Ulrik Andersen
Ulrik Andersen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chancellor of Delkora | |
| In office 3 June 1991 – 21 February 1994 | |
| Monarch | Haldor VII |
| Preceded by | Lars af Vellarand |
| Succeeded by | Emma Jørgensen |
| Leader of the Conservative Party | |
| In office 27 April 1991 – 21 February 1994 | |
| Preceded by | Lars af Vellarand |
| Minister of Justice | |
| In office 3 June 1987 – 3 June 1991 | |
| Chancellor | Lars af Vellarand |
| Minister of Trade and Industry | |
| In office 21 October 1985 – 3 June 1987 | |
| Chancellor | Lars af Vellarand |
| Minister of Labor and Pensions | |
| In office 3 June 1983 – 21 October 1985 | |
| Member of the Chamber of Representatives | |
| In office 3 June 1979 – 21 February 1994 | |
| Constituency | Southern Vassengård |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ulrik Arthur Andersen 27 July 1949 Neirbjerg, Vassengård, Kingdom of Delkora |
| Died | 4 September 2017 (aged 68) Dornhelm, Norvia, Delkora |
| Nationality | Delkoran |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | Gothendral University (B.A., M.L.) |
| Occupation | Lawyer Politician |
Ulrik Arthur Andersen (27 July 1949 – 4 September 2017) was a Delkoran politician who served as chancellor of Delkora from 1991 to 1994. A member of the Conservative Party, he played a prominent role in the government of his predecessor, Lars af Vellarand, helping lead largely unsuccessful efforts at dismantling the New Kingdom reforms instituted by the National Labor governments of the 1960s and 70s. Even before taking office, his government was beset by scandals stemming from the neoliberal conspiracy and the 1991 federal election.
His tenure was plagued by the resulting investigations, which prevented him from enacting much of his government's agenda. In 1994, he was ousted by a vote of no confidence following his indictment on charges of electoral fraud, bribery, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Andersen went on to be convicted in a highly-publicized trial and was sentenced to 37 years in prison. He died in 2017 after suffering a stroke while being held at Dornhelm Prison.
Early life
Andersen was born in 1949 in Neirbjerg, a rural town in southern Vassengård. His father had fought in the Royal Army during the Great War and opened a small corner store upon returning; his mother worked as a nurse. He was described as a studious, somewhat introverted child who excelled in school. He joined the Future Conservatives while in secondary school and was elected a county chair of the organization at the age of 16.
In 1966, he enrolled at Gothendral University and began studying political science. He received a deferment from his mandatory military service that year after failing a physical, and was instead allowed to complete his service obligation by volunteering with the Federal Health Service. During his senior year, he completed an internship with the Conservative Party caucus of the Chamber of Nobles.
After finishing his undergraduate studies, Andersen was accepted into Gothendral's school of law. While studying for his law degree, he was awarded a fellowship with the Brøndum Society, a right-wing think tank. In this capacity, he contributed to a number of papers criticizing the New Kingdom reforms.
Upon graduating in 1973, he returned to Vassengård to accept a job with the corporate law firm Schmidt Troelsen, where he specialized in labor law. While working for the firm, he played a pivotal role in several union busting campaigns and also represented mining companies in lawsuits over unsafe working conditions.
He first stood for election in 1979, winning a seat in the Federal Parliament in his home constituency of Southern Vassengård.
Early political career
As a member of the Federal Parliament, Andersen served on the Labor and Pensions Committee and the Budget Committee. He was an outspoken critic of the economic policies of Geirbjørn Feldengaard and caught the attention of Conservative leader Lars af Vellarand, who took the young legislator under his wing. Both Andersen and Vellarand were prominent members of the Heritage Faction, a national conservative faction of the Conservative Party.
After the 1983 federal election resulted in a Conservative-Agrarian government led by Vellarand, Andersen was appointed minister of labor and pensions. As minister, he spearheaded the government's efforts at rolling back worker's rights laws that had been passed by the previous National Labor administrations. He likewise oversaw massive cuts to pension spending.
In 1985, he was appointed minister of trade and industry after his predecessor was forced to resign as a result of the KDP affair. He was a staunch opponent of the Common Sphere, and led the Vellarand government's unsuccessful effort to withdraw Delkora from the bloc.
Andersen again shifted roles in a cabinet reshuffle following the 1987 federal election, this time being appointed minister of justice. On account of this portfolio, he was in charge of coordinating the federal law enforcement response to the kidnapping of former chancellor Feldengaard in 1989. Andersen and others in the ministry were later accused of intentionally obstructing the search effort, leading to a parliamentary inquiry in 1990.
As justice minister, Andersen also continued the government's crackdown on illegal drugs, maintaining a controversial zero tolerance policy that resulted in a major backlog in the court system as thousands were prosecuted for possession of minor amounts of soft drugs like cannabis and LSD.
In early 1991, several members of the Heritage Faction were arrested on charges of treason and corruption in connection with the neoliberal conspiracy. With an election coming later that year, Vellarand moved to expel the indicted members. Shortly thereafter, he announced his intention to step down as party leader and endorsed Andersen to be his successor in the resulting leadership election.
Andersen went on to lead his coalition to a surprise victory in the election after retaining a narrow plurality in spite of fallout from the neoliberal conspiracy trials and embarrassment from the Siege of Gothendral on the eve of the election. The Conservative-Agrarian coalition remained in office with support from the Moderates.
Chancellor
In his government's inaugural address, Andersen pledged to push forward with an agenda of continued privatization, deregulation, devolution, immigration restrictions, and "law and order" policies. In practice, he was unable to accomplish most of these goals as a result of his government's minority status. Progress was further hampered by the Conservatives being wiped out in the 1992 state elections.
Shortly after the election, the Chamber of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened an inquiry into the handling of the Siege of Gothendral, ultimately issuing a report finding that his decision to order the storming of the Førelskov Statehouse had been improper.
He was likewise plagued by ongoing investigations related to the neoliberal conspiracy. During the trials of the implicated Conservative MPs, it came to light that Andersen had himself been in contact with members of the Propaganda Massonica; he denied having been aware of the conspiracy, however. Nonetheless, a parliamentary inquiry was opened to pursue the matter further.
As a result of the intense media scrutiny surrounding these investigations, as well as his government's precarious minority status, Andersen became known as the "besieged chancellor". He denounced the investigations as illegitimate and fought against the release of documents to the Chamber of Representatives.
In 1993, Andersen's government introduced a controversial immigration bill that would have severely restricted the right of asylum and reduced refugee limits. The bill prompted widespread protests throughout the country and subsequently failed to pass.
1991 federal election scandal
Later that year, Andersen was again embroiled in scandal after a whistleblower employed by the Delkoran Broadcasting Service came forward claiming to have evidence that Andersen had bribed the Director-General of the DBS to obtain favorable news coverage in the lead up to the 1991 federal election. The Office of Government Accountability immediately opened an investigation, with Andersen denying the allegations.
Calls from National Labor leader Emma Jørgensen for the appointment of a special prosecutor initially failed to get sufficient parliamentary support as a result of the Moderates remaining loyal to Andersen. This changed, however, following a major leak of internal emails from the Cybrian Conservative Party, which suggested illicit links between officials of the party and MP candidates from Left Alternative (Venstre Alternativ), an upstart party that had contested a single constituency in the 1991 election. The records were leaked by an anonymous employee of the Conservative Party who claimed that the Left Alternative candidates were Conservative Party operatives who had been recruited to run by Andersen's government in an attempt to split the leftist vote in a key Cybrian constituency.
Following the publication of these emails, the Moderates came out in support of a special prosecutor, and one was subsequently appointed over the objections of Andersen's government with a mandate to investigate "possible electoral fraud and bribery committed during the course of the 1991 federal election."
Andersen steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, and denounced the investigations as "baseless witch-hunts". Numerous officials were summoned to appear for testimony before the Chamber of Representatives Elections Committee over the next several weeks, including the Director-General of the DBS, the Chairman of the Cybrian Conservative Party, and the Left Alternative candidates. Protests calling for Andersen's resignation broke out in several cities.
Following a series of Federal Police raids on 20 February, nearly two dozen Conservative Party officials were arrested and charged in connection with the scandal, including Andersen's chief of staff and minister of communications, the DBS Director-General, and the Left Alternative candidates. The following day, the special prosecutor announced charges against Andersen himself, which immediately prompted a motion of no confidence against his government, which it lost by a vote of 492-8.
Trial
Andersen's trial began in April 1994 in the Norenstal Federal Judicial District and received close media scrutiny for its entire duration. In its indictment, the government accused Andersen of "masterminding a sweeping and systematic plot to subvert our country's democratic institutions for his personal political gain." He pleaded not guilty to all charges and continued to publicly denounce the proceedings against him as illegitimate, prompting the five judge panel overseeing the case to issue a gag order. If found guilty on all counts, he faced a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.
The most serious charge leveled against Andersen, electoral fraud, stemmed from the allegation that he had induced the Left Alternative candidates, whom the government asserted were "de facto agents of the Cybrian Conservative Party", to run for the Federal Parliament on an ostensibly leftist party list with the intention of causing a vote-splitting effect that would result in National Labor losing seats in a key constituency.
Prosecutors pointed to Conservative Party internal polling which showed National Labor and the Conservatives in a dead heat, as well as conversations between Andersen and his chief of staff in which they discussed possible ways of fracturing leftist support in particular regions. They also presented extensive evidence of the Left Alternative candidates' connections to Conservative Party officials, as well as apparent contradictions between their purported platform and votes they had cast in Parliament.
In a plea agreement, prosecutors allowed the Left Alternative candidates to plead guilty to lesser charges of filing false campaign documents in exchange for testifying against Andersen. Each subsequently testified that Andersen's chief of staff had met with them individually in the months leading up to the election to recruit them to run on the Left Alternative list. Andersen's defense team attempted to attack their credibility and, while acknowledging that evidence the Left Alternative list had been created to take votes away from National Labor was compelling, denied that Andersen had any involvement with it.
The other major charge brought against Andersen, bribery, alleged that he had sought to suppress DBS coverage of his party's connections to the neoliberal conspiracy in the week leading up to the election by offering a payment of ⊻25,000 to the Director-General of the DBS. In exchange for this payment, the government alleged, the Director-General agreed to have all references to Andersen, his government, and the Conservative Party removed from coverage of the conspiracy that aired on the highly-watched 6:00pm national news in the week leading up to the election. Prosecutors presented evidence that Andersen's minister of communications had transmitted the payment to an offshore account owned by the Director-General at Andersen's direction.
The remaining charges, obstruction of justice and abuse of power, alleged Andersen had used the official powers of his office to hinder the investigation into his wrongdoing by attempting to freeze funding for it and by ordering the destruction of documents that had been requested by the special prosecutor's office.
After months of proceedings, a verdict in the trial was reached in late July; the five judge panel unanimously found Andersen guilty on all counts. At sentencing, he demonstrated no remorse and continued to assert that the charges against him were politically-motivated. He was subsequently sentenced to 37 years in prison and given a fine of ⊻2.5 million. The judges agreed with the government's assessment that his actions had likely swung the outcome of the 1991 election and found that, in so doing, they had "struck at the very heart of our democracy."
The Ministry of Justice directed that Andersen's sentence be served at Dornhelm Prison, a maximum-security federal prison in southern Norvia, on the grounds that he posed a serious flight risk due to "his international connections, his family's considerable financial resources, and his still ambiguous connections to a treasonous conspiracy against the Delkoran government."
Later life
Andersen remained unrepentant while in prison, and in a DBS interview in 2001 continued to deny any wrongdoing. He filed numerous appeals throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s seeking to have his conviction vacated on procedural grounds, all of which were rejected. In 1996, he brought a lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court in which he claimed he was being held in inhumane conditions; the suit was dismissed for lack of evidence.
Much to the Conservative Party's dismay, he continued to be politically vocal from behind bars, publishing editorials and sitting down for interviews in which he commented on current affairs. Even after being formally expelled following his conviction, he continued to promote the party, calling on Delkora's "silent majority" to rally around it. He blasted the insurgent New Conservatives, whom he called "traitors to their country".
After Harald Møller became chancellor in 2006, he petitioned for a commutation of his sentence, which was denied by Møller's government.
Andersen died in 2017 after suffering a stroke.