General Secretary of Los Angeles

General Secretary of Los Angeles
Secretario General di Los Angeles
Standard of the General Secretary
Incumbent Ricardo Johansen since 6 November 2022
Style	Mr. General Secretary (informal) His Excellency (diplomatic)
Type	Head of Government
Member of	Presidium
Nominator	Presidium
Appointer	President
Term length	4 years, renewable
Constituting instrument	Constitution of Los Angeles
Precursor	Speaker of Parliament
Formation	12 May 1946 (1946-05-12)
First holder	Jean de Paul Cherf Oketha (elected)
Succession	Chief of Staff
Salary	V͇375,000

The General Secretary of Los Angeles is the head of government of Los Angeles. The general secretary de jure advises the president on the exercise of his powers but de facto exercises executive powers, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers, and is the leader of their party in the Presidium. As modern general secretaries hold their office by virtue of maintaining the confidence of the Presidium, they sit as members of either the Presidium or, rarely, the Supreme National Council.

The office of general secretary is established by the second and third articles of the Angelean constitution, though many of its official powers, duties, and restrictions have only arisen since 1971. The president appoints the general secretary but must hear the recommendation of the Presidium first, and the general secretary must maintain the confidence of the Presidium. This has resulted that, in practice, the general secretary is the leader of the political party that either holds the majority or is in a coalition which holds a majority.

The general secretary is also ex officio the chair of the civil service.

Ricardo Johansen of the Unionist Party is the incumbent general secretary.

History

Autocratic Era

Before the overthrow of the democratic government, the Communist Party was a small and unknown political force in Los Angeles. As such, the job of party secretary was largely that of a bureaucrat, handling weekly dues and presiding over meetings. Following the installation of the Communist Party as the ruling party of Los Angeles, the Office of the General Secretary was established in 1946 to preform administrative work. Initially created by Daan Weiden, the Inglaterran occupation officer, as a purely administrative and disciplinary office within the party. Its primary task was to determine and handle internal affairs of the party and party membership, including the assigning of positions within the party. The General Secretary was also entrusted to preside over meetings of the party and inform leadership about party activities.

However, when Jean de Paul was appointed as the first General Secretary, the need to fill many positions in the rapidly growing political party meant de Paul, as manager of the party rolls, had considerable influence and power over the fledgling bureaucracy and many of the new offices being created. While Los Angeles was nominally to be governed by collective leadership, over half of the membership of the Executive Committee, the de jure executive authority of Los Angeles, held their positions as a result of currying favor with de Paul. With this level of influence, de Paul was able to manipulate the Executive Committee to such a degree that by 1947 he had become the de facto ruler of Los Angeles. Using his office, de Paul also created a patronage and spoils system that ensured that the general secretary would come to be the most powerful office in the country.

Some historians have regarded that the end of the Inglaterran occupation in mid-1946 as being a key factor in facilitating the consolidation of power by de Paul. In part, because the Inglaterran occupation forces pushed the collective leadership ideology onto the Angelean political system and once de Paul took near-absolute power there was no stomach to forcibly reorient the Angelean political system along Inglaterran lines.

Upon de Paul's death in 1952 his successor, Johannes Staal took over the position of general secretary. Eduardo de la Cruz, one of the most respected members of the prewar party, attempted to have Staal removed from power, feeling that the position of general secretary was too powerful to trust to Staal. The push for Staal's remove triggered a political crisis which endangered Staal's position as General Secretary, and a vote was held to remove him from office. With the help of his political allies Gregorio Alonso and Edward Martin Staal was able to survive the scandal and remained in his post. Staal used the scandal as an excuse to persecute his opponents and began to consolidate his power by using the Office of General Secretary. By 1954, he had unquestionably become the de facto leader of Los Angeles, while the position of General Secretary became the highest office in the nation. In 1956, the Supreme National Council elected Staal to his position for life. Staal used his position frequently- his tenure was marked by cultural cleansings, severe political repression, and the purging of those perceived to be insufficiently loyal to Staal. Upon Staal's death, eager to avoid the abuses of power that occurred under his tenure, the Office of the General Secretary would be reformed and have its powers curtailed.

Collective Leadership

Upon the ascension of Erik van Bries to the post of general secretary, he ruled as part of a triumvirat alongside Orlando Costa and Hipolito Rodriguez. Wanting to avoid the execesses which marked the Staal years, van Bries, Costa, and Rodriguez developed the Four Pillars Theory, which held that the key pillars of government were control of the civil service, control of the party apparatus, control of the military, and control of foreign affairs. The triumvirs thus assigned the party apparatus to van Bries, the military to Costa, and foreign affairs to Rodriguez, with all three splitting control of the civil service. This system was designed to check the powers of the executive and prevent another Staal.

This collective leadership began to wane over 1962-1964. Despite being nominally equal to Costa and Rodriguez, van Bries's control of the Party and its apparatus resulted in him gaining more and more influence and being able to push his will on Costa and Rodriguez. By October of 1964 he had become the undisputed chief executive of Los Angeles. This brought van Bries, a reformist, into direct conflict with Costa and Rodriguez, traditionalist hardliners. However, on 12 October, van Bries was found dead, having died in his sleep. While official records maintain that van Bries died of natural causes (a plausible explanation, given his advanced age at 75 years old and obesity), some scholars have instead proposed that Costa, Rodriguez, or both killed van Bries, knowing that natural causes would likely be accepted by the public. With the death of van Bries, the Presidium elected Costa as the new general secretary.

Second Autocratic Era

Within several weeks of the death of van Bries, the head of the foreign ministry and second most powerful man in Los Angeles, Hipolito Rodriguez, chose to retire due to age and health issues. This effectively left Orlando Costa, previously the head of the defense ministry, in total control of the Angelean government and the Communist Party.

Costa governed in a similar manner to de Paul and Staal, stacking the civil service and Communist Party with those loyal to him while purging the Party of the disloyal. Despite the initial hopes that Costa would remain committed to avoiding a second Staal, Costa's actions quickly showed his ambition and hunger for power. Costa brought back dissidence trials, reenacted discriminatory laws against minority languages, and purged military and political leadership. This autocratization of the country's political system was immensely unpopular, and protests demanded a return to the reforms of van Bries.

These protests culiminated in April of 1968. In what would become known as Bloodless April, where the Communist Party and Presidium both voted to remove Costa and imprison him for treason, Costa and his core supporters would be removed from power. The leader of the SIS, the Angelean intelligence service, Cherf Oketha would assume the post of general secretary and under his leadership the position would become a more limited executive post, rather than leader of the entire country.

Reforms and Democratic Leadership

Within his first weeks of power, Oketha instituted much of van Bries's reforms, pardoned many of those imprisoned by Costa, and reduced the power and influence of the military in the political system. Oketha detached the Office of the General Secretary from its party roles outside of presiding over the Presidium, and instead left the civil service independent and reduced government control over the bureaucracy. Oketha also removed court functions from the Presidium. This left Oketha as the most powerful figure in the country but one that shared much of his power with others.

Protests in late 1970 prompted Oketha to announce further democratic reforms- the Presidium was officially detached from the Communist Party, which lost all of its constitutional roles and monopoly on power. The ranks of the Presidium would instead come from the Supreme National Council, which became an elected body. While initially wishing for the Presidium to be a collective body that would operate while the Council was not in session, the Presidium instead became the de facto legislature. In addition, Oketha required that the general secretary must maintain the confidence of the Presidium and created the position of president to serve as a further check on the powers of the general secretary. Finally, free multiparty elections were to be held in 1971.

Oketha's constitutional reforms effectively reduced the once autocratic and partisan position of the general secretary to a parliamentary head of government and the nominal presider over the Presidium, which itself transitioned from a small collective executive body to becoming a larger legislative body that functioned much in the same way a parliament in a traditional democracy would. Alongside a newly independent judiciary and civil service, open political processes, and multiparty elections, Oketha transformed the previously one party dictatorship to a multiparty parliamentary republic.

Qualifications and Selection

Appointment and Term of Office

By law, there are no formal requirements for someone to become general secretary so long as they can maintain the confidence of the Presidium and the president. However, since by convention the general secretary is a member of the Presidium, and by convention members of the Presidium are also members of the Supreme National Council, the general secretary thus has de facto the same requirements as a member of the Supreme National Council- they must be of sound mental state, over the age of 27 years old, be an Angelean citizen, and not be actively imprisoned for criminal acts. In addition, due to the requirement that a general secretary maintains the confidence of the Presidium, the general secretary is thus usually the leader of the faction able to form a majority of the Presidium's membership.

The general secretary is officially appointed by the president, but the president is constitutionally mandated to hear the recommendation of the Presidium. Once the Presidium formally recommends a general secretary to the president, the president, by convention, appoints the candidate as general secretary. The general secretary can then serve until the end of the current session of the Presidium, which must happen no less than every four years.

Resignation or Removal

The Angelean constitution makes no distinction between removal from office for criminal acts or removal from office for the loss of confidence in the general secretary by the Presidium. However, convention and unwritten tradition does make such a distinction; when removed for criminal acts the removal is immediate and the general secretary is replaced by one of his deputies as a caretaker, with a snap election to be triggered immediately, with the president dissolving the Supreme National Council and Presidium. This occurred in 2022, when Charles Maggle was removed by the Presidium and was considered to leave office immediately. In contrast, when Isabella Huerta resigned in July of 2021, she was allowed to serve as caretaker herself until the Communist Party declared a new leader, who was then appointed by the president.

The vacancy of the office does not necessarily ensure a new election. By convention, elections are held when the general secretary loses a budgetary vote, a vote of confidence, is removed for criminal acts, or the Cabinet requests the removal. Vacancy because of the death of the current officeholder (though this has never happened) or because of resignation do not trigger new elections.Formally, only the president can remove the general secretary from his position prematurely, but by convention the president will remove the general secretary in any of the situations mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Theoretically, a general secretary may serve an unlimited number of terms. However, in practice, a general secretary serves until they either resign or their party loses power. In addition, even if no transfer of power between parties has occurred, a general secretary must be reinstated wth the confidence of the Presidium upon the beginning of every new session of government.

Authority and Powers

Because the general secretary is in practice the most politically powerful member of the Angelean government, they are sometimes erroneously referred to as Los Angeles's head of state, when, in fact, that role belongs to the president. The general secretary is, instead, the head of government and is responsible for advising the president on how to exercise much of the executive prerogative and its corresponding powers, which are governed by the written constitution and constitutional conventions. However, the function of the general secretary has evolved with varying amounts of power. Today, per the doctrines of parliamentary republicanism, the advice given by the general secretary is ordinarily binding, meaning the general secretary effectively carries out those duties ascribed to the president, leaving the president to act in predominantly ceremonial fashions. As such, the general secretary, supported by the Office of the General Secretary (OSG), controls the appointments of many key figures in the Angelean system of governance, such as the Cabinet, justices of the Supreme Court, some members of the Supreme National Council, heads of state owned corporations, ambassadors and other diplomatic figures, the provincial governors, and approximately 3,100 other positions. Further, the general secretary plays a prominent role in the legislative process—with the majority of bills put before the Presidium originating in the Cabinet—and the leadership of the Angelean Armed Forces.

There do exist checks on the general secretary's power: the Presidium may revoke its confidence in an incumbent general secretary and Cabinet or caucus revolts can quickly bring down a serving secretary and even mere threats of such action can persuade or compel a general secretary to resign his post, as happened with Mikkel Ditsen Conventioned determines how caucus may trigger a party leadership review and, if necessary, chose an interim leader, thereby making a general secretary more accountable to the MPs in his or her party. Caucuses may choose to follow these rules, though the decision would be made by recorded vote, thereby subjecting the party's choice to public scrutiny.

The Supreme National Council and/or the president may delay or impede legislation put forward by the Cabinet, such as when Carvalho de Sousa's bill formally federalizing Los Angeles came before the Supreme National Council, and given Los Angeles's de facto federal nature, the jurisdiction of the central government is limited to areas prescribed by the constitution. Further, as executive power is constitutionally vested in the president, meaning the executive prerogative belongs to the presidency and not to the general secretary or his ministers, the president's supremacy over the general secretary in the constitutional order is thus seen as a "rebuff to the pretensions of the elected", i.e. a check on populist tendencies. The president may therefore oppose the general secretary's will in extreme, crisis situations. The most notable case of this occurred when Francois Lucard's attempt to end Lugarseco's autonomous status was rebuffed by president Mikkel Ditsen.

List of General Secretaries

For a list of Angelean political leaders before 1945, see Speaker of Parliament, the primary head of government from 1805-1945.

1945-1971

This era was marked by the establishment of the Blivenist-Hoevenist Communist Party which was the sole legal political party between 1945 and 1971. Despite heavily repressive policies between 1952 and 1961 and again from 1964 to 1968, reforms made considerable progress, culminating in free elections in 1971.

Political Parties:
  Communist

Portrait		General Secretary (Birth–Death)	Term		Party	Province	Notes
1		Jean de Paul (1881–1952)	12 May 1946	16 April 1952	Communist	Saint Louis	After the Second Great War, de Paul, a communist hardliner, was installed as governor of Saint Louis in 1945. Despite not being the first choice of the Inglaterran occupation forces, de Paul was chosen to become general secretary after the death of Johannes Endaans. By 1948, de Paul transformed his office into the de facto leader of the country. He would hold his position from his ascendancy in 1946 until his death in 1952.
			5 years and 340 days
2		Johannes Staal (1881–1961)	16 April 1952	5 March 1961	Communist	Noord Groenkust	Following the death of de Paul, Staal originally ruled as a part of a collective body consisting of 11-15 (the number of members grew over time) functionaries and higher leaders of the Communist Party. In 1954, this body was purged and left Staal as absolute dictator of Los Angeles. During his rule repression increased, and persecution of non-Conversilha speakers increased. The Villelibrene and Serran communities were in particular heavily persecuted in what has been called an ethnic and cultural cleansing of Angelean society. Staal would die of a heart attack at age 80 in 1961
			8 years and 323 days
3		Erik van Bries (1889–1964)	5 March 1961	12 October 1964	Communist	Jerrostad	After Staal died in 1961, a temporary commission consisting of van Bries, Hipolito Rodriguez, and Orlando Costa was appointed by the Presidium of Los Angeles to govern the country. Despite many thinking him to be a hardliner, van Bries was reformist and began to reform the country's political system despite opposition from Rodriguez and Costa. Between 1961 and 1964, van Bries began to overshadow Rodriguez and Costa and became undisputed head of the country. On 12 October 1964, van Bries was found dead. Despite the official autopsy saying van Bries died of natural causes, he was 75 and obese, some scholars allege that either Rodriguez, Costa, or both killed van Bries and covered it up.
			2 years and 303 days
4		Orlando Costa (1924–1999)	12 October 1964	29 April 1968	Communist	Nuevo Serro	Taking power in 1964 after the death of his predecessor, van Bries, Costa reflected a general sentiment among the party elite to maintain their control on power and halt the now rapidly growing reform movements. A staunch Blivenist-Hoevenist, Costa began persecution trials of political dissidents, stepped up discriminatory policies against non-Conversilha speakers, and purged party leadership and replaced leadership with those loyal to him. His growing unpopularity and a perception that he was out of touch with the country as a whole led to Bloodless April, when a coup led by Cherk Oketha overthrew the Costa government. Costa would be imprisoned until his death in 1999.
			3 years and 141 days
5		Cherf Oketha (1914–2003)	29 April 1968	3 November 1974	Communist	New Ketha	After taking power in Bloodless April, Oketha served as General Secretary of Los Angeles from 1969 until his inauguration as president in 1971. Oketha was responsible for many democratic reforms, including the expansion of the franchise to all citizens, not just party members, the legalization of opposition parties, and the transfer of power to the Presidium, effectively turning the previously autocratic General Secretary position into an indirectly elected head of government and the previously rubber stamping body into a full fledged legislature. For his acts he has been called the "Father of Los Angeles".
			6 years and 188 days

1971-Present

The current era in Angelean politics has been marked by decentralization of power away from the executive and towards the legislature, the end of official discriminatory practices against minority languages and ethnic groups, democratic and capitalist reforms, and multiparty elections. In addition, under the leadership of Cherf Oketha, the Communist Party reformed into a vaugely social democratic party comparable to most other center-left parties in Nordic democracies.

Political Parties:
  Communist   Democratic   Federal Liberty   Unionist Party

Portrait		General Secretary (Birth–Death)	Term		Party	Province	Notes
5		Cherf Oketha (1914–2003)	29 April 1969	3 November 1974	Communist	New Ketha	After reforming the Angelean political system into a multiparty parliamentary republic, Oketha would serve several more years as General-Secretary, leading his reformist-minded Communist Party to power after the 1971 elections. Oketha embarked on a broadly social democratic and socially liberal campaign, continuing campaigns to stamp out corruption and punish those who abused human rights during the communist regime. Due to health problems, Oketha chose to retire. Incumbent president Maximilian Gomes resigned, and Oketha was elected to the mostly ceremonial office of President of Los Angeles.
			5 years and 188 days
6		Cameron Yardsman (1921–2000)	3 November 1974	17 November 1991	Democratic	Hesperia	The first non-Communist leader of Los Angeles since Johannes Huerta of National Party, who served from 1940 until 1945, when he was overthrown by Yedinburg Pact forces. Yardsman was elected after public dissatisfaction with the Communist Party boiled over. Yardsman was the longest serving Angelean leader in history, serving 17 years as General Secretary and leading the country through the Third Great War, the rebuilding which followed, and the first half of the Great Encore.
			17 years and 14 days
7		Mikkel Ditsen (1943–)	17 November 1991	25 May 1997	Communist	Grunnoy	Elected after the end of the long tenure of Cameron Yardsman, Ditsen attempted to redefine the struggling Communist Party through reconciling the popularity of the conservative Democratic Party that had been in power for 17 years. Ditsen, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a Pink Communist, referencing a weaker form of the red commonly used by the Communist Party. Ditsen would win the 1991 and 1995 elections, but his popularity suffered due to economic difficulties from 1995 onwards. After failing a budgetary vote, a new election was held in 1997. While the Communist Party won, it only won due to vote splitting between the Democratic and Federal Liberty parties, which often competed for the same votes. On 6 May, two days after the election, Ditsen would resign and let the party determine his successor.
			5 years and 189 days
8		Severina Moreno (1950–)	25 May 1997	27 May 2001	Communist	Nova Ralume	The first female General Secretary, and one of only two as of 2024, Moreno was elected leader of the Communist Party in wake of the resignation of Ditsen. Moreno came from the more left-wing factions of the party, and sought to return the party to its more pro-labor and pro-social democratic policies that had defined the party since 1971. However, due to the circumstances of her election she lacked much political power and the Communists lose to a united coalition between the Democratic and Federal Liberty parties.
			4 years and 2 days
9		Carvalho de Sousa (1949–)	27 May 2001	31 May 2009	Federal Liberty	Lugarseco	Elected as a part of a coalition agreement between the Democratic and Federal Liberty parties, de Sousa's Federal Liberty Party won more seats than the Democrats on a platform of the "Three De-s" of Deregulation, Decentralization, and Decommunization. The de Sousa government emphasized the deregulation of the economy, return of power to the provinces and away from the executive and central government, and the arrest of those who had avoided punishment for their actions during the more hardline eras of Los Angeles along with reconstitutution of truth commissions. While de Sousa intially governed as a coalition agreement, the 2005 elections returned a Federal Liberty majority, resulting in de Sousa reneging on his agreements with the Democratic Party- a decision which would cost him reelection in the 2009 elections.
			8 years and 4 days
10		Francois Lucard (1956–)	31 May 2009	8 March 2013	Communist	Venera	Coming from the Ditsenonian wing of the Communist Party, Lucard attempted to redefine the Party away from the unpopularity of the Moreno government. However, the 2012 economic downturn resulted in Lucard rapidly losing popularity. This resulted in his government losing a vote of confidence in January 2013, triggering snap elections which were won by the Democratic Party.
			3 years and 281 days
11		Thomas Selnaaes (1950–)	8 March 2013	10 May 2015	Democratic	Playadiestat	After winning snap elections in 2013, much of Selnaaes's initial time in office was dominated by foreign policy. After riding a polling boost after the resolution of the Angelean Straits Crisis, Selnaaes called a snap election in an attempt to increase his majority. However, due to vote splitting with the Federal Liberty Party, the Communist Party won a surprise victory.
			2 years and 63 days
12		Isabella Huerta (1964–)	10 May 2015	4 January 2021	Communist	Nuevo Serro	After winning snap elections in 2015, Huerta became just the second ever female General Secretary. Her first term was relatively controversial, once again the Communists won the election despite receiving less votes than the Democratic and Federal Liberty parties, but economic growth and stable politics resulted in Huerta becoming a fairly well regarded leader, leading the Communists to a close but convincing victory in the 2019 elections. Despite the electoral victory, Huerta announced her resignation on 20 July of 2021, expressing a desire to spend more time with her husband and children. Her successor, Charles Maggle, would win election as head of the Communist Party and serve as General Secretary in his own right.
			5 years and 239 days
13		Charles Maggle (1955–)	4 January 2021	6 June 2021	Communist	Lugarseco	The first General Secretary to be of a different lingual origin than the majority of their home province, Maggle was elected leader of the Communist Party in 2021 after the resignation of Isabella Huerta. Shortly after taking office, allegations of vote buying in the Communist Party caucuses began to emerge. The resulting scandal escalated when Maggle used several cconstitutional loopholes to force the investigation to an end on 30 May. On 6 June, simultaneous votes led to Maggle's removal from both the Communist Party, the Party's presidency, and as General Secretary of Los Angeles.
			153 days
-		Jean Paul Martin (1955–)	6 June 2021	6 January 2022	Communist	Vendredia	Martin served as interim General Secretary after the removal of Charles Maggle on 6 August 2022. Martin would serve as caretaker until the 2021 elections, which were won by a landslide by the Unionist Party, a formal merger of the Democratic and Federal Liberty parties.
			214 days
14		Ricardo Johansen (1960–)	6 January 2022	Incumbent	Unionist	Playadiestat	The incumbent General Secretary, Johansen is the first Unionist General Secretary. His term has been marked by closer relations with the Galian Entente and a more interventionist foreign policy.
			2 years and 119 days