Clariel Vercinge

Official Presidential Portrait, 1263

**Her Excellency, Clariel Vercinge**, 32nd President of the Lirrachan Republic, was elected President of the Fourteen Fiefdoms in 1262 (218), succeeding her husband, President Anders Vercinge, in a special election following his death.

Anders and his wife came from the wealth Vercinge Family, known for their philanthropy and their position as a leading sponsor for the Lirrachan Wars for Independence, despite being ancestors of the former Kings of Lirrach. Anders and Clariel were fifth cousins, and met attending the University of Telis.

Anders was elected as President for the Liberal Party in 1260, and was sworn in on May 1261 as the 31st President. While on a tour of Middan, he was shot by a Cholobaghi nationalist, and though the bullet missed vital organs, died of an infection twenty-nine days later. Taking advantage of a loophole in the Republican Charter, the First Lady was legally eligible to be President, as she was over thirty and natural born of the Fiefdoms, and was able to capitalize on popular opinions of her and her husband to garner enough popular support, and favor in the government, for the Congress of Deputies to make her the President for the remainder of her husband's term.

Emperor Edward I of Gretia tried to take advantage of the opportunity to drag the Republic into supporting the Empire in the Imperian Revolt, but Vercinge saw that her allies in the Congress refuse to let a bill of war cross the floor. The Emperor began a short lived smear campaign against her, but eventually was convinced to stop, as labeling her unfit to govern due to her sex was hypocrtitical, given the numerous Gretian Empresses Regnant, and as his wife failed to produce any more children, leaving his only heir his daughter, Evelyn. For keeping the Republic out of another foreign war, and for her support of Laborers rights, and sponsoring of a bill limiting workers to a 60 hour work week, domestic opposition to the President was reduced to mostly conservative industry leaders.

In 1266, Vercinge ran for re-election, and won by a comfortable majority, marking her the first and only woman to run for, or win, the Presidency. She shrewdly capitalized on her sex by presenting herself as a maternal figure for the Republic, and in her second term, banned child labor in the mining industry, winning more public support. Her agenda began to falter by 1269 however, as the Lords of Industry blocked a number of bills trying to divest the Government from heavy reliance on the major companies, at the time, Bannean Arms and Teli-Transitar Nautical Manufacturing. Having served over half of her husband's term, she was unable to run for re-election in 1272, and left office in May, 1273.

Vercinge's position as a Mother to the Republic only grew in her post-presidency, and she was often asked to campaign for the men running for offices to gain support of laborers. President Velron Taegren awarded her the Cross of Freedom in 1290, and named the Eudeon colony city of Vercingeton after her.

After years of private life following the Third Pandrosi War, she was dragged out of retirement and forced back into the Presidency in 1298 due to the Lirrachan Anarchy. With the sale of New Middan to Kordowyn, support from the Hybro-Gorathic Empire, Grand Duchy of Kolangrad, and Sidonia, the last syndaclists forces surrendered in 1300.

In 1301 she sold Cholobagh to the Grand Duchy of Kolangrad for 20 million dukats, providing a much needed shot in the army to the Lirrachan economy, and keeping the territory out of Gretian hands. According to the Emergency Government Reestablishment Act, she will remain President until at least 1306.