Filomena Pinheiro
Filomena Pinheiro | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Prime Minister of Gylias | |
| In office 30 May 1986 – 1 February 1990 | |
| President | Sáe Nyran |
| Deputy | Lea Kersed |
| Preceded by | Aén Ďanez |
| Succeeded by | Mathilde Vieira |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 16 December 1938 Kyman, TACS, Alscia |
| Political party | Independent |
| Alma mater | University of Arnak |
Filomena Pinheiro (Gylic transcription: Fylóumæna Pyniéiry, born 16 December 1938) is a Gylian academic and politician. She served as Prime Minister of Gylias from 1986 to 1990. Her term was mainly spent overcoming the effects of the wretched decade.
A distinguished long-serving independent deputy, Filomena was nominated as Prime Minister by a united opposition in the wake of the Ossorian war crisis. She received overwhelming confirmation and took office on 30 May 1986, forming a national unity government that included all parliamentary formations except the Revolutionary Rally, Front for Renewal of Order and Society, and some isolated Non-inscrits.
In light of the hung parliament elected in 1985 and the diverse groups represented in her coalition, Filomena defined her task as being an interim officeholder who would oversee Gylias' recovery from the wretched decade. Major changes were postponed until the next federal election, with an emphasis placed instead on immediate recovery.
Her "New Course" policy sought to "detoxify" public life, strengthen oversight of governments, and weaken governments' powers. The former was accomplished through the most extensive crackdown since the Lucian Purge, with the RR and FROS being destroyed as political forces and many of their leading figures sentenced to expulsion from the community in social quarantine areas — including her predecessor Aén Ďanez. She oversaw a restoration of public services and convened the Public Assembly to consider economic questions.
Known for her contemplative personality, Filomena succeeded in ending the crisis atmosphere of the wretched decade, and her government introduced several initial reforms to remedy the flaws in the political system exposed by it. Her tenure saw significant political realignment — the destruction of the authoritarian far-left and far-right, the struggle against the dérive au droite, and the rise of the Non-inscrits at the expense of established electoral blocs which voters punished for their inaction during the wretched decade.
She stepped down as Prime Minister after the 1990 federal election, and retired from Parliament in 2000.
Early life
Filomena Pinheiro was born in Kyman on 16 December 1938, when it was a TACS of Alscia. She is of mainly Lusitan descent, but has some Hellene ancestry, reflected in her name. Her family moved around the Free Territories during the Liberation War, and finally settled in Arnak.
Both of her parents were teachers, and worked as itinerant teachers during the war. She was educated in volunteer classes and at home. She was an enthusiastic reader as a child, and became interested in philosophy.
After the war, she entered the University of Arnak, where she completed a degree in literature. While a student, she attended several of the Arnak Trials as a member of the public, which made a strong impression on her. She later commented that the trials "monopolised the city's public life" for their duration.
After graduation, Filomena taught literature and French at the university. She also presented French courses at the Open University and through ATV Herlan.
Legislative career
Filomena entered the 1969 federal election as an independent candidate for a local circonscription. She placed 7th on the first count, but secured enough transfers to finish 4th in the final count, being elected to the Chamber of Deputies. She would then win re-election in 1976, 1980, and 1985.
Due to the popular legislature status of the Gylian Parliament, Filomena served as deputy part-time, leaving her with plenty of time to continue her academic career.
For much of her legislative career, she was understated and didn't attract much media attention. However, her behind-the-scenes work, thoughtful contributions, and service on the Permanent Committee on Civil, Political, Economic, and Social Liberties won great respect among her colleagues.
Justina Mendonça Ferreira, the justice minister in the Darnan Cyras government, was one of the first to take note of a fellow Lusitan's work, and once joked, "I'm not sure what Filomena is doing in the Chamber of Deputies when it's clear she belongs in the Senate" — referring to Filomena's low-key image and academic style.
During the wretched decade, she was a vocal opponent of the Aén Ďanez government. As the 1980s progressed, she grew frustrated with the opposition's inability to unite and overthrow Aén Ďanez, and made increasingly vocal criticisms in the media.
One of the major issues fracturing the opposition was how to constitute a grand coalition. Passionately advocated by National Bloc leader Lea Kersed, it was increasingly embraced by parties after the 1985 federal election returned a hung parliament, but the sticking point remained its composition, and particularly who would chair it. When the Ossorian war crisis erupted, Filomena's name was put forward as a potential Prime Minister. Her distinguished record in the Chamber of Deputies made her a strong candidate, and her academic background and election as an independent bolstered her image as non-partisan.
Prime Minister of Gylias
The opposition hastily united behind Filomena, and she took office as Prime Minister of Gylias on 30 May 1986. Her public inauguration was heavily attended and attracted high viewing figures on Gylian Television. While affirming the oath of office, she used a traditional Germanic oath-taking gesture. The choice was spontaneous, but it made for one of the most famous moments of a prime ministerial inauguration.
She formed a national unity government that was the largest federal coalition in Gylian history: it included every parliamentary formation except for the Revolutionary Rally, Front for Renewal of Order and Society, and several non-inscrit "molehill parties". Several parties, particularly anarchist ones, declined to take posts in the government, but still supported it in parliament. Lea Kersed was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, honouring her long opposition to Aén. Several former Darnan Cyras government members returned, notably including Theophania Argyris as planning minister.
New Course
Filomena's domestic program was dubbed the "New Course" (French: Nouveau cours), after a phrase from her inaugural speech. She explicitly defined herself as an interim officeholder who would concern herself with stabilising Gylias and recovery from the wretched decade — "detoxification of public life", as she famously put it. Her vault from obscurity to Prime Minister, coupled with the disparate nature of her coalition, made dramatic changes unfeasible. Instead, she focused on immediate relief and symbolic reforms, which could be adopted by consensus.
Channeling public fury at the wretched decade and Ossorian war crisis, Filomena presided over the most extensive crackdown since the Lucian Purge, aimed entirely at the Revolutionary Rally and Front for Renewal of Order and Society. Aén and her ministers were charged with abuse of office, crimes against society, and crimes against the public peace. The trials proceeded quickly due to overwhelming evidence, and many of them, Aén included, received the maximum sentence: expulsion from the community to social quarantine areas, where they died.
Filomena's government pursued the crackdown on authoritarianism vigorously and ruthlessly. The RR and FROS were subject to media blackouts and a campaign of relentless public humiliation and investigations, leading to most of its officeholders being recalled, removed from office, investigated, or convicted of various crimes. Filomena took a leading role in recall efforts, bluntly warning voters that RR and FROS parliamentarians were "enemies of Gylias". The heated tone of the campaign led to several occasions where she explicitly promised to send authoritarians to SQAs, saying that "their existence itself is enough of a crime against society".
The crackdown extended to the civil service, with the Gylian administrative agencies being purged of all who had served or been appointed under Aén. The government imposed a blanket 10-year ban from public office and set up a Temporary Committee on Cleansing the Bureaucracy to investigate functionaries and determine whether they had been sufficiently opposed to Aén's government.
A priority for the government was restoring the effectiveness of public services, particularly that of the Hermes Programme. This was achieved gradually as a result of the crackdown, bureaucratic purges, and the appointment of competent and low-key officeholders, allowing administrative agencies to recover.
Legal reforms were adopted to strengthen oversight of government, and further confine governments' responsibilities to the benefit of communal assemblies. The Law on Legislature Sizes of 1989 was passed to cap legislature sizes and thus combat the risk of them usurping the primacy of communal assemblies.
In preparation for the next federal election, the 1990 census was held a year early, in 1989, and some electoral reforms were adopted. The best known of these was separating the northern regions — Salxar, Makarces, Gacar, and Gerşyr — which had formerly been grouped into northern circonscriptions for the Chamber of Deputies due to their small population.
Public Assembly
Filomena's government was confronted with the economic damage of the wretched decade. While canceling Aén's policies and restoring public services helped halt the four-year recession that had started in 1982, the economy remained hampered by the lack of stronger action: growth rates remained stuck at 1%-2% for the rest of the decade, and unemployment still stood at 9% in 1989.
Drawing inspiration from the Public Advisory Council established by Sáe Nyran, Filomena convened the Public Assembly (Assemblée Publique), an assembly of Gylians to consider economic questions. It had 200 members, chosen randomly to be broadly representative of Gylian society, with 10 from each region and each having a replacement.
The Public Assembly met regularly from 1986 to 1989, on weekends. Its sessions included expert presentations, submissions from the public, debate, roundtable discussion and a plenary session. Its reports were presented to the government, which formally responded. Several resulted in successful referendums — to strengthen the cooperative sector, revise fiscal requirements for public organisations, and expand high-speed rail.
Overall, the Public Assembly upheld the Gylian consensus, and several of its suggestions for revitalising it were taken up by the Mathilde Vieira government. On the other hand, several right-wing formations, particularly "molehill parties", tried to use the Public Assembly to spread their ideas and attack the Gylian consensus. These were ineffective — proposals to abolish the National Prices Board and reform the currency suffered lopsided referendum defeats — but it contributed to public suspicion of them.
Foreign policy
Foreign policy under Filomena was dominated by the effort to repair relations damaged by the wretched decade. The easiest to mend were Gylias' traditional friendships with Kirisaki, Cacerta, and Tennai. Others were stymied, such as relations with Delkora due to incompatibility of governments.
The removal of Aén allowed Gylias to resume its traditional role in the Common Sphere. The consolidation and upgrade of the Hermes Programme in light of contemporary technology benefited particularly from technical assistance from Cacerta and Kirisaki.
Filomena was distraught over the Ossorian war crisis, and thus made normalisation of relations with Ossoria a priority. She made an official visit to Ossoria in 1987, where she faced protests by the far-right Sons of the Gaels. Although she got on well with High King Nevan III and the Taoiseach, the damage dealt by the war crisis was too much, and Ossorian suspicion of Gylias persisted throughout her tenure.
She inherited the Neyveli Agreement, and decided to maintain it, treating it as a humanitarian policy that allowed Mansuri dissidents to escape to safety in Gylias rather than risk persecution at home.
Public image
Filomena's style as Prime Minister differed drastically from her predecessor Aén, and harked back to Darnan Cyras' rejection of conventional leadership. She saw herself as an interim figurehead rather than a "proper" Prime Minister with a mandate, and acted accordingly.
Her contemplative manner stood out among politicians. She was known for her philosophical inclinations and fondness for floating ideas, even if it meant she frequently had to clarify they were simply ideas and not official policy. One of her famous speeches contained the phrase "I know it all seems very complicated…", which was subsequently misquoted in public memory as "Everything is very complicated".
Ŋéida Vaşad commented that Filomena's "boring", academic manner was exactly what Gylias needed after the confrontational and inflammatory Aén. Filomena commanded public respect for her thankless task, but she was also frequently caricatured. The Prism depicted her as a university professor thrust into the premiership, as did episode 7 of Poly-Space, where an unnamed Prime Minister who is clearly implied to be Filomena bores other heads of government at a regional conference with her philosophical ramblings.
As part of her efforts to "detoxify" public life, Filomena went to great lengths to ingratiate herself with municipal and regional governments. She tried to avoid monopolising the spotlight, and would stop to talk with Gylians on the street, in an effort to reestablish "openness" in the Prime Minister's office.
Her efforts to remain on good terms with her coalition succeeded in holding it together, but contributed to an impression of her as dithering. One of her closest friends in the cabinet was Deputy Prime Minister Lea Kersed. When Lea died in 1988, Filomena left the post vacant for the remainder of her term.
End of term
Filomena's tenure saw dramatic political realignments: the destruction of the RR and FROS, the dérive au droite culminating in the National Bloc–Union for Freedom and Prosperity split of 1989, and the rise of Non-inscrits at the expense of established electoral blocs discredited by the wretched decade. She managed to lead a national unity government united only by opposition to the RR and FROS through the remainder of the 5th Parliament's term.
She was firm about being an interim Prime Minister, and refused all offers to run for a term in her own right. She gave her last televised speech on 31 December 1989, in which she said "This is my last speech to you as Prime Minister". She expressed optimism for the new decade and regret that her government had not done enough to remedy the damage of the wretched decade.
Later life
While she stepped down as Prime Minister, Filomena won two further elections as a deputy, in 1990 and 1995. She avoided publicly commenting on the actions of her successor Mathilde Vieira, but did occasionally meet with her to provide advice.
She retired from Parliament in 2000, and from her academic career in 2008.
She made a brief appearance in Rasa Ḑeşéy's 2015 documentary Cyber-Revolution, discussing the "appalling state" of the Hermes Programme in the 1980s and its revitalisation.
Private life
She was married, until her husband's death in 2010, and has one daughter.