Generation Aalmsted
Jeślâht Aalmsted | |
|---|---|
| President | Aleksander Freissun |
| Founded | June 25, 2018 |
| Ideology | Youth politics Participatory democracy Basic income Eco-socialism |
| Political position | Centre-left to left-wing |
| Aalmsted City Council | 6 / 85
|
Generation Aalmsted (Azmaran: Jeślâht Aalmsted) is a progressive political platform within the city of Aalmsted in Azmara.
The platform was founded in June 2018 by youth activists dissatisfied with the major parties' perceived lack of focus on the issues affecting young people within Aalmsted. On a platform emphasising the role of municipal socialism, the party won six seats in the 2019 Aalmsted City Council election and became the second largest opposition party to the incumbent Workers'-Radical-Green coalition.
The party did not contest the 2020 national election, giving a "reluctant" endorsement to Liis Jonsdohter's Green Party, yet its chair Aleksander Freissun has expressed its intentions to "work with other progressive municipal forces" and contest the 2023 election.
History
The party's creation dates to 25 June 2018, when young activists for parties such as The Radicals, the Greens, the Socialist Party and New Azmara, dissatisfied with the actions of their respective parties over issues such as environmentalism, local democracy and immigrants' rights gathered for a conference with the intentions of forming a new political conference.
At the party's inaugural meeting on 5 August 2018 in Lilijenburg, it elected Piraean-Azmaran environmental activist Theresa Samaras as its first President, who would lead the party's list in its first election, the Aalmsted City Council election on 30 June 2019, in which it would gain 7% of the vote and win six seats. It would also run in the concurrent elections for the city's seven boroughs and would make a notable showing in Eleinasburg and Lilienburg and would reach coalition agreements with the Radicals and Greens to co-control the respective boroughs.
On the 5 August 2021 the party would elect Aleksander Freissun, a mathematics doctoral student and participatory democracy activist as its new President.
Platform
The party possesses a left-wing, youth-focused platform which has been described variously in the media as socialist, localist and progressive. Key themes in its platform include reform of local government along the lines of participatory democracy, a reform of the Azmaran welfare state towards a model of universal basic services and universal basic income, a radical program for shifting Aalmsted towards a carbon-neutral economy and fighting what it views as xenophobia inherent in Azmaran society. The party has also supported causes of green urbanism and pedestrianisation and has been called close to the YIMBY movement, with its 2019 program calling for the implication of a land value tax and supporting new social housing developments within the capital.
The party's elected representatives have also shown an interest in international human rights issues, with Samaras proposing an ultimately successful motion to declare Aalmsted an "LGBTQ+ Freedom Zone" in opposition to the creation of LGBT-free zones in Etruria and declaring "solidarity" over with the Tsabaran people in response to anti-refugee sentiment in Euclea.
The party has taken a critical stance towards the established centre-left parties in Azmara, with Freissun's November 2021 statement that the Workers' Party and the Radicals had been "co-opted by the country's political establishment" and that the Anasdohter government offered "nothing genuinely radical or transformative in policy apart from shallow pandering" gaining national attention.