Josef Felder

Josef Felder
Official portrait of Josef Felder
43rd Premier of Werania
In office 17th February 2018 – 28th June 2019
Monarch	Charlotte II
Deputy	Klaus Reimann
Preceded by	Viktor Oberhauser
Succeeded by	Otto von Hößlin
Leader of the Social Democratic Radical Party of Werania
In office 10th February 2018 – 1st June 2019
Preceded by	Viktor Oberhauser
Succeeded by	Konrad Schröder (acting) Luise Höcherl
Minister-President of Cislania
In office 12th May 2010 – 11th February 2018
Preceded by	Arthur Fischler
Succeeded by	Viktoria Berlepsch
Personal details
Born	(1955-07-12) July 12, 1955 Frauberg, Cislania, Werania
Political party	SRPO (1985-present)
Other political affiliations	OSAI (1974-1985)
Spouse	Yvonne Kallenbach
Other offices held 2018-present: Member of the Volkstag 1998-2018: Member of the Cislanian Landtag

Josef Felder (born 12 July 1955) is a Weranian politician who served as Premier of Werania from February 2018 to May 2019 and the Minister-President of Cislania from 2010 to 2018. He is a member of the Social Democratic Radical Party of Werania.

Felder was a member of the Cislanian Landtag from 1998 to 2017, having previously been a co-ordinator for the Union of Industrial Mining Workers'. In 2006 he was elected as leader of the Cislanian SRPO and led the party to victory in the 2010 regional election, being inaugurated as Minister-President in a SRPO majority government. He won re-election in 2014 in a coalition with the Weranic Section of the Workers' International and the Green Party.

In 2018 following the resignation of Premier and SRPO leader Viktor Oberhauser after the SRPO lost their majority in the Herrstag Felder was nominated for t0he leadership due to his self-styled "maverick" reputation which was seen as a potential boon as the SRPO suffered from very low polling. He subsequently won the leadership election and became premier, entering the Volkstag in Oberhauser's former seat with initially high approval ratings. However his confrontational style failed to improve the SRPO's poll ratings which plummeted after the SRPO lost important regional elections. In November 2018 Felder's government narrowly avoided a collapse after he attempted to call an early election which was opposed by his coalition partners the Modern Centre Party.

The 2019 federal election saw a severe loss for the SRPO with Felder losing his constituency seat, although he remained in the Volkstag through a proportional seat. Felder resigned as SRPO leader and premier, formally leaving office on the 28 June 2019 when he was succeeded as premier by Otto von Hößlin.

Early life

Josef Felder was born in the industrial town of Frauberg. His father Stephen Felder was a miner whilst his mother Juliane Hilscher worked as a chamber-maid in a hotel. Felder was the second of two children with his older sister Melissa being seven years his senior.

Felder attended the Frauberg-Metz gymnasium during his teenage years and graduated with high marks in 1973. Felder passed entrance exams to attend the Regenstadt University studying engineering. However he dropped out seven months into his course there - Felder claims his drop-out was due to being unable to afford the tuition fees for the university, although some of his peers have alleged he dropped out due to poor grades and attendance. Felder subsequently followed in his fathers stead as a miner, working at the Frauberg-Sud mine from 1980 after completing compulsory military service that year.

Trade unionist

Felder soon became involved in the trade union movement, joining the Union of Industrial Mining Workers' (UIB) shortly after entering the pits. Three years after joining the UIB Felder was elected as the union's representative for the Frauberg-Sud mine. Felder would raise through the union ranks and in 1996 was elected as the regional UIB co-ordinator for the entirety of Cislania. During his time as regional coordinator Felder clashed with the incumbent NKP-PMZ regional government which was closing unprofitable mines across the province, with Felder calling the actions a "disgrace". In 1998 Felder successfully negotiated a pause in the closing of coalmines in return for the UIB also pausing strike action regarding pit closures, bolstering his profile.

Political career

Felder had been a member of the Weranic Section of the Workers' International in his teens, but switched to become a member of the Social Democratic Radical Party of Werania in 1985 when the UIB itself switch from supporting the OSAI to the SRPO. Felder ran to become Mayor of Frauberg as the SRPO candidate in 1994 but was defeated by the popular OSAI incumbent.

At the 1998 Cislanian regional election Felder was elected as a member of the SRPO in the Cislanian Landtag, subsequently resigning as the UIB coordinator in Cislania upon his election. In 2002 he was appointed as the Cislanian SRPO's deputy leader after gained a reputation as a tough operator within the Landtag and in 2006 was elected as the leader of the Cislanian SRPO after previous party leader Eric Freytag led the party to another defeat to the incumbent NKP-led coalition.

Minister-President of Cislania

The province of Cislania is often seen as a bellwether for Weranian electoral politics, with the regional election being sometimes seen as a "trial run" for upcoming federal elections. As both the Cislanian and federal governments were governed by NKP-led coalitions in 2010 and with a federal election scheduled for 2011 interest in the 2010 Cislanian election was high, as a victory for the SRPO would've indicated that in 2011 would result in a change of federal government. Felder's campaign however mainly emphasised pocketbook issues pledging to reinvigorate the then stuttering economy and reduce unemployment.

Felder campaigning to be Cislanian Minister-President in 2010.

Felder lead the SRPO to their best result in Cislania gaining 46.5% of the vote and 110 seats, a clear majority in the 202 member chamber. Felder was sworn in to succeed Arthur Fischler on the 12^th May 2010 in an all-SRPO cabinet.

As Minister-President of Cislania Felder's headline project was to increase welfare handouts in Cislania which Felder claimed would boost consumer spending power and thereby kickstart economic growth. In 2011 the Cislanian Landtag passed legislation that oversaw the imposition of a conditional cash-handout for various struggling families which included a baby bonus of €700 for infant, €700 for disabled children, €700 annual for numerous families and €3,000 of credit for occasional workers. The policy was praised by anti-deprivation charities and activists but attracted criticism for its high cost.

Felder also emphasised fiscal responsibility during his time as Minister-President and worked to reduce costs particularly after his anti-poverty cash handouts resulted in a high fiscal deficit for the 2011-2012 year. Felder came under fire for continuing and expanding the NKP's programme of creating public-private partnerships particularly in the healthcare sector which his left-wing critics accused of driving up healthcare costs.

Felder was a vocal supporter of the federal governments decision in 2014 under Ellis Koopmann to legalise same-sex marriage on a federal level. Felder had in his 2010 campaign promised to pass same-sex marriage on a provincial level in Cislania, although did not do so for his first four years in office.

At the 2014 Cislanian election Felder was able to lead the SRPO to once again become the largest party, with the SRPO's vote share being a reduced 38.6% which entitled them to 79 seats. Felder formed a coalition government with the Weranic Section of the Workers' International which had 14 seats and the Green Party which had 14 seats giving his governing coalition a total of 105 seats in a pink-red-green coalition. Felder admitted that the SRPO performance had been "disappointing" and pledged to restore voters trust.

In March 2015 Felder announced that the Cislanian government would have a climate target of reducing emissions by 50% by a 2025 deadline. The pledge was warmly received by Felder's Green coalition partners but saw criticism by some of Felder's former peers in the UIB as well as the fossil fuel industry.

In May 2016 Felder nationalised the Brechels-Kreis shipyard in order to prevent job losses. The decision was opposed by the federal government.

SRPO leader

Felder with premier Oberhauser in 2016.

Throughout 2017 to 2018 the federal government of premier Viktor Oberhauser had suffered a steady decline in popularity due to infighting within the SRPO, corruption scandals and a perceived failure to deal with rising crime or stagnating standards of living. In January 2018 the government lost its majority at the upper house elections that year going from 124 seats to 93 seats. As a result after facing extremely poor polling Oberhauser announced he would resign as SRPO leader immediately, continuing to serve as premier in a caretaker capacity until the SRPO could elect a successor.

The SRPO wished to avoid a lengthy leadership contest whilst seeking to revive its flagging polling numbers. The initial candidate that most expected to run and win was the foreign minister Klaus Bachmann - however Bachmann was considered to be a continuity choice with his ability to turn around the party fortunes being seen as dire. Prominent members of the party thus encouraged Felder to run including premier Oberhauser. Felder was seen as an outsider to the SRPO hierarchy and having not served in the federal government was unconnected to the scandals that had engulfed them. Felder also was seen to possess a straight-talking and no-nonsense style that widely differed from the more media-focused image of Oberhauser as well as being able to match the similarly bullish personality of opposition leader Otto von Hößlin.

Felder was initially unconvinced on the prospect of taking power as SRPO leader, himself leading the SRPO's re-election efforts in Cislania where the incumbent centre-left government faced a reinvigorated NKP. Felder changed his mind however when Bachmann announced he would not run and announced his candidacy on the 1st February. Felder faced Minister of the Economy and Industry Luise Höcherl for the position with the vote being amongst SRPO parliamentarians. Felder won with 196 votes to Höcherl's 59 out of 257 lawmakers with two abstentions on a vote held on the 10th February. Felder resigned as Minister-President the following day being succeeded by Viktoria Berlepsch and subsequently entered the Volkstag on the 16th February after being appointed to serve in Oberhauser's now vacant seat.

Premier

Upon becoming premier Felder appointed a new cabinet. Although he retained the same PMZ ministers Felder made several replacements, notably switching out foreign minister Klaus Bachmann and economy minister Luise Höcherl with Willi Liebermann and health minister Johan Dehnert. Felder's cabinet was seen as somewhat more centre-left then the Oberhauser government by the conservative paper Tageskrorrespondent although Der Staatsmann stated it's new appointees such as Liebermann were technocrats rather then supported by the left or right of the party. Felders government was sworn in on the 20^th February 2018 after being voted in by the SRPO and PMZ whilst the Sotirian Democratic Homeland and Weranic Section of the Workers' International abstained.

Economic policy

Felder became premier during a period of economic stagnation stemming from the aftereffects of the financial crisis a decade earlier. Whilst the previous government of Oberhauser had been able to eliminate the structural deficit it had done so through tax raises and state cutbacks and had done little to reduce Werania's large debt burden. Felder pledged that under his premiership he would focus on three economic policy objectives - reducing youth unemployment, reversing austerity measures and reducing the debt burden. Felder stated that the youth unemployment rate of 24% - one of the highest in the EC - as being a "national disgrace" and stated that he would count his government as a failure if he was unable to reduce it.

Felder (right) with his Economy Minister Johan Dehnert (centre) at the SRPO party conference in 2018.

In May 2018 Felder announced the creation of the Youth Opportunities Programme, a federal agency dedicated to combatting youth unemployment by training young people in skills needed to excel in entry-level jobs. The programme cost €1.5 billion with Felder originally stating that the financing of the project would come from a new financial services tax. However this was opposed by finance minister and PMZ leader Klaus Reimann whose party had ruled out the introduction of new taxes in the 2015 election. This caused a temporary crisis in the governing coalition as the Youth Opportunities Programme was a key part of Felder's economic strategy that he had outlined with economy minister Johan Dehnert in March 2018. The coalition agreed on a compromise where the federal goods and services tax would be raised from 20% to 22% - however this proposal was controversial with the large parts of the SRPO opposing a raise. Ultimately the government was only able to pass the tax rise with the assistance of the opposition NKP. Youth unemployment declined from 24% to 21% under Felder's premiership, the largest drop in a decade. However this was partially attributed to labour market deregulation by the previous government rather then Felder's Youth Opportunities Programme.

In September 2018 Economy Minister Dehnert criticised Senrian technology companies for exhibiting monopolistic tendencies and failing to pay taxes, with the Weranian government calling for an Euclean-wide solution to the problem. This stance was criticised by the Senrian Finance Minister Reika Okura for ignoring the monopolistic nature of the Weranian technology company ihweb.

The Felder government in January 2019 implemented legislation extending the federal government's right to veto foreign takeovers to assets in the fields of energy supply, water, transport, telecoms and public health. Economy minister Dehnert stated this ensured that Werania would be able to act strategically in the use of it's national resources.

Foreign policy

Felder meeting Caldish Taoiseach Frank Casarnach.

Felder with Zorasani president Vahid Isfandiar.