Ritchåd Cougnî

Ritchåd Cougnî Former Premier of Auzance and Prime Minister of Auzance
Premier Cougnî in 1977
Premier of Auzance
In office 21 July, 1974 – 24 July, 1988
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	somebody else, probably
Prime Minister of Auzance
In office 19 July, 1970 – 21 July, 1974
Preceded by	Rawoul Lixhime
Succeeded by	Alegzande Nihoûle
Leader of the All-Councilist Union
In office 19 September, 1967 – 24 July, 1988
Preceded by	Andreye Tchûen
Succeeded by	Tâve Fagnrê
Personal details
Born	Ritchåd Djo Cougnî (1916-10-27)October 27, 1916 Remmes, Auzance
Died	January 31, 2003(2003-01-31) (aged 86) Cestiène, Auzance
Citizenship	Autuzian
Political party	All-Councilist Union (1938-2003)
Spouse	Tcharlôt Yeyetenne (m. 1940)

Ritchåd Cougnî (27 October, 1916 – 31 January, 2003) was an Autuzian politician who served as Prime Minister of Auzance from 1970 to 1974, and Premier of Auzance from 1974 to 1988, while presiding as Leader of the All-Councilist Union from 1967 to 1988. Identifying as a council communist, he was also at the head of the 1970s reformist movement, and became known for his socially progressive views and legislation passed during his tenure.

Cougnî was born in Remmes in 1916 to an upper-middle-class devout Sotirian family, and grew up speaking Gaullican. Initially associated with anti-independence conservative groups following Auzance's revolution from Gaullica in his late teens, Cougnî renounced these groups in his university years, as well as becoming an atheist. Cougnî joined the All-Councilist Union in 1938 after attending one of its Remmes conferences, and became an active participant; his entry to politics coincided with presiding Prime Minister Remy Warnot's clampdown on opposition, and as such, Cougnî was arrested several times in his late twenties into his thirties for political activities. By the late 1940s, Cougnî had become a key figure in the Labour party speaking for constitutional democratic reforms, and welcomed the downfall of the Warnot government amid the 1948 coup d'état, though the persistent authoritarianism in post-Warnot Auzance would be a consistent point of contention for him and his faction.

The first All-Councilist Union, led by Eûdalîye Linå Vanole, entered power in 1948; Cougnî entered the Tchambe for his hometown of Remmes in the same year, and rose quickly, becoming a mid-ranking Cabinet minister in the Treasury department by 1952. Initially loyal to the party, Cougnî became a key internal rebel in the 1950s as Vanole's authoritarianism grew more overt; in 1958, the courts - believed to be under Vanole's orders - had Cougnî arrested on defunctionalist charges, for which he was jailed for 18 months. His imprisonment set off the chain of events that culminated in Vanole's fall from power, the beginning of the democratisation of Auzance and eventually would put Cougnî - whose name was now recognisable as the key reformist and opponent to authoritarianism - in power a decade later.

Cougnî was elevated to the position of Leader of the Opposition in 1967, when National Prime Minister Tchûen's resignation as party leader amid a failure to capitalise on anti-government sentiment brought him into power in a landslide against his ethno-nationalist opponent. As Leader of the Opposition, Cougnî was both an avid speaker, and a keen negotiator, seeking to undermine the National government which commanded a perilously small majority dispersed between four parties. During Cougnî's tenure of less than three years in this capacity, he sat opposite four separate Prime Ministers, with the government's majority eroding completely two months before the election.

Ritchåd Cougnî was elected Prime Minister in the 1970 election's landslide, precipitating a period of hasty liberalisation of social laws - such as legalising abortion, homosexuality and the creation of a Constitution - before he was elevated to the position of Premier in 1974, in which he served one initial term of two years, and then two full terms of six years, before finally resigning in 1988. Cougnî had remained highly popular throughout, establishing his political ideology as the dominant strain of Autuzian councilism. Cougnî also oversaw a period of rapid economic development, with the economy transitioning to accommodate co-operative enterprises and moving away from collectivised agriculture, as well as sustained long-term socioeconomic investment; the 1970s and 1980s as a result were a period of fast and consistent economic prosperity for most Autuzians, the former particularly unusual for a Euclean country - for this reason, the All-Councilists' Cougnî-era economic reforms are accredited for Auzance's relative economic prosperity compared to other MASSOR council republics.

Cougnî's legacy as All-Councilist leader, Premier and Prime Minister was widespread, from the Cougnî thaw with East Euclea's liberal democracies, to Auzance's economic reforms and development, and socially liberal democratising reforms that took place during his tenure, the latter particularly in his legislative term between 1970 and 1974, setting Auzance up as a reliable constitutionally democratic state for the first time in its history. Despite these achievements, Cougnî is also blamed by critics for his complacency in later years to the rise of the populist far-right, potentially enabling the National Party to reach power in the 1990s, while his later tenure is seen as less effective by some as his early years as he aged. Cougnî retired from politics in 1988, though came back into a semi-public sphere criticising the National Gaspard government of the 1990s, dying in 2003 aged 86.