Roxolan
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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 | 4 July 1863 |
| Died | 2 June 1954 (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
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
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
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.
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.
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.