In 1888, all the groups tied to the republican project, and not just the FAS, collectively proclaimed the creation of the Second Republic of Shirazam and the independence of the country. All accepted Batraz as the new Leader of the Republic and nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Revolution, Roxolan included.

But Roxolan and his own revolutionaries had to face the Zilung military reaction. The Steppe thus saw direct fighting between the Nomads led by Roxolan and the Zilungeses. After two years of successful warfare agains Zilung Chen, Roxolan called for a grand tribal gathering in which almost every tribes of Manguds, Errons, and Karluks were represented. This Grand Assembly appointed Roxolan Jangshah or 'Warchief' of all the united tribes. Placed in front of the fait-accompli, Batraz agreed to officially recognize Roxolan as 'Third Marshal' of the Republic, one of the most important military leaders of the Revolution.

State building

Zavir Khakestari was Roxolan' prime minister during the Second Republic

In 1911, the state of Zilung Chen fully collapsed and Shirazam was de-facto liberated although it lacked international recognition. Roxolan' views on the direction the Republic should take were confusing for his contemporaries. He vocally opposed the Oligarchic idea of limiting the electoral bodies to free land-owners or educated scholars, and ardently defended the idea of an Universal suffrage open to both sexes. But at the same time, he wished to see a two-tiered legislature, openly denouncing Deputies as a whole to be "politicaly incompetent" who needed to be "reigned it for the safety of the Nation". In this matter, he ran contrary to the dominant opinion within the Democrat movement. Ultimately, Roxolan aligned himself with Batraz Khan Shazadeh and the rest of the FAS leadership on the need for a strong executive branch, even if he disagreed on the exact modalities.

Only Zavir Khakestari political skills were able to keep the Republic afloat. He offered Roxolan the Ministry of War and immediately the Third Marshal began building plans to intervene in Zilung Chen to both secure the northern border and help establish a friendly government with whom it would be possible to negotiate Shirazam' official independence. The Parliament did not agree to the plan and Roxolan' ministry became contested. Nonetheless, a budget was allocated to strengthening the northern border and bring forth the Industrialisation of Shirazam dreamed by all of the FAS leadership, Roxolan included.

Year of the Slings

The Ride to Shirkal

Zavis Khakestari died in 1912, taking away the last check to the Warlords ambitions. Batraz Khan Shazadeh, in a move of dubious constitutionality, took the office of chief of government despite already being the chief of state and president of FAS. While he kept Roxolan in his government, the two men clashed more and more often, more and more publicly. Fearing for his life, Roxolan second ministry lasted only six months before he simply fled Shirkal and retreated back to his birth tribe of the Harulads. It's only once outside of the city that he announced his demission and created a new party: the People Rally Party.

The PRR' core was made of the veterans of Roxolan' troops and their families, who still called him Jangshah. FAS members and officials among the Harulads also joined en-masse the new PRR. The Errons would be split in half between the FAS loyaltists and this new PRR. However, Roxolan could not convince the Manguds elites nor the Karluks clans to side with him.

In 1915 Roxolan returned to Shirkal at the head of a large force of Harulad and Erron soldiers forcing Batraz to abandon the capital. In the meantime, military leaders in the north of the country established their own conspiracy. They captured Batraz and executed him. Northern representatives were sent to Shirkal to pledge allegiance to Roxolan. The Parliament was forced to vote its own dissolution and the Third Republic was proclaimed with Roxalan as its President.

President of the Republic

Third Republic soldiers

Roxolan received the representatives of the military in Shirkal. The military conspiracy was led by the Marshals Quartet: Urkshal Khan Barri the Mangud and an old war companion of Roxolan, Pishva Shiravan the Ayar, Beg Berat the Karluk, and Oxotor the Erron). Together, they forced the Parliament to dissolve itself after it proclaimed the creation of a new republic. This new state was immediately placed under Martial Law, suspending civilian processes, with the Quartet as its government and Roxolan as its Head of State.

Despite the ongoing martial law, Roxolan managed to wrestle from the Quartet an agreement to let a Constituent assembly be put in place so as to draft a new Constitution for the republic. But to avoid the creation of division within the Nation, it was admitted only PRP members and people unaffiliated to a party could candidate for a position in the Assembly. The Military divided the country in a number of electoral districts and organised the elections. Despite the seemingly mono-party nature of the system and junta control over it, it was not uncommon to see multiple PPR candidates running against one another as they were backed by different factions of officers. The elections were held in 1918, and the Assembly worked on a new Constitution up until 1920.

In the meantime, Roxolan was characterized as "obsessed" with popular legitimacy. He was decided to resolve any issue within the Junta through popular referendum, despite the Quartet' annoyance and building resentment at the process. All of this did not stop Roxolan to always be on the look-out for any potential threat to the National Unity he incarnated. As a result, he fully supported the government great attention to counter-insurgency and pacification efforts of the country, often to the detriment of civilian policies.

1929 Protests in Shirkal

The introduction of the Constitution did not fundamentally change the system. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved and replaced with powerless local assemblies, military governors and police prefects continued to control the administration, and the government only had to answer to the President, who could only lose his position by referendum. Yet the junta maintained itself in power until the death of Urkshal Khan Barri in 1929. The Khan Barri had been the de-facto "prime minister" of the Marshal Quartet' government and was the man who had held the system together. A power struggle immediately ensued to fill the void left by his disparition. Oxotor was arrested and the relation between Pishva and Roxolan became confrontational. Protests and riots multiplied in every cities of Shirazam and the generation of non-military politicians, molded by their experience in the Constitutional Assembly and trained in the local assemblies, re-emerged as leaders of the anti-junta movements. A delegation of the "People's Deputies" presented themselves to the Presidential Palace and demanded Roxolan' deposition. In a shocking twist, Roxolan agreed and dissolved his government, leaving power to a government of transition while a new constitution was written. This seemingly irrational move by Roxolan helped preserve his reputation as a hero of the people while placing his rival Pishva in a difficult position as he was forced into illegality and armed opposition to the new government. Lacking support outside of his tribe, Pishval surrendered in 1933 to the new Fourth Republic and was placed in house arrest.

South Gülam Deputy

Deposited, Roxolan returned to the Harulads from where he continued to lead a greatly-reduced PRP, purged by circumstances of all elements not completely loyal to Roxolan. It retained however its unofficial control over the military, both its officers and its soldiery, the police, and other state agencies. The Junta had relied on an intricate network of law enforcement agencies and repressive institutions which often had competing or overlapping missions. The newly established Constituent Assembly, the transition government, and the Committee put into place to overwatch said government, all quickly moved to purge this towering security apparatus, to unify and simplify it. The right to bear arms and the modalities of citizens protection became a dividing question but ultimately gun ownership was preserved to avoid troubles with the nomadic populations among whom Roxolan was still popular. When the new democratic constitution was enshrined, Roxolan' vocally opposed it. He notably demanded that the executive branch be restored in its power and criticized the all-encompassing powers given to the to-be-elected parliament.

Under the advice of his close circle of partisans, Roxolan ended up presenting PRP candidates in as many district as he could. He himself ran for Deputy of South Gülam, his birthplace. A district which he won handily. Over the next three years, the PRP would win 21 out of the House of Deputies 297 seats. Roxolan would not represent himself during the elections of 1933, leaving his seat to one of his partisans and focusing his attention to his work as President of the PRP. At 70 years old, it was considered time for the "Old Lion" to retire from politics, at least directly. He would spend the next six years mostly in Ohridan, his birthplace in South Gülam until the death of his wife in 1939 at which point he moved east to Ghülam's capital Marungkat which became the de-facto seat of power of the PRP.

War of Sin

Since 1921, through their network of affiliated public officials, military officers, and elected politicians, the PRP had kept an eye on the evolution of the People in Exile Party, a revolutionary Zilungese organisation which wished to see the re-integration of Shirazam, or at least its northern borderlands, to Zilung Chen. In 1940, the PEP created its paramilitary branch: the Homefront. The PRP managed to organise a coalition of deputies on the question of the counter-insurgency. In 1942, Roxolan integrated the Military Committee of the House of Deputies as an "External Expert". The Committee, working with the Public Salvation Committee and the Ministry of Armed Forces, was ultimately in charge of designing Shirazam' counter-insurgency strategies while their implementation was left to the Ministry and the design of the Operations and adaptation to the Tactical realities was delegated to the military.

In 1945, a border incident between the Shirazamite and Zilungese militaries allowed the latter to drum up support for their own plan for a direct intervention in Shirazam. In 1946, they launched Operation Riverbank to push the border up to the Sin-Darya. Surprised, the Shirazamite frontline was torn apart and the Zilungeses were able to drive into the Steppes.

Faced with the direness of the situation, the House of Deputies decided to activate a special article of the Constitution granting emergency power to the Executive which was to be temporally centralized into one person: the Rahban. Accelerated debates led to an election which saw Roxolan being nominated and then appointed as first Rahban of the Republic. At 83 years old, the Old Lion took office and led Shirazam as dictator for the next two and an half years.

Following the 1949 victory, the question of ending Roxolan's dictatorship was on everyone's lips. The House of Deputies declared the end of the Emergency. Some of Roxolan partisans, wanting to profit from his popularity boost from the war, wanted the Old Lion to dissolve the House and continue as Rahban of the Republic. Yet, Roxolan refused and symbolically presented himself personally to the House of Deputies to give the bilan of his mandate. The Republic was saved by its most proeminent critic.

Policies and views

Roxolan never truly codified his political thoughts nor aimed to implement any ideology in a systematic fashion. But he nonetheless shared the "popular" conception of politics shared by the Shirazamites nomads (as opposed to the "Optimate" conception). For these nomads of generally lower-birth, legitimacy come from the Assembly of all free men, from the group, who grant the Chieftain or the Warlord his powers. In this conception, a mixture of Democracy and Despotism, power is not based on force, but on consent even when it is concentrated solely in the hands of one individual. A contrario, the Optimate conception considered the authority of institutions, in the form of the Tribe, its laws, and its customs, to be the sole source of legitimacy. Overall, they placed the Rule of law above popular will. This conception, more-or-less defended by Batraz Khan Shazadeh, was thoroughly opposed by Roxolan who defended throughout his life that popular plebiscites were more binding than laws and that elected officials are accountable only to the people and not to unelected ones.