January 6th, 0070. Earth Federation Assembly. Rio de Jainero, Brazil. Earth. Jorge Marcenas POV
"Once this legislation has been passed, we can product a true uplifting of the common worker to ensure that every man and woman throughout the solar system can achieve true income equality and thus a real economic golden age. Thank you." Spoke the Labor Leader Hans Sechter from Germany, with polite applause being met throughout the Federal Assembly in reaction to his speech.
The move was copied by Jorge Marcenas who rose from his seat and gave an ovation to his chief political rival out of respect, though inwardly he was in a state of glee in hearing Sechter's speech, for it confirmed his suspicions that for the short term the Labor party would stick to their natural state of out of touch old-school socialism, keeping the Federalists as the natural party of government.
During the general election, Labor had campaigned on the issue of wealth inequality throughout the Earth Sphere and how the Zeon Miracle (a term that Jorge loathed to use) only increased wealth in the hands of the 1% and corporations while the worker saw barely any benefits. While there was some truth to this with even the high and mighty Zeon seeing a 230% increase in the wealth gap, the common man really did have an increase in real income with an average increase of 4,000 credits in the previous year across the Earth sphere. Despite this Labor was in an overall fit just because everyone didn't become millionaires overnight.
While Labor was able to increase their seats due to the usual dissatisfaction with the sitting party along with appealing to demographics which had been hurt by the Miracle, it was not near enough to eliminate Jorge's majority and thus he had the next five years to do as he wanted, provided his party didn't launch a coup and kick him out of office, which was impossible with his power base established.
Jorge's suspicions of Labor's stagnation were confirmed during Sechter's Party Manifesto, a term given to a period of speeches allowed to all parties within the Federal Assembly where they would be given up to half an hour on the first day of the Assembly's annual session to list their legislative agenda for the next turn. The speeches were given in order from the most seats to least with Jorge going first, promising to implement all of his campaign goals, with an extra emphasis on keeping social peace within the Earth sphere and stamping down on the rise of toxic Spacenoid Nationalism, AKA Zeon.
While Jorge had only managed to move a small few, mainly the zealots of his party, this was satisfactory as barely anyone had been aroused by Sechter's speech, with just a politely bored gaze as the main response while Jorge could swear he managed to see a few people snoozing in the Assembly.
Now that the elections were over and the Federal Assembly would stay a majority Federalist, Jorge could happily let the party bosses do their jobs and keep the legislation traveling smoothly from committee to his desk while he could focus on the big picture with running the Earth Sphere.
"The floor recognizes Terra Firma Leader, Gabriel Castro, representing Mexico City." Spoke Majority Whip Jiabo Zhao. At the mention of the name, Jorge's good mood was ruined with high tension now running through his body at the presentation of the Mexican.
While hundreds of millions of Spacenoids bemoaned Jorge as the bane of their existence, the truth was that Jorge was practically a saint in comparison to what would happen if Terra Firma held complete control of the Federation. While Jorge despised the concept of Spacenoid independence, it was one of principle as the independence of any of the Sides would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the peace and progress of the Universal Century and lead humanity back to the dark ages of Anno Domini when authoritarian tyrannies were allowed to exist in the name of "Keeping the peace", "Respecting national sovereignty", and "Cultural Respect." The death of the Federation would be a fatal wound on humanity from which it would not recover for centuries.
So long as the status quo was kept and nationalism, then Jorge was fine to leave the Spacenoids in their current state of autonomy. While things were not perfect for the people of space, no society in human history was a utopia and those that tried to achieve such a dream ended up being dystopian nightmares. There were countless Spacenoids who lived lives of prosperity and did so without engaging in near treason against the Federation. Even the Zabi's were the hypocritical picture of this as despite them being "oppressed", they arose to become one of the richest families in the solar system and gain near total political control of their nation, all of this being done within the system the Federation had set in place.
If Terra Firma took power, then there would be no hope for any Spacenoid uplift because the Sides would be destroyed and everyone would be gradually forced back to Earth in what would surely be the greatest economic, environmental, and societal period of discord and chaos in history! Moving the majority of humanity into space had been an intensely delicate process with many scars inflicted on the Federation in the process. However, in the end it was all worth it with the planet entering its healing state and the dream of Universalism being achieved as mankind spread across the stars. To send everyone back to Earth and destroy the Federation's presence in space would be just as bad as granting independence to the Sides.
Until a a month ago, Jorge did not have to worry about the possibility of Terra Firma coming into power as they were a fringe party with as much appeal as the Nationalists and Socialists on the right and left respectively. While the party machine had warned him they predicted a rise in Terra Firma, it was only expected for them to break triple digits, not reach over 300 and become the third largest party!
If Jorge didn't handle the Zeon situation soon, then his failures would only be adding more fuel to the fire for Terra Firma's rise and make them a legitimate contender in the Assembly and turn the 2.5 party system into a 3 party system. In such a scenario, even the Spacenoids of Side 3 would be begging him to stay in power for another term.
Unfortunately, Jorge's hands were tied due to the democratic process, and he would just have to wait and mobilize his party's resources to contain Terra Firma and watch them collapse as all one issue parties will.
Castro rose to the pulpit with grace, being followed by a warm greeting from the other parties, which was drowned out by the enthusiastic and decorum breaking cheering of the Terra Firma MP's. As the newest party leader whose strategy helped to make them a legitimate contender, Castro deserved every bit of lavish devotion from his MP's. When he came to the podium, he stood and waved, waiting a minute for the Assembly to die down before he began his speech.
"My fellow delegates of the Assembly, our world is in peril!"
January 9th, 0071. Earth Federation Supreme Court. Geneva, Switzerland. Earth. Gloria Santiago POV
Inside of her chambers Chief Justice Gloria Santiago slowly drank from her mug of coffee as she sat at her desk. At the moment Gloria was mentally preparing herself for her judgement that she and the rest of the Supreme Court would be handing out in a little bit, the end of the Principality of Zeon V. Earth Federation.
Just thinking about the near two month long case made her groan in frustration and exhaustion. In her long career as a judge there had been many cases she had to preside over that she didn't like for a variety of reasons. Rarely was the reason for their existence as stupid as the one that she and the court had been overseeing since November.
Zeon V. Federation was a case that was brought about by blatant government corruption. She knew that as the Chief Justice saying such things about the other two branches of the Federal government was highly scandalous, but she didn't know of any other way to term a taxation of a state's spending on their armed forces. If such a principle was set in stone then governments could tax a city for operating their police department, hospital system, sewage treatment, and many other necessary government institutions. Had the target been any other nation then the Earth sphere would rise in protest, but because it was directed at Zeon many in Earth and space just were apathetic about the tax because it was only punishing the Zeeks for having a military and expanding it.
Granted, Zeon having their own military and expanding it to anything beyond a supplementary force for the police was something she disdained. They lived in the Universal Century, where mankind lived in one-nation and war was extinct. The idea of anybody but the Federation itself holding a standing army (and Gloria herself had long disliked how bloated the Federal Forces were) was completely unnecessary and contradictory to the fact that the Federation was supposed to have ended the age of the Nation-state.
If Marcenas had done something like abolish the Side's ability to hold self-defense forces then she would be all for the law, having no idea why he taxed them instead of doing so. However he decided to do this to knock Zeon down a peg and as much as she hated the Zabi's blatant Fascism, she couldn't let such an injustice slide. If she let the taxation happened then it would open up so many horrible legal precedents that would make the next few decades a legal nightmare if a Prime Minister ever came to power that was a blatant tyrant. That was something that Gloria would never happen in her court.
Even if Zeon was the main focus of this case it still should have been a blatant striking down of the law as unconstitutional. However, there were two factors that prevented such a move from being played out. Firstly, the Zeon legal team had tried to make a case that the law was unconstitutional because Federal law had allowed member-states of the Federation to have their own militaries, obviously trying to push a narrative that Zeon was on the same legal status as a member-state, a ruling that would open up so many cans of worms over suffrage and the current state of Federalism in the Earth sphere. Unfortunately a few of her justices were inclined to the argument.
The second, and more troubling issue was how the Federal lawyers were trying to push the narrative that the law was completely constitutional, and how they nearly succeded at several points with Gloria narrowly managing to convince a few Justices to back out at the last moment before a ruling could be made.
This was mainly due to the presence of four Justices within her court that Gloria knew for a fact were puppets of the federal establishment, alongside a few other justices having anti-Spacenoid sentiments that made the case so precarious. Every day Gloria tried to see the best in her peers and work with them, and on most appellate cases or rulings on Federal law they were decent people who tried to defend the Federal Articles. Unfortunately in the past decade, the Federal Assembly had been doing their best to get the court packed with Justices who would definitely side with Earth against the Sides to maintain the status quo. While Gloria hated this act of corruption, politicization of the judicial branch had been a thing for the past two centuries in democracy and it wouldn't stop tommorrow even if Earth and the Sides declared eternal goodwill and friendship. If Zeon's Nationalism was to die tomorrow then the Assembly would find some other issue to politicize the court for it, and there was nothing that Gloria could do to prevent this outside of destroying UC democracy.
In the end they had fortunately managed to reach a compromise, and from here on out Gloria could only hope and pray that the Earth-Space divide would be settled outside of the courts in a civil fashion and that whatever actions Lhasa and Rio took against Zeon that they would not do so in such an unbelievably corrupt manner as this law.
Having nearly emptied her cup of coffee and getting into a decent mental state to deal with the day's proceedings, Gloria then acted to finish the last item of her list before she delivered the ruling. Using her office's landline, she dialed the Prime Minister's office. After twenty seconds of waiting, Jorge Marcenas answered.
"Hello Gloria, how may I be of service?" Jorge said. Having worked with him for the past five years, Gloria knew enough of Jorge's mannerisms to tell from his voice that he was slightly on the edge despite it remaining openly calm.
"Jorge, I'm not going to waste time so I'll simply drop the bad news. In less than half an hour my court will deliver the ruling for Zeon v. Federation, and to put it bluntly, the tax on the colonial defense spending will not stand." Gloria informed.
"But you're not going to support Zeon's agenda are you?" Jorge accused with high agitation showing through the line.
"No, the stupidity of your law does not support Zeon's claims of being a member-state of the Federation, nothing barring an amendment to the Articles or a referendum is going to change that anytime soon. Instead I've managed to create a compromise to save your coalition from this mess."
"I'm listening." Jorge said in apprehension."
"Basically we've found the taxation to be unconstitutional as the Earth Federation does not have the power to tax government programs of devolved governments within the Federation. The tax could never have been allowed to exist as the Federation only has the power to tax private goods, and the income of citizens and businesses. Taxation cannot be enforced on the spending of a devolved government." Gloria explained.
Jorge emitted a loud sigh, "Devolved government, I like the language. We acknowledge the Side's autonomy the boat is not rocked and the relationship between Earth and space still stands. I can live with this. Gloria, I understand why you want to oppose this on a legal basis, but surely you can understand why morally I had to inflict the tax on the Sides to prevent Zeon or any of the other colonies from wantonly arming themselves."
"If you don't want them to arm themselves then why the hell don't you just abolish the Sides self-defense forces? We are a one world state, there is no point for constituents of the Federation to run militaries when we pay taxes for the Federal Forces." Gloria said.
Another sigh came from Jorge, "I know that it would be the right thing to do, but at this point it would be too late. We will most definitely win a war against Zeon, but it would come at the cost of millions or even tens of millions of people with how far they've come in their defense forces. The whole point of the Federal Forces is to discourage conflict and maintain unity. I will not be the first Prime Minister since my grandfather to preside over a war. Besides, Zeon wasting hundreds of billions of credits on their military could actually be of benefit in allowing us to remove the Zabis from power without illicit methods." Jorge explained.
"What, that their economy will collapse from the wasteful spending and in the fiscal downfall the people will overthrow the Zabi's? With how the Miracle's going, unless they go full Reaganomics Zeon won't suddenly freefall into a depression when the next recession hits, they've got enough capitol to be the least hurt. Even if somehow Zeon does collapse economically, that's no garuntee for a peaceful revolution, rather radicalization and war. This type of crap is what lead to World War III." Gloria said.
"I don't need the history lecture. Yes, Reagan's spending didn't cause the USSR to collapse history, but it was thanks to the horrific state of their economy that they could never get past the Rhine and had to spend half the war keeping order over the Warsaw Pact. Besides, there are several factors at play that make Zeon far weaker than the Soviets proportionally. Firstly, while the Communists controlled most of Eurasia and half of the planet's resources, Zeon is isolated from the rest of the Earth sphere and has no domestic pool of raw materials to thrive in isolation. The Earth sphere sees them for the Fascists they are and if the worst occurs with a war then it will be swift with no one to stand in unity with Zeon.
At the moment from what we've been able to gather, Zeon has not invested into practical hardware like the Soviets did, rather they are wasting money in bullshit science fiction weapons. They look fancy but in actual combat they'll get ahnnilated by the Space Force. Lastly, while the Soviets and Communist China were totalitarian oligarchies, Zeon revolves solely around two families, the Zabi's and Deikuns, if we remove them from power and discredit their philosophy, then Spacenoid Nationalism will die down and peace will return to the Earth sphere.
In order for the removal of the Zabi's to be as smooth and peaceful as possible, I need time to set up both a popular mandate for their downfall and should the worst possible case happen with an insurrection, make sure the Federal Forces are in such a state to wipe it out in birth. It's why I advocated for the tax and why it should have been allowed to continue, force Zeon's debt to rise and limit their military spending so their threat is diminished. This isn't some petty act of tyranny, I'm acting for peace!" Jorge excused.
When he finished his speech Gloria downed the last of her coffee, hoping the caffeine would prevent a migraine forming from Jorge's justification. As a career politician Jorge's points had some merit and she could easily see most of his coalition falling into line with his explanation with no argument being said. Still, that did not mean that Gloria could let the tax go forward.
"Jorge, while I do want to see the Fascists cut down a peg, until such a time when the Zabi's are openly violating the Constitution I cannot take action against them for simply being idiotic radicals. I have no love for their cause but if we meet tyranny with tyranny then what the hell was the point of Unification? Look, you can play your games with Zum City, but stay within the bounds of the law." Gloria huffed.
Silence reigned on the other end for ten seconds before Jorge responded. "I understand. Believe me when I say that I've been asked to do so much worse. Everything I do is for the sake of stability and the continued strength of the Federation, if I have to take hard action to contain Zeon then I must do so. Rest assured that future punitiive legislation from the Assembly will only be done with valid justification and that if they try to take us to court again, then we'll be decisively in the right."
"See that you are." Gloria said, then hanging up the phone. She looked at the clock and saw that she was nearing to be late, and wanting to get the day over with, made to exit her chambers and head towards the courtroom.
As Gloria left, she had a sinking feeling that this wouldn't be the last time she would have to play arbitrator between Earth and space.
SASRO SHAKES UP THE DIET - By Satsuki Iino. . Published January 21st, 0071
The inaugural session of the 35th Side 3 Legislature saw a tidal wave of revolutionary legislature introduced by the Sovereign Front as part of their debut in the Diet to replace the old Social Democratic Party. Going into the session, many political analysts predicted that the laws presented on the first day would be a strong indication of the party's ideology of Sovereign Populism, with its tenets and doctrine being highly debated in interpretation by the public with many political scientists at a loss on how to define it. Since this first day would shape the party for at least the next generation, it was important for an MP to speak and introduce their key legislation to define Sovereign Populism and play their role in the foundations of the Principality. Many men and women made their moves to establish themselves as the faces of the Sovereign Front with 40% of the speakers being first-term MP's. Of all who spoke on the floor, few made such a visible impact as Sasro Zabi.
Before he took to the floor of the Diet, Sasro had already made great waves among Zeon for running for and winning an MP seat despite being a Prince of Zeon as the second son of Degwin Sodo Zabi. The fact that Sasro has chosen to be a democratically elected leader while even Gihren has not won a popular election caused Sasro's popularity to rise substantially from 54% at the start of 0070 to 68% approval ratings at New Years. Throughout his campaign, Sasro has done his best to present his vision as being different from that of his father and older brother's with a key example being his large support for education reform that was assumed to be the core of his legislative agenda for 0071. When Sasro took to the floor of the Diet, not only did he affirm his goal of education reform, but introduced a completely unexpected legislative goal in healthcare reform by furthering the state of Zeon's Universal health insurance.
As our readers may now, in March of 0068, then MP Degwin Zabi was able to pass the Universal Health Insurance Act which as its main provision created the Zeon Health Insurance Bureau to provide health insurance to Zeon citizens at a lower rate than private insurance companies (though the Bureau has noticeably less benefits than the private sphere and does not cover dental) while also enforcing an individual mandate which would ensure that every citizen of Zeon would acquire health insurance. In addition, healthcare subsidies were lowered from 40% to 25% costs in order to shift money to the Bureau. Since then it has been assumed that healthcare reform in Zeon would remain stagnant until such a point that the national budget could increase to accomodate for dramatic reform, a goal that has been hoped for by the Left of the Social Democrats and now Sovereign Front to occur by 0080. The left wing of the Sovereign Front may find their wish coming true as Sasro's proposed bill could push Zeon further to true universal healthcare.
In his speech, Sasro advocated for the creation of what he referred to as a "Universal Life Care" system where patients in the case of severe injuries from assault and accidents, or the in critical condition from terminal illnesses, will have their treatments be paid for in full by the government. Sasro stated that this form of healthcare would occur regardless of whether the patient's insurance comes from the Insurance Bureau or private companies. All other non life-threatening medical treatments would still have to be paid for by the patient with a strict set of rules to ensure what is or is not a life-threatening case in order to prevent abuse of the system. In order to pay for this dramatic overhaul of healthcare, Sasro has stated a desire to cut medical subsidies completely outside of funding for medical training and hospital infrastructure.
In comparison to his previously stated goal of education reform through the creation of trade schools, a national exam system, technological renovation, and tuition ceilings (a program which is in high support of the Sovereign Front); Sasro's surprise announcement of healthcare reform caused a more divided reaction of the Sovereign Front, with identified members of the party's left wing roaring in approval, while other reactions ranged from lukewarm to silent from the moderate and fiscal conservative portions of the Sovereign Front.
Some examples of this division come from news interviews where comments on the plan ranged from "A great humanitarian act that will lead us to universal care." from Rosa Lawson, to "A well-intentioned but heavily misguided plan that will drive us deep into debt. With so many other reforms meant to lay a foundation for a strong national capitol, it will be decades before a plan of this nature can work." from Isaac Salvatore. With the Sovereign Front divided on Zabi legislation, one would naturally turn to the Sovereign and Prime Minister to decide the direction of the party. One can expect Lord Degwin to be in firm support due to his past history on healthcare, with the Sovereign even commenting that he agreed with the principle of his son's idea and would work to see its basic goal to be approved. An equally important voice who was noticeably absent was Prime Minister Gihren's, who seemed to deflect on the topic or even if he knew that his own brother was going to present such a radical bill, simply stating that he'll work with Sasro on the topic at their home.
With the Prime Minister being heavily in vocal support of Sasro's education reform, one can assume that either Gihren was completely unaware of his brother's plan and as a result was too caught off guard to properly respond, or is heavily against it and did not voice his protests in order to present a unified front for the Zabi family. With most of Gihren's patronage in the general election being directed to candidates who were analyzed to be in majority on the right of the political spectrum, and his private social crusade for religious and cultural awakenings, perhaps Gihren's right-ward sympathies may also be in the fiscal realm despite his policies of high spending and welfare reform in recent years. Sasro's advocacy for healthcare reform could very well be the revelation event that political scientists have been waiting for to properly identify Gihren's ideological stances and where he falls in on the traditional political orientation. While it is unlikely for the Sovereign Front to enter civil war so soon after its incredible inauguration in the election, Sasro's Life Care bill could be the beginnings of factionalism which would make the Sovereign Front become inwardly competitive while allowing the opposition to act as swing votes.
In a ZNN poll done last night, Sasro's Life Care proposal has garnered 47% Approval, 21% Disapproval, and 32% Uncertainty.
A/N: So in this chapter we have a focus on politics within the Federation and how things are shaping up with events in Zeon and across the Earth sphere. First up is the showing of how the Federalists despite maintaining their hold, are experiencing a heavy amount of cracks in the system which Marcenas cannot maintain, especially with the rise of Terra Firma, a Terran Nationalist party who while not as radical as the Titans, are very pissed off at the current state of affairs and want more focus to be brought back to Earth. As will be shown throughout Gihren's Glory, space isn't suffering alone and Earth has seen much of the planet suffer a major decrease in the quality of life while many colonies prosper, Zeon's own prosperity proving their Spacephobia to be right and adding fires to both sides. Basically, when your SI is the head of a nation, don't expect success without making enemies and inflicting defeat on one group of people.
Then we shift to the Federation Supreme Court, probably the most noncorrupt of the Federation's branches (which depending upon your POV of current events is ironic) and how they are desperately trying to play peacemaker between Earth and space while being partial to the Federal establishment, with Marcenas getting a win but not getting anything extreme. I may have failed in previous chapters, but going forward after reading other UC fanfics and engaging with lots of Gundam media, I want to make the Federal viewpoints more nuanced and varied as while the Federation as a whole are the antagonists in this story and the Federation as they designed the Universal Century was corrupt and bloated, not every Feddie is a mustache-twirling oligarch and many men and women do genuinely want to do good for the Earth sphere. Kaiser Gihren may be helping Zeon to succeed, but his solutions while best for Zeon, aren't guaranteeing peace, thus bringing conflict not only with antagonists who deserve the role due to their actions, but people thrust into the position because they were forced to do so or fell back onto old loyalties.
Lastly we have a showing of Zeon's internal politics and how Sasro being alive is showing some divisions within the Sovereign Front with a difference in ideology which will most undoubtedly cause the big-tent Sovereign Populists to rumble and open up opportunities for other parties. A schism probably won't form, but it's a good showing of how Sasro and Gihren differ with their left and right leaning policies and how they differ in wanting to make Zeon prosper despite being brothers, princes, and working together in the same party. More will be expanded upon this in Kaiser Gihren's next POV.