Stuart Ponsonby Speaks at Rhys-Darby Tribute

The Popular Republican Movement's founder and chairman, Stuart Ponsonby, appeared at a rather small public event to give tribute to the late Jason Rhys-Darby. Ponsonby, who has been more behind-the-scenes rather than a visible political icon since the early days of PRM, had the following to say:
"Today, we're here to remember and celebrate the life and legacy of the late, great, Jason Rhys-Darby. I never had the pleasure of knowing him, and the political movement that he led was just a bit before my time. I was only sixteen when Jason was elected to his second term as Chancellor, though it was a short-lived Chancellery. I wasn't even personally invested in politics at the time. But you don't need to have been old enough to vote for him at the time to understand what he is and what his legacy is. Jason Rhys-Darby was a defining political figure of a generation. He was a staple of politics from the early '20's until the late '40's."
"For over thirty years, he served his country in the best of his abilities in politics. For Jason, he saw a nation that was ill. He decided - as I also decided and many others have decided - to give up his private life. He opened himself up not only to fair and productive criticism, but hatred, and also the sad reality of political smearing. Thankfully I don't know that half of it because it's not me running for Chancellor, but it's easy to forget that public life is a sacrifice. And everybody, whether their ideas are right or wrong, entered politics not because it was convenient or easy, but because they felt called to heal what illnesses plague government and society. Today, one man who answered the call, we regret, did not live to see the new year. Jason has lived the past forty-some years in relative quiet. By the time I became a political figure, nobody even bothered to ask old Rhys-Darby his take on elections anymore. I wish we could have given him some small thanks in the elder years of his life, but at least now in his passing I hope to give thanks, from one man of politics to another, for his distinguished career."
Category:The Imperial Constitution